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After Rapper Claims Earth Is Flat, Science Writer Says Bad Ideas Are Fine as Long as They Have Good Intentions

1/29/2016

40 Comments

 
Musicians, being the creative type, seem prone to supporting fringe ideas. We’ve had metal bands that sing about ancient astronauts and the Insane Clown Posse considering magnets to be a form of magic. The hip hop community created a stir by causing conspiracy theorists to foam at the mouth over Illuminati imagery in hip hop videos. Now one rapper is taking the fringe beliefs all the way back to before Eratosthenes by denying that the Earth is round.
I had never heard of the rapper B.o.B., born Bobby Ray Simmons, before he got into a feud with physicist Neal DeGrasse Tyson over the shape of the Earth, but it no longer surprises me to see public figures openly advocating ridiculous notions. B.o.B. thinks that the Earth is flat because he isn’t able to see its curvature firsthand, and seems to believe that there is a conspiracy to deceive people into believing that it is round, claiming that the public had been “indoctrinated into the heliocentric belief system” by “the greatest liars in history.” B.o.B., who espouses other conspiracy theories in an apparent bid for media attention, did offer one good piece of advice: He advised those who disagree with him to stop listening.
 
The flat earth theory has been discredited for so long that when Cosmas Indicopleustes advocated it in the sixth century as a Christian fundamentalist reading of the Bible, he was already laughed at in his own time, not least by John Philoponus, the theologian.
 
However, in the Atlantic Lizzie Wade writes that B.o.B. isn’t simply a kook ranting against science but rather seems to be someone who is genuinely trying to understand why his observations of reality fail to align with scientific theories. Wade argues that B.o.B. is part of a growing number of people who were cut out of the scientific revolution that began with relativity and quantum mechanics, one that divorced our understanding of reality from everyday observations. In short, B.o.B. can’t be faulted for mistrusting a scientific establishment that does a poor job of explaining how abstract ideas apply in real world settings. “It’s just a bunch of amateur theorists trying their best to feel at home in the universe. … So let a million theories flourish, including #FlatEarth. When they come from a place of such genuine curiosity and creativity, who cares if they’re wrong?”
 
I care.
 
Proposing bad ideas to make oneself “feel” better has consequences because bad ideas lead to bad conclusions, and bad conclusions can spiral into dangerous problems. Sure, we can laugh at the Flat Earth claims, but I’m not sure I can agree with Wade that they are “fundamentally different from climate change denial, creationism, or the anti-vaxx movement” because they aren’t motivated by ideology. At the grossest level, the ancient astronaut theory is not inherently ideological, though it is today often associated with right wing conspiracy theories. Many of its believers approach ancient astronaut claims from “genuine curiosity,” and yet, when these bad ideas are taken to their logical conclusion, they have devastating consequences not just for our understanding of the past but also for our respect for native peoples. Eugenics, similarly, was not originally an ideology but a supposed science, embraced by liberals and conservatives alike. Its consequences are obvious. Phrenology emerged from “genuine curiosity” about the mind and ended up as a tool used to prove white supremacy.
 
To take a fairly clear example: Colonial Americans were genuinely curious about the people who built the ancient mounds of the United States. They proposed a range of theories out of “genuine curiosity,” and of those “million theories,” the U.S. government selected those that conformed to specific ideologies, and we ended up with Native American removal, the Trail of Tears, and cultural genocide, all justified by bad ideas about who “really” built the mounds. The bad ideas weren’t always intentionally ideological (at least their advocates wouldn’t have known they were being ideological in the context of their time), but they ended up serving that purpose anyway.
 
Wade also seems to dismiss B.o.B.’s accusations that “liars” have “indoctrinated” the public, which is perhaps the more dangerous claim than his arguments about the shape of the earth.
 
We laugh at the Flat Earth because it is the one claim that doesn’t seem to have a directly negative application, and one that too few people support to raise it to the level of a danger. However, as Cosmas Indicopleutes notes, the Flat Earth is a fundamentalist reading of the Bible and has served that purpose off and on in history. I will concede the B.o.B. is not advocating it for fundamentalist reasons. But if we as a society say that bad ideas are harmless as long as the people who propose them have good intentions, we abdicate the responsibility to educate on the methods of science and advocate for the best understanding of the world available to us. It would mean that we afford more deference to intention than results, and judge ideas based on their advocates’ alleged moral virtue than on their correctness.
 
The fact is that we can’t predict whether a given proposal will ultimately have positive or negative social consequences. There may be times when learning facts about reality will have an overall negative impact. But we certainly know that wrong ideas will eventually come into conflict with reality and create larger problems. 
40 Comments
Jose S
1/29/2016 11:03:34 am

DeGrasse Tyson's response hilarious, and so true

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/rca4i7/the-nightly-show-with-larry-wilmore-neil-degrasse-tyson-slams-flat-earth-theorist-b-o-b

Reply
Ysne58
1/29/2016 12:57:49 pm

I just had to share that on facebook. Also Scott Wolter officially became a Mason last year. He is on the list in the latest Minnesota grand mason publication.

Reply
Ysne58
1/30/2016 12:31:20 am

http://www.mn-masons.org/sites/mn-masons.org/files/MN%20Mason%20Jan%20Feb%202016.pdf

He's listed as having joined Wayzata Lodge No. 205. It's on page 6.

tm
1/30/2016 01:26:07 am

I read that they arrested some extremist in Milwaukee recently. I was wondering why someone would want to plan a machine gun attack on a Masonic temple.

Ysne58
1/30/2016 07:06:29 pm

Err. sorry it's page 8. That last page of the news letter.

Grafittibird
2/3/2016 10:10:22 am

Geez, I've always wondered why he didn't just suit-up and show up with his beloved Templars.

Wonder if his dreams will shatter when he reads pg 3 of the same newsletter and sees that the unfinished pyramid on the dollar bill is being debunked by his own brother Masons? Oh, the horror!!! :)

Mike Morgan
1/29/2016 08:17:22 pm

Ooowwww, oh no he did-dnt!

Reply
Mike Morgan
1/29/2016 08:34:29 pm

Ooowww! Oh no he did-dnt!

Reply
DaveR
1/29/2016 11:06:43 am

All B.o.B. needs to do is sit at the ocean and watch sail boats, either coming or going it doesn't matter, and then he'll see the curvature of the Earth.

Of course being the mega-star that he must think himself to be, he needn't listen to an educated astrophysicist who has spent a lifetime learning and exploring his chosen field as Neil has done, so B.o.B. can just spout off his ignorance and expect the world to take him and has claims as seriously as the claims of Neil. It doesn’t work that way.

Reply
Colin Hunt
1/29/2016 11:37:28 am

DaveR - succinctly put! Any child can watch a boat slowly sink below the horizon to prove the Earth is round, and not suddenly disappear as it falls of the edge! I guess B.o.B., and fellow flat Earth believers, will never take a cruise, or fly internationally, for fear of falling into oblivion!

Reply
Rose McDonald
1/31/2016 07:12:58 pm

Members of the flat earth society are so heavily brainwashed into their beliefs that when they see a ship disappear over the horizon they'll say it fell of the edge of the planet.That this intellectual dim bulb (BoB) has a following is just one more example of the dumbing down of America. Are there really people who don't realize this guy doesn't know what he's talking about?

Reply
V
1/29/2016 11:09:00 am

Eugenics is actually a really, really good example of this, because at its core, SCIENTIFICALLY, it's a sound idea. If only those individuals with certain traits are allowed to breed, those traits will become dominant. We do it with cats, dogs, even plants.

It's ETHICALLY that eugenics is a cataclysmically bad idea. There is absolutely no way to determine what traits are "desirable" and what traits are "not desirable" in an objective fashion that has no bias. Therefore, eugenics is ideologically-driven no matter who decides on the traits, and bias + science == BAD RESULTS.

And as much as I understand where the rap star is coming from, which I will admit is a rudimentary scientific mind--this is what I observe, how do I explain it--the evidence that he's wrong is NOT inaccessible or even hard to find. It's readily available, in plain and simple language, even in kids' books at the library. Hell, I've seen SECOND GRADERS doing the shadow experiment on models so they can grasp the concept. This guy wasn't "cut out of the scientific revolution," he turned his back on it.

Reply
Time Machine
1/29/2016 12:30:42 pm

But the people of the Bible are God's Chosen People.

Reply
Only Me
1/29/2016 05:04:05 pm

And that comment has nothing to do with anything V said.

V
1/29/2016 10:50:20 pm

Yeah, and the people who were actually making eugenic decisions, sweetie, were NOT "the people of the Bible" and in fact "the people of the Bible" were being put to death by the millions.

Not to mention that "God's Chosen People" fucked up a METRIC TON of shit repeatedly in that book, such that their decision-making capabilities are SEVERELY in question even if one accepted "God's Chosen People" as a reality, which, you know, I DON'T.

STILL BAD RESULTS, GIGO. GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT.

Gerard Plourde
1/29/2016 11:52:46 am

"When they come from a place of such genuine curiosity and creativity, who cares if they’re wrong?"

This final statement of Ms. Wade's article has frightening implications. In essence she's saying that the truth doesn't matter. Thus she opens the door of legitimacy for all of the pseudoscience that this site strives to counter. She also legitimizes ongoing ignorance and an attitude that it's ok let people remain unenlightened.

Reply
DaveR
1/29/2016 12:16:03 pm

He should have just used his initials for his rap name...B.S.

Reply
Clete
1/29/2016 01:08:37 pm

I seldom pay attention to whatever "celebrities" say about much of anything. Many times their ideas are ill-formed and they spout them off more to generate publicity and attention then for any other reason.

Reply
Gerard Plourde
1/29/2016 01:18:25 pm

Wade's assumption that B.o.B.'s difficulty is the result of being left behind by the scientific revolution and his observations as an example of an attempt to somehow make sense of his observations is also wrong. As Colin Hunt points out proof of the earth's circular nature is readily observable where the true horizon line is visible, i.e. by the seashore. B.o.B.'s observation is faulty at best and disingenuous at worst because he fails to take into account that land observations are tainted by the irregular nature of the earth's surface. If the cities he is looking at are on ground that is higher than sea level and if they are also on ground that is a higher elevation than his vantage point, they will be visible event though theoretically they should be below the horizon.

Reply
C. Gaulke
1/29/2016 01:31:20 pm

"Wade also seems to dismiss B.o.B.’s accusations that “liars” have “indoctrinated” the public, which is perhaps the more dangerous claim than his arguments about the shape of the earth."

It's infinitely more dangerous, and it belies any claim to "genuine curiosity." This type of reflexive conspiracy-mongering is an attempt to prop up prior belief, incompatible with seeking to actually be enlightened as to the facts (as best as we currently understand them). In essence, it's the difference between wanting to find answers, like a scientist, and hating having questions, like a denialist.

This kind of thinking is dangerous not only because it insulates you from examining and possibly correcting your own beliefs in the light of new evidence, but because it opens you up to the "crank magnetism" that makes Ancient Astronaut believers into free energy nuts into vaccine deniers into Obama Birthers. You develop a topsy-turvy standard of evidence where resistance to disproof is a virtue instead of testability. If you can believe a secret conspiracy is hiding the evidence that time-travelling Masons built the moon, you might as well believe my idea that they're hiding the proof Romanians are all descended from Atlantean giants, right?

And this is exactly why we need writers who question and challenge our ideas, not ones who tell us to believe whatever feels right.

Reply
DaveR
1/29/2016 02:25:20 pm

Exactly, because anybody who doesn't agree with him, all he has to do is say "Well, you've been brainwashed and indoctrinated into the system, therefor I can ignore anything you say that contradicts anything I believe."

Reply
Graham
1/29/2016 08:23:09 pm

"Wade also seems to dismiss B.o.B.’s accusations that “liars” have “indoctrinated” the public, which is perhaps the more dangerous claim than his arguments about the shape of the earth."

And we all know who those liars are... I'm not going to say here who they are, but it should be pretty obvious.

Reply
Jen
1/29/2016 02:10:47 pm

If you want some entertainment, read the comments to the Atlantic article. For the most part, the author gets deservedly slammed for her "aw, isn't he cute?" attitude.

But the real hilarity comes in from those actually defending the notion that the world is flat, and is the greatest hoax on the world since the moon landing. I would have called Poe, but unfortunately I was wrong. But still hilarious.

Reply
Only Me
1/29/2016 05:08:12 pm

I'd almost like to hear B.o.B. explain how every photo taken of the planets and moons in our solar system shows they are very clearly spherical, not flat.

Oh, I get it. "MUH IGNORANCE" takes precedence over facts that, as V pointed out, second graders can grasp.

Reply
Mike Y
1/31/2016 10:32:20 pm

Ignorance just about sums it up. It's too much work to understand scientific facts, much easier to make up something easily explained. Even if it's demonstrably wrong, it doesn't matter to them and any attempt to talk sense to them gives them the chance to play the victim.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
1/29/2016 06:13:33 pm

"Musicians, being the creative type, seem prone to supporting fringe ideas."

It's true. The American Federation of Musicians international headquarters in Toronto also doubles as a Church of Starry Wisdom luncheon hall.

Reply
crainey
1/29/2016 08:31:06 pm

The Earth is flat. Sounds like something I would expect to hear from a GOP candidate. Climate change is a hoax; the Earth is 6000 years old; evolution is a lie. I would just assume this rapper was a Republican.

Reply
Uncle Ron
1/30/2016 02:28:44 pm

One thing's for sure. There isn't any classified information on his server.

Reply
flip
1/29/2016 09:19:45 pm

It's not that people are being left out of the loop by abstract science concepts: the arts is FULL of woo. It's because every idea in the arts is acceptable (post modernism at its best) and that for artists, criticism is a thing to be avoided. You have a combination of people who were likely never good at science to begin with, averse to any kind of critical opinion, and a lack of interest in anything other than pure freedom of expression. Echo chambers keep the whole thing going and its also where you'll most often hear the expression "you believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want". Any trip into any arts arena, whether it be Etsy, hip hop, or your local theatre, will showcase a ridiculously high percentage of people who believe in alt med, ancient Eastern philosophy (chakras, etc), anti-vax and any other thing. This isn't about the problems of science so much as it is about artists being too uncritical about the things they believe and never having to deal with the need to be accurate or facts-based.

Artists are also the ones that are, for the large part, in charge of mainstream media. Curiosity and creativity do not make up for displaying and encouraging misconceptions to a large audience. They aren't motivated by ideology, but they are the ones who most affect the general population's notions of what's true and what's not. They are the ones programming Ancient Aliens, publishing conspiracy books, misrepresenting history in countless TV shows and movies, etc etc etc. How is this not dangerous? Filling people's heads with uncritical thinking, acceptance of long-debunked ideas, conspiracy, distrust, paranoia... oh yeah, that's not going to affect the general population at all!

In a culture where everyone's opinion is respected and 'right', because all ideas and expression are welcome, then no idea about how the world works is wrong. Like I said, postmodernism at its best. This is literally a culture where all science, progress, truth and fact is thrown out for the sake of appeasing the ego of the artist.

It's also not curiousity: if artists were more curious about the truth, rather than what they wish were true, they'd take the time to learn more about the facts. Even the most basic concepts aren't too abstract, like oh, learning about the Earth's curvature based on watching a ship disappear over the horizon. It's something that doesn't require the ability to deal with numbers or facts, something any visual artists should be able to grasp (or even musicians).

Wade's article can really be summed up as just one giant apologetic for the JAQing off technique.

Reply
V
1/29/2016 10:43:43 pm

I actually take great exception to this post. This may be true of pop artists, but people who are actually trained in the arts as opposed to self-taught, whether it's music, visual arts, stage and theater, whatever, HAVE TO study science. Visual arts require anatomy studies, color theory, psychology, the science of vision--and if it's animation or film, physics and chemistry. Music requires psychology, auditory physics, and a pretty intensive amount of mathematics. Stage and theater require sciences from both courses of study. Furthermore, in order to be an actual artist, you ABSOLUTELY MUST learn to both give and take criticism--ie, think critically.

Etsy is NOT a forum of the arts, it is a forum of the crafty. Craftiness and arts can overlap, but they are not mutually required, and craftiness doesn't require study of sciences, only of the craft one is using. Nor is "mainstream media" controlled by artists. Mainstream media is controlled by the exact fucking OPPOSITE of artists--it is controlled by BUSINESS INTERESTS. That's why so many movies are repeats of older stories with serial numbers somewhat rubbed off. It's why there's an "echo chamber effect." Now, I won't say that business folk don't need to study science, but science does not particularly play into what makes money, so business folk don't really CARE about science. They care about "will it make money." Business interests are not best served by critical thinking, as that would entail risk that people would see through the advertising and actually NOT BUY things they don't need.

Furthermore, postmodernism has nothing whatever to do with "appeasing the ego of the artist," and everything to do with acknowledging that that there are multiple ways of viewing a truth, INCLUDING the scientific. Postmodernism is about understanding that a rainbow can be a beautiful and awe-inspiring event AND a series of light frequencies spread apart by droplets of water in the atmosphere AT THE SAME TIME. It's not about the rejection of truth for the fiction one wishes were true. That's called "avoidance" and "willful ignorance" and "bigotry."

Sorry, but you come off sounding like someone who is terribly bitter that you aren't "an artist," and completely ignorant of what an artist really IS.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
1/29/2016 11:13:21 pm

It's probably also worth noting that post-modernism is far from universally embraced in art, and that obsession with narrowly-defined sets of rules is a time-honored tradition in western art.
Classical and jazz musicians have a reputation for being among the most pedantic human beings in the history of the cosmos, for instance.

Ysne58
1/30/2016 12:34:06 am

I knit and crochet. I design my own patterns. Just being able to follow a pattern requires at least basic knowledge of math and some engineering skills.

Uncle Ron
1/30/2016 02:32:42 pm

Thank you, V. You saved me a whole lot of typing and said it better than I could have.

Mike Jones
1/30/2016 12:11:13 pm

"It's also not curiousity: if artists were more curious about the truth, rather than what they wish were true, they'd take the time to learn more about the facts". Seriously? I am a self taught artist and I associate with many who are as well. I can assure you that that statement is not true. Actually, I'm trying to take the high road. What I really need to say is go fuck yourself.

Reply
Mike Jones
1/30/2016 12:12:54 pm

Sorry y'all. That was for "flip".

Pacal
1/29/2016 09:21:40 pm

It is clear that Lizzie Wade did little to no research on B.o.B. before writing her piece. B.o.B. is not sincere investigator who is asking questions and has been "left out" of Science education but a true believer in conspiracy woo. Shamelessly Wade ignores B.o.B.'s rants about a vast conspiracy to hide the 'truth" of a flat earth with the conspiracy lie of a round earth. Why? Well because that would destroy her narrative trope of B.o.B. being a sincere investigator left out of Science education and instead place him in the same camp as woo merchants and witch hunters.

Aside from B.o.B. being a believer in the round Earth conspiracy B.o.B. is also a believer in such things as the Mason conspiracy, supports David Irving's ravings and all sorts of other dubious woo. B.o.B. is a conspiracy theorist ideologue not a sincere seeker of truth. THat would of course destroy the false narrative that Wade has created so it has been rigorously excluded by Wade by either deliberate omission or by failure, again deliberate, to do basic research.

Reply
Mike Jones
1/30/2016 12:33:17 pm

Sorry but I cannot get over flip's comments. First off "artists" is a term that encompasses folks like DaVinci, and John James Audubon . "This isn't about the problems of science so much as it is about artists being too uncritical about the things they believe and never having to deal with the need to be accurate or facts-based" hardly seems to apply. I'm looking at one of my bookshelves: "Gray's Anatomy", Charles Hudson's "The Southeastern Indians", "Handbook for Georgia Mayors and Councilmembers", Cali and Dougill's "Shinto Shrines", Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine". Yea, being an artist is a fact free lifestyle.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
1/30/2016 02:34:05 pm

I didn't want to make too much of what flip said, but I know quite a few artists myself--mostly painters and musicians, both self-taught and formally trained--and I've never met one who wouldn't at least want to learn the history of what they do, and the great artists who came before the. It doesn't get much more "facts-based" than history.

For that matter, is there an art school in the world that doesn't require that its students earn a certain number of science and history credits to graduate?

Reply
Shane Sullivan
1/30/2016 02:34:46 pm

Before *them*, sorry.

Jamie Eckles link
1/31/2016 02:02:01 pm

Has he never flown in an airliner? You can see the curve of the Earth on a nice clear day up there. I have a friend who saw him perform in Memphis as part of some collection of artists. He says the people couldn't wait for him to finish and get off the stage, he was so bad. The only thing that bothered me was NDT tweeting "Being five centuries regressed in your reasoning doesn’t mean we all can’t still like your music". It's more like 22+ centuries. The "Five centuries" bit tends to lend credence to the claim that Columbus proved the Earth is round when in fact he was actually wrong about the size of the Earth and was lucky land happened to be where it was. I know NDT knows better.

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