Entry 2455, on 2026-09-09 at 10:41:12 (Rating 2, Science)
I recently saw a Facebook meme which claimed to tell us which commonly believed conspiracies are contrary to science. I generally agreed with them all, although I do think there is room for some debate and a certain amount of... yes, nuance. So let's have a look at the list, along with my thoughts on why I agree with them or might have questions...
1. The Earth is not flat.
There is actually quite an active community out there which is trying to convince us that the Earth is flat. Sometimes they have religious reasons for believing this, because some interpretations of the Bible make it sound like the Earth is flat, and for others it is just classic conspiracy thinking of people who want to think they know stuff that the "elites" (often NASA in this case) don't want us to know.
There are numerous reasons to think the Earth is a globe (close to an oblate spheroid to be more precise) but they just seem to dismiss these with little thought. When I watch a lunar eclipse I see a curved shadow encroaching onto the Moon. That seems a fairly direct observation to me, yet the flerfs (a slang, derogatory term for a flat-Earther) refuse to accept it. Still, it's fun trying to show (even to myself) why I think the Earth is a globe.
2. Vaccines work.
There is no reason to think that vaccines wouldn't work because the mechanism of action is well understood, yet there are still some who reject them. This got a lot worse when COVID vaccines were mandated, but various conspiracies, including them containing microscopic trackers and other crazy stuff, have existed long before that.
I disagree with vaccine mandates but I still think vaccines work, in general. Polio is often used as an example of a disease fully eliminated by a vaccine, but that isn't completely true. The disease has been reduced by 99.9% but still rare cases exist.
3. We've been to the Moon.
The Moon hoax is a well known conspiracy which usually claims that the Moon landings which started in 1969 were faked, and offers many alleged reasons to believe this. I even have a page on my web site which shows why these claims are untrue. Some of the more well known claims include the flag waving in the breeze (impossible on an air-less Moon but oscillations in the springs holding the flag horizontal took a while to dampen), the computers of the time being inadequate (the calculations are actually pretty simple), and various anomalies in photos and video (the quality of cameras at the time was poor).
4. Climate change is real.
I have often commented how I think common political actions to reduce climate change are both ineffective and counter-productive, but I still think climate change is real, and I think there is a good chance that a significant part of it is caused by human activity. So, yes, it is real, but the politics involved are open to criticism.
5. The universe is expanding.
I haven't seen this one much, although it might also be related to religion. I have debated with people who think the Earth is surrounded by a "firmament" which is a sphere of water which contins the Sun, Moon, and stars, so I guess they would also reject and expanding universe. But there is excellent evidence the universe is expanding and it's difficult to see why anyone see this as practically important anyway.
6. Math is the universal language.
Some people claim that maths is an invention of the patriarchy, or a colonial imposition, or an example of white supremacy... and yes, this is real, I'm not making this up! In fact, this is an idea which often comes from woke university types and is presented as a serious academic theory.
Whether math is a universal language sort of depends on your definition of those words, and there is a current debate in philosophy whether it is a fundamental part of the universe that humans have discovered, or a human invention which just happens to explain how the universe works.
7. Chemtrails aren't a thing
There is another conspiracy which claims that contrails (lines of vapour left behind high flying aircraft) are actually chemicals being sprayed for various nefarious purposes, usually to reduce the IQ of the people below. In some cases it seems to have worked!
8. Evolution is a fact.
If we define evolution as a change in the form of living things over time then few people would disagree, but many people do disagree with this process being the mechanism that resulted in the variety of life on Earth we see now, and human evolution is even more controversial.
Again, this is often the result of religious belief, even though some churches (such as the Catholics) accept evolution as real. There are a few moderately sophisticated arguments against it, but the evidence is so strong that it is unreasonable not to accept the observed phenomenon, and the scientific explanation (natural selection acting on mutations and other sources of variation) as being real.
9. We are all made of stardust.
This is a rather poetic way to say that many of the heavier chemical elements in the bodies of living things (as well as in planets, etc) were synthesised in early stars and scattered outwards by supernova explosions. Only hydrogen, helium, and lithium were not formed this way, so the hydrogen in organic molecules might not have come from a star, but the rest (oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, etc) did, according to the best current theories.
10. Science is like magic but real. Stand up for science.
There is a famous quote from science fiction author, Arthur C Clarke, that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". I think he's right, and even some of the technology we have today seems magical. In a hundred or a thousand years it is difficult to imagine what might be possible, but I'm sure a lot of it would seem magical if someone from today was suddenly transported into the future.
Note that I am talking about technology here, but a lot of technology comes from science, so I think it is OK to treat the two as parts of the same thing in this case.
I like conspiracy theories, and I accept that some of them are true, but none of these ones are likely to be, and I also like debunking conspiracies. But sometimes that seems like a waste of time, for example even when I provide really good proof of the Earth being a globe, the flerfs still exist!
Comment 1 (9595) by Anonymous on 2026-09-09 at 21:45:48:
Spoken like a true follower of scientism. You keep telling us you think for yourself but not according to this.
Comment 2 (9596) by EK on 2026-09-09 at 21:55:35:
Sounds reasonable. Just 2 comments. Some (respected) philosophers hold to the view that the relationship between Math and Reality is not unproblematic, in other words there is no one to one relationship or correlation. And second, I think there is good reason not to swallow the Darwinian slant of evolution that sees natural selection as the driver. The randomness of it all is counter-intuitive. But I agree there is no clear teleological cause. I believe Emanuel Kant has already suggested that one way or other proof could only come from us encountering another extraterrestrial civilisation and see whether the process of human genesis is totally random or universally goal directed.
Comment 3 (9597) by DM on 2026-09-09 at 22:24:14:
Read it all today (but that could be a conspiracy theory) and didn't get the feeling that I was losing the will to live. Well done you.
Comment 4 (9598) by OJB on 2026-09-09 at 22:30:42:
Regarding maths: yes, but maths is so useful in describing the real world that there must be some connection. I can see how it is "not unproblematic" (in the philosophical sense) though. Re evolution: many things are counterintuitive (relativity, quantum theory) but the evidence still shows they are true (in the sense they fit the observed facts or have predictive power). While having an N of greater than 1 is always useful, I still think evidence from life on Earth is sufficient.
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