Off the Edge

Kelly Weill offers a history of the improbably durable belief that the Earth is flat, and thereby illustrates how conspiracy theories spread. Flat Earthers argue that a conspiracy keeps the true shape of the flat world secret from the misguided masses. Other outlandish conspiracies also appeal to Flat Earthers, and the internet amplifies these fabrications, Weill warns. But the web alone can’t explain or eliminate the tendency to conjure conspiracies. Human imagination enables people to make good discoveries as well as bad assumptions. Rather than debating Flat Earthers, says Weill, empathizing with them might be the best way to guide them back to the spherical world.