Beware the ‘flat earth bias’

A few days ago, I watched a fascinating documentary on Netflix called Behind the Curve. The film follows a number of leading voices in the US flat earth movement — a hypothesis that has become increasingly popular over the past few years. Do a quick search on YouTube and you’ll see thousands of videos on the subject. What’s more, many have achieved well over a million views. It’s not just confined to user generated content either; mainstream news organisations are also covering the movement. CBS even sent a film crew to the first ever international (I’ve resisted the urge to use ‘global’) flat earth conference.

The documentary provides great insight into the minds of those who passionately believe that the earth is flat. Driven by paranoia, this is just one of many conspiracies they immerse themselves in.

Despite zero scientific evidence to support their claim (I know I don’t really need to tell you that, but just in case a flat earther is reading this it is nonetheless important to point out), the movement has been attracting some rather wealthy benefactors of late. These donors are helping to fund scientific experiments with the aim of proving their hypothesis. This is where the documentary becomes particularly compelling.

The flat earthers come up with a couple of experiments that would, in their eyes, prove the world is flat.

Starting with a $20k piece of equipment to test the earth’s rotation, the results disprove their hypothesis. Undeterred, they blame atmospheric issues for interfering with the outcome.

Their next experiment involves two holes cut into Styrofoam sheets which are then placed over four miles from one another at equal levels of elevation. Logically, if the earth is indeed flat, a light shone through the first hole should appear on a camera behind the second hole. In other words, a beam of light that travels straight across the surface would prove the case. If the light, on the other hand, were to require adjusting to a height different than the holes’, it would indicate a curvature. You can guess what happened… they needed to raise the light.

Now, you think that would be the end of the movement, after all, the research turns their version of the world upside down (no pun intended). But, of course, it isn’t. They are so wedded to their beliefs that empirical evidence just isn’t enough.

This naturally got me thinking about the marketing and advertising industry, and how it’s becoming increasingly overrun by our own version of the flat earthers. Evangelical marketers preach the importance of social media and influencer marketing, the brilliance of personalisation and hyper targeting, the need to adopt the latest tech fad, and the death of established forms of media. Many are taken in by it and adopt the thinking into their decision-making — despite the empirical evidence which proves that many of these tactics are contributing to the declining effectiveness of advertising.

I often wonder why people are so happy to ignore the evidence, but it’s quite simple really — the evidence doesn’t matter. After all, as in the documentary, it’s difficult to change course on something you believe in so strongly, even when it’s proven to be false.

We’ve all heard about the confirmation bias, but I think the “myside bias” is more relevant. In her excellent piece in The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert references the cognitive scientists Mercier and Sperber:

“Humans, they point out, aren’t randomly credulous. Presented with someone else’s argument, we’re quite adept at spotting the weaknesses. Almost invariably, the positions we’re blind to are our own”.

In an industry of strong voices, not many people are happy to admit they are wrong — and this is why the falsities have led to a seemingly never-ending spiral of nonsense that cause marketers to, perhaps fittingly, fall flat.