At the same time, those in power control what is considered to be correct and incorrect knowledge. He suggested that knowledge is created and used in a way that reinforces the claims to legitimacy of those in power. He is well known, amongst many other things, for looking at the close relationship between power and knowledge. This viewpoint is somewhat typified by the work of Michel Foucault, a famous and heavily influential 20th century philosopher who made a career of studying those on the fringes of society to understand what they could tell us about everyday life. How to reason with flat earthers (it may not help though)įlat earthers are not the first group to be sceptical of existing power structures and their tight grasps on knowledge. By exploring this relationship, we can begin to understand why there is a swelling resurgence of flat earthers. This relationship between power and knowledge has long been theorised by sociologists. While flat earthers seem to trust and support scientific methods, what they don’t trust is scientists, and the established relationships between “power” and “knowledge”. Indeed, as one presenter noted early on, flat earthers try to “look for multiple, verifiable evidence” and advised attendees to “always do your own research and accept you might be wrong”. The weekend in no small part revolved around discussing and debating science, with lots of time spent running, planning, and reporting on the latest set of flat earth experiments and models. Yes, flat earthers do seem to place a lot of emphasis and priority on scientific methods and, in particular, on observable facts.
There was also a lot of team-building, networking, debating, workshops – and scientific experiments. It was well attended, and wasn’t just three days of speeches and YouTube clips (though, granted, there was a lot of this). Speakers recently flew in from around (or perhaps, across?) the earth for a three-day event held in Birmingham: the UK’s first ever public Flat Earth Convention.
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