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LINK Only Two-Thirds Of American Millennials Believe The Earth Is Round

Millenials are less religious; this is well established.
Unfortunately, they are also more prone to misinformation, as this Forbes article on a recent YouGov survey shows

TheMiddleWay 8 Aug 3
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25 comments

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9

But the earth is not round.

It’s an oblate spheroid ??

@TheAstroChuck

Thankfully, I am not looking for dates, and can therefore deploy my quirky sense of humour howsoever I choose!

6

People aren't taught to be critical thinkers anymore... Also, we've been teaching kids for far too long that EVERY opinion is valid... Opinions aren't all valid... Just because you think something and you HAPPEN to find someone else that thinks the same thing, it doesn't validate your opinion... It may simply mean that you've encountered someone who's just as ignorant as you are. πŸ˜›

4

"Religious beliefs appear to be correlated with one's likelihood to subscribe to a flat Earth. YouGov found that 52 percent of flat earthers consider themselves "very religious."

Now that's a key finding, don't you think?

What religion do you reckon they are? I grew up in old school Pentecostal teachings, holy rollers just barely one step more reasonable/worldly than snake handlers/Amish and was schooled by old time independent Methodists, our course material was like those crazy hard tests you see for an 8th grader in Little House on the Prairie days. Very good education in history and English and bonkers shit trying to explain the flood literally in science. And even we knew the earth was round.

52% is not that significant. You can get that result flipping a coin 2000 times.

4

Yes, but only 4% of them believe the earth is flat. I'm calling this click bait.

@TheMiddleWay I think when it comes to millennials, a lot of the time "not sure" = "don't care." And I'll readily admit that's not scientific, that's just my opinion. But I'm only gonna put my guard up for the 4%. They are the only ones who scare me.

@TheMiddleWay I liked the 80's a whole lot better!

@TheMiddleWay Ignorance is bliss, no? I just remember it being more fun. But maybe that's just a side effect of being an adult.

@TheMiddleWay True. Helicopter parenting is ruining kids today. I personally don't do it, although there have been occasions when I felt another parent might call the authorities one me. We're so uptight these days.

@TheMiddleWay Shouldn't that category be called "unsure?" I'm on a crusade to stop this use of the word "not" when we have perfectly fine prefixes for it. Even journalists use "not" and it's driving me nuts.

@TheMiddleWay
"The 80's were the 'me' generation.
The 10's are the 'meh' generation."

And here I thought Gen-X was supposed to be the "whatever" generation (a.k.a. "meh" ) πŸ™‚ I could swear that's what we were always accused of.

4

Kids don't believe anything in a school book, but they'll instantly believe a 3 minute internet video from a neckbeard with a snazzy presentation and no facts.

@TheMiddleWay
TED talk? You mean this guy talks about the flat Earth too?

3

I wonder how many of those flat-Earth folks are really just trolling the world and having a laugh at our consternation.

The generational difference is very interesting. It tells me that the rise of the internet and the proliferation of devices that can access it has had an effect opposite to what its inventors envisioned. Cyberspace is the wild west, and there is no sheriff in town. With no editorial process, the sheer volume of misinformation, propaganda, conspiracy theories, and lies of all kinds can overwhelm (bushwhack) the truth.

3

I predict that the rest of the world will declare the USA to be a failed experiment and wil vote unanimously to launch the whole batshit country into space so that it can orbit the sun all on its own far far away from Earth. It'll be a bit curvy but will be almost flat (-ish) so they can finally get their wish and 'be' the Whole World and they can pretend that no other humans exist anywhere else, and they can save a lot of money on not needing to build a stupid wall, and they can finally get down to the serious business of hating each other without all that pesky interference from other countries trying desperately to talk their suicidal brother back from the edge and to please put the gun down.

3

I thought homeschooling would have been a factor.

3

Click the link to get more info but I'll make it easy - see pictures, snipped from the article.

I think it's interesting that most flat earthers are religious.

Yes, 75% religious or very religious is significant!

3

As the republicans continue to dumb down education with creationism and religion stating the world is 6000 years old.

I don't dislike the comment, I dislike the effects we're seeing from what you're saying. :/

2

Whaaaaat???? Oh my gawd. Religious based home schooling? Ugh....

2

As the late, great Godfather of Soul, James Brown once stood up and exclaimed when they cancelled his flight, β€œGood god, y’all!”

2

Guy that plans to launch a rocket to prove the earth is flat

He failed, don't know why. After all its not....oh sorry yes it is.

2

The notion that the earth is flat is so utterly preposterous that I think it's actually a brand or genre of humour that I don't get. Probably because it's not funny but I can live with flat earth loonies as I watch the sun go down, not go further away you'll note πŸ™‚

2

No child left behind in action

1

The headline is slightly misleading based on the actual survey results, but not by much. And it is disturbing to see how the percentage of confidence in a round Earth decreases with younger and younger survey participants. Even us Gen-Xers didn't do too well.

I think it is a symptom of how poorly we teach people basic critical thinking in the US.

1

this one of the weirdest meme's of our time. Apparently it is fashoniable (at least in some circles) to hold this absurd belief.

1

Well, I don't believe much on millennials.

But then, they won't work and contribute to SS.

@bigpawbullets my Big Money comes because of Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

@GipsyOfNewSpain
That's right, you're retired Navy/CIA/NSA.
hey! I think I noticed you'd been retired for 3 years.
When I got off active duty (ASA), I wasn't permitted to travel to some areas of the planet.
Is that stuff still in effect??

@bigpawbullets I would had liked to be living in Cuba right about now.... want to live there before the americans recoup the lost years.... problem is getting my money from US Gov in Cuba. Only one american bank do biz in Cuba and is based where? In Florida. There are a couple other countries US do not allow banking North Korea comes to mind. To live in Cuba now is like going back in time but I am not Naive... I go there and many will like to be here. I still love the Cuban Woman and her Cuban Accent.

1

I'd like to comment on this by posting a funny vid that pretty much sums it up.

Lmao

0

The dung heap of those civilizations, that failed to pay heed to the history of those that came before them is littered with some well-intentioned most ill intentioned societies that failed to recognize the obvious.

0

Have they ever heard of NASA????

Problem is, hardly anyone believes a thing NASA says anymore, especially highly cynical young people. On that I can hardly blame them, though believing that the world is a globe shouldn't be a stretch for anyone.

0

That is truly concerning. As an educationalist I have long thought that education these days is too much about "training" people with "vocational skills" for that job and career, and not enough on critical thinking, knowledge and learning skills. It may explain why there are so many who are "qualified" but ignorant as sin, in my view. Education shouldn't be about creating the qualified gullible and ignorant. Education has been sacrificed on the alter of the exigencies of capitalism over recent decades, sadly, in my view.

0

I hope this isn't true.

0

Who/what would be at fault for that?

0

Not much you can say about that is there!

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