Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Truth in Conspiracy Theories: Flat Earth

Case Study: Flat Earth- 1200 words

Initial Ideas
Why/ how it came to be and perhaps point towards a solution

Remember: truth WITHIN disciplines- the core of the wikichapter

Definition of a Conspiracy Theory: "a belief that an event or situation is the result of a secret plan made by powerful people" Cambridge Dictionary. CONSPIRACY THEORY | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary [Internet]. Cambridge.org. 2020 [cited 2020 Dec 4]. Available from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/conspiracy-theory

Links for background knowledge

political: In Search Of A Flat Earth

Science: Debunking Some More Flat Earth Claims

General overview: Flat Earth: A Measured Response

Bad science- explaining science to the public

Other thoughts:

psych (truth, bias, cognitive dissonance how it differs/ sim to politics and physics)

politics= constructive, natural sciecnes= mirror, psychology= perceiver

Pictures

disciplines involved: geo, public education, physics, religion, psych, politics, media studies.

Structure Intro: definition of truth- identifying the tensions between different disciplines.

Main: Media studies and politics (truth being constructed! culture), physics and natural science (how truth is viewed and arrived at- solution, how scientific methods work), education

Conclusion: a gesture towards a solution- using interdisciplinary means

‌ --Vranuq (discuss • contribs) 17:01, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Meetings
Start posting more on the discussion page Markschemes are really helpful- check them out Sofia- Politics Anthony- Physics (have a look at the link below "Physics paper") Nancy- Education?

Links for background knowledge

political: In Search Of A Flat Earth

Science: Debunking Some More Flat Earth Claims

General overview: Flat Earth: A Measured Response

Bad science- explaining science to the public

Other thoughts:

psych (truth, bias, cognitive dissonance how it differs/ sim to politics and physics)

politics= constructive, natural sciecnes= mirror, psychology= perceiver

Pictures

disciplines involved: geo, public education, physics, religion, psych, politics, media studies. --Vranuq (discuss • contribs) 16:59, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Evaluation of previous Wikibooks seminar 10/12/20 takeaways
- Keep the reader reminded of the purpose.

- The case study is just an example of how the issue comes about.

- How do the different disciplines shape the interdisciplinary issue?

- Interdisciplinarity gives a holistic view of the issue.

- How is this issue relevant outside the case study as well?

- Do not need to solve the issue but identify the value of the disciplines.

--Vranuq (discuss • contribs) 15:51, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

After Discussion with Lara
- Make sure to link it back to the truth within the disciplines and not get caught up with the case study.

- Politics: truth being constructed!

--Vranuq (discuss • contribs) 17:02, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Education?
--Vranuq (discuss • contribs) 16:26, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Education is vastly taking what the past researchers have found and learning it- positivist
 * Encourage critical thinking
 * Related to the topic of Flat Earthers as information is becoming more and more readily available so it is important to distinguish the difference between the "truths"
 * Truth behind the types of children most affected by conspiracy theories- more vulnerable

Psychology (if we are adding it in)

 * Truth within Psychology is considered as perceiver- how an individual gives meaning to the world which is vastly subjective. Psychology research therefore is done by using empirical testing- hypothesis, observation and experiments to test this truth.


 * (Truth: the link between the thought and the fact- therefore using imperial means to test it)
 * However, psychologists believe that truth cannot ever be fully accurate.
 * Flat earth: why do some people believe?

- disadvantaged populations when a group is exposed to a threat, they turn to conspiracy theories

- existential: when they feel lost/ out of control, CS might boost their control and autonomy

- social motives: maintaining a good image, thinking highly of themselves

--Vranuq (discuss • contribs) 16:58, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Markscheme
Identifying tension between disciplinary perspectives means identifying where people working in one discipline fail to agree with people working in another discipline. This need not mean that they disagree; it may also be that they are unaware of each others’ work.

Note that we are not expecting you to resolve the tension that you have identified (although you may be able to gesture at a solution). Simply attributing this tension to an interdisciplinary issue is a valuable step forward in our understanding of the problem or question. --Vranuq (discuss • contribs) 16:59, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Physics paper?
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6552/aac053 YouShouldNeverHaveLetMeBegin (discuss • contribs) 13:39, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Politics
Define politics

Subjective - no one right answer, as there are no ‘perfect’ political systems. Thus, any political system or belief is a compromise in which one must decide which outcomes are more or less important.

No hard data to analyse - Cannot derive theory from evidence, as experiments are impossible/difficult

Often deals with and discusses parties, creating an incentive to use evidence to convince rather than to investigate. While the scientific method, ideally, looks at data with an impartial eye and values negative and positive outcomes equally, thus drawing a conclusion as a logical extension of the data, in politics the author often writes to convince, the work thus having a clear bias.

Politics aims to scrutinise power structures. Flat earthers’ radical rejection of mainstream academia, for example, is a political act. It is a compromise, whereby the parts of academia which do not fit into the individual’s political system are important enough that radically rejecting the institution of academia becomes necessary. However, this rejection results in a denial of academia’s findings, such as basic astrophysics (flat earth), biology (vaccines and evolution) etc.

Physics as a field has a clearer progression than politics. The shape of the earth has been determined and is no longer contested within mainstream academia, as there is a sufficiently overwhelming weight of evidence that means no further inquiry into the issue is necessary, and the field of astrophysics can move on to other issues. In politics, an idea can never be truly “proven” right, thus even if a theory is developed in great detail even its roots can still be contested. Additionally, the field of politics is adaptive to its surroundings, such as levels of technology, which are liable to change, thus causing a shift in what the “optimal” political system is at the time. Thus, nothing in politics is ever as certain as the curvature of the earth is in physics (where the sort of research that would be required to put the shape of the earth in question is difficult to imagine). This means that looking at the work in astrophysics from a political lens, it would make sense to question the status quo of earth’s curvature - that is what politics does. YouShouldNeverHaveLetMeBegin (discuss • contribs) 12:30, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good YouShouldNeverHaveLetMeBegin

I like the comparison between Politics and Physics- we could include that in the conclusion/ discussion. Would you say that truth in Politics is constructivist...etc? --Vranuq (discuss • contribs) 16:05, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Physics
Physics is a science that "deals with the structure of matter and the interactions between fundamental constituents of the observable universe". Therefore, using this definition, we can say that physics truth is vastly positivist. This means that the physicists, through frequent observations and collecting data, achieve their conclusion which is supposed to mirror the truth. "Structure" implies that there is a pre-existing way of the truth. Truth in Physics means that scientists need to make sure the experiments are controlled and that data is non-biased. Additionally, they would need to reference other researcher's past work to confirm their own studies. Therefore, physics can alternatively be seen as constructed by the society of physicists- however, the aim of Physics is to create the most accurate view of the world as possible. So, due to the exhaustive lengths to make data as accurate as possible, physicists believe that there is only one possible truth and try to get there as close as possible. This means that most physicists believe that with each advancement within science, physics is getting closer and closer to reality- which is the truth.

How does it link to Flat Earthers? The method Physicists use to counteract flat Earth claims is through mathematics. They use calculations to derive the proof: such as Geometry, Newton's Law, Angle of Incidence. This then deduces the curvature of the Earth. As the equations give a fixed number, this implies that there is only one answer.

--Vranuq (discuss • contribs) 17:25, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Physics is a science that "deals with the structure of matter and the interactions between fundamental constituents of the observable universe". Therefore, by using this definition, we can say that there exists an absolute truth, otherwise known as reality, which physics strives to help us understand. Through the use of the scientific method, physicists have been able to draw conclusions derived from rigorous testing and scepticism, making these conclusions empirical and reliable. As a result, the “truth” in a scientific context can be seen as the most accurate representation of reality that has been achieved. Furthermore, the “truth” within physics also has a social aspect to it. Physics as a discipline is constructed by the society of physicists and the “truth” can also be seen as the model which is most widely accepted in that community. However, the aim of Physics is to create the most accurate view of the world possible. Every progress in science suggests that physics is getting closer and closer to the truth in its purest form[4] and the exhaustive lengths physicists take to make the data as accurate as possible reflects this.

The pseudoscience behind the flat earth theory is based on rudimentary pieces of evidence that display a limited knowledge of physics and have been easily debunked by the scientific community. This can be seen in one of the main supporting arguments of the flat earth theory. Pictures such as that of figure 1 which show objects that lie across vast distances beyond the horizon line are consistently used by flat earthers to justify their reasoning. However, these images are mirages, explained by the refraction of light. Colder air has a higher refractive index, causing the rays of light to bend downwards towards our eyes. Meanwhile, we assume that the rays of light have travelled in a straight line, creating a superior mirage where the object appears higher than it actually is. On the other hand, the proof that the earth is indeed round is overwhelming and is no longer up to debate within the scientific community. Basic mathematical principles such as that of Newton’s law and the angle of incidence allow us to deduce the curvature of the earth. Moreover, Foucault’s Pendulum which has the ability to swing in any plane, changes its direction over the course of a day, providing definitive proof of the earth’s rotation. ARAY22 (discuss • contribs) 09:18, 13 December 2020 (UTC)