Why people believe in a flat Earth and chips in vaccines

on 22 February 2020, American Mike "Mad Mike" Hughes brought a homemade rocket to the Mojave Desert and launched himself into the sky. His goal was simple and radical: to see with his own eyes that the Earth is flat. It was his third attempt, and it was tragic - the rocket crashed shortly after launch, killing Hughes.

From the outside, it seems crazy: risking your life for an idea disproved in ancient Greece. But as evolutionary anthropologist Eli Elster reminds us in an article for The Conversation, Hughes' conviction is not unique at all.

In all known cultures, people have held "unusual beliefs " - beliefs that are not well supported by the facts: a flat Earth, spirits, conspiracies of elites, "chipping" through vaccines, etc.

From an evolutionary perspective, it's a mystery. Our brains evolved to more or less accurately reflect reality - otherwise we simply would not have survived. So why do people so easily accept ideas that are weakly supported by evidence?

In a review published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Elster offers a simple answer:
people believe in a flat Earth, spirits, and conspiracies for the same reasons they believe in anything at all - because their personal experiences make them feel like it's true.

How "weird" beliefs are usually explained

Most researchers have looked at the problem differently before. It was thought that experience played almost no role, and that two other factors were more important:

1. Cognitive distortions.
   People have "mental shortcuts" - for example, a tendency to see intentions and reason where none exist. This can encourage a belief in gods that control the weather or disease, or a search for "hidden meaning" in random events.

2. Social dynamics.
   People often adopt beliefs not because they are convinced of their truth, but to be "their own" to a particular group or to send a social signal: "I am one of you." Thus, a proponent of conspiracy theories may cling to them for a sense of community and support.

These approaches do explain part of the picture - but, Elster says, underestimate the role of personal experience, which can work alongside distortions and social factors.

He identifies three key roles of experience.

1. Experience as a filter

Experience filters out those beliefs that don't "pass the world picture" at all.

Why, for example, has the flat Earth theory gone viral, while the "Earth is conical" theory has not, even though both are equally wrong?

The answer is trivial: when we stand on the earth, it looks flat, not like a cone.
It's as if our eyes "support" one erroneous version and ignore the other.

Yes, science shows conclusively that the Earth is a ball. But if a person is used to trusting his own sensations rather than physics, it is easier to believe his eyes than a textbook.

2. Experience is like a spark

Sometimes unusual experiences themselves push to search for unusual explanations.

An example is sleep paralysis: a state between sleep and wakefulness where a person feels awake but cannot move or speak. It is very frightening, and many people feel the presence of some threatening entity "sitting on their chest".

A scientist would call it a malfunction of the brain's sleep and wakefulness systems. But to someone without scientific knowledge - which is most people throughout history - such experiences easily become "proof" that there are demons, spirits, or "unclean forces."

3. Experience as a tool

The third way is particularly interesting: people not only come up with unusual beliefs, but also practices that make those beliefs "really real" to them.

Imagine you are a farmer in the mountains of Lesotho, South Africa, where Elster is conducting field research. You have several miscarriages in a row and you want to know why.

You go to a traditional healer. She says:
you can get the answer from your ancestors by drinking a hallucinogenic infusion.

You drink the potion. You start seeing spirits. They talk to you, explain the cause of your misfortune.

After such an experience, belief in spirits and messages from ancestors ceases to be an abstract tradition - it is as if you yourself have received "personal proof".

Prayers, ritual dances, religious substance use - all these practices create powerful experiences that subjectively validate the belief.

Why it matters

Extraordinary beliefs are not always bad. Religious faith is a source of meaning, security, and community for billions of people.

But there is a dangerous side to it: false beliefs about medicine, science and politics can lead to real harm, from denial of treatment to radicalisation.

By understanding exactly how experience filters, triggers and reinforces such beliefs, researchers and practitioners can think better about how to counter harmful misinformation - without demonising people with 'weird' views.

Elster's main conclusion:
people with unusual beliefs are usually not crazy or pretenders. They are as genuinely convinced as anyone that the evidence is on their side because that's how they experience the world.