Lee Olsen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "CBS sees surge in US Flat Earthers who say
> there’s
> no rover on Mars: ‘Most people think we’re
> idiots’
> David Edwards, CBS News, October 14, 2018
> "
>
> Nope, they are not idiots. They are people who
> probably don't have the time or money to spend on
> behind pay-walled peer-reviewed journal articles
> or spend anytime at a library where such articles
> are free.
>

Yes, they are idiots. The fact that the earth is round has been settled science for millenia. Erathostenes measured the circumfrence of the earth over 2,000 years ago. Aristotle pointed out that the first part of a ship that you saw is the mast on the horizon and then you saw the rest of the ship. Recently the late Steven Hawking in some videox proved that the earth was round. How did he do it? He took some kids out to the desert IIRC and then fired a laser at a piece of cardboard. At first the beam hit the center of the cardboard, but as they moved out further on the desert the dot hit higher and higher on the carboard as the earth curved away from them eventually they couldn't get the laser to hit the cardboard at all.

As far as pay walls goes, thanks for proving the point I've been making for years. Pay walls are an intellectual cancer they hide critical information that prevents people and institutions from making informed choices. If they can't afford the article then you what happens? People fall back gossip, BS, urban legends, 'just so' stories, to make their choices. And then the Anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, young earth creationists fill the intellectual vacuum left by the pay walls.

And oh yeah libraries aren't free. They have to pay magazines to get access to those peer reviewed articles. And as you noted it takes time, money, gas, and energy to get to the library. So every article that you get for 'free' actually puts you a couple of hours closer to your death when you factor inall the time you took to get it. OTOH if it had been on the internet you could have had in .0005 seconds instead of a week or two. Still feel like you're getting a bargain?
>
> "He said, “Oftentimes younger people will say,
> ‘Well, the internet is just a big library.’ That’s
> wrong; the internet is a big dumpster."

And the reason it's a big dumpster is because of paywalls. Years ago you used to be able to access almost everything for free. Not anymore now it's 39.95 for a two-day rental of some article that may or may not be relevant to what you're researching, but you won't find out until it's too late that it's worthless.
>
> In fact the Flat Earthers are pretty much
> mainstream:
>
> "While scientific literacy has doubled over the
> past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of
> Americans are "scientifically savvy and alert," he
> said in an interview."

Which means the rest are scientific illiterates. Like KK said "The rot is everywhere." [imgflip.com]