Books: Suckers by Rose Shapiro & Flat Earth by Christine Garwood

I’ve recently finished both Suckers by Rose Shapiro and Flat Earth by Christine Garwood, two books on alternative medicine and (unsurprisingly) the rejection of a spherical earth respectively. It’s interesting to compare them both: both sets of beliefs have been roundly rejected by science, and they both have long histories spanning thousands of years, but only alternative medicine now supports an industry worth billions of pounds, has gained the patronage of a future king and receives taxpayers money in order to fund its premises.

But if both flat earth theory and alternative medicine have been discarded by science, why is there this disparity between their public popularity? Nobody is going to die from insisting that the world is not a globe and that Australia can’t exist (with the exception of astronauts or Australians), which is not the case for a system of beliefs which attempts to cure cancer by recommending doing more than eating lots of fruit. As such, surely it is the beliefs in a flat earth which are more benign, and which as such should be tolerated in society?

But it’s the other way around: it seems that many people will choose to ignore science at the very moment that it becomes a matter of life and death for them to do so. And as such, writers like Shapiro may be doomed in their attempt to wean people of the irrational. It seems rationality is the last thing that people want when they want something (anything!) to make themselves feel healthy: their desire for something to be true outweighs any outside influence from science. Opposing scientific orthodoxy in the case of a flat earth doesn’t promise to cure all your ills without any pain (apart from to your wallet), so why rebel against the status quo?

Which might explain why some (in)famous flat-earthers, such as the Victorian Parallax, turned to medical quackery later in their career: perhaps they found the crowds that little bit more willing to believe in their theories, and so part with their cash.