Ignorance is Winning

                                                                                                                         BBC

“We’re living in very strange times. The idea of being popular for being outrageous is coming from the leadership.”  Marcelo Gleiser, a Brazilian professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College in the United States

The president of Brazil surrounds himself with ignorant advisors so is it any wonder that in a country with a poor educational system and so much willful ignorance in its leadership that 7% of the population believes the earth is flat.  That any percentage of any population is so willing to throw away thousands of years of scientific understanding is frightening.  It is a trend that illuminates the rise of men like Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.  Ignorance is winning.

Critics attribute Brazil’s most recent flat Earth craze to poor public education, copycatting from abroad and to the increase in social media use.

“The internet gives a voice to these idiots,” said Fernando Lang da Silveira, a professor of physics at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil.

He said that like climate change denial and creationism, flat Earth theory had a base of Christian fundamentalism.

In Brazil, the power and influence of the evangelical Christian church has grown significantly in recent decades: around a quarter of the population identifies as evangelical and these voters played a large part in bringing the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro to power.

Chaibub, who says he is a Catholic, admits that part of flat Earth culture is influenced by Bible verses, but denied that the movement is religious – or political.