Over the past 50 years, science has made many great advancements like the large hadron collider in 2008, the moon landing in 1969 and most importantly, the internet. But as science has advanced, people have tried their hardest to fight it. Communities like the anti-vaxxer movement and the flat earth society have popped up in an attempt to discredit centuries of proven science. They seem to use completely illogical and crazy arguments to disprove years of scientific advances and discovery and its working!

In the summer of 1956, one man, by the name of Samuel Shenton, worked tirelessly. He lectured tirelessly to student and political groups, he was often seen on the newspaper or television. And his goal? To spread his belief that the earth is flat. Over the years, the size of his small group of people has risen and risen. Today, they number in the thousands. They generally accept that the earth is actually a squished, flat version of itself surrounded by a large wall of ice that is protected by the American military in order to hide the fact   the earth is flat. Fun right?

Another of the larger and more dangerous conspiracy groups is the anti-vaccine movement. The movement began gaining lots of traction when a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, published a paper on the MMR vaccines (One of the biggest and most important vaccines) and its link to autism. This caused an uproar among people who were already doubting the vaccine and even though he had his medical license removed and his work disproven, the ball had already started rolling. Today, the movement has grown so large that even the president of the United States of America believes in a link between vaccines and autism.

I believe that the rise of these groups can be in part attributed to the rise of the internet. The internet has been a way for oppressed groups and people to communicate and get their message out but it has also helped these people grow out of control. The internet has allowed people like Andrew Wakefield to talk and spread his ideas where he would normally have been shunned and called a lunatic. The rise can also be attributed to people’s distrust in authorities. You would be hard pressed to find one of these conspiracies where they do not say anything about the government or doctors lying or withholding information. As governments gain more power and more is leaked about how they function and how they break personal boundaries, more and more people are inclined to believe: “What else are they hiding?”

These absolute idiots have gone around wreaking havoc on our world. Scientist and engineers that are fighting climate change have to deal with the incessant pecking by climate deniers. Measles, a disease that has killed millions and was finally eradicated by scientists and their vaccines in 2000, has now made a comeback. Worst of all, these idiots are endangering our next generation.