3 Cheers for Flat Earth Believers

The reason for the crazy topic is that although I disagree with them, I have to admire the courage of those who maintain their beliefs despite ridicule. Think about this for a moment – imagine the situation being reversed. How many of us would refuse to change our opinion despite the ridicule? Not too many, I think.

Round Earth deniers.

Climate deniers.

Vaccine deniers.

Science deniers and on and on.

It’s that word “deniers” that bothers me. We don’t call them doubters; we call them deniers. A denier is someone who refuses to admit to a truth. It’s a pejorative and confers a sense of moral and intellectual  inferiority upon the “denier”. It reduces the complexity of human thoughts and beliefs to a simple case of right and wrong, smart and stupid, those who belong and those who don’t. The matter is settled, there will be no discussion.

I never feel comfortable when there is no room for discussion. Uniformity of thought easily changes groups into mobs. It’s a short, slippery, and downhill road that connects feelings of superiority to actions of repression.

We think with words, and the words we use affect our thoughts and emotions. The words we use have consequences. For example, all wars have civilian casualties, but if we think with the words “collateral damage” instead of “dead and maimed civilians”, then it doesn’t seem so bad.

Think of the deniers of the Middle Ages. Those who denied the infallibility of the Pope or perhaps the church’s teachings on matters of science. Consider the fates of those “deniers”.

I don’t want to go any deeper into that, instead I’d like to relate the story of two very different deniers.

On the 18th of November 1958 the bulk carrier Carl D. Bradley sank in a storm on Lake Michigan. Of the 35 crew members on board, only two survived. She had made her last delivery for the season and was headed to get some badly needed repairs. However, the company contacted the captain and told him that he needed to make one more trip. This was guaranteed to be the last trip of the season, and it was, although not in the way that the company intended.

While underway in a furious November storm, the Carl D. Bradley broke in two and sank to the bottom of Lake Michigan. The survivors, First Mate Elmer Fleming and Deck Watchman Frank Mays, both testified that it broke in half and sank in two pieces.

In the spring of 1959, after the ice had melted sufficiently, a sonar scan was made and revealed it to be in one piece! A further survey was conducted with underwater cameras, and despite poor visibility, also concluded that the vessel was indeed in one piece. Fleming and Mays refused to change their stories. They “denied” the science (sonar evidence) and testimony of the experts (the surveyors).

Much had changed by the mid to late 1990s. First Mate Elmer Fleming had died of cancer in 1969, and small submarines and remotely controlled underwater cameras were now available to explore the waters of the world. These new technologies were used to take another look at the wreck of the Carl D. Bradley. What they found must have left them speechless!

Unbelievably, the two pieces of the Carl D. Bradley had come to rest so perfectly aligned, and close to each other, that the sonar image showed a single piece. Fleming and Mays, who had never doubted what they saw, had been right all along! The deniers were right!

When Frank Mays was taken along in a submersible to see the Carl D. Bradley once again he was probably thinking to himself: “I told you so”.

Sadly, Frank Mays joined his shipmates on the 7th of January 2021.

It seems odd that the story of a shipwreck could hold a lesson for how we relate to each other today.

Odd or not…it’s something to think about.