What can convince a perpetual naysayer? Probably nothing at all.

The nifty trend of defying fact and established truth in the face of colossal empirical evidence has been picking up lately. There are folks who have the audacity to deny climate change, the moon landing, and even evolution; to quote President Trump ‘Can you believe’ some out rightly deny evolution, the mechanism that makes us, us.

Well, there is no argument amongst the academics and scientists that there certainly are tons of phenomena that need explanation, or are even mysteriously unexplainable. However, there are facts that have been observed, tested and replicated under controlled experiments and enjoy the consensus of the scientific community, such facts are what they are, simple facts, established facts.

There is a whole host of facts that naysayers probe, without even a basic understanding of the many mechanisms that drive these factors.

Recently an astronaut took a courageous stand against the conspiracy theorists by posting a selfie from ISS (International Space Station). Thomas Pesquet is one of those billions who feel baffled by the conspiracy theorists who would leave no stone unturned in their attempt to disprove and discredit human progress and ingenuity.

Taken from right outside the International Space Station the selfie shows Pesquet conducting a spacewalk. Pesquet added in his tweet that he was speaking directly to those few who believe that ‘we are in a hangar’, and that they probably would also dispute the veracity of his selfie.

Pesquet tweeted this:

For some geniuses, it’s absolutely unfathomable that man can breach the boundaries of earth’s atmosphere, that is if they even believe there is something called atmosphere that exists all around us.

Among these conspiracy theorists is a tribe referred to as ‘flat-earthers’, who would dispute the International Space Station by coming up with all sorts of non-logic littered nonsense. They would have you believe that ISS is somewhere within U.S., and is in fact, a Hollywood studio specially made to look like space.

A depiction of a flat earth

A depiction of a flat earth

When asked what they think about the space station that often flies over our heads and is clearly visible through some of the most primitive telescopes on earth, they’d make the claim that it is a model of the space station put there to deceive. When it comes to photographic evidence of the earth’s shape they often make the claim that the images they see are CGI, computer generated images made by photoshop professionals at NASA. In fact, every photo of the earth from space is denied as simply being CGI, it’s the first rule in the flat earth handbook, and will be applied to Pesque’s tweet.

These baseless claims are made to allow for the denial of any photographic evidence, and all evidence and claims made by NASA. This level of denialism can be used to justify just about anything, all that has to be done is to claim that whoever is providing evidence (that is contradictory to their beliefs) are falsifying the evidence, then what are you left with?

Just remember the fact that ignorance demands an alternative explanation, the authenticity of which seldom matters to the individual, but it comforts them nevertheless through validation of their beliefs.

The course of history is not changed by those who sadistically shake their head on anything even while looking straight into the mirror. The history is made by inquisitive minds, those who ask right questions with an understanding of finding the answer, not to then shake the fact off stubbornly but to accept it and work on it to refine it even further. Now, which side of the history you wish to be standing?