Lee Kuhnle

We are here with Lee Koonla, a political science professor at Humber Polytechnic.

Check out his upcoming book, Uncover Up, How to Think Clearly in the Age of Conspiracy, available for pre-order wherever books are sold.

Lee, welcome back to the show.

Wasn't there like a group of flat earth people who were like all scientists who knew the earth wasn't flat and they met for like a joke and it was like a sort of like parody drinking club.

But people then use that as evidence that the earth was flat.

Or am I making that up?

Even if that example isn't true, but it sort of shows how like a source can then get transformed and then forgotten.

And then people believe our birds aren't real.

Yes.

People who started that were clearly joking.

They knew birds were real and they were just having fun making videos.

And then people start to believe it.

Let's get to Atlantis, because here's a great example where ancient texts mention something like it.

But was it metaphor?

Was it a city that wasn't, you know, aliens buried under the ocean, whatever?

What are the origins of Atlantis that then get kind of like transformed and reported on and people write slightly sensationalized news stories that then get treated as sources for other sensationalized stories?

And the metaphor completely drifts into something where conspiracy theories arise.

Yeah, yeah.

Nothing happened much then.

Yeah, yeah.