This is how many British people think the Earth is flat

It’s possibly one of the wackiest conspiracy theories out there - yet a poll has revealed that 3% of Britons subscribe to the theory that the Earth is flat.

The YouGov survey showed that three in 100 Brits say the theory that the Earth is flat rather than round is ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ true.

Just over nine out of ten (93%) believe it’s false, while 4% claim that they don’t know.

The theory was one of several conspiracy theories YouGov quizzed Brits about, including whether the moon landings were faked and whether the threat of climate change has been exaggerated.

The flat Earth theory was the least popular on the survey.

Speaking on the podcast, BBC science presenter and writer Dallas Campbell said while many people may think the Flat Earth theory is ridiculous, lots of people are conspiracy theorists to a degree about something.

“Is it weirder to think the earth is flat than it is weird to think the universe was created in seven days?,” he asked.

“There are big cultural parameters to it. We’re much more tolerant of creationists or that idea than we are of Flat Earth because the Flat Earth thing is a new thing and it sounds suddenly ridiculous and has taken hold in the last year or so.”

Listen to a discussion of these statistics on Yahoo and YouGov’s podcast, Britain is a Nation of…

He added: “The thing that I’m really concerned about is about 15 years ago I made a programme about people who believe the Earth is hollow and they believed that inside the Earth there was an internal sun and people living there and all kinds of stuff.

“No-one remembers the Hollow Earthers because they’ve been usurped by the Flat Earthers. But this was before the internet so Hollow Earth as a conspiracy theory never really gained traction.”

This survey was made possible by YouGov’s panel of 6 million respondents. Join the trend and share your opinions with the world today.