Crazy People Are Now Using Celebrities and Intellectuals to Convince You They Are Not Crazy

New documentary or Heroes reboot?

At one time, the most successful and trusted brand in cosmology was Geocentricism. This was the idea that the Earth is the center of the universe. It had pretty good credentials for awhile: The Earth doesn’t appear to be moving when you’re on it, but the sun and the stars do, so that sounds right. Plus, the Bible, written by God and his editorial staff, said that mankind was the most important creation of all.  It would only make sense that our home planet would be the center of everything.

Geocentrism is a bullshit pseudo-science theory based on refuted evidence but now people are using celebrities and intellectuals with perceived gravitas to dupe the world into thinking this theory has validity. That’s a common method of changing public opinion, which is dangerous propaganda. In other words: It’s great branding. Just ask Jenny McCarthy and the maniacs trying to get you to not vaccinate your children.

This week, a trailer for an upcoming documentary called The Principle grabbed headlines thanks to the inclusion of several people who had apparently lent their credentials to a movie that seeks to put the Geocentric model back on the center of the map.  These people included respected physicists Lawrence Krauss and Michio Kaku, plus actress Kate Mulgrew, known best for playing Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager and Red on Orange is the New Black.

Why would they risk their personal brands to appear in something promoting such a laughable idea?

One of the most important elements to building a successful brand are good credentials. Credentials are the collateral that guarantees the performance of your brand. Otherwise, how would we know whether or not to trust you?

Geocentricism started to lose consumer trust beginning in the 17th century due to the works of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, who demonstrated that the Earth is not the immobile center of the universe as the Catholic Church had been saying it was. Still, for over 1500 years, the prevailing view was that everything revolved around us, and as more evidence began to show that that idea was almost certainly false, the extremely loyal Christian demo wasn’t ready to accept evidence that would throw a wrench into their entire belief system.

A diagram of geocentrism, a theory we thought was as dead as the Latin on this drawing. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

What do you do when your brand has been outclassed? If you have the power and resources, like the medieval Catholic Church did, you can label your detractors as heretical liars, destroy their evidence, and imprison them for daring to compete with your message. This will work for a time but in the knowledge market the superior brand will eventually win over consumers. These days, most people see Geocentricism as a primitive, superstitious belief with no basis in actual science.

Not everyone, though. Proponents of Geocentrism and the creators behind The Principle aren't known for their sterling reputations. Robert Sungenis has been promoting his Geocentric beliefs for years on his blog "Galileo Was Wrong, The Church Was Right." Sungenis, who holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from “a private distance-learning institution in Republic of Vanuatu” bases all of his scientific findings on the Bible. He also claims that the Holocaust never happened and that Jews are in league with Satan to take over the planet.

Sungenis is joined by writer/producer Rick DeLano, who in an awkward interview with a Christian apologetic, fedora-wearing blogger, admitted he hasn’t taken a science class since elementary school.

So the movie is definitely on brand as being a movie made by idiots, for idiots.

Once Sungenis' involvement became widely known with the release of the trailer this week, though, those involved said they were tricked into being involved. Krauss published an article yesterday titled “I Have No Idea How I Ended Up In That Stupid Geocentrism Documentary,” claiming that the clips of him were taken from the public domain or purchased from other productions without his consent. He disavowed his association with the project and said the film should simply be ignored. Kaku hasn’t made any statement about his involvement yet.

Actress Kate Mulgrew. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Mulgrew, whose name opens the trailer wither, "Everything we think we knew about the universe is wrong," also  posted a status on her Facebook page siding with Krauss and distancing herself. She said she wasn’t aware of Sungenis’ involvement in the project and that she doesn’t share beliefs with the producers.

Their refutations came as a relief to fans of Krauss and Mulgrew’s respective personal brands, although this means that apparently Krauss and Mulgrew choose projects as blindly as Geocentrists follow the Bible’s science lessons.

It’s also important to point out that neither Krauss nor Mulgrew have made any statement about refusing payment for their involvement.

They may not be Geocentrists, but their personal brands are still taking a hit in credibility in my eyes.

Mulgrew is a vehemently anti-choice Catholic, calling abortion an “epidemic” and has said that abortion practicing doctors and nurses are murderers who “should be tried.” I’d bet Mulgrew and Sungenis probably have some mutual friends in the “people with backwards beliefs” networking club, and that’s perhaps how she came to be involved. Then once she saw everyone on the internet making a big fuss about her association with Sungenis, she wisely renounced the film.

Perhaps it would have been a better move for Sungenis and DeLano to recruit t celebrities who outwardly support creationism, such as Ben Stein or Chuck Norris, although I think if those were my only options, I'd probably just try to trick Mulgrew, too.

Although they share a lot of the same core beliefs, creationists and geocentrics aren’t always on the same wrong page. Karl Keating, a prominent creationist, has spent a lot of time online fighting with Sungenis and DeLano on Facebook and each other’s blogs.  Basically, what’s happening is that Keating and his supporters view the geocentric guys as an embarrassment to their community, which is kind of funny considering how embarrassing Keating is, too—in addition to being anti-choice, he’s also anti-gay. Keating is one of those conservative leaders who issues voting guides to people based on which politicians oppose abortion and gay marriage. Within the Catholic fringe belief community, it truly is a battle of the doofuses.

Now, you’d think with all of this attention that all press is good press. Yet, The Principle remains unloved and unpopular. They have vague hopes of distribution but in reality are struggling to get any public screenings off the ground.  Although the trailer has received a lot of views, the downvotes outnumber the upvotes 3-to-1, and they only boast 600 subscribers.

Today, DeLano made a rebuttal post on their Facebook page to address the criticism from Mulgrew and Krauss, has received only 18 "likes" and exclusively negative comments in the four hours after it was published.

The Principle's engagement graph via its Facebook page

I bring up their social media engagement because one curiosity is the inexplicable 21,000 “likes” on their Facebook page. Looking at their engagement graph, though, it looks like all of those came within a few days and then immediately dropped off, almost certainly because those likes were purchased from a dummy site.

Sungenis and DeLano are learning a tough lesson about branding, just like the Catholic Church did when it drew lines in the sand separating themselves from the scientific method: Your credentials are everything to your brand. Marketing in and of itself does not make a brand successful; you need trust. Sungenis and DeLano have done everything they can to raise awareness for their project, but a brand is only as valuable as it is in the consumers’ minds, and everyone knows that Geocentricism is the dumbest thing in the universe.

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