> Isn't it also reasonable to think that people consider the information they take in?

We started this conversation talking about people who believe the earth is flat.

Yes and the number of people who believe in something like that is actually rather small. That's kind of my point. These things get treated as way more serious than they are given actual belief rates.

This is measurably false. Climate change denial is a pretty obvious example that hurts everyone. The facts are available, relatively easy to find, but people still tow their party lines about it being a "hoax from China", or some such nonsense.

Is it measurably false? I seem to remember seeing statistics that showed those convinced it very much is happening were over 50% and rising of even the US population while those who were convinced it was NOT were under 7% and dropping. I would suggest that this is in fact an example to the contrary.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that these beliefs are so widespread as to influence a majority of the population and require intervention for a properly functioning democracy as the parent was suggesting?

Well, first off, you don't need a "majority" for it to cause damage. The Nazis didn't have more than 30% of the vote, but they caused damage. Currently in the US, we have a president who has said, multiple times, that climate change was a hoax made up by China to make us weaker in manufacturing [1], and has dismantled the EPA to make sure they explicitly don't do anything about climate change [2].

Second, I'm going to need some sources for your stats. It looks like in the Gallup polls, we still have roughly 69% of Republicans who claim that climate change is greatly exaggerated [3], with only 35% of Republicans who think humans are the cause of it, and only 18% or Republicans that think it will cause any problems in their lifetime.

[1] https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun...

[2] https://mashable.com/2017/02/03/trump-epa-climate-website-ch...

[3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/231530/global-warming-concern-s...

While there may be truth there, those numbers don't take into account the strength of those beliefs, also note that if I'm not mistaken, it's not counting independents who may vote republican, so the pool is actually much smaller in terms of overall Americans. I think this was the study I'd seen if you're interested:

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/americans-who-accept-climate-ch...