Here’s NASA misstating the distance between the Earth and the Sun: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/YOSS_Act1.pdf

Obviously the Earth’s orbit is noncircular. Is that what you mean?

At some astronomical scales numbers like this don’t matter. Sure, if you’re doing parallax calculations you need precise orbits, but most of the time you can assume π = 3.

Misstatement is different from lying, no?

This says the distance is 93m miles. That's about what the distance is

I'm referring to people who think it's like a few thousand feet above the earth.

I think it could be argued that in certain specific scenarios, this shortcoming (in normal scenarios) can be advantageous, such as thinking outside the boundaries or constraints of a box, where the constraints happen to be incorrect but culturally axiomatic and are thus insurmountable for normal, "proper" thinking people.

Having observed many thousands of discussions about "conspiracy theory" or "just wrong" (but the normal person can't explain why it is wrong, in fact) topics, I am very confident in this belief. And now having also had some similar conversations with ChatGPT, which is able to overcome with ease many mistakes that humans make, yet cannot overcome others, I am even more convinced.

Thinking outside the box sounds like coming up with new ways of doing things or being creative. I don't see how this is related to conspiracy theories, people are just mostly just hearing them from other people