Occasionally, we run into people — and perhaps we even know some people — who have some extremely strange and controversial opinions. This isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes, disagreeing with the mainstream on some subjects, especially if your reasons for disagreement happen to be well thought out, can be a sign of creativity, intelligence and a capacity for independent thinking. After all, scientific progress — or any other kind of social progress — has never historically been made by people who have succumbed to groupthink.

However, there are some options that are simply beyond the pale. Not only are they bizarre, but they are impossible to defend well because the arguments against them are simply unanswerable. Nevertheless, many people stick to such beliefs.

That’s bad enough, but what is even stranger — and infinitely more jarring — is when a professional in some field, who presumably understands the field and has experience working in it, persists in holding some ridiculous and senseless opinion about it regardless.

One Reddit user named MoniMokshith on the facepalm Subreddit talked about how she was once required to teach a class on historical geology because the other teacher —a geologist — happened to be a Young Earth Creationist.

The post blew up, and people began sharing stories about professionals they knew who had some weird opinions. Here are some of the replies.

Pros With Weird Opinions

  1. Imagine working with an airline pilot who is a flat-earther. Surreal, right? But in fact, there were multiple people on the thread who reported stories like this. One described knowing a pilot who believed the earth was flat. Another simply said that he worked at an airline with a flat-earther, and yet another said that he worked with an aerospace and aeronautical engineer who held this odd belief.

  2. Teachers and students also recounted plenty of stories about biology teachers whom they either worked with or studied under who happened to be Young Earth Creationists. One biology teacher told a bizarre story about parents complaining to him for teaching their children about evolution during class. The odd thing? Many of these parents were doctors. One wonders whether these people believe that viruses and bacteria can evolve, and if not, how they carry on in their profession.

  1. One Reddit user had an especially jarring story that’s sure to make you do a double-take. His friend’s uncle is someone who believes that the creation of 5G is a conspiracy by the government to damage people’s health with electromagnetic waves and give them cancer. The uncle’s profession? He installs 5G for a living.

  2. Imagine working with someone who doesn’t believe in the germ theory of disease. Crazy, right? Now imagine that someone works for a company specializing in building water sterilization devices. One almost doesn’t know what to say.