In the annals of human history, mankind has evolved ever so slowly toward higher intellectual development and capacity. There have been stumbling blocks along the way.

Our transition from the Bronze Age into the modern era has been difficult for some civilizations. Cultural development has not always paralleled intellectual development.

To illustrate that difficulty, many great civilizations built extraordinary monuments, temples and sophisticated communities while simultaneously engaging in anti-intellectual behavior.

Religious belief systems contributed to the decay of intellectual curiosity. The ancient Egyptians believed the god Ra dragged the sun across the sky from the morning to the evening with his horse and chariot. In that same period of time, they built some of the most difficult and colossal monuments ever constructed.

Classical Greeks believed that the oracle at Delphi held mystical powers while they were also building the foundations of democracy.

Some Hindu and Chinese cultures believed that our globe was carried on the back of an enormous turtle. They were also busy inventing paper and gunpowder.

Early mariners believed the Earth was flat and ships would fall off the edge and into the abyss, but they also managed to discover new continents and civilizations.

Heretics were burned alive at the stake in 1755 in Lisbon, Portugal, to prevent earthquakes. The Portuguese had earlier in the 1400s produced exceptional explorers such as Vasco da Gama and Henry the Navigator.

Twenty women were hanged in Salem, Mass., in 1692 because some people believed they were witches. The Bay State now has great institutions of learning like Harvard and MIT. Witch hunts still exist, according to some people, but thankfully no witches have recently been hanged.

Some people suspend common sense and intellectual curiosity when it suits their biases.

As incredulous as it may sound, there are people who deny that the Holocaust ever happened, despite mountains of unimpeachable evidence including first-person accounts, photographic documentation and court trials that prove that it did happen.

Others do not believe that we landed men on the moon. It was a hoax.

Some people refuse to believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States and is a U.S. citizen.

Some parents risk the health of their children because they believe that vaccinations contain chemical elements that could harm their child’s health despite knowing that no credible medical evidence exists to suggest that is true.

The latest mockery of intellectual curiosity is the fashionable attack on the free press and our Bill of Rights.

The “fake news” crowd continues to grow.

A recent poll has 51 percent of registered Republicans believing that the news is “fake” and “the enemy of the people.”

People once believed that the Earth was flat and they laughed at those who believed that it is round. “Fake news.”

The discovery that the Earth goes around the sun, not the sun around the Earth, was considered heresy. “Fake news.”

Burning people alive at the stake to prevent earthquakes was not questionable even though it did not work. “Fake news.”

Global warming? Socialist propaganda. “Fake news.”

Everyone is entitled to their opinions. They are not entitled to their own facts. That is the exclusive domain of science and its various disciplines, along with empirical evidence and deductive reasoning.

People and nation states behave in a manner that is consistent with their self interests. We are not the exception.

As a republic, we are subject to the will of the people. Our people have spoken, and we are now at a defining moment in our history.

The November general election will determine what type of people we are and hope to be.

Do we cower to the rich and politically powerful whose vision is to destroy sensible regulations that protect the water we drink, the food we eat, the lands we love and the air we breathe for their own self-interests? Or do we express our distrust and disgust of a repugnant authoritarian style of leadership and vote into office a government of the people, by the people and for the people?

There may be a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. Pigs may learn to fly. President Donald Trump may get re-elected in 2020.

I wouldn’t bet the farm on any of those things happening. It’s fake news.

(Jim Baer lives in Concord.)