Experts vs. Conspiracy theories

[AgnosticBoy]

In this day and age, people can find information in many places over the internet. My concern is that I suspect lots of people aren't good at discriminating between good and bad sources. Being able to know what good sources are helps to ensure that the information you're acquiring is accurate and credible.

Take covid-19 information, for instance. I've talked to many people who refuse to get the covid-19 vaccine based on various information they've heard and read about on the internet. When I question some of them by asking for their sources, I noticed that they tend to have bad sources. They might reference a lone doctor, one not even an expert in the field. They may reference a Youtube video or some post circulating on Facebook with a bunch of smart sounding info. strung together. I suspect we'd find the same problem when it comes to those that deny the validity of the theory of evolution. And more relevant to this section, I suspect we'd find the same problem when it comes to many of those who accept the the view that Jesus was a complete myth - the Christ Myth Theory. All of these things remind me of the people that tend to accept conspiracy theories.

For debate:
1. Is is wrong to read from non-expert sources?

2. For those of you who don't accept expert view, have you read the expert view to begin with? Or do you find that others who go against the experts tend to not even read expert views?

3. What ideas do you have to solve this big problem?

[AgnosticBoy]

So this is about questioning experts rather than conspiracy theories, so that's ok.

Yes. Another title for the thread would've probably been better. I just see a lot of similarities between how conspiracy theorists look for information and develop their theories and how people who tend to go against the experts develop their views. This is why I lump in all popular non-expert views with being conspiracy theories. That might be a stretch but here's an article that explains what I'm trying to say:

Twenty years on, the skepticism and suspicion first revealed by 9/11 conspiracy theories has metastasized, spread by the internet and nurtured by pundits and politicians like Donald Trump. One hoax after another has emerged, each more bizarre than the last: birtherism. Pizzagate. QAnon.

“Look at where it’s gone: You have people storming the Capitol because they believe the election was a fraud. You have people who won’t get vaccinated and they’re dying in hospitals,” Rowe says. “We’ve gotten to the point where information is actually killing people.”

Source: AP

[TRANSPONDER]

Absolutely. And it's something I have to watch myself on all the time. Where the line is between asking legitimate questions even of experts rather than just accept whatever they say and becoming dismissive (perhaps on the very easy grounds of their bias..which may well be true in some cases (1).

We don't teach critical thinking in schools. We never have. And let me shy away from a Conspiracy Theory right there (2) and I never learned to think logically or even rationally until I got involved in the religion debate and had to learn to recognize false arguments. Up to then I had (like everyone else) argued from an entrenched position, though I could be a lot more reasonable than some others.

The whole 'miracles don't happen' apologetic is questioned by me, though atheists use it almost as a given. Of course it does have a validity (extraordinary claims) but I think that rejection of that extraordinary claim (Jesus' miracles including resurrection) should be rejected on the grounds that it is a one
-off extraordinary claim to which normal expectations don't apply.

I endorse the principle of embarrassment (often misunderstood) because it clearly has validity (If Jesus had been invented by Christians he would have been Judean) even though it seems almost a given assumption that it is a false argument. I also reject the argument against negative evidence, though in fact 'science' knows the value of negative evidence, and that is more a theistic rejection of the principle.

In short, we should question anyone where there is a question to be asked, including ourselves.

(1) rather famously the often - dropped name of Einstein, particularly when he uses the term 'God', allowed bias in favour of an ordered universe (or Cosmos) to prejudice him against quantum -theory, and he blew the rest of his life trying to prove that there was an alternative explanation.

And yet it wasn't entirely pointless, because he asked questions of the theory; and if he couldn't debunk it, nobody could. One might say he sacrificed half his working life to validating quantum - theory. It's rather like Behe. He had the best shot at making a case for I/D through Irreducible Complexity. And if he couldn't do it, I doubt that anyone can. His ruination at Dover vs. Kitzmiller signed into law the validation of Evolution - theory and the invalidity of I/C.

(2) footnotes..a bad habit of mine, I wallow in it I realised what it was in shock when I watched Bush and Blair enable the Iraq war with a couple of logical fallacies. Namely reversal of burden of proof (which I think is ignoring the principle of Parsimony) and Bifurcation or the fallacy of the undistributed middle. Though Blair might have realised what he was doing. Which is even worse.

Though P.s say what you like about that war, (and I have done so) in the end, it might not turn out too badly.