The psychology of the CT believers

True. Critical Thinking is more than thinking up criticisms.
I find also, the majority of the these people do not think past their absurd claims.

For example: "Robbie Parker is an actor!" Now, if this were the case and Robbie Parker was an actor and not the father of Emilie Parker, might not someone come forward with, "Hey!...I know that guy!...his name's not Robbie Parker!" or, "I know that family, they don't have a daughter named Emilie!"

It would be so easy for someone to expose this type of scam and surprisingly, not one person has come forward with such a claim.

Or how about the claim that the 9/11 bombers are still alive. Well if they were, wouldn't make sense those identified as bombers would come forward to embarrass the US by exposing the hoax?

Critical thinking skills, common sense and logic are not arrows in their quiver of intellectual skills.
 
It's interesting to note that CTers don't respect credentials very much but when a CT-promulgater claims to have a PhD they all call him/her 'Dr'. As I like to point out: no one says 'Dr Albert Einstein' or 'Dr Stephen Hawking', but buy an 'honorary' PhD from an online diploma mill and espouse a couple of conspiratorial ideas and you'll be 'Dr So-and-so' forever after.
 
It's interesting to note that CTers don't respect credentials very much but when a CT-promulgater claims to have a PhD they all call him/her 'Dr'. As I like to point out: no one says 'Dr Albert Einstein' or 'Dr Stephen Hawking', but buy an 'honorary' PhD from an online diploma mill and espouse a couple of conspiratorial ideas and you'll be 'Dr So-and-so' forever after.

It's also interesting to note that CTers don't really care whether those they choose to believe have any credentials related to the subject matter at hand. BUT they quickly decry people like Mick for not being credentialed when he makes claims they don't wish to accept. They disregard the supporting evidence he provides in favor of disparaging his background. Their approach is utterly hypocritical.
 
Sadly, they lack the one thing they all claim they have and claim they used to arrive at their postion, critical thinking skills.
Either that, or the regular "common sense" line I.E. "the sky was bluer when I was younger, I look up now and I can see it has changed, it's just common sense"
 
Sadly, it almost seems that it's often nothing more than what they saw first:

If they initially read a website that says "Contrails don't persist"
before being exposed to even 20 websites that make clear that contrails sometimes do persist,
(and that it's well documented...for generations) that first impression can be a mountain to ever get over...
 
him and get
It's also interesting to note that CTers don't really care whether those they choose to believe have any credentials related to the subject matter at hand. BUT they quickly decry people like Mick for not being credentialed when he makes claims they don't wish to accept. They disregard the supporting evidence he provides in favor of disparaging his background. Their approach is utterly hypocritical.

my term for this is "anti-knowledge"

to a CTer the more actual knowledge you have on the subject is inversely proportionate to the weight/trust they give to that knowledge
 
I think one of the most interesting takes on conspiracy theorists comes from Cass Sunstein. For those unfamiliar with Cass, he is an incredibly prolific legal scholar. When I was in law school he was the single most cited legal scholar and I think he is still in the top three. His most influential work looks at the nexus of law and behavioral economics so, while he is not a trained psychologist, he is deeply steeped in contemporary psychological scholarship, especially as relates to the behavior of groups.

In 2008 Cass published a piece simply titled "Conspiracy Theories," which set out to analyze the driving forces behind conspiracy theory propagation and perpetuation and then propose ways in which the government could potentially address the costs that conspiratorial thinking imposed on society at large. Conspiracy theorists of many stripes latched on to the latter portion of the paper as evidence that the government was targeting them (especially after he was appointed Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget by Pres. Obama). The very interesting analytical set-up for those proposals, however, seems to be entirely overlooked by conspiracy theorists and non-conspiracy theorists alike, though it is an incisive summation and treatment of the conspiratorial mindset, at least to my mind.

Also of note: In March of 2014, Cass published a book titled Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas that built on the ideas in the above-linked article. I have not read the book, but I'm sure it's quite good. This blurb in the NYTimes is derived from that book, for those who'd like to get a sense of its content. There are also six other authors commenting on conspiracy theories in the same panel series, all of whom are worth reading. (And of course the comments to that series are just what you'd expect.)

(Full disclosure, I attended two of Cass's seminars in law school and I am thus likely very biased, for better or worse, in my belief that he is brilliant.)
 
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Sadly, it almost seems that it's often nothing more than what they saw first:

If they initially read a website that says "Contrails don't persist"
before being exposed to even 20 websites that make clear that contrails sometimes do persist,
(and that it's well documented...for generations) that first impression can be a mountain to ever get over...

I think that your comment regarding first impressions is directly on point. I have looked at some of actual sources cited by conspiracy theorists in some detail, scholarship on the impending Arctic methane "disaster," for example. Natalia Shakhova is often cited on websites like geoengineeringwatch.org as a source for claims of impending doom. However, if you actually read her work, she qualifies her conclusions.

What suffices for too many conspiracy believers is that first gloss. A careful examination of evidence is essentially an afterthought.

Very frustrating.
 

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Cass Sunstein is quite well known in the conspiracy community because of his musing about "crippled epistemology" nad "cognitive infiltration"
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1118&context=law_and_economics
What can government do about conspiracy theories? Among the things it can do, what should it do? We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions. However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5).
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He addressed the criticism in his book:

A primary focus of the essay is “the crippled epistemology of extremism,” a brilliant phrase that I borrow from political scientist Russell Hardin. In my view, the idea of crippled epistemology is full of implications. All of us have, at least to some degree, a crippled epistemology, in the sense that there is a lot that we don’t know, and we have to rely on people we trust. We lack direct or personal evidence for most of what we think , especially about politics and government. We are often confident in what we believe, but we don’t have reason to be. Much of what we know can turn out to be badly wrong. Chapter 1 explores the mechanisms that account for this troubling fact, which is of great importance throughout the world. And while the central concern is how conspiracy theories spread— not what to do about them— there is a brief discussion of a possible approach, which is to counteract crippled epistemologies through “cognition infiltration,” an admittedly provocative (and, I confess, probably unfortunate) term that is meant to refer to how truth tellers can dispel falsehoods.

Somehow the argument of this essay, or some version of it, has gone viral, at least in certain circles. The irony is that the essay itself has been subject to the very mechanisms it explores about the spread of false information. Indeed, those mechanisms worked so directly and so precisely that many people contended, and apparently continue to believe, that while in government, I attempted to “implement” some of its alleged prescriptions. (I had no involvement with any such issues during my time in the Obama administration.)

Here are some examples. The website Salon featured a lengthy essay entitled “Obama Confidant’s Spine-Chilling Proposal,” which said that I want to “‘cognitively infiltrate’ antigovernment groups.” One blog post about the essay was called “Got Fascism?” In fact, an entire book was written about the essay, Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/ 11 Conspiracy Theory. ( As of this writing, the book has forty-one reviews on Amazon.com— all of them with perfect five-star ratings.) The essay has been seen as dangerous partly because it was read to suggest that I had a “plan” to infiltrate not only foreign organizations that believe the United States was responsible for the 9/ 11 attacks, and that seek to threaten our security, but also conservative organizations as a whole. (Of course, nothing could be further from my mind.)

Sunstein, Cass R. (2014-03-18). Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas . Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
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Does Sunstein propose anything that isn't already being done on MB and ISF? (Except of course that these sites have nothing to do with the US government.)
 
Does Sunstein propose anything that isn't already being done on MB and ISF? (Except of course that these sites have nothing to do with the US government.)

He does discuss the role of sites like Metabunk as a fifth option (although he only mentions Snopes)


It is also quite possible that government should stand to one side. Private organizations can and do work hard to respond to false conspiracy theories. An example is the internet site Snopes.com, which researches rumors and conspiracy theories and reports on their truth or falsity. For those concerned about the proliferation of conspiracy theorizing on the internet, this site provides a reliable and helpful reality check. It would be easy to find numerous similar ventures, small and large, in this vein, for the internet provides not only a mechanism by which to spread conspiracy theories but also a range of corrective tools. The more general point is that in free societies, false conspiracy theories are generally debunked by private citizens and institutions far more than by public officials.

Because the cost of spreading information is low, it is easy for private monitors to rebut false conspiracy theories. In just a few seconds, people can find a credible rebuttal of a conspiracy theory or produce a rebuttal themselves. At the same time, that very reduction in information costs makes it easier for conspiracy theorists to generate and spread their theories in the first place . The overall effect of new technology is unclear, as is the ability of private monitors to correct conspiracy theories. In part because this is so, an official response may be important or even essential, at least in some cases.

Sunstein, Cass R. (2014-03-18). Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas (p. 23). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
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He gives more detail on "Cognitive infiltration"


COGNITIVE INFILTRATION AND PERSUASION Rather than taking the continued existence of the hard core as a constraint, and addressing itself solely to the mass audience, government might take steps to break up the tight cognitive clusters of conspiracist theories, arguments, and rhetoric that are produced by the hard core and that reinforce it in turn. A potential approach (growing directly out of the account here of how such theories spread) is cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. As used here, this admittedly provocative term does not mean 1960s-style infiltration with a view to surveillance and collecting information , possibly for use in future prosecutions. Rather, it means that government efforts might succeed in weakening or even breaking up the ideological and epistemological complexes that constitute these networks and groups. Of course, any such efforts should be consistent with domestic law, including constitutional protections of free speech and personal privacy. The focus of the discussion is on situations involving serious security risks, above all risks of terrorism, that arise from conspiracy theories in foreign countries.

How might this tactic work? Recall that extremist networks and groups, including those that purvey conspiracy theories, typically suffer from a kind of crippled epistemology. Hearing only conspiratorial accounts of government behavior, their members become ever more prone to believe and generate such accounts. Perhaps the generation of ever-more-extreme views within these groups can be dampened or reversed by the introduction of cognitive diversity. Government might introduce such diversity— needless to say, only under circumstances in which there is a compelling and legitimate need to respond to the conspiracy theory, as, for example, to reduce a threat of violence from potential terrorists in another nation. Under this approach, government agents and their allies might enter foreign chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic, or implications for action, political or otherwise. Because conspiracy theories are self-sealing, government agents face serious challenges. But there are several possible routes.

In one variant, government agents would openly proclaim— or at least make no effort to conceal— their institutional affiliations. A 2007 newspaper story reported that Arabic-speaking Muslim officials from the State Department had participated in dialogues in radical Islamist chat rooms and on websites in order to calm the situation by offering arguments not usually heard among the groups that post messages on those sites, with some success. In another variant, government officials would participate anonymously or even with false identities. Each approach has distinct costs and benefits; the second raises ethical concerns and is riskier , but it might bring higher returns. Where government officials participate openly, hard-core members of the relevant networks, communities, and conspiracy-minded organizations may entirely discount what the officials say, right from the beginning. Because conspiracy theorists are likely to approach evidence and arguments in a biased way, they are not likely to respond well to the claims of public officials. Those claims might be received as self-refuting; conspiracists who hear them might well respond with the dismissive phrase “consider the source.”

The advantage of anonymous participation, and of working with agents, is that such dismissals are less likely. A great deal of work suggests the potential credibility of “surprising validators ”: people who are not expected to take a particular position and are persuasive for that reason. If, for example, a prominent conservative, known to be a skeptic about environmentalism , says that climate change is real and needs to be addressed, some people might well be moved. So, too, with conspiracy theories. If a person who is credible in the relevant community— say, someone who is known not to be friendly to the United States— says plainly that a conspiracy theory about America is false, people may listen, and waters might be calmed.

The problems with anonymous participation and hidden agents involve both ethics and disclosure. Outside of unusual circumstances (above all, genuine national security threats), public officials should not conceal their identity. And if the tactic becomes known, the theory may become further entrenched, and any real member of the relevant groups who raises doubts may be suspected of having government connections. The two forms of cognitive infiltration offer evidently different risk-reward mixes.

There is a similar trade -off along another dimension: whether the efforts should occur in the real world or strictly in cyberspace. The latter is safer but potentially less productive. The former will sometimes be indispensable, where the groups that purvey conspiracy theories (and perhaps themselves plan conspiracies) formulate their views through real-space informational networks rather than virtual networks. Infiltration of any kind poses risks, but they are generally greater for real-world infiltration, where the agent is exposed to more serious harms.

There are also hard questions about how, exactly, to introduce cognitive diversity into a group of people strongly committed to a conspiracy theory. Even if the infiltrators are generally credible, they are unlikely to be effective if they simply proclaim that the theory “is wrong” or even if they introduce evidence suggesting that the widely held view is mistaken. A growing body of research indicates that if the goal is to dislodge a particular belief of an individual or group, the best approach is to begin by affirming other beliefs— or at least the competence and character— of that individual or group. For example , those who have strong views about capital punishment or abortion are far more likely to listen to counterarguments if those who make such counterarguments take significant steps to affirm those with whom they are engaging. The general conclusion is that cognitive diversity, as such, is hardly enough; it is necessary also to insure a degree of receptivity toward those with divergent views.

Sunstein, Cass R. (2014-03-18). Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas (pp. 30-31). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

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It's a interesting book, but only the first chapter is about conspiracy theory. The rest is on other topics.
 
Cass Sunstein...
(2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories.

He does discuss the role of sites like Metabunk as a fifth option (although he only mentions Snopes)

First: Yes!! I've said for years, "If we can just tax 'stupid,' goodbye 18 trillion dollar U.S. debt!!" :D

Second, don't most folks think of Snopes as "The poor man's Metabunk.org" ? :p




In all seriousness, Barb's site (yes, I know David counts, but he's mostly genial ballast these days) ;)
was one of the first places on the internet that I felt preserved what little sanity I still retained...
I think I discovered Snopes in '96...towards the end of the Triassic :eek: 'dial-up' era.

As the 'net grew, and associates & family began e-mailing me stupid crap, I finally made a rule that
I wouldn't look at any "amazing" story anymore, if they hadn't at least checked to see if Snopes had
already debunked it. Cut down dopey e-mails by about 90%! :)
I spend more time on Metabunk these days,
but I'm forever grateful to the Mikkelsons.
 
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So he's basically saying, do what sceptics already do, but involve government agents, and have more physical interactions. Seeing as sceptics are already often dismissed as 'shills', it seems a stretch to think that actual 'shills' could do much more (though perhaps they can by saying, 'yes I'm a "shill", but nevertheless consider my argument'? Ie perhaps admitting to being a 'shill' can make that less of a focus).

But this part is quite important, and I hope all sceptics follow this advice:

A growing body of research indicates that if the goal is to dislodge a particular belief of an individual or group, the best approach is to begin by affirming other beliefs— or at least the competence and character— of that individual or group. For example , those who have strong views about capital punishment or abortion are far more likely to listen to counterarguments if those who make such counterarguments take significant steps to affirm those with whom they are engaging. The general conclusion is that cognitive diversity, as such, is hardly enough; it is necessary also to insure a degree of receptivity toward those with divergent views.
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Unfortunately there exists a temptation to mock the people one is arguing with, and doing so can be enormously counterproductive and harmful.
 
It's worth mentioning here that CTs can have terrible real-world ramifications. People who believe in chemtrails can be annoying, but as long as they don't shoot at airplanes the only harm they do is to themselves; but CIA/Mossad CTs influence real-world terrorists, AGW CTs make it difficult to put in place anti-carbon policies, Sharia law CTs contribute to anti-Muslim legislation and attacks, and anti-commie and anti-US CTs are used by repressive regimes to justify their crimes.

Historically, CTs featured prominently in the minds of the perpetrators of the Holocaust, Armenian genocide, and nineteenth-century pogroms.

Whether 9/11 was staged can seem academic, but this sort of thinking can fuel anti-Westernism and antisemitism and is a factor in some of the crimes and chaos that we see in other parts of the world.
 
So he's basically saying, do what sceptics already do, but involve government agents, and have more physical interactions. Seeing as sceptics are already often dismissed as 'shills', it seems a stretch to think that actual 'shills' could do much more (though perhaps they can by saying, 'yes I'm a "shill", but nevertheless consider my argument'? Ie perhaps admitting to being a 'shill' can make that less of a focus).

But this part is quite important, and I hope all sceptics follow this advice:


Unfortunately there exists a temptation to mock the people one is arguing with, and doing so can be enormously counterproductive and harmful.
lol you're cute.
 
I'm not sure.... Is saying 'you are employed by the govt and lying about it' dehumanising? I think it's more of an ad hominem, ie 'your arguments should be ignored because you're just here to confuse us'.

More specifically, it's "Poisoning the well"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a rhetorical device where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person is about to say. Poisoning the well can be a special case of argumentum ad hominem, and the term was first used with this sense by John Henry Newman in his work Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864).[1] The origin of the term lies in well poisoning, an ancient wartime practice of pouring poison into sources of fresh water before an invading army, to diminish the attacking army's strength.
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Classic "Poison the Well" relies on some actual small fault of the target.
Example: Oh Ross Marsden doesn't have a published paper on meteorology to his name, so he cannot be an expert, and what he says may not be reliable." It is true that I have not published anything, but that is no reason to to discard everything I have posted. That is the fallacy of "poison the well".

I think it's slightly different when someone is (falsely) accused of being a "shill" (for example). The well is being poisoned with an impotent and non-effectual reagent. Unfortunately, in the forums where this tactic is used, a portion of the audience do attribute some weight to the accusation, and the nett effect is much the same.

A defense for this type of ad hominem is to say something like, "OK, suppose for the moment I am a shill. Is there anything in what I just posted that is incorrect. Shall we talk about it?"
Mick has used this, and it is a very effective disarming move.

Of course that will also work with the classical application.
"Sure, I haven't authored anything in the mainstream meteorological literature. Is there anything in what I just posted that is incorrect. Shall we talk about it?"
 
But when debunkers counter Niels Harrit's paper on the alleged use of thermite in the alleged demolition of WTC 7 by saying that he lacks the proper credentials or that the journal which published his paper was not peer reviewed, doesn't that also amount to poisoning the well?
 
But when debunkers counter Niels Harrit's paper on the alleged use of thermite in the alleged demolition of WTC 7 by saying that he lacks the proper credentials or that the journal which published his paper was not peer reviewed, doesn't that also amount to poisoning the well?
It depends on the context, which I do not know, as I did not follow that particular debate. If the argument was that Niels Harrit's claims carry more weight in the debate because they had been published in a paper, then pointing out that this paper was not peer reviewed would be a valid counterargument.
 
But when debunkers counter Niels Harrit's paper on the alleged use of thermite in the alleged demolition of WTC 7 by saying that he lacks the proper credentials or that the journal which published his paper was not peer reviewed, doesn't that also amount to poisoning the well?

If someone argues that an argument is probably correct because of who made the argument, then that's a claim of authority as evidence and it's perfectly reasonable to point out if that person does not have the credentials or expertise that are being claimed. For example if you have something like this video:


It making the claim that the opinions are significant purely because of who is giving them. In this case, Mark McCandlish, the "Defense Industry Technician", is an artist, and worked in the aerospace industry as an artist, nothing more.

While it's worth pointing out errors (or even lies) in credential claims, it's better to look at the claims themselves. But often the credentials+opinions are the only evidence proffered.

Tying this into psychology, it's curious that people reject authority, and yet also use these very simplistic appeals to authority. It seems the confirmation bias is the overriding factor here. Conspiracy theorists are very willing to use things from mainstream science and the media if they feel it helps their case, while simultaneously saying that the media and science are in the pocket of the conspiracy.

What they do against Metabunk isn't attacking a claim of credentials though, as I don't claim to have any (in fact, they often use my own quotes, like "I'm just some guy", to describe me). It's an unsubstantiated claim that I'm a shill, and this site is part of the conspiracy. It's just a way of mentally not having to consider any rebuttals.
 
But when debunkers counter Niels Harrit's paper on the alleged use of thermite in the alleged demolition of WTC 7 by saying that he lacks the proper credentials or that the journal which published his paper was not peer reviewed, doesn't that also amount to poisoning the well?
Chomsky points out that despite the thousands of claimed signatories to the AE911T petition, no one has yet published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal with evidence for their claims. Chomsky sees this in itself as evidence against those claims - ie evidence from absence: had the AE911T guys any evidence to contribute or any legitimate reason to form their opinions, some of them would have published peer-reviewed papers; the fact they haven't is itself evidence that their claims are baseless.

This argument can be challenged by pointing out that Niel Harrit did in fact publish a paper; the rebuttal would be that Harrit's paper is irrelevant, as it was not peer-reviewed.

I don't know whether this is the context in which the remark you refer to was made, but if it was, the sceptic was not making an ad hominem but rather a reasonable rebuttal to a proposed rebuttal of an earlier argument against CD.
 
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What they do against Metabunk isn't attacking a claim of credentials though, as I don't claim to have any (in fact, they often use my own quotes, like "I'm just some guy", to describe me). It's an unsubstantiated claim that I'm a shill, and this site is part of the conspiracy. It's just a way of mentally not having to consider any rebuttals.
That is exactly why I mentioned that the charge of "shill" "Troll", etc. being non specific and non-supported is a means of dehumanization. The dehumanized target is then simplistically deemed unworthy of any further consideration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehumanization
 
....
It's just a way of mentally not having to consider any rebuttals.
....

I'd like to add that I think most of the CTs are not well educated, and when they are faced with an answer that includes any kind of complex mathematics or scientific verbiage, they shut down...it is a lot easier for them to listen to "Joe the Event Skeptic" who has, for the most part, the language they can understand.
 
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I'd like to add that I think most of the CTs are not well educated, and when they are faced with an answer that includes any kind of complex mathematics or scientific verbiage, they shut down...it is a lot easier for them to listen to "Joe the Event Skeptic" who has, for the most part, the language they can understand.

Most people are not well educated. I don't think this is anything specific about conspiracy theorists. Tarring them with an "uneducated" brush is not helpful. See: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/politeness-policy.1224/

If you are using complex mathematics, then you are probably doing it wrong. At least if the explanation relies on complex mathematics. It's certainly a good idea to have the math available, so it can be verified.
 
Most people are not well educated. I don't think this is anything specific about conspiracy theorists.

It was surprising to me, when talking to people at my workplace (I use them as a gauge) how many people are unfamiliar with what a 'contrail' is, beyond the typical reply.... "aren't they that line behind a plane ?" Most are unable to explain it further, or in more accurate detail.
If I had to guess a percentage of my co-workers (and many were college educated), their answers to:
"What is a Contrail ?"

It would be something like this.......

"those lines behind a plane" ~80%
"jet exhaust" ~30%
"water vapor" ~15%
"frozen water vapor (ice)" ~5% or less.
"I don't know" ~20%


(There is overlap, because while ~80% know that they are the white lines behind planes, but have different ideas as to why they are white.)
Less than 1% believe the lines involve a conspiracy....so I am agreeing with Mick.
Sometimes we unintentionally use our personal knowledge (or group knowledge) to gauge the knowledge of others, when it's simply a matter of "what did you/they study" or people's particular and devoted interests.
 
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Most people are not well educated. I don't think this is anything specific about conspiracy theorists. Tarring them with an "uneducated" brush is not helpful. See: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/politeness-policy.1224/

If you are using complex mathematics, then you are probably doing it wrong. At least if the explanation relies on complex mathematics. It's certainly a good idea to have the math available, so it can be verified.

I'm sorry Mick, are you correcting me when you italicize 'people'?? Please don't put words in my mouth. I meant CTs, evidently you haven't listened to the same followers that I have.

As for your politeness policy, I was being polite. I might suggest that you take another look at it yourself Mick. Your own condescending attitude has given you and your forum quite the reputation.

No need to ban me, I am taking myself out of the forum all together. Shame though, there is a lot of great information here.
 
I'm sorry Mick, are you correcting me when you italicize 'people'?? Please don't put words in my mouth. I meant CTs, evidently you haven't listened to the same followers that I have.

As for your politeness policy, I was being polite. I might suggest that you take another look at it yourself Mick. Your own condescending attitude has given you and your forum quite the reputation.

No need to ban me, I am taking myself out of the forum all together. Shame though, there is a lot of great information here.
Or you could explain yourself before running away.

In #270 Mick was obviously pointing out that it is true of most people that they are "not well educated..."
so it can appear impolite to use the term as an explanation for the things CTs say. Not hard. Not condescending.
 
..... faced with an answer that includes any kind of complex mathematics or scientific verbiage, they shut down..

No need to ban me, I am taking myself out of the forum all together. Shame though, there is a lot of great information here.

Evidence that some people will shut-down, at even the lightest criticism, too.
 
I'm sorry Mick, are you correcting me when you italicize 'people'?? Please don't put words in my mouth. I meant CTs, evidently you haven't listened to the same followers that I have.

If I tried to explain things to my mother with "complex mathematics or scientific verbiage" she'd shut down too, even though she's college educated. The vast majority of people who are not actually taking a course in math are pretty unfamiliar with even basic math like Pythagoras's theorem, similar triangles, or exponents. Many don't even really understand division that well.

And then there's plenty of reasonably well educated people who believe in conspiracies, just look at AE911Truth.

Sure, there're probably some correlation between education and the correctness of one's beliefs. There's a correlation between education and atheism, but if I were trying to convince someone that there's probably no god, then I don't think it would be at all helpful to note this correlation. It's seen as impolite, and it hinders the conversation. Hence I have the politeness policy.
 
I think that you'd find education has little to do with correctness of belief, at least outside of a person's field of specialty. I've heard it said that smart people are no less likely to believe in conspiracy theories, but much less likely to change their beliefs. Smart people are much better at rationalizing away contradictory evidence, for instance.
 
"What is a Contrail ?"
It would be something like this.......
i thought the hot from the engine in the cold air made condensation. like on the outside of your refrigerator sometimes in summer.

Most people are not well educated
which is how I know 98% of people have no idea what weatherwar101 is even saying "see that purple blob here? that's a low pressure HAARP induced convector that reacts on the red blob which is aluminum floating in the atmosphere, which causes a convex reaction on the yellow blob 4000 miles away"

^sounds good to me, since I have no idea what im looking at with those radar things or what any of those words mean in weather anyway!
 
There's a correlation between education and atheism, but if I were trying to convince someone that there's probably no god, then I don't think it would be at all helpful to note this correlation
especially since the correlation is they think they're 'all that' and the fear of not being able to explain anything 'unexplained' messes with their psyche ;)

edit add: the fact hat I misspelled "accept" initially is just a coincidence! hmmm actually that whole sentence is wrong.... dang.
 
Education/intelligence or whatever you want to call it is far to simplistic a term to be used as a "slam dunk" differentiator between the "natural" CT'ers and people with a more skeptical outlook in life

My elder brother is pretty well educated and a Chess Grandmaster - I would not trust him to open a crisp packet, and his mind is fertile ground for "woo" of most flavours
 
Education/intelligence or whatever you want to call it is far to simplistic a term to be used as a "slam dunk" differentiator between the "natural" CT'ers and people with a more skeptical outlook in life
I think it's pretty obvious in how the vast majority of CTs write, that it is an emotional element, has nothing to do with intelligence in most cases. Although not understanding the science or facts of a matter certainly doesn't help the situation of falling for woo.
 
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