The next intallment of Frontline is about conspiracy theories, a very important topic in our day. It’s unbelievable how they seem to have overtaken our lives and put us all in danger. (I hope it is allowed to stay up!)
We’ll definitely be watching here. I only hope there is some way we can as a society find away to inoculate ourselves against falling prey to such things. It is easy to turn to education to take this on but somehow families need to be brought in too.
If you have a basic knowledge of cell biology and virology you will know this paper is bunk with in the first 2 sentences. Radiowaves don’t assemble an RNA viral genome out of atoms that are just floating around. It’s ridiculous.
However, for people who have little to no knowledge of biology and genetics, how convincing would this article be?
Employing the critical thinking questions are a good response to any would-be conspiracy claim:
•What am I being asked to believe or accept?
•Is there evidence to support the claim?
•Can that evidence be interpreted another way?
•What evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
•What conclusions are most reasonable?
And the benefit with these is that they don’t rely on an appeal to authority, which is a non-starter with many in the conspiracy crowd. So it’s a good set of questions to recommend to people who are giving conspiracy theories more credence than they deserve.
Reminder guys: Frontline’s United States of Conspiracy is on tonight. Check your local listings at pbs.org. Now if only I could find where those Martian invaders hid my clothes.
I just saw this on a friend’s facebook page. (The deleted video clip, not the news about the latest quacks our dear leader endorses.) Yeah, just when you think it could not get more nuts who they put in front of microphones…
I posted on my wall a statement about following doctors who believe diseases are caused by sex with demons and vaccines contain alien DNA. I had someone say we should hear them out. Then she starts talking about hydroxychloroquine and the Henry Ford study.
I’m really tired of conspiracy theorists. Really, really tired.
I’m disappointed that the new Frontline doesn’t start until 10 pm tonight. So we’ll probably watch it ASAP after that. (Actually Lia will probably watch it tonight.) But we get up before 6 every morning to give the younger dog some off leash work. Tougher leash laws makes that a no-no. I don’t mind bending the rule but I don’t want to do it openly where that could undercut following restrictions.