How do I identify the conspiracies that need debunking and how do I debunk them? By checking for cognitive biases and applying philosophical razors, but to do so accurately, you need to know about a few cognitive biases. But first, a note about the motivation for conspiracy theorizing and spreading conspiracy theories.
Weirdness as Rationalization
Most of the political conspiracies that I've seen recently are fairly obvious in their motivation: those people can't handle the truth. Conspiracy theories as they present in non-extremists are a form of rationalization. That's a pretty simplistic view, because the truth that each believer can't face varies by conspiracy theory and even for the same conspiracy, there may be multiple denied truths that vary by believer.
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| OMG There was a brunette in glasses at both scenes! Brunettes with glasses are super rare! |
In the case of Sandy Hook False Flaggers, the truth that they can't handle is that "safe gun owners" like themselves aren't necessarily safe gun owners at all. They can't accept that maybe those people who want gun control might have a good point, because if they did have a good point, that point might be that the conspiracy believers aren't safe gun owners either and their guns should be taken away for safety reasons.
Cognitive Biases
Confirmation Bias
If we go back to the Bosnia Landing Under Sniper Fire "lie," if you think that Clinton is a liar or a bad person, you'll agree with people who say the story was a lie, and respond to her story by claiming that it is proof that she is a liar. If you think that Clinton is wrongly persecuted or a good person, you'll respond that you believe her when she says that she misspoke, "she probably confused it with a different trip," then conclude that harping on a mistake like this is wrongful persecution. This is called confirmation bias.
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| Far Side |
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| Well, I don't know that, but that's because I have no anti-woman bias to confirm. |
In this case, we look at the allegation that Clinton is a liar because of the Bosnia Landing Story, the first negative memory that you retrieve could be "I hate that liar, Hillary!" or "It makes me mad that people lie so much about Hillary!" Then you realize that that's what just happened, because your brain framed the two things to be the same. You could be standing next to someone, looking in the same direction, observing the same event from a nearly identical angle, and still interpret the event as polar opposites, because both people have confirmed their opposing bias.
Political propaganda is designed to be emotionally charged, because if you encounter a strong emotion, you are less likely to continue on to examine the claims rationally. If you look at Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, for instance, their speeches are very emotionally charged. There is always an "other" to angrily blame (outgroup negativism) that we all knew was a problem all along (hindsight bias) and an "us" to celebrate as superior (ingroup favoritism) but no one would listen to us when we said those "others" were a problem (favorite-longshot bias).
And if you look at the articles about their speeches. you'll see Trump and Sanders show "passion" because they're pisssed off and yelling all the time. But Clinton is trying her damnedest walk the line between "unfeeling robot" and "yelling all the time" (ie ever) to manage women's double-bind, which makes her appear much more rational than Sanders or Trump. And that makes her boring. Clinton has done very little to be negative to her outgroup, so at the end of the rally, Clinton supporters just aren't pissed off, which makes us boring.
My choices are: angry white guys who hate people like me; or a mostly calm woman, who is rational, even while facing verbal abuse. Well, I'm obviously going to identify more with the latter, but what confuses me is that I'm faulted for liking the rational person because the pissed off people are "more compelling." Yes, compelling me to hate them because of their behavior.
We're electing a President, someone who has to decide a course of action in times of trouble when people are panicking. Why would I pick the people perpetually freaking out instead of the "boring" rational one? Who cares if the President is "boring," FFS? We're not voting for Prom Princess.
When taking a poll, you either limit the poll results to specific demographics, or you poll widely, taking demographics into account so that you can ensure that you have a random and representative sample. If, however, you limit to a demographic and then claim that the results apply to other demographics, your study has a selection bias problem.
Imagine that I want to know what a amount of prison time should be applied in child molestation cases, so I go to a prison and I gather up all of the convicted child molesters and I ask them what they think is an appropriate amount of prison time for a child molestation conviction. Then I report that "75% of people think that prison terms for child molestation are too long and need to be reduced." I have selected a group of people who are all alike and extrapolated their positions to people in general, in this case, a group that is inherently biased on the topic. By selecting only them, I have created a bias in my poll. You can undoubtedly see the problem there. However, if I stated my results as "75% of convicted child molesters currently in prison think that prison terms for child molestation are too long and need to be reduced," that would be accurate. Since people can tell that the group polled has a bias, they can ask themselves if the results are meaningful. In this case, most would say that they aren't.
It would be similarly biased if I were to ask child molestation victims but not anyone else. If I presented the results as "75% of people think that prison terms for child molestation are too short and need to be increased," I would encountered the same selection bias problem. However, if presented as "75% of child molestation victims," people can ask themselves if the results are meaningful, and despite the inherent bias, they may decide that they are.
Often, there are other, simpler explanations, but we rarely look for other explanations because we've already come to a conclusion about what happened. One of the goals of cognitive therapy is to identify those moments when our reactions are based on emotions and stop them just long enough to examine our thought processes, identify unreliable assumptions, look for less biased explanations, and determine rationally if the emotion is based on reality as it exists rather than as we interpreted through our biases that it exists.
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| You know what else is "sealed?" Everyone else's college records, medical records, and birth certificate. Releasing medical records without patient approval is a federal crime! Pretty simple explanation, right? |
This is actually not what I do to come up with better conclusions. I get irritated that someone believed something so ridiculous, so I angrily go out and find the facts to correct them with. It's a great mechanism for debunking if you can train your brain to do it, but that's probably easier after your grandmother runs in yelling at CNN that "Everyone knows that the American Beauty is the most beautiful rose because it has America in the name!" then continues yelling at the TV for several minutes about the Jewish media conspiracy trying to destroy the reputation of the American Beauty rose because "the Jews hate America." (This is a true story but I do not support those views and OMFG Grandma, what is wrong with you? Most people have mommy issues or daddy issues, but in my family, we have issues that go back generations.)
Confirmation Bias, Negativity Bias, Outgroup Negativism, and Propaganda
And if you look at the articles about their speeches. you'll see Trump and Sanders show "passion" because they're pisssed off and yelling all the time. But Clinton is trying her damnedest walk the line between "unfeeling robot" and "yelling all the time" (ie ever) to manage women's double-bind, which makes her appear much more rational than Sanders or Trump. And that makes her boring. Clinton has done very little to be negative to her outgroup, so at the end of the rally, Clinton supporters just aren't pissed off, which makes us boring.
We're electing a President, someone who has to decide a course of action in times of trouble when people are panicking. Why would I pick the people perpetually freaking out instead of the "boring" rational one? Who cares if the President is "boring," FFS? We're not voting for Prom Princess.
Selection Bias
When taking a poll, you either limit the poll results to specific demographics, or you poll widely, taking demographics into account so that you can ensure that you have a random and representative sample. If, however, you limit to a demographic and then claim that the results apply to other demographics, your study has a selection bias problem.Imagine that I want to know what a amount of prison time should be applied in child molestation cases, so I go to a prison and I gather up all of the convicted child molesters and I ask them what they think is an appropriate amount of prison time for a child molestation conviction. Then I report that "75% of people think that prison terms for child molestation are too long and need to be reduced." I have selected a group of people who are all alike and extrapolated their positions to people in general, in this case, a group that is inherently biased on the topic. By selecting only them, I have created a bias in my poll. You can undoubtedly see the problem there. However, if I stated my results as "75% of convicted child molesters currently in prison think that prison terms for child molestation are too long and need to be reduced," that would be accurate. Since people can tell that the group polled has a bias, they can ask themselves if the results are meaningful. In this case, most would say that they aren't.
It would be similarly biased if I were to ask child molestation victims but not anyone else. If I presented the results as "75% of people think that prison terms for child molestation are too short and need to be increased," I would encountered the same selection bias problem. However, if presented as "75% of child molestation victims," people can ask themselves if the results are meaningful, and despite the inherent bias, they may decide that they are.
Inability to Timeline / The Time Machine Effect
In order for the claim to be true, the actor would have to know the current situation months ago. It would require a time machine or clairvoyance.
If you encounter a claim that has someone acting months ago and it's only having an effect now, make a timeline! Did the action require information that no one could have had before last week? Then don't believe it!
Per Wikipedia: "It is the belief that individuals tend to ascribe success to their own abilities and efforts, but ascribe failure to external factors." We've all worked with someone like that: the guy who can't admit that he made a mistake, but he's willing to correct that other person's mistake as long as we all agree that it was generous of him because it's not his mistake.
I worked with another programmer who supposedly had a master's degree in mathematics from a prestigious university in India. The business owner had given him a mathematical formula to use for a calculation in large dataset. It specified that after you did all of the math on top, you divided by an employee's number of hours worked minus 40. Thus, if the employee worked exactly the umber of hours expected of each employee, the formula divided by zero. But it's not possible to divide by zero, so this made the program throw an error. But he also didn't handle the error elegantly, so the error caused the whole page to fail. The page displayed data for all employees of a specific location, so if any of the 39+ people at a given location worked precisely the number of hours expected, no data would display for the entire location.
When I brought this to his attention, he insisted that it was not a bug because was the formula that they gave him, so they must want to divide by zero. That would mean that they wanted to not retrieve any data if anyone worked exactly 40 hours per week. We tried to convince him to fix it but he refused because "it's not a bug." Eventually, I fixed it and improved on his code, which he immediately undid because his code is perfect. He even took out the error handling so that if a divide by zero occurred, the whole page failed again instead of showing an error and carrying on. And in the process he claimed that I was persecuting him because I was intimidated by his education. Because a guy with a master's degree in math doesn't know that you can't divide by zero and that's scary to ladies like me.
Self-Serving Bias
I worked with another programmer who supposedly had a master's degree in mathematics from a prestigious university in India. The business owner had given him a mathematical formula to use for a calculation in large dataset. It specified that after you did all of the math on top, you divided by an employee's number of hours worked minus 40. Thus, if the employee worked exactly the umber of hours expected of each employee, the formula divided by zero. But it's not possible to divide by zero, so this made the program throw an error. But he also didn't handle the error elegantly, so the error caused the whole page to fail. The page displayed data for all employees of a specific location, so if any of the 39+ people at a given location worked precisely the number of hours expected, no data would display for the entire location.
Since this is a pattern of behavior, it can only be detected over a long period of time. But when you do detect it, doubt it.
I've noticed a trait, mostly exhibited by men, that I find very entertaining now that I've noticed it: they imagine something, then assert that thing as factual proof that their argument is correct. I also occasionally imagine things and assert them as fact, mostly as part of story embellishment, and as such, I was already deleting a lot of it. The really entertaining thing, though, is that they imagine things that they couldn't possibly know and sometimes, they even state that they made it up. Does it contradict the expert opinion of a woman? No such thing!
If you've ever seen a guy explain women's issues to women, especially incorrectly, that form of mansplaining seems to come from this: the idea that the imagination of a man is more valid than the expertise of a woman. Even on the subject of our own life experiences, the imagination of a man is superior than the expertise of a woman.
In the example on the left, Rod the angry Sanders supporter was "justifying" his hatred for Clinton supporters because for the whole primary they had been "my way of the highway--" because they "didn't listen to [his] opinions." What he means is that he gave his opinion and it wasn't accepted as factual; his opinion didn't change the opinions of everyone whose opinion he wanted to change. Apparently, he is entitled to have people accept his opinion as inherently more valid than their own. So who did he chastise with this post? A female Clinton supporter.
A man's imagination is even more valid than science if that science is reported by a woman! In the following case, I was looking for scientific articles for my Bosnia Sniper Landing piece about the inner workings of memory and came across an article on theMarySue on a recent experiment about this process with a particular type of memory. He "[doesn't] believe this to be generally true," thus he can continue to falsely believe that memory is write-once.
Of course, this is not limited to men, merely more typical of men. I won't get into the reasons why because that's a huge topic. But it's important to be aware of because I see people get away with this several times per day. No one calls them on that they invented that information and thus it's not reliable, even if they admit to inventing it.
Another annoying white dude trait is implied claims of omniscience: "If I don't know about it, it doesn't exist." What they're doing is similar to the "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" logical fallacy, only, they didn't actually look for evidence. Having not looked for evidence, they know that something doesn't exist because they don't know that it exists.
If you look at the 6/6 coin flips went to Clinton conspiracy, the reputable news sources stated that "of 6 known coin flips, 6 went to Clinton." This was spread as proof that there were exactly 6 coin flips, no more. Any other coin flips weren't known to whoever was talking about it, therefore, there were exactly 6. This example can be a bit tricky to notice because the appeal to omniscience is hidden behind the claim of 6 total coin flips when results weren't even complete yet.
"No Clinton supporters were disenfranchised by long lines" because all of the people who reported the problem in the local pro-Sanders subreddit were Sanders supporters. Quite often, these claims are absurd, such as this example. There is no difference in wait at a polling location for a Sanders supporter than for a Clinton supporter. That would require separate lines, which would impair the secret ballot. Anyway, separate lines per candidate is not how we do things in the US and everyone would notice.
When you see someone make a claim, ask yourself if it relies on the absence of evidence. If it does, make sure that evidence could be seen and that someone would have seen it; if those conditions are met, absence of evidence is a valid construct. If not, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. But when they didn't bother to look or to ask people who have seen the evidence, and especially when they are contradicting the people who have seen the evidence, take the grains of salt that you were saving for their opinions and throw them in their eyes instead.
In extreme cases of White Duditis, sufferers will make imagination-based "claims of fact" which rely on a "proven" but unobservable negative. For instance, check out this "argument:"
Duditis: Factual Imagination
In the example on the left, Rod the angry Sanders supporter was "justifying" his hatred for Clinton supporters because for the whole primary they had been "my way of the highway--" because they "didn't listen to [his] opinions." What he means is that he gave his opinion and it wasn't accepted as factual; his opinion didn't change the opinions of everyone whose opinion he wanted to change. Apparently, he is entitled to have people accept his opinion as inherently more valid than their own. So who did he chastise with this post? A female Clinton supporter.
A man's imagination is even more valid than science if that science is reported by a woman! In the following case, I was looking for scientific articles for my Bosnia Sniper Landing piece about the inner workings of memory and came across an article on theMarySue on a recent experiment about this process with a particular type of memory. He "[doesn't] believe this to be generally true," thus he can continue to falsely believe that memory is write-once.
Of course, this is not limited to men, merely more typical of men. I won't get into the reasons why because that's a huge topic. But it's important to be aware of because I see people get away with this several times per day. No one calls them on that they invented that information and thus it's not reliable, even if they admit to inventing it.
White Duditis: Omniscience
If you look at the 6/6 coin flips went to Clinton conspiracy, the reputable news sources stated that "of 6 known coin flips, 6 went to Clinton." This was spread as proof that there were exactly 6 coin flips, no more. Any other coin flips weren't known to whoever was talking about it, therefore, there were exactly 6. This example can be a bit tricky to notice because the appeal to omniscience is hidden behind the claim of 6 total coin flips when results weren't even complete yet.
"No Clinton supporters were disenfranchised by long lines" because all of the people who reported the problem in the local pro-Sanders subreddit were Sanders supporters. Quite often, these claims are absurd, such as this example. There is no difference in wait at a polling location for a Sanders supporter than for a Clinton supporter. That would require separate lines, which would impair the secret ballot. Anyway, separate lines per candidate is not how we do things in the US and everyone would notice.
When you see someone make a claim, ask yourself if it relies on the absence of evidence. If it does, make sure that evidence could be seen and that someone would have seen it; if those conditions are met, absence of evidence is a valid construct. If not, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. But when they didn't bother to look or to ask people who have seen the evidence, and especially when they are contradicting the people who have seen the evidence, take the grains of salt that you were saving for their opinions and throw them in their eyes instead.
Super White Duditis: The Proven Negative
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| I'm going to need citations on that, please. |
The claim that Clinton never missed an opportunity to start a war can't be proven. The speaker doesn't have the expertise to do so and quite frankly, the only people who could ever know that is Clinton herself. Also, we have facts that disprove it. We would be at war with everyone else right now if this were true.
Similarly, the recent claims that "no true Sanders supporter" would use the hashtag #girliguessimwithher, based on... the speaker still hating Clinton. Their opinions are universal and inherently valid. It is inconceivable (Vizzini definition) that any Sanders supporter could disagree with them.So when you see someone make a claim, ask yourself not just if they could possibly know that, but if anyone could possibly know that. If you accept that someone could know that, he could simply be repeating an informed opinion, but if there can be no opinion informed enough, he can't be.
The Razors
Let's assume that you've momentarily stopped yourself from freaking out about things designed to make you fearful or angry, because you would like to process a claim with the rational part of your brain. Good job!
The Extraordinary Razor
"An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof" according to Marcello Truzzi's axiom, popularized by Carl Sagan after inclusion in Cosmos. I prefer Pierre-Simon LaPlace's wording: "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."
Beyonce and the Illuminati
What is increasingly being promoted by mass media is a secret black feminist agenda where the black female wants the black male dead....
When black men are demonized, this allows black women to get with rich white men who will put them on a pedestal. This will then allow black women to take back what is theirs and to become leaders without any influence of black men in their lives....
Not ALL black men at the same deadbeats who abuse women and treat women badly, like this chapter perpetuates. Black men who are educated, respectable and have strong moral character exist just like in any race.
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| Elton John's glasses pictured on Dame Edna. |
| A Sanders-supporting right-wing libertarian capitalist? This requires extraordinary evidence! |
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I could go on for 4 more pages and it wouldn't make any more sense.
Step 1: Apply the Extraordinary Razor
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| Unbelievable? Maybe because every sentence is false. But it made you feel, didn't it? |
Now think about how extraordinary the Beyonce/Illuminati claim is and how much it would take you to believe that over: some sexist, racist, white dude on the Internet doesn't like her music and therefore, thinks that she couldn't have gotten where she is without cheating (a sexist trope).
Occam's Razor
If you have a complex stance that requires a lot of unproven assumptions, especially if those assumptions were added after someone pointed out a perceived flaw in your stance, you should abandon it for a simple, straightforward stance, if for no other reason than "it's easier to prove or disprove."
Step 2: Applying Occam's Razor
In order to prove the Illuminati theory, we'd have to prove that the Illuminati exists, that it is what people think it is, that Black Feminism is about killing all black men, that Black women are gold diggers, that Black Feminists think that there are no good Black men, that the hand gestures are secret Illuminati code, and about 15 other things just from my very shortened version of the theory. Now what does it take to prove that the person who wrote that post is sexist and racist? Reading the post and noticing the stereotypically sexist and racist claims.
Hanlon / Heinlein's Razor
Hanlon's Razor tells us that even though something may have been done with malicious intent, people screw up a lot and "someone screwed up" is far more likely. I like this not just because people really do screw up a lot, but because assuming malicious intent without any proof can be malicious or at least seem that way. Plus, if you confront someone about it and you assume that it was a mistake, they will respond better than if you say they're malicious, and that means that no matter the intention, you are likely to get a resolution faster.
Step 3: Applying Hanlon's Razor
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| Or maybe you just think all brown people look alike. |
Xena's Chakram of Doubt
(Yes, I did just make that up.) If an argument is circular, doubt that it is true. After all, if it were true, people should be able to come up with some meaningful evidence.
Step 4: Applying Xena's Chakram of Doubt
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| Did you say circular? I'll show you circular! |
This is a chemical weapons supply truck and we know that it's a chemical weapons supply truck because it is going to this chemical weapons plant. And we know that that's a chemical weapons plant because that chemical weapons supply truck is going to it.
Even after the UN inspectors said that they had looked specifically at that plant and found no evidence of chemical weapons or their manufacture, that circular argument was repeated and treated as credible. No one in Congress mentioned that the evidence was circular logic and thus doesn't prove anything. I couldn't find anyone who disagreed with the evidence, just people who were opposed to any and all wars, like Sanders. I mentioned it to my roommate and then called my mother so we could talk about how appalling it is for Bush to throw Powell under the bus like that, taking advantage of his honor and loyalty to the Commander in Chief. And for pointing out the circular logic, I was attacked by dozens of people, who have now shown that their stance is hypocritical.
Now What?
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