And is the "medium" you speak of conspiratorial thinking, or something else? — Leontiskos

I just suggested watching Owens on Charlie Kirk for two reasons. The first is as a polished example of the new media. Tucker Carlson and Fox News in general turned conspiracy theory into a powerfully profitable and self-sustaining industry. Now you have huge money going into self-organising YouTube communities where the viewers get to be part of the reporting team.

Everyone is tied into a tight circle where the skill at discovering conspiracies improves for all. You are not just passively viewing Fox and its weirdos. You are being drawn into the industry in an active way.

The other thing is then how there is so much information to keep the story going. Every event has so much cell phone footage from so many angles, or citizens sleuths running around interviewing each other, immediately finding all the strange coincidences that are going to be there to be found. With so many involved on the ground, there are swiftly any number of dots for a conspiracy theory to join.

I think that's part of the reason why he got so quiet after seeing his own theories debunked by his own authorities. — Leontiskos

Even months ago, AI gave a lot of shit answers. Good only for a laugh. But now it is becoming very useful for self factchecking.

Of course, you then have to be in the habit of self factchecking. :smile:

Banno feels like he is here to run the cosy introductory philosophy tutorials of his fond memory. That would be why he treats us like confused first year students having to retread the well worn paths of ancient debates. We are allowed to speak, but as tutor, he gets to steer and gently reveal our neophyte errors of thought. We should be warmly appreciative of his condescension. And learn to stick closely to areas where he has already prepared the answers.

What's your point? Are you just acknowledging what I said about background beliefs being involved in our epistemic judgements? — Relativist

The point is clear, I hope - evidence is always equivocal. There is always a point about which folk may disagree.

I contend that more credence should be given to claims that are supported by evidence, than those that are purely speculation. — Relativist

No one would disagree. At issue is how "supported by evidence" is payed out. From Quine-Duhem, we see that there are always ways to question the evidence. So the issue becomes when questioning the evidence is reasonable, and when it isn't. And it seems there is often no clear clean place at whcih to draw the line.

Hence,

Plausibility is a factor in epistemic judgement. — Relativist

And not the result of the application of an algorithmic method. I think you see this, but perhaps what's been said here will better articulate it.

Feyerabend's conclusion is that "Anything Goes" in choosing between hypotheses. That's too far. The trouble with "anything goes" is that we are obliged to choose, and so if anything goes, we may as well choose the easiest path, which will be what we already hold true - again, a recipe for confirmation bias. The trouble with "anything goes" is that it will amount to "everything stays the same".

But instead we can admit that the process is fraught with difficulty, and not so clean and clear as some theorists would suppose. Scientific method is not algorithmic, but communal. It is human, involving the interaction of many, many people in an organised and cooperative fashion. I'd argue that this process involves not interfering with the work of others, responding to their claims in a way that is relevant, and doing so publicly; basic liberal virtues. Values not on show in places in this very thread.

Part of that is the issue of demarcation, the separation between science and non-science, which relates to your discussion of conspiracy theories. The idea is that conspiracy theories are not scientific; they do not conform to scientific methods. Now this is I think pretty much toe right sentiment, but given that we are unable to set out what that scientific method is quite as clearly as some suppose, and hence that the difficulty in setting out what counts as a conspiracy theory and what doesn't, a bit of humility might be needed. It won't help to just tell a conspiracy believer that their theory does not match the evidence, because for them it does.