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mike  ·  3604 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Creeping Danger of Conspiracy Theorists

The is a big problem with the author's reporting of the results. He includes "aren't sure if they're false" in every statistic. Any reasonable scientist has to say "not sure that it's false" to ANY claim. Are you sure Obama is not a robot sent from the future to replace people's brains with hamsters? Can you, as a scientist, claim that there is a 0% chance this is true? You can't honestly claim that, unless you're really lacking in imagination.

If I took this survey, I would have to answer "could be true" to every single question, even though I think almost all conspiracy theories are irrational. That reporting makes the general public appear to be more in support of conspiracy theories than actually is the case -- but I don't doubt that the percentages of people believing in conspiracies is still way too high.