The Conspiracy Debunk Feed

Vaccine package inserts are often misused and misunderstood. This article attempts to clarify what is important in them and what is not.

A podcast about viruses - the kind that make you sick

Oh man this is a good clip. Only weird think zdogg said is "Bret, you're a smart guy and you do understand science." This seems to be a common misconception!

In this post, I will address fifteen of the most commonly used arguments against vaccines. Throughout this post, you should notice that none of these arguments require a great deal of scientific kn…

Research explores paranoia, dominance, uniqueness, gullibility, and collective narcissism to explain why narcissists are drawn to conspiracy theories.

Belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories can have severe consequences; it is therefore crucial to understand this phenomenon, in its similarities with g…

Red thought “natural” remedies were the cure-all for everything. Nurses are heroes. Not the ones who endanger their patients by refusing to vaccinate during a global pandemic that’s killing millions. Definitely not those. But the 99%+ that are still trying to clean up the mess the anti-vaxxers...

A news interview I did was re-edited and misquoted by online conspiracy theorists. My advice is: get the vaccine, says David LV Bauer of the Francis Crick Institute

Researchers use AI – and witchcraft folklore – to map the coronavirus conspiracy theories that have sprung up

Prior research has focused on the negative reasons people are drawn to conspiracies, but there’s another side to the story

The COVID era has been a golden age of misinformation. It has seen the development of innumerable false claims and shoddy arguments, and it has breathed new life into ancient anti-vaccine tropes. I…

A recent study led by researchers from the University of Tokyo has shed light on the intricate web of factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy and resistance. The study identifies online political engagement, conspiracy theories, and spirituality as significant influences shaping anti-vaccine beliefs.

Misinformation is being spewed, weaponized, and consumed at a deadly rate. Fortunately, there's a way out. Here's how to make sense of what you're seeing.

565 votes, 102 comments. A good dissection of bullshit "science" about vaccines (RFK Jr is probably rock hard reading the original paper) - this…

Vaccine hesitancy is often met with one of two responses: Ridicule, or factual information. Both assume a failure of reason, but human behaviour is more complex than reason, so both responses fail.

The term is making the rounds online, but it isn't based on factual medical information. It's bunk.

'Things that make you go hmm'

An Instagram post claims Bill Gates hosted an event that is tied to the coronavirus outbreak, which started weeks later. We rate that claim false.

It is found that conspiracy mentality and science literacy both play important roles in believing viral and deceptive claims about science, but evidence for the importance of conspiracy mentality in the rejection of science is much more mixed. Abstract. Members of the public can disagree with scientists in at least two ways: people can reject well-established scientific theories and they can believe fabricated, deceptive claims about science to be true. Scholars examining the reasons for these disagreements find that some individuals are more likely than others to diverge from scientists because of individual factors such as their science literacy, political ideology, and religiosity. This study builds on this literature by examining the role of conspiracy mentality in these two phenomena. Participants were recruited from a national online panel (N = 513) and in person from the first annual Flat Earth International Conference (N = 21). We found that conspiracy mentality and science literacy both play important roles in believing viral and deceptive claims about science, but evidence for the importance of conspiracy mentality in the rejection of science is much more mixed.

Scientific expertise matters and lives are at stake. It’s time to park egos, politics, conjecture, pseudoscience, propaganda—and anecdotes.

Since COVID, parents have more questions and more concerns.

Exposing the antiscience playbook reveals the antiregulatory motives of its deep-pocketed bankrollers

There have been recent trends of parents in Western countries refusing to vaccinate their children due to numerous reasons and perceived fears. While opposition to vaccines is as old as the vaccines themselves, there has been a recent surge in the ...