Thread by @AukeHoekstra

What distinquishes evidence based systems like science from conspiracy theories like QAnon and fakenews?

Now is a good time to explain it again because QAnon's #SaveTheChildren is hurting innocent children and helping Trump to make more victims.
fivethirtyeight.com/features/qanon…

QAnon is extreme but not so fringe anymore, now that we have Republican senators and Trump gamely embracing it.

You and I might "know" that it's a load of crap, but how can we explain the difference between QAnon and evidence based science?
washingtonpost.com/technology/202…

It's all about the scientific method and how it uses empiric evidence that can be challenged and must fit into a plausible theory that can be disproven.
The wikipedia entry is short but good (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientifi…).

But even more than an elaborate method, science is a mindset.

So if you read anything that is controversial and you don't want to play the role of gullible fool, ask yourself a couple of things:

1) How can the answers that are provided be questioned using empirical evidence?

If the evidence is too vague to question, or if people are not even trying to disprove it, you know you've found a conspiracy theory, a religion or an episode of the X-files.

Science is actually rather mundane that way. It's not about have genius level intelligence (although that never hurts of course) but about carefully establishing every fact before you start theorising.

2) Is the theory internally consistent?

You might think that consistency is only for lesser mortals, and I admit that finding your pet theory is not consistent is no fun. But if you want something that is not just in your imagination, you MUST be consistent.

Actually that's a very powerful verification mechanism. Someone once asked J.B.S. Haldane how the theory of evolution could be disproven and he answered: "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian". Imagine that: just 1 set of rabbit bones in the wrong place...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precambri….

So please dear reader/journalist: question the evidence and check if all parts of the theory can be true at the same time. A lot of lives depend on it. And that's not hyperbole.
bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…