{"id":6559,"date":"2024-05-07T20:30:40","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T01:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=6559"},"modified":"2026-02-11T13:14:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:14:56","slug":"how-to-tell-if-a-conspiracy-theory-is-probably-false","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/05\/07\/how-to-tell-if-a-conspiracy-theory-is-probably-false\/","title":{"rendered":"How to tell if a conspiracy theory is probably\u00a0false"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-to-tell-if-a-conspiracy-theory-is-probably-false-229081\">The Conversation<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Conspiracy theories&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2021\/03\/02\/971289977\/through-the-looking-glass-conspiracy-theories-spread-faster-and-wider-than-ever\">are everywhere<\/a>, and they can involve just about anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/today.yougov.com\/politics\/articles\/48113-which-conspiracy-theories-do-americans-believe\">People believe false conspiracy theories<\/a>&nbsp;for a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.press.jhu.edu\/books\/title\/12893\/conspiracy\">wide range of reasons<\/a>&nbsp;\u2013 including the fact that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/true-government-conspiracies-2013-12\">there are real conspiracies<\/a>, like efforts by the Sackler family to profit by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/richard-sackler-oxycontin-oxycodone-strength-conceal-from-doctors-sealed-testimony\">concealing the addictiveness of oxycontin<\/a>&nbsp;at the cost of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2021\/12\/30\/1069062738\/more-than-a-million-americans-have-died-from-overdoses-during-the-opioid-epidemi\">countless American lives<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The extreme consequences of unfounded conspiratorial beliefs could be seen on the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/jan-6-was-an-example-of-networked-incitement-a-media-and-disinformation-expert-explains-the-danger-of-political-violence-orchestrated-over-social-media-220501\">staircases of the U.S. Capitol<\/a>&nbsp;on Jan. 6, 2021, and in the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/person-sets-self-on-fire-near-court-trump-criminal-trial\/\">self-immolation of a protestor<\/a>&nbsp;outside the courthouse holding the latest Trump trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But if hidden forces really are at work in the world, how is someone to know\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.skeptic.com\/skepticism-101\/conspiracies-and-conspiracy-theories-lecture\/\">what\u2019s really going on<\/a>? That\u2019s where my research comes in; I\u2019m a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=ESP8OREAAAAJ&amp;hl=en&amp;oi=ao\">social psychologist<\/a>\u00a0who studies\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.routledge.com\/American-Conspiracism-An-Interdisciplinary-Exploration\/Ritter\/p\/book\/9781032604626\">misleading narratives<\/a>. Here are some ways to vet a claim you\u2019ve seen or heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-to-tell-if-a-conspiracy-theory-is-probably-false-229081\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conversation Conspiracy theories&nbsp;are everywhere, and they can involve just about anything. People believe false conspiracy theories&nbsp;for a&nbsp;wide range of reasons&nbsp;\u2013 including the fact that&nbsp;there are real conspiracies, like efforts by the Sackler family to profit by&nbsp;concealing the addictiveness of oxycontin&nbsp;at the cost of&nbsp;countless American lives. The extreme consequences of unfounded conspiratorial beliefs could be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misinformation-disinformation-and-conspiracy-theories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11417,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6559\/revisions\/11417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}