How to know what’s true • Richard Carrier Blogs

In this blog post, Dr. Richard Carrier details how to tell what's true, using methods that can be applied to any claims.  In this example, he works out a response to anti-vaxxers: On the Strange Idea That Viruses Don't Exist.

Quoting from his blog post:

I want to impart to you some advice for dealing with any claims in that domain, because there are three "dirty tricks" that all cranks like anti-vaxxers pull that you can look for to catch this happening every time, so you can vet these things yourself and not need someone like me to:

1. They will cite papers that (i) don't actually say what they claim, or (ii) don't actually imply what they claim, or (iii) have been retracted or refuted by subsequent, higher-powered studies, or (iv) have never been independently replicated while the contrary finding has been. This is dishonest and manipulative. So anyone whose argument is mostly built this way is either (a) a liar you should never trust again, or (b) their gullible victim, whose judgment on this matter you shouldn't trust until they get up to speed. And (b) you might be able to help. But for (a), just walk and block.
2. They will make claims you can prove false with ten minutes of effort, and which when thus eliminated, fatally cripple their argument, calling their conclusion (and their competence) into sufficient doubt to walk away (see my Primer on Actually Doing Your Own Research). Don't play their game of having to rebut "everything" they say. A single fatality to their argument is enough to identify it all as a waste of your time; but three is decisive. Any ensuing whining and raging is just emotional manipulation at that point. You don't owe them any more of your time. You can just walk and block.
3. They will make arguments that you can immediately identify as fallacious, and which when thus eliminated, fatally cripple their argument. Here, maybe, they can "fix" the argument, and all they have demonstrated is that they are bad at thinking. Which is not a good sign. But you can give them a chance. Though they only get three. Third strike and they're out. You then know they cannot think. And if they cannot think, nothing they do think is worth the bother of your listening to. Walk and block.

Those three tactics are common to all pseudoscience and every implausible conspiracy, so it's good advice all around. Whether it's flat earth, lizard people, or climate denial. Or, indeed, even Christianity or Islam or woo—or MAGA.

  

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/35080