Madison Area Lyme Support Group

During this time of COVID-19, the term “conspiracy theory” has been bandied about too casually by mainstream media sources. We indeed live in an “age of misinformation,” a time when it is legitimately hard to tell what exactly is true and what is not. But during this time, how do we make sense of the non-stop flood of contradictory COVID-19 information? And what do we make of alleged COVID-19 conspiracies?

Seldom do the media acknowledge that “conspiracy theory” can become weaponized, the charge becoming a means to stifle free inquiry into a topic. Who decides between valid information versus misinformation? And who decides what distinguishes a conspiracy theory from real political or financial agenda?

The mainstream media, often acting in concert with business or government, have decided it is their responsibility to be the official purveyors of news, the anointed ones to tell you what is authoritative versus what is not; and they have decided to tell you what stories constitute conspiracy theories.  (See link for article)

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**Comment**

Excellent read – highly recommend.

The author states there are important questions to be asked of each author or “authority” including:

What is a ‘conspiracy?’

To conspire means to “join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or an act which becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement.” These happen continually and the author mentions many that were investigated and exposed.

A conspiracy theory is a “theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as a result of a conspiracy.” Not a neutral label, this term can be weaponized to prevent investigation and free-speech by branding it as untrue or based on insufficient evidence, superstition, or prejudice. It functions as a form of character assassination to discredit dissenters. Power-holders weaponize the term to shape the narrative and resist opposition. BTW: Lyme/MSIDS has been widely shaped by power-holders who stifle legitimate scientific inquiry. The current narrative has been spun for over 40 years.

12 Questions to Help You Assess Claims of Conspiracy Theory

• Are there any uses of logical fallacies or rhetorical devices present in defending the “official narrative”?
  • Ad hominem arguments: attacking the character, motives, or attributes of a person or group without attacking the substance of the logical argument.
  • Red herring/deflection: information that deliberately misleads or distracts
  • Strawman: distortion the dissenter’s position to give an impression of refuting it
  • Non-sequitur: stating a series of facts and then deriving a conclusion that does not follow the facts.
  • Cherry-picking: bringing up data which supports a particular position while ignoring contradictory data
  • Begging the question: presuming the conclusion to be true, instead of providing proof.
  • Appeal to authority: using an authority figure to claim truth without evidence for it.
  • Lie by omission: lying by either omitting certain facts or by failing to correct a misconception.
• What are the assertions made in the article that the author assumes “every reasonable person must believe”?
  • One must distangle half-truths and assumptions, especially assumptions that everyone who is logical or reasonable should believe.
• Who benefits from the official narrative?
  • It’s imperative to identify power-holders and interests to determine how they might benefit from the narrative.
• How accurate is the portrayal of the alternative narrative? 
  • One trick deployed is to make the dominate narrative appear more favorable, and also to present the most extreme alternative to stop critical thinking and discussion.
• Whose interests are harmed by the alternative narrative? Some useful questions to consider:
  • How large in dollars is the market relevant to the dominant players’ interests?
  • Does the alternative narrative damage any existing revenue lines of the existing players?
  • Does the alternative narrative change the environment in a way that would hurt the existing players?
  • Does the alternative narrative damage the ability of the existing players to influence society?
• How credible is the alternative narrative?
  • You must examine the actual arguments/data for yourself. Weaponization works by convincing you that the probability of the alternative is so low it is unreasonable.
• If the official narrative were untrue, what paradigms would this invalidate?
  • A paradigm is useful in clarifying reality, but it can blind us to observations that lie outside the paradigm’s explanatory realm.  Again, Lyme/MSIDS is a perfect example.
• Is there a political or ideological agenda being served? If so, what is this agenda?
  • You must separate fact from opinion and be alert for ideological biases.  Mainstream media now is nothing more than editorializing.  Be alert for intimidation & bullying and scientism which promotes & over-glorifies science. Fauci’s statement that anyone who questions him is questioning science comes to mind – setting both himself and science up as gods who know far more than you do.
• What financial interests or power agenda is served by those propagating the narrative, and how large are these incentives?
  • How does the narrative financially benefit or give power to those behind the narrative?
  • Find data on how large the financial interests are: i.e. the COVID shots have already made billions of dollars for pharmaceuticals, and so there is tremendous incentive to downplay risks and prevent inquiry into adverse events.
• Is the burden of proof applied equally for both sides?
  • It is suspicious when one side states the other side is wrong without evidence. Carefully examine the burden of proof as well as cherry-picking data to justify the position.
• What first-hand evidence do we have for both sides?
  • Consult the evidence and sources to determine if the logic is sound. Media will cite a source but misrepresent the meaning to further the narrative. For example, a New York Times article made a case for the flu vaccine but deliberately ignored the modest conclusions over efficacy by the Cochrane Collaboration.
• How likely are “alternative paradigms” to be true?
  • When presented with two sides, ascertain whether the dominant paradigm explains all the observed phenomena.  If it doesn’t, the alternative must be considered and weighed.

The article then goes through some common COVID-19 conspiracies immediately refuted by main-stream media:

• 5G networks are making people sick, not Coronavirus.

  • The Reuter article debunking this conspiracy uses a strawman argument by presenting the extreme position as a binary one: you either believe the deaths are from 5G or COVID-19, but not both. The discussion of 5G being responsible for COVID deaths misses the more fundamental question: Does 5G exposure have negative health effects? This is a legitimate question whose diminishment benefits the beneficiaries of 5G technology. The article assumes and uses the appeal to authorities and consensus to insist it is safe. We have every right to hold authorities to a higher safety demonstration as it affects our lives. The article digs into the other issues as well and is well worth reading.

• COVID-19 Originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

  • Snopes presents a series of non-sequiturs that appear to be authoritative facts but have nothing to do with the lab-origin hypothesis’s veracity and only serve as distractions. It uses biased characterization on an interview between Dr. Joseph Mercola and lawyer Francis Boyle. Several ad hominem fallacies are used to discredit both these men.  It cites a Nature study and accompanying commentary by National Institute of Health director Francis Collins in which a different virus with a spike-binding protein adaption similar to the one used by SaRs-CoV-2 was found in Pangolins. Neither debunks the lab-origin hypothesis but merely presents another theory. There are lies of omission by failing to discuss material that would influence our judgment regarding what is plausible versus not. By cherry-picking facts and arguments, it influences the reader unfairly. They simply omit the gain-of-function research funded by the NIH on bats that was being done at the lab and that safety concerns were raised in 2018.  U.S. Right to Know reported that “a statement in The Lancet authored by 27 prominent public health scientists condemning ‘conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin’ was organized by employees of EcoHealth Alliance.” This seems to be a deliberate public relations scheme to draw attention away from the lab-origin hypothesis. Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIAID director, would benefit from this hypothesis as it draws attention away from his funding role of the GOF research and potential culpability in case of a lab release. Further, much evidence was given in the article connecting the military to ‘gain of function’ research demonstrating a vested interest, which was completely ignored by Snopes.

• Chicago Tribune’s “No, COVID-19 vaccines don’t contain Satan’s microchips (and other scary conspiracy theories aren’t true either)”

  • They give strawman and weaponized arguments by presenting a series of extreme views on supposedly a minority of “anti-vaccine” groups that they mock, rather than actual concerns. Anti-vax, and anti-vaccine is using language and social pressure to create an us-versus-them mentality. “Satan’s microchip” is also weaponized language and an ad hominem fallacy to mock digital surveillance concerns over a very real Gates partnership with MIT to store vaccination records in a ‘quantum dot’ in the skin which encodes information that is stored. The novel mRNA technology that will utilize the human body’s own cells to develop the antigen has never been used in humans before and was developed faster than any other vaccine in history. This fact makes it more akin to gene therapy than a traditional vaccine. There has been no long term safety studies.  Experts have admitted there are unknown risks involved including autoimmunity. “Vaccine” manufacturers themselves warn that a certain subset of people will experience some adverse effects, including flu-like symptoms like muscle aches and fever. Other organizations have sounded a loud warning that the Chicago Tribune piece ignores, as well as the question of who decides if the risk/benefit calculation is worth it?  The Chicago Tribune has decided this question for the reader.

The article also gives a complete list of references at the end.