Study: Conspiracy theorists fooled by even the most obvious anti-science trolling

[Wynternight]

Originally Posted by Kracer

Conspiracy theorists equate to the liberal 'slippery slope' where chewing a pop tart into the shape of a gun in grade school predicts a child who will, as an adult, be a sociopathic killer. the liberal slippery slope allows the utterance of a banned word to equate its speaker with a the most heinous, despicable hate filled heart. Slippery slope arguments appear as synonyms for conspiracy and must be seen for what they are.

Heh. Lib'ruls.

I have noted conservatives are far more likely to employ the Slippery Slope Fallacy here on C-D.

[Patricius Maximus]

Assuming the results of this experiment are as true for a good random sample of "conspiracy theorists" as who they actually tested it on, I wonder how the results of the experiment among "not conspiracy theorists" would differ. Considering that other studies have shown that conspiracy theorists act saner than those who believe official theories, my guess is not much.

After all, there have been many instances where satire has been passed off as genuine and elicited a lot of waste of cognitive resources among conspiracists and non-conspiracists alike. The fact that most who liked it were conspiracy theorists is likely a reflection that most of those that read about and look for information about chemtrails, troll or genuine, are conspiracy theorists. If you put out troll information about oil pipelines being linked to cancer and poisoning or Tea Party members scoring higher on psychopath tests the audience that liked and shared it would be composed of very different people.

There is also the possibility that has previously been raised that those that liked it saw right through it and wanted to share a good laugh.

[ContrarianEcon]

Conspiracy keep America talking about anything but why the let those 19 idiots on the airplanes.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by swagger

The confirmation bias circle jerk that takes place in the far fringes of the internet is astounding.

Here's the original article and while completely factual certainly has way overblown title:

Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste - Scientific American

How many people do you think read past the title? Here's a sample:

Coal Ash is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste - Clean Energy Action