michael shermer, psychologist, historian of science and founding publisher of skeptic magazine. doctor micro shermer psychologist, historian of science and founding publisher of skeptic magazine. great. have you with us, michael? high to see you. alright, so conspiracy theories, they've always been there, but the last half a year, i mean the really started to multiply numbers. first we have, they call it, which is a scam aim to impose more states raylon's though we have the g 5 towers. they are causing the virus, then we have the vaccines that contain satan's microchip. when, when you name it, is how do you explain this trend? like the latest trend in general, people out of power tend to say that people in power have more power than they actually have. and that gives rise to kind of fuels these conspiracy theories that anybody can concoct. and what, let's the construct caseras' series. what is the believe in conspiracy here is like it is some kind of mental virus that targets are rain. is it just in modern form or superstition? i mean from mentally the same as some kind of medie

michael shermer, psychologist, historian of science and founding publisher of skeptic magazine, doctor micro shermer, psychologist, historian of science and founding publisher of skeptic magazine. great. have you with us, michael high to see you. alright, so conspiracy theorist they've always been there, but or the last half a year, i mean the really started to multiply numbers. first we have, they call it, which is a scam aim to impose more states raylon's that we have the g 5 towers. they are causing the virus, then we have the vaccines that contain satan's microchip. when, when you name it, is how do you explain this trans? like the latest trend in general, people out of power tend to think that people in power have more power than they actually have. and that gives rise to kind of fuels these conspiracy theories that anybody can concoct. and what, let's the construct caseras' series. what is the believe in conspiracy theories like it is some kind of mental virus that targets are rain? is it just in modern form or a superstition? i mean from de mentally the same as some kind of a me

michael shermer, psychologist, historian of science and founding publisher of skeptic magazine. doctor michael shermer, psychologist, historian of science and founding publisher of skeptic magazine. great. have you with us, michael? hi, nice to see you. all right, so a conspiracy theorist they've always been there, but or the last half a year. i mean the really started to multiply numbers. first we have the call it, which is a scam aim to impose more states raylon's that we have the g 5 towers. they are causing the virus, then we have the vaccines that contain satan's microchip. when, when you name it, is how you explained this trend. like the latest trend in general, people out of power tend to say that people in power have more power than they actually have. and that gives rise to kind of fuels these conspiracy theories that anybody can concoct. and what, let's the construct concert series. what is the believe in conspiracy theories like it is some kind of mental virus that targets are rain? is it just in modern form or a superstition? i'm going to mentally the same as some ki

michael shermer, psychology historian of science and founding publisher of skeptic magazine. talking about conspiracy theory. michael, for someone like you who's studying this and who you know, who, who made a science out of it? do you have maybe like, i don't know like a simple 3 step or a 5 step role that would apply to any theory to crack it down and say this is a real one and this is not. are this some curious why to any? yes. yes. so several things is, is a claim been tested by somebody who is the person making the claim? did they have some credibility to them or are they just some nobody is not that outsiders and nobody's can't make contributions to science, they can and have, but it's just very unlikely. there's a community of scientists, experts in a particular field that argue amongst themselves. and that the, and the reason that's important is because most of us get it wrong. most of the time that is, we have cognitive biases, confirmation bias, the hindsight, bias in my side bias and all these things that distort how we see the world. but if i have somebody else th

michael shermer, psychologist, historian of science and founding publisher of skeptic magazine, doctor micro shermer, psychologist, historian of science and founding publisher of skeptic magazine. great. have you with us, michael? high to see you. alright, so conspiracy theories they've always been there, but the last half a year, i mean the really started to.