[Rury]

The thing is though... there is no way around the "trust" problem, whether it comes to science or anything else. Plato's allegory of the cave makes this quite evident IMO. In the end, we're all ignorant, all have our set of beliefs, and all must willfully choose for ourselves what's persuasive. Science just sees pointing to evidence as the most practical way of testing beliefs. And quite honestly... what else is there for testing beliefs? Making a different argument for the nature of something that could also be reasonably plausible (e.g. a conspiracy theory)? Well that's a hypothesis, which is also a belief, and so we're back to square one... which is everything is ultimately a stack of willfully chosen beliefs that we deem trustworthy.

[lumberjack]

You can make persuasive arguments that might not appeal to the scientifically literate rationalist, but will appeal to the somebody who is just using very crude heuristics and might have ended up believing in a conspiracy theory.

For example regarding climate change: you can construct an argument around the ridiculous idea that scientists are somehow taking on the worldwide fossil fuel industries, and the most powerful and ruthless countries on earth, including the US, Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, and they are doing this because by inventing a lie about the earth warming up. The very lopsided power dynamics in this scenario expose the conspiracy theory for the farce that it is.

[Rury]

Yes, you can make different arguments. The point I'm making is that it's ultimately upon them to decide what to believe in. They may or may not accept your alternative argument as convincing. Everyone ultimately chooses what they believe and trust in as evidence. There is no way around this, so you cannot force anyone to accept something. But yes, you can keep trying by presenting different arguments/evidence...