[marginalia_nu]

I think this is a big part of the problem. It also means trusting the experts difficult, as it's really hard as a layman to know who is an expert. Most conspiracy theories in fact have their own experts they call upon.

I keep seeing discussions that go like preprint/abstract pokemon battles where everyone's just throwing out papers they don't understand that seem to corroborate their point as though that was enough.

If you can't read the papers, and don't understand their context in the field, then you really shouldn't be drawing conclusions from them. In science, you always start with "I don't know". If you see evidence that you don't understand, then you still don't know.

[the_snooze]

>I keep seeing discussions that go like preprint/abstract pokemon battles where everyone's just throwing out papers they don't understand that seem to corroborate their point as though that was enough.

It's the same phenomenon among people who learn logical fallacies for the first time. Instead of using that knowledge to improve their own framing and arguments, they instead use it as insta-kill magic spells to "win" arguments without actually bothering to understand the opposition.

Intellectual humility and curiosity are in short supply, especially in online spaces where you're rewarded for combat and engagement.

[marginalia_nu]

I think that's part of it, but I think it's mostly an artifact of a generation being taught that "reputable sources" is be-all end-all evidence, and critical thinking is the same as checking the existence of these sources.

That was possibly sound advice in the past, but it's definitely severely incomplete advice in the modern information ecosystem.

The pseudoscience people aren't eschewing science in favor of the emerald tablet of hermes trismegistus and drawing conclusions from seances and divining rods. More often than not, they draw on published articles too.