Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But highly credentialed physicians and academics who simply have opinions that deviate from the established consensus? This is called the Halo effect: someone who is good in one way is surely good in all ways. If Terence Tao posted on his blog tomorrow that he has video proof that Hillary Clinton is a secret lizard person, I would certainly be shocked, and I might even read what he has to say, but I would still imm…
You just wrote that debunking a crazy idea with facts is "false equivalency", and that it promotes crazy ideas.
The truth is subtle, nuanced, and complex. It takes long, in-depth study to understand. It's not always obvious to a layperson who is "debunking" whom. Just as we don't automatically expect a beautiful or useful crop to outcompete noxious weeds just because we like them better, we should not expect the truth to outcompete crazy in 20-minute podcast segments. Crazy is much better at spreading into brains than the truth, because that's exactly the selection pressure that led the crazy to evolve in the first place. True ideas don't evolve by being extremely good at sticking in your brain; they evolve when humans sit down and realize that that's not the appropriate arena for them.