Sadly, there is no amount of in-their-face proof to overcome the "I do my own research" mentality.

And the original meme here misses the most important piece - they lack the basic concept of logic to understand how cause and effect relate to each other. So showing them A vs B won't get them to the results you expect - even though it should.

I mean most don't go to their PhDs because it is effectively training for being an academic. Except there are very few jobs for academics so you'll be an adjunct professor getting paid poverty wages.

The problem is not and has not been science. The problem is messaging.

Yes, but the actual factor driving this is the meteoric rise of the top 1% richest, it is wealth inequality that creates a coherence to misinformation by establishing systematic incentives. There have always been nebulous, destructive, cancer like forces of misinformation, it is as human as human can be but we aren't really fighting to transcend the pitfalls our own nature, we are fighting to get on the same page about the rich fucking us all over by artificially supercharging these tendencies within us for their own gain.

It is irrational to just see this as an abstract conversation about the human brain's susceptibility to misinformation as it ignores the costly material operation being undertaken to manipulate us with said misinformation.

A person is smart. People are dumb.

Well between the anti-vaxxers and any-vaxxers, the any-vaxxers won, by measure of how many took the jabs, believing "follow the science" without detecting an oxymoron.

Beware the power of advertising and ignorance of epistemology.

I have to agree about the too good in their effectiveness. To get to a point where people are just like, “Nah, it ain’t a big deal” is built atop the millions of dead.

This is an important comment. We do not teach science on high schools , we stream students to science if they are self directed, then everyone else takes bullshit courses for an easy grade, these days acheived with LLMs.

"Smart people" are generally not rich people. They are coerced into labor like anyone else. Sometimes their labor is even useful.

They generally don't have the time or reason to participate in a counter-productive popularity contest.

Because with educatio comes a sense of ethics and responsibility. Anyone with ethics will never get accepted into any political party.

Because there's no valid nor sound singular-pecking-order, and typically those "smart people" respected as "so smart" are "smart" in other aptitudes than the social aptitude and ruthlessness to so social climb and manipulate to be "in charge".

I very often say: we can all be polymaths in the making, not slaves in training. If/when we do so proceed that way, we'd catch more of these follies, and seek better protections and implementations and systems, than just leaving it to the most ruthless social climber, the most effective liar, getting in charge.

Because to be successful in politics it's much more important to be charismatic and well spoken than to be actually smart. It's a dad state of affairs.

It doesn't help that there is way too much shitty, agenda-funded science today. And science we aren't supposed to question. And science driven entirely by profit. Like, isn't questioning science part of science? Of course the response is completely unreasonable too. All of my family are research scientists, and if a discovery doesn't meet capitalistic goals, is it even a discovery at this point?

A bit of philosophy/media would help as well, it doesn't help to teach someone science, if they don't understand what science is.

To your point, I've met quite a few STEM educated people who fall for this type of misinformation due to lack of historical and political literacy.

Quite a few are also quite disrespectful to the humanities so they tend to be empathetically underdeveloped since they feel their whole life is about producing results and making progress at any cost necessary.

Appeal to emotions, rather than logic, and if you pull the right lever, that person will get a bias confirmation, feel smarter for knowing something everyone else doesn't and in some cases, feel less insecure for not knowing enough.

I've met people that have a degree or that are even teaching and have the worst baseless believes. It's only a matter of getting to your levers.

Sure, but a fundamental understanding of the basics, across all disciplines (science , history, literature, and math) helps one spot bullshit from a mile away. Science especially helps apply math and critical thinking.

How do you determine they are "nonsensical conspiracies"?

Could it be media induces in us a belief that we think ourselves "media competent", such that we begin to presume to know, without scrutiny?

... Certainly used to be my job, when I worked in advertising. Easier to induce in people, than to undo.

Few seem of a Socratic bent, such as "All I know is I know nothing. And sometimes I forget even that much.", preferring instead the feels of believing themselves smart and wise, not confronting the horror of how readily manipulated they are. ... Sorry for my part, doing that to everybody who saw the adverts and corporate branding I made when I was "just doing my job". Had I stayed in the industry, I dread to think what I'd be doing now with the power at the advertiser's/marketer's/propagandist's disposal, able to cold read smart phone users, 24/7.

I used to do it. And I'm not self deluded enough to think even my level of media awareness is in any way adequate a protection against it.

But having said that... Yes, better media awareness(/"competence"), than "a doctors degree". Having a doctorate makes sure you were obedient enough to get through the system, and makes you a special influencer target for such manipulations. Always seek another "2nd opinion".