How to disprove a conspiracy theory?

Question

There are lots of absurd conspircay theories out there that seems convincing to lots of people who lack skepticism skills. Although we may not know the answer to some questions, doesn't mean that a hypothesis that gives us answers is true. Conspiracy theories usually ignore things we already know, and often absurd.

How can a disprove a conspiracy theory to someone who is naive and falls into believing them?

Further readings on wikipedia may be helpful.

Answer 1

It is impossible to prove that the CIA didn't shoot JFK, that aliens weren't captured at Area 51, or that the Jews didn't bomb the World Trade Center.

It is also impossible to prove that god didn't create a seemingly billion year old fossil record to fool people of little faith into believing in evolution or that Atheists didn't fake the moon landing to cover up the fact that the real spaceship couldn't break through the firmament.

If you aren't willing to accept the preponderance of evidence, there's little hope for you.

Answer 2

You can't. First, it would involve proving a negative (for instance, premise: "There are no massive conspiracies running global human society"), which you simply can't do.

Secondly, as you point out, conspiracy theories live and breed in the areas where we don't have the answers to the questions we pose, so you can't oppose the theory by pointing out the"reality" of the situation.

And thirdly, although big-C, global, Illuminati-style Conspiracy Theories are rather unlikely to be true, people have been known to conspire on occasion to create an advantage, so certain smaller-scale conspiracy theories may, in fact, be mostly or entirely true.

Answer 3

Conspirators take attention off of real conspiracies by giving them enough credibility, and then adding enough ********, to end serious investigation into them.