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Comment by _hyn3 | Hacker News Reader

> About 80% of teens who use social media say they see content about conspiracy theories in their online feeds

Where conspiracy theory means what, exactly? Did they define this term for the teens (or even just for the survey)? Why is 'disinformation' (itself undefined) conflated with the hilariously ambiguous 'conspiracy theory'?

It's really just a terribly weak article, and the source "study" doesn't look much better. It really looks like it is a study set forth to push a particular agenda with "numbers".

Too many people confuse data with science, and perhaps that is what schools should actually be teaching; probably when they teach statistics, which all students should take. Pseudo-science like "critical thinking" can't really be taught, but actual science can.

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Agreed that the author doesn't seem to understand what is and is not a conspiracy theory. The article starts off by calling the ancient alien astronauts "theory" a conspiracy theory. Who are the conspirators? I don't mean Tsoukalos, he just spreads the myth. But if it's a conspiracy theory, there had to be conspirators. And there weren't, because there is no conspiracy. A conspiracy is not the same thing as a myth.

> Pseudo-science like "critical thinking" can't really be taught, but actual science can.

Arguably critical thinking is the express purpose of English and Language-Arts. Media literacy falls into that, too. People often discredit schools, but they already teach a lot of this stuff, it's just that Billy Bob was blowing snot bubbles.

I mean, a huge part of school is just reading pieces of text and trying to formulate an understanding, as well as gauging the Author's intent and the larger social context. That, to me, is just critical thinking.

I appreciate this; it's a good point.

A heck of a lot of so-called "conspiracy" theories have turned out to be absolutely true, too.

Most of the garbage you see on TikTok is not data, unless you consider disinformation valuable, I personally do not. It seems on TikTok and twitter when I dare venture there is pure competition to get clicks and have the most outlandish stories to get there. I know legacy media has its issues, but there is no comparison to the drivel that is firehose’d on twitter and TikTok (amongst the worst on the internet) short of right-wing cesspool channels on telegram and discord.

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