There is a legal principle that if a statement is wrong in part, it is wrong in the whole. That is, logically speaking, a good maxim for single arguments. For example if I say 2+1 = 4, then you can know that my equation of (2+1)x(3+4)=28 was solved incorrectly.
However, this maxim of “wrong in part, wrong in whole” does not apply for separate arguments. If in separate debate I say 3x3=9, you can’t use as proof that 3*3 =/= 9 because I had said 2+1=4. Doing so is called the “genetic fallacy”.
Now, that I have made clear the issue with simple examples, let us expand the topic to conspiracy theories. And there are a lot of them, aren’t there?
Bigfoot and cryptids; Freemasonry; Rothschilds and Jew banking stuff; Holocaust; Alien abductions; Election theft; Hitler escaped to Argentina; Weather control; Covid; Fluoride; Various shades of 9/11 from inside job to controlled demo; moon landing was fake; Flat earth; Kennedy was killed by the CIA; Etc. etc. etc.
If someone on the board thinks that 9/11 was an inside job, but say, NOT a controlled demolition, one should debate 9/11 data with the person. Here is where if you can show someone’s theory is wrong in part, then more likely than not it is wrong in whole.
But what happens if someone agrees with you that 9/11 was a controlled demo, but thinks that the moon landing was not faked? Here, because they are separate topics, using someone’s belief that the moon landing happened has zero weight on if 9/11 was a controlled demo.
In fact, you look like a fucking moron for saying to someone who thinks that aliens abductions occur (when you don’t) that their take on covid as a depopulation scheme is wrong only because of their take on aliens. Whinny soy boy faggots will disregard Joe Rogan saying the sky is blue because it came from Joe Rogan. How about skeptically looking up at the sky after hearing such, or at a minimum, not engaging if you aren’t sure. If you are not well informed on a topic, nothing prevents you from not debating it.
You should take each topic INDIVIDUALLY. I know people who are the “right side” of things on most issues (at least to me) but who think Freemasonry is just a club for guys to get together, with nothing sinister at all. While Freemasonry is evil, I am not going to throw out data the guy presents on covid because he says his uncle is a Freemason and that it just a social club; I take his data on covid and evaluate it as it relates to covid. Likewise I have a friend who thinks that 6 million Jews were gassed and that covid tyranny is a lead up to this happening again. Avoid bullshit purity tests and take the guy’s support fighting covid tyranny and debate the Holocaust separate. Ya dig?
There is, perhaps, one exception to this rule about weighing evidence for each topic separate...if you are making the case that the conspiracies are linked. Then you debate the linkage: is it the FBI, the Deep State, or your own take that Obama is pulling the strings. But that is not what is happening on this board. Instead you get bullshit purity tests. Let me tell you, mon ami, nobody on earth will align with ALL your views unless that person is in the mirror.
So, in sum, debate each topic separately, don’t assume because they disagree with you in X that their opinion is invalid on Y.
That's eliding into inductive reasoning, with all the problems therein.
Sticking with the algebraic examples, if we are solving to find an unknown, say 2+X=4 then we are debating what X is. Solving for X would be saying Kennedy was killed (2) by a conspiracy (4) but who was involved in the conspiracy (x) is the question, which in this case would be the CIA is my answer.
To your example about Kennedy; if I say a conspiracy killed Kennedy but provide the wrong group (Casto was upset), or an unsupported one (the Mafia did it), or one that is disprovable (aliens decreed it), then that is evidence that I am incorrect about how it was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.
Which is my entire point. You are not incorrect that a conspiracy that killed Kennedy. That is correct, and always will be. No matter how far off base you are on the (x), the 2 and the 4 remain correct, so the fallacy of "This person is incorrect here so must always be incorrect" is just a way to silence the opinion you are not supposed to hear. "See, he is wrong about 1, so 2 and 4 must be given no credence! Ignore the glass window no one dying bothered to punch out. Ignore the mass and inertia vs structure and collapsing from within. Ignore that every single parent at Sandy Hook worked for the federal government and almost all of them were SAG members. Because (x) is wrong, thus 4 cannot be right and 2 cannot be a part of it"
If I have the theory, and a key point of it is can be proven to be wrong, then I need to revise my hypothesis. There are all sorts of intermediary variables one needs to consider, and perhaps you missed one that is related to causality.
You proving that Aliens didnt make the CIA kill Kennedy doesn't prove the CIA didn't kill Kennedy. That is still the real point.
Pretty much. But if someone could show good evidence that the CIA wasn't involved, I also should revise my theory.
Here is a classic example. If a major part of my theory is that increased murder rates are correlated with ice cream sales, and therefore, that ice cream causes murder, it might be useful if someone points out that ice cream sales increase with temperature, and that the murder rate also goes up with the temperature. I thus revise my theory that hot temperatures make the murder rate go up because people are outside and interacting more. How on earth can ice cream cause people to commit murder?