Conspiracy theories. Everyone has heard them and we all think there might be a grain of truth hidden somewhere in all that BS. As you wade through the muck of conspiracy theories, I’m going to help you (hopefully) make reasonable judgments.

Every time you hear a conspiracy theory, you’re probably wondering if it’s true or not. Here’s what you should do: Ask yourself this simple question – Would a professor at a research university like Harvard or MIT be able to prove this conspiracy theory wrong? 

Let’s take the common conspiracy theory of the moon landing being a hoax. Ask yourself: Would a professor at a research university be able to prove this conspiracy theory wrong? The answer is yes! As a Ph.D. student in the natural sciences (synthetic biology, for me), believe me when I say that professors at these kinds of universities have incredible autonomy and vast resources to answer these basic questions. Common telescopes available to every astronomy professor in the United States and around the world were being used to watch the Saturn V rocket take off and make its way to the moon. Just the University of California Berkeley alone has 5 observatories with multiple telescopes capable of watching the action unfold.

Every point these conspiracy theories make can be proven wrong with easy scientific explanations. The moon landing was an amazing feat pulled off using computers with less computing power than your smartphone has.  Let’s not taint the achievements of these brilliant scientists with some conspiracy theory that’s been debunked for decades.

I hope the next time you come across a conspiracy theory, you ask yourself if a university professor would be able to disprove the theory. If it’s yes, please ignore the theory. If it’s a no, read up more about it and decide for yourself. Don’t let others decide for you.

Sincerely,

A Scientist