Close Menu
    Europeans are increasingly buying into conspiracy theories about science
    Europe

    Europeans are increasingly buying into conspiracy theories about science

    Share.
    View 32 Comments

    32 Comments

    1. ReadToW on

      Research: [https://www.nationalgeographic.nl/wetenschap/a64512170/complottheorieen](https://www.nationalgeographic.nl/wetenschap/a64512170/complottheorieen)

      Authors of the infographic [https://europeancorrespondent.com/en/r/fact-versus-fiction](https://europeancorrespondent.com/en/r/fact-versus-fiction)

      > This trend matters: conspiracy beliefs have been [linked](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11024355/) to lower compliance with public health recommendations, such as vaccination and other preventive measures, as well as to weakened trust in institutions. These can both undermine societal cohesion, reduce cooperation, and erode collective responses to crises

    2. silentspectator27 on

      It’s true, half my neighbours and acquaintances talk about climate changing/controlling weapons, a weird mix of Illuminati/Mason/ take your pick rule the world and nearly half believe or are willing to believe about chemtrails with a few flat earthers.

    4. uxgpf on

      Just shows the level of education.

      Ofc it happens everywhere. Not only in America. If public schools are shit and don’t teach critical thinking.

      The lesson here is. Invest in free and equal education for all. Make all schools follow the same rules so that parents won’t go school shopping.

    6. NocturneFogg on

      A lot of it here is showing level of bleed over from US politics. There’s a cohort here, mostly but not exclusively on the fringes of the right, who spend far too much time fully immersed in American politics – use the same talking points, same terminology, listen to the same podcasts, follow the same influencers. I’d reckon 1 in 10 or so. You’ll hear it regurgitated by the likes of taxi drivers etc.

      Compare the splodge for 2021 Vs 2024 which is likely early COVID vs post COVID too, which is the other one that brought them out of the woodwork.

      It’s not remotely big enough to have actual traction in politics, but it’s there and can be quite loud.

    7. crossdtherubicon on

      Support for science is essential. The cause of these opinions may be a toxic mix of declining quality of public education plus social media influences.

      The underlying premise is that there are a few extremely powerful people or organizations that actively undermine the well-being of the majority, and a sense of powerlessness. The premise proves more and more true.

    9. BlimundaSeteLuas on

      I’m fairly educated, academically at least, and I don’t really believe that everything that is told by the super powerful is actually true.

      This doesn’t mean I believe in conspiracy theories blindly. There’s no doubt that the earth is round or that the man has been to the moon.

      But do you really believe in everything the people in power say? How much shit has been going on around the world that takes years or even decades to be leaked? Look at the Epstein files for example.

      Everything is about power and money. I don’t think they’re necessarily hiding the cure to cancer, because there isn’t really a single cancer that can be cured. I do believe that we’re getting better and better treatments with time.

      But in the end, the amount of money involved in healthcare is staggering. I have no doubt that pharmaceutical companies prioritize money. And this means that sometimes not the best choices, health wise, will be made.

      Blindly believing everything that you’re told is also dangerous, imo.

      Also, for those of you saying that this correlates to the level of education, this might be true. But it also correlates to the level of corruption in each country which will lower the trust of their citizens in the ones in charge.

    11. Final_Alps on

      Social media is propagandists wet dream. It is plague on the free thought. We are all being constantly manipulated to believe in nonsense.

      Usually we measure it in obvious impacts like these but all of us are being manipulated. It’s about time we ban the American platforms and figure out how to build something new and better.

    14. Low_discrepancy on

      The fact that France, the country with the largest homeopathy labs in the world is in the lower quarter of this, makes me quite worried for the rest of Europe.

    17. tesfabpel on

      The cure for cancer exists but it’s hidden from the public, yet Steve Jobs (and other millionaires / billionaires), with all his money, died from cancer…

    19. feichinger on

      Those are two particularly odd choices for conspiracy theories, though.

      1. Historically, hiding beneficial research from the public for profit has happened a lot. Europe in particular is still dealing with the fallout from this in engineering, and particularly climate science is known for this (oil companies that hid or stopped climate-friendly alternatives). In medicine it’s _less_ common, but not unheard of either (though it often goes the way of under-marketing for cheaper and better alternatives, rather than outright burying results).

      2. Viruses have been produced in government labs, that part is factually true. The motivations are less clear. Considering some of the documents we see out of Davos every now and then, that becomes even murkier. Given how much bioweapon research we have historically seen, even moreso. Does that mean COVID was a deliberately engineered pandemic? Probably not. Is it completely outlandish to think it might have been, though? I dunno. I wouldn’t, but I can see why.

      Putting these two under a “fact vs fiction” label is _quite_ a framing – and I’m sure that will drive even more scepticism. With so many much clearer conspiracy theories to choose from, why pick two that are nowhere near as clear? Well, because a lot of people “believe” them, probably, and that makes for a great “but science!” headline…

    22. OVazisten on

      I like these articles where they only measure the conspiracy theories that are discussed as such in the mainstream media. What about the ones that have conquered the press and are thought true by the majority? For instance consider these three statements, try to find how many of them are lies!

      1. Neither Monsanto nor any other seed producer has ever sued anyone for accidental cross-pollination, and such a lawsuit would not stand up in court, as it is a typical case of force majeure (=vis major).
      2. All GMOs ever marketed reproduce in exactly the same way as their parent strain. Terminator seeds have never been marketed, and no one has ever sown them anywhere on Earth. GMOs are just as fertile as other plants.
      3. All new plant varieties are protected by law. Since 1930, you can apply for a variety patent for any plant variety you have bred, at which point the state grants you a monopoly on its use for twenty years. If a farmer wants to sow it on their land, they must pay royalties to the variety owner. This is the basis of the modern world, and this is how enough capital was raised for plant breeding.

      So, how many did you find? All three are true, but all three address conspiracy theories very common among Europeans.

    23. Abject-Bowle on

      I think COVID has undermined a lot of trust to governments and media, because a lot of restrictions and implemented solutions were just ducking moronic.

    24. Mestyo on

      I am pretty confident this scales 1:1 with the quality and availability of education over the past several decades.

    26. AnonomousWolf on

      It’s impossible to cure cancer in the same way that it’s impossible to cure electronics breaking.

      Cancer is just the machinery of your cells going wrong, there’s millions of ways it can go wrong.
      We can fix some of them but there will always be more or new ones, and it’s each specific to a specific person