How to make Bullshit look like the truth (a short tweetorial):

One of the favourite narrative tricks of C19 deniers (actually, the same tricks are use by climate change deniers / rationalists) is a perversion of the 'appeal to authority' fallacy they so often like to bleat about

The classic 'appeal to authority' fallacy is a logic/info process flaw, where you trust someone's advice or information because they are in a position of authority rather than *being* an authority on the topic. Many of us do this growing up, imagining our parents know stuff :)

There are many subtle levels to this. Not every lawyer knows about all laws. I wouldn't ask a labour lawyer to advise me on a criminal matter. (Although I would probably still listen to the labour lawyer's legal advice over that of, say, an architect)

In the medical and bio-science community, there are myriad specialisations. You don't consult an ENT about your prostate, and so on. Or, you don't ask someone specialising in genetics to talk about public health. I mean, not as *expert authorities* that is.

Covid-19 (like climate change) has seen a Noah's ark of people develop sudden expertise in virology, immunology, public health, epidemiology, mortality, graphs etc. Many of these newly minted 'experts'* have even crossed not just disciplines but entire sectors
*notactuallyexperts

But who decides 'who is an expert anyway'? Well, one of the ways we 'decide' this is degrees, professional accreditation, etc. Another is popular acceptance as an expert. So, if the media regularly publishes your health advice, you can potentially be perceived as a health expert

And here's the clever trick: if you can get a non-expert dissenting opinion published in the press, this allows *all the other non-experts to refer to it as if it is an authority* and so they create the veneer of expertise, all the while committing a classic 'appeal to authority'

If you look at Covid-19 denialists, you will notice that they tend to cite and refer to each other in a most circular fashion. Some academics do this too (it's a good trick, if unethical), citing their own works in their new works, which boosts their appearance of citations

A sub-feature of this trick (& one of its most serious fallacies) is that because these people – WHO ARE LITERALLY APPEALING TO THEIR OWN AUTHORITY! – are not in fact the experts they imagine, they get things wrong. They don't read studies correctly, or even press releases

For example, last year a bunch of outlets started claiming the WHO had 'done a backflip' on lockdowns after a senior official made a statement that lockdowns should only be implemented as a last resort. Except, the WHO had actually been saying the same thing all along.

(here is an interesting thing: when you have a massive ego or a massive agenda, or you are too foolish to know what you do not know, your biases actually inhibit your ability to correctly process data)

here is how the loop works in practice:
- A C-19 denialist (say for e.g. a widely discredited UK pathologist conspo theorist) writes an op-ed about infectious disease that gets published by a ZA news platform which is anti-lockdown (why else publish a foreign non-expert?)

- The op-ed gets used to position the author & the flawed disease theory as being authoritative!
- This pov gets widely recycled by a handful of other denialists who support the outcome ('the govt is lying to us about C-19) even if they don't really grasp the missing science

- At some point the WHO or the Lance or some existing actual voice of authority publishes an update on the topic the denialists were convinced was a conspiracy. Except, they all interpret the WHO as *supporting their argument* because they have lost the ability to read clearly

Online, the non-experts start tweeting this as a 'gotcha' moment (the favoured denouement of the denier!) – except it isn't because their actual literacy has been impaired by their bias! – but they now share this as support of their faked 'authority' piece at the start

This ultimately creates a closed loop where a false authority is asserted, and given credibility *through sharing rather than expert peer review*, and which is then bolstered by appropriating official documents and pretending they support the original claim.

In poker and other games, we call it bluffing. But it is not clear that many of the people involved in this loop are aware it's a bluff.

Perhaps the best way of understanding this, is as a Pyramid Scheme of misinformation. Where, at each stage, if you get enough people to 'buy in' to the bullshit, it starts looking a lot like a real product. Until of course you reach the end, and (in this case) people are dying.

How to call their bullshit:
1. An expert in one area may not be an expert in another.
2. Watch for circular citation loops – a small circle of people who give each other credibility, but are not given the same credibility outside the circle / by other experts
[cont...]

3. Always read the original doc. If it is technical / covers an area where you're not an expert, don't trust your own interpretation of it – especially if you reach a conclusion that supports a 'gotcha' moment or conspo theory!
4. Find real experts. They are there & will help