Not to mention many of the early proponents were notorious conspiracy theorists, racists, and nut jobs who spoke with absolute certainty, cited virtually no evi

Not to mention many of the early proponents were notorious conspiracy theorists, racists, and nut jobs who spoke with absolute certainty, cited virtually no evidence and clearly had no idea what they were talking about. Could they, in their wild speculation, been right about a few things? Sure, that’s always possible, but they didn’t actually know that at the time. This isn’t a science or mainstream media problem; both require something resembling empirical evidence to make factual claims. It’s a problem of bullshitters, who can just stay stuff. If you want to be clear that they’re full of it, you run the risk that they actually guessed right.