The trouble with "conspiracy theorists"

Even when seemingly wild claims are proven to be valid and truthful, people’s minds have already been made up.

“You are definitely not — in my book or any of my Democratic family or friends’ book — a Democrat. Your conspiracy theories, they literally scare us,” said Sharon, a caller on a recent C-SPAN show featuring Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

C-SPAN Sharon had called in to excoriate the presidential candidate.

“We just came out of four years full of Trump’s lies and his conspiracy theories in this country. You claim that you want to heal us as a nation and our divide, and this is not… I mean: ‘wifi causes cancer’, and ‘5G is mass surveillance’, and ‘chemicals in our water cause transgender’, and ‘antidepressants cause school shootings’... I’m so confused, so I’m looking for clarity from you,” she said.

Kennedy went on to present C-SPAN Sharon with evidence to support some of the statements she claims are conspiracy theories, but we’ll unfortunately never know whether she was swayed by his arguments.

Chances are she wasn’t though, since we have long known (and decades of science have proven) that even after people’s beliefs have been refuted, they do not appropriately revise those beliefs. Thanks to confirmation bias, it’s much easier (and socially acceptable these days) for Sharon to let her beliefs stand and just label anyone with an opposing view a conspiracy theorist.

How ‘conspiracy theory’ became weaponized

Early use of the phrase in this country appears to date back to the mid-1800s (in a letter to the editor of The New York Times). Initially, it was a somewhat neutral term referring to theories about secret plots and political intrigues. It took on a more pejorative use over time — ramping up during the Cold War, when both sides were indeed actively engaged in espionage, covert operations, and proxy conflicts around the world.

‘Conspiracy theory’ was a handy way to dismiss alternative narratives and dissenting views that questioned what was really going on. Any inquiry could easily be cast off as a wild and imaginative fiction. Of course, anyone who might fall victim to such tall tales must be of inferior intellect, morally bankrupt, or have their own ulterior motive.

The thing with a conspiracy theory is, even when the once wild claims are proven to be valid and truthful, people’s minds have already been made up. They’re fully invested and once that happens, no one wants to admit their beliefs are wrong or backtrack on something that fundamentally rocks their world view.

Mapping a conspiracy theory

Let’s take C-SPAN Sharon’s accusation that ‘chemicals in our water cause transgender’ is a conspiracy theory. She was quick to dispense with the notion simply because it came out of the mouth of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whom she has been led to believe is not trustworthy.

That’s the easy route to take. Her world view has already been shaped and nothing will change it. And yet, Sharon brought her bias to the conversation and didn’t leave room for consideration of facts presented by the other side. Here are some of those facts.

The issue in question is pollution of the water system by atrazine, one of the world’s most widely-used pesticides. Tens of millions of pounds of it are used in the U.S. every year. Atrazine is found more often than any other pesticide in this country’s groundwater. Around 30 million Americans in 28 states have some level of atrazine in their drinking water, according to a report released in 2018.

Atrazine is made by Syngenta, a Swiss-based company that was bought in 2017 by a state-owned Chinese corporation called ChemChina for $44 billion. It was the largest foreign purchase ever made by a Chinese state-owned company. ChemChina is considered a “Chinese military company” operating directly or indirectly in the United States, according to the Department of Defense. In 2022, the company reported $33.4 billion in sales.

Research showed that atrazine feminizes male frogs.

Atrazine is known to have significant health effects on humans and animals. It has been linked to gestational diabetes, renal failure, respiratory issues, cancer, slowed metabolism and weight gain, low birth weight, breast cancer, and birth defects. Most significantly to our story, atrazine is a known endocrine disruptor in humans, mammals, and aquatic life. Endocrine disruptors are natural or man-made chemicals that may interfere with the body's hormones.

Still with us? All of the above are facts. Not conspiracy theory.

When the EPA was reviewing atrazine back in 2003, Syngenta representatives held more than 50 closed-door meetings with regulators. Then, the EPA approved its continued use in October 2003, the same month the European Union announced it would ban atrazine “because of ubiquitous and unpreventable water contamination.”

Starting to sound a bit conspiratorial? Well, that’s nothing!

In 2011, according to a special report in Environmental Health News:

[Syngenta] launched an aggressive multi-million dollar campaign that included hiring a detective agency to investigate scientists on a federal advisory panel, looking into the personal life of a judge and commissioning a psychological profile of a leading scientist critical of atrazine.

The Switzerland-based pesticide manufacturer also routinely paid "third-party allies" to appear to be independent supporters, and kept a list of 130 people and groups it could recruit as experts without disclosing ties to the company.

Recently unsealed court documents reveal a corporate strategy to discredit critics and to strip plaintiffs from the class-action case. The company specifically targeted one of atrazine's fiercest and most outspoken critics, Tyrone Hayes of the University of California, Berkeley, whose research suggests that atrazine feminizes male frogs.

In 2014, The New Yorker did a follow up story on Hayes, which spells out some of Syngenta’s strategy against him in even starker detail, based on information released due to a lawsuit:

The company documents show that, while Hayes was studying atrazine, Syngenta was studying him, as he had long suspected. Syngenta’s public-relations team had drafted a list of four goals. The first was “discredit Hayes.” In a spiral-bound notebook, Syngenta’s communications manager, Sherry Ford, who referred to Hayes by his initials, wrote that the company could “prevent citing of TH data by revealing him as noncredible.” He was a frequent topic of conversation at company meetings. Syngenta looked for ways to “exploit Hayes’ faults/problems.” “If TH involved in scandal, enviros will drop him,” Ford wrote…

The P.R. team suggested that the company “purchase ‘Tyrone Hayes’ as a search word on the internet, so that any time someone searches for Tyrone’s material, the first thing they see is our material.” The proposal was later expanded to include the phrases “amphibian hayes,” “atrazine frogs,” and “frog feminization.” (Searching online for “Tyrone Hayes” now brings up an advertisement that says, “Tyrone Hayes Not Credible.”)

There’s also the case of Paul Wotzka, a respected hydrologist who worked for the state of Minnesota for over a decade. His research on pesticides included looking into atrazine levels in surface water. He found levels as high as 30 parts per billion (ppb) after storm events, when EPA drinking water standards limit it to 3 ppb. (Incidentally, Tyrone Hayes’ research showed atrazine induced chemical castration in frogs who were exposed to as little as 0.1 ppb.) In the spring of 2007, Wotzka was fired after asking permission to testify about his research into atrazine before a state legislative committee. He believes he was fired in an effort to silence him and undermine his public credibility.

So C-SPAN Sharon, if you’re out there, there really is a basis for the statement ‘chemicals in our water cause transgender’. And there really is reason to believe that ‘secret plots, covert actions, and hidden agendas’ were involved to cover up this information. That’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s a fact. A fact so damaging that a transnational company spent tens of millions of dollars to destroy a man’s career and character. The whole tawdry story is just a few internet searches away.

What will it take for our society to start to wake up and understand who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? How can we move on from schoolyard tactics like calling someone a name if they don’t do what you want them to? The bullying and scapegoating has got to stop if we have any hope of surviving as a nation.

It’s important to note that the editors of Collapse Life have no affiliation with any particular politician or party. But we want readers to recognize that before taking the bold step into the public spotlight as a politician, RFK Jr. was a long-time environmentalist deeply studied on these issues from a legal perspective. In fact, up until recently, he dedicated his life to fighting for clean water and for children’s health. So, in the absence of contrary evidence, our best hope — even if it smashes our world view into a thousand pieces — is to listen to someone as well versed as Mr. Kennedy instead of dismissing what he says as mere ‘conspiracy theory’.