I keep seeing people mix up 'debunked' with 'debated' in conspiracy talk

I mean, maybe it's just me but I see this all the time. Someone will bring up a point about, I don't know, the moon landing, and another person will just say 'that's been debunked' and drop a link. But half the time the link is just to a forum post or a YouTube video arguing the other side, not actual proof. It matters because saying something is debunked shuts down the talk, but saying it's debated means we can actually look at the details. I was in a chat about the JFK thing last week and a guy said the single bullet theory was debunked, but when I asked for the source, he just sent a 4 hour documentary. That's not a debunk, that's another take. How do you guys tell when something is actually settled versus just having two loud sides?

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2 Comments

oscarb775d ago

The whole debunked vs debated thing is everywhere now. I saw it last month with that flat earth conference clip, where a guy said gravity was debunked and linked to a blog about density. It just feels like people use "debunked" as a magic word to win an argument without doing the work. Most of these topics, from JFK to 9/11, have a mountain of official reports and then a bigger mountain of counter videos. Calling something debunked when it's really just disagreed with just makes everyone talk past each other. Maybe it's not that serious in the end, since the people who really believe one side or the other aren't changing their minds anyway.

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nancy5245d ago

Honestly, I used to throw "debunked" around a lot myself. But you're right, it just shuts down talk instead of making a real point. Now I see it's usually just a louder way to say you disagree.