OSE Position

Nothing is black and white - it's always a shade of grey. Note that 'conspiracy theories' - have 2 sides. The success of pseudoscience, cults, and conspiracy theories - and conspiracy theories in particular - lies in that there is a kernel of truth, or some insight, to be gained from the contrarian viewpoint. Ie, a conspiracy theory is typically not 100% BS, but some part between 1% and 100%. There is always some truth or appearance of truth - or the conspiracy theory/paralogism/paramoralism would gather little support. For example with Qanon - pedophilia is real in that 20% of American children suffer incest according to [1]
Note also that any new discovery is met 'with violent opposition from mediocre minds', as Einstein said, so when approaching scientifically-undocumented claims, keep that in mind.
OSE favors an open mind - seeing that all viewpoints may have something to offer. Some viewpoints may be pathological and the proper approach is empathy and healing. The major obstacle to healing is that there is a very low level of psychological literacy today, thus promoting paramoralistic as opposed to psychological, factual, or scientic appraoches.
Immunizing oneself against negative effects of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience happens by understanding Logical Fallacies, General Semantics, Mental Models, Critical Thinking, First Principles Thinking, Literacy, Numeracy, Science, and Political Ponerology.

Fact and Bias Check