If lots of people have a false belief X, that’s prima facie evidence that “X is false” is newsworthy. There’s probably some reason that X rose to attention in the first place; and if nothing else, “X is false” at the very least should update our priors about what fraction of popular beliefs are true vs false.
I think this argument would be more transparent with examples. Whenever I think of examples of popular beliefs that it would be reasonable to change one’s support of in the light of this, they end up involving highly politicized taboos.
It is not surprising when a lot of people having a false belief is caused by the existence of a taboo. Otherwise the belief would probably already have been corrected or wouldn’t have gained popularity in the first place. And giving examples for such beliefs of course is not really possible, precisely because it is taboo to argue that they are false.
It is not surprising when a lot of people having a false belief is caused by the existence of a taboo. Otherwise the belief would probably already have been corrected or wouldn’t have gained popularity in the first place. And giving examples for such beliefs of course is not really possible, precisely because it is taboo to argue that they are false.
It’s totally possible to say taboo things, I do it quite often.
But my point is more, this doesn’t seem to disprove the existence of the tension/Motte-Bailey/whatever dynamic that I’m pointing at.