Conspiracists reinterpret disconfirming evidence as planted by the conspirators.

Evidence

Precisely because the claims are so sweeping, however, they ultimately defeat any attempt at testing. Conspiracists’ reasoning runs in the following way. Because the conspiracy is so powerful, it controls virtually all of the channels through which information is disseminated— universities, media, and so forth. Further, the conspiracy desires at all costs to conceal its activities, so it will use its control over knowledge production and dissemination to mislead those who seek to expose it. Hence information that appears to put a conspiracy theory in doubt must have been planted by the conspirators themselves in order to mislead. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 95

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is the classic closed epistemic loop; worth probing how it differs from genuinely scientific anomaly handling and from normal motivated reasoning.
• XREF: connects to: New conspiracism abandons evidence while classic conspiracism theorizes it; Conspiracy theorists reinterpret absence of proof and challenges as confirming evidence — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 216; Conspiracy theories become unfalsifiable by dismissing skeptic evidence as planted (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Conspiracy theories become unfalsifiable by dismissing skeptic evidence as planted #corroborates (0.95)
• Conspiracy theorists reinterpret absence of proof and challenges as confirming evidence #expands (0.85) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 216
• Disconfirming evidence can strengthen rather than weaken committed beliefs. #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 97
• New conspiracism abandons evidence while classic conspiracism theorizes it #expands (0.80)