The central weakness in your argument is that you have turned “common sense” into a universal epistemological principle the exact opposite of what it is and then used its supposed failure as an argument for taking conspiracy theories seriously. That's backwards. So - You have actually demonstrated the problem with your own argument. “Common sense” isn't a universal method for establishing truth. It is a collection of intuitions, assumptions and practical heuristics acquired from our experience and culture. What seems like common sense to one person, society or generation can seem bizarre to another. It is therefore particularly dangerous when someone treats their intuition as though it were a universal standard of reality. And nobody is suggesting that common sense should determine advanced physics. Quite the opposite. Science exists partly because human intuition is unreliable. Quantum mechanics, relativity and countless other discoveries demonstrate that reality does not have to behave the way it “obviously” ought to behave. But then you make the rather extraordinary leap from: “Common sense isn't a reliable way of establishing scientific truth” to: “Therefore you should listen to conspiracy theorists and take their claims seriously until you can disprove them.” No. That's not scepticism. That's an epistemological free pass for any claim whatsoever. Critical thinking doesn't work that way. If someone makes an extraordinary claim, the burden of evidence lies with the person making the claim. I don't have to disprove every imaginable proposition someone invents before being entitled to reject it. E.G. - I could claim that your computer is secretly controlled by invisible Martian bureaucrats. You could quite reasonably ask me for evidence. I don't get to respond, “Ah, but until you can prove the Martian bureaucrats don't exist, you must take my theory seriously.” That's not how rational inquiry works. And your argument about conspiracy theories being impossible to refute because the evidence itself might be part of the conspiracy is particularly revealing. That is not sophisticated scepticism. It is a self-sealing belief system. If evidence supports the theory, it's evidence. If evidence contradicts it, that's evidence of the cover-up. If experts disagree, they're compromised. If nobody can find evidence, that's because the conspirators hid it. A proposition constructed so that no possible evidence could ever count against it isn't a strong hypothesis. It is an unfalsifiable one. This is where the distinction between scientific scepticism and conspiracy thinking becomes important. A genuine sceptic says: “Show me the evidence, and I'll change my mind if the evidence warrants it.” The conspiracy theorist often says: “Show me the evidence — and if I don't like it, I'll explain why the evidence can't be trusted.” That's not scepticism. It's gainsaying. Science doesn't claim to possess an eternal collection of unquestionable truths. Quite the opposite: scientific conclusions remain open to testing, criticism, replication and revision. That's one of the great strengths of the scientific method. Conspiracy theories tend to do the opposite. The conclusion is established first, and then an increasingly elaborate framework is constructed to protect it from falsification. And your Trump example doesn't demonstrate that “common sense” has failed. It demonstrates that you have proposed a particular political interpretation of events and are presenting it as though it were an established fact. “Trump represents a civilian government” versus “Trump represents a period of interregnum under military power” is not something that can be settled by declaring one position “common sense”. It requires evidence, definitions, legal and constitutional analysis and, ultimately, a testable argument. You have a hypothesis. - Now prove it. Finally, the phrase “common sense has allowed everyone to continue living their lives for the past six years” rather nicely illustrates the problem. Common sense may help someone cross a road, cook dinner or avoid walking into a lamp post. It isn't designed to determine whether an extraordinary claim about constitutional government, military control or hidden political structures is true. That's why we have logic, evidence, methodology, and critical thinking. And critical thinking does not reject unconventional ideas merely because they are unconventional. - It asks a much more uncomfortable question: “What evidence would actually convince me that I'm wrong?” If the answer is “nothing, because any contradictory evidence could itself be part of the conspiracy,” then you've stopped being a sceptic. You've simply made your belief impossible to challenge. That's not an impressive defence of a theory. It's a description of why the theory cannot be tested.
