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https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/05/28/bush-did-north-dakota/

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Continuing\\xa0yesterday\\u2019s discussion of fake news:

Guess et al\\xa0says that 46% percent of Trump voters endorsed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Does this mean fake news is very powerful?

We can compare this to belief in various other conspiracy theories, as measured by the\\xa02016 Chapman University Survey Of American Fears. About 24% believe there\\u2019s a government conspiracy to cover up the truth about the moon landing, 30% about Obama\\u2019s birth certificate, and 33% about the North Dakota crash.

This last one is especially interesting because there was no unusual crash in North Dakota when the survey was written. The researchers included it as a placebo option to see if people would endorse a conspiracy theory that didn\\u2019t exist. 33% of them did.

Before we make fun of these people, consider: there\\u2019s a strong presumption that surveys don\\u2019t contain made-up questions. There was no \\u201cdon\\u2019t know\\u201d option included on the poll, just various shades of \\u201cagree\\u201d or \\u201cdisagree\\u201d. In order to condemn the people who \\u201cagreed\\u201d that the government was probably covering up the crash, we would have to assert that the more correct answer was \\u201cdisagree\\u201d. In other words, that people should have an assumption of trusting the government, until they get some specific reason to distrust it. You can make that argument, but it\\u2019s not obvious. You could also start from the opposite assumption, where the government is guilty until proven innocent.