Laurent Foiry warns against “scientific conspiracy” and advocates constructive doubt – rts.ch

Covid-19 was allegedly intentionally created to allow the pharmaceutical industry to generate colossal profits. Bill Gates would have sought to take advantage of vaccination to implant electronic chips and thus control the world population. The virus was allegedly manufactured by the United States to discredit its long-time enemy, China.

When we don’t understand and we don’t know where we are going, emotion sometimes speaks more than reason and it can push people to doubt what we tell them.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a very fertile breeding ground for the development of conspiracy theories as diverse as they are varied, explains molecular genetics doctor and biologist Laurent Foiry in La Matinale. He has just published a work entitled “False scientists: diving into the heart of scientific conspiracy” published by Editions de l’Aube, in which he deciphers the phenomenon also called “denialism”, or rejection of scientific consensus.

“It is the rejection of proven facts or evidence, in favor of ideas that are generally rather radical, unsupported or unproven,” he explains. There are several subcategories, such as flatism, the belief that the Earth is flat; climate skepticism, the rejection of climate change; or in this case viro-denialism, the act of denying the existence of viruses.

Science has always been a breeding ground for conspiracy theories, he notes, because “science is complicated to grasp.” “When we don’t understand and we don’t know where we are going, emotion sometimes speaks more than reason and that can push people to doubt what we tell them.”

Gurus vs. followers

In conspiracy, we distinguish two main profiles of individuals: “the gurus and the followers”, deciphers Laurent Foiry.

Among the gurus, or those who manipulate others, we find profiles very similar to what we could observe in more traditional sectarian phenomena.

The former, in other words those who manipulate others, generally have an objective behind them. An objective which can be political, religious, economic, psychological or egotistical, he lists. “Among them, we find profiles very similar to what we could observe in more traditional sectarian phenomena.”

Behind the economic objective pursued by some of these gurus – a dimension that the researcher calls “conspi-business” – there is often the desire to monetize people’s credulity by selling them, for example, training or books, analysis -he.

But it can also go further and have much more serious consequences, particularly when the objective is political. “In this case, the guru could seek to destabilize people by planting the seeds of doubt everywhere, to let them flourish, in order to gain some advantage later.”

Followers yet cultivated

As for the followers of conspiracy theories, what may be surprising is that these are not individuals who are more ignorant or naive than the others. On the contrary, he insists. “They are cultured people, who ask themselves a lot of questions, who express themselves well, who do not make spelling mistakes when they express themselves on social networks, who do their own research.”

We must start very early to explain to the youngest how to ask questions, how to analyze sources so as not to fall into paranoia.

But these are often people who are afraid at a given moment, in this case when a virus suddenly emerges, and who will adhere to more or less crazy ideas to protect themselves. “It’s an easy way for them to say ‘no, I’m not scared, whatever’s happening isn’t real, so I’m ignoring it’.”

To overcome scientific conspiracy, nothing better, for Laurent Foiry, than pedagogy. “It’s not wrong to doubt, criticize and question, but you have to learn to do it constructively.” A mission that the school could perhaps take on in more depth, “by explaining as early as possible to children how to ask questions, how to analyze sources so as not to fall into paranoia”, he concludes.

Comments collected: Delphine Gendre

Text for the web: Fabien Grenon