Apropos of nothing at all, I was thinking about dos and don’ts if I ever am in the position of needing to convince people that humans come from Mars, that Europe was settled by immigrants from the Americas, or some other notion that would overthrow much of what is currently accepted.
Don’ts
Don’t use intellectual negging (“This idea will only be accepted by the open-minded and intellectually mature”)
Attack the sources of the current understanding as both dishonest and incompetent.
Do’s
Seek out the most definitive physical evidence for the theory, not third-hand reports from people who might have seen it (or citations justifying the absence of all physical evidence). If an idea is important enough to argue for, it’s important enough for a trip to get the proof.
Acknowledge that people who believe the current idea are justified in not changing their minds without strong evidence.
Any other do’s and don’t’s that you have for this scenario?
Lead with the evidence. Just present it all, without comment. Only after you’ve laid out all of the evidence, then you can start with your hypothesis to explain it.
And then, if you can, immediately suggest further routes of inquiry to test your hypothesis.
Even then it can take a while (IIRC plate tectonics had an uphill battle…no doubt there are other examples like Ignaz Semmelweis who suggested better hygiene in hospitals to prevent infection…I think he was sent to an asylum by his colleagues, never mind that he had excellent evidence that he was right).
The first option for politics/pop culture, the second for science. Facts have no traction in politics, it’s all manipulation, lies, bullying and appealing to base emotions. In science, while it’s a slog since scientists are still human, the facts tend to win out eventually.
I was thinking the same. Conspiracy theorists do that shit because it works. Most people aren’t convinced by facts or rational argument for the very good reason that they don’t know enough to properly evaluate them.
If you have actual evidence, then you need to show it to the experts in the subject and convince them, then the rest of the population will follow. However, even scientific experts can be pretty resistant to new ideas, as several examples have already shown.
Maybe that means that part of the answer to the OP’s question is
Don’t: Try to convince “most people”
Do: Present your arguments/evidence to the experts in the field
Make prediction based on your hypothesis, one that is precise and differs from current knowledge. If it comes through, at least some people will start to accept it. The classic example is relativity where Einstein predicted that Mercury would be seen in a place different from what was predicted by Newtonian physics, and was right.
Working academics already know how to overthrow notions. They do it all the time in all the sciences.
The tough part is translating the technical vocabularies into popular understanding. There’s always been a huge gulf between what gets published in academic journals and how the press reported those findings. The most extreme interpretations always get into the headlines, and the originators have to hope that some caveats are at least included at the bottom. Newspaper headlines about foods that are good or bad have dominated how Americans diet for generations. Low fat! Low carbs! High protein! Superfoods! Red wine! No wine!
People are now going straight to the public through podcasts. That will work out exactly as well as the internet itself: huge highs and bottomless lows. But if you want your notions properly presented DIY is required.
Mercury being slightly out of place was already known before Einstein, and was recognized as a mystery of science, and Einstein’s wasn’t the first attempt at an explanation. The most publicized “proof” of General Relativity was the deflection of starlight by the Sun’s gravity, as observed during an eclipse in Africa… but the measurement wasn’t actually very good, and the error bars were consistent with either Newton or Einstein.
Of course, there were a great many experiments since then, all of which came up consistent with GR, so the proof piled up gradually.
For instance, one of the observations of “something moving faster than the speed of light!” from a few years back (it seems like there’s one of those stories every year or two), what was actually published was something like “This is a standard method for measuring the speed of a wave, but when we apply that to this situation, we measure a speed greater than c. This is clearly absurd, and so this method for measuring speed shouldn’t actually be considered reliable”.
The new theory also has to explain everything that the old theory explains. You can’t just show you’re right about one new aspect, you also have to show you’re right about the previously explained things, too. This is why in real science most new theories are just adjustments of the old ones.
So, as per the silly example in the OP, an America to Europe migration route is also going to have to explain why human artifacts are much older in Europe than in the Americas.
20,000 years ago glaciers pushed all of the older artifacts in the Americas into the ocean. That’s why the oldest found artifacts are only 20,000 years old. My theory predicts big piles of old artifacts at the glacier terminus.
Of course it was known, which was the reason an explanation was needed. One successful prediction does not prove anything, but the question is what will help in getting the idea accepted, and a successful prediction is useful in that regard. Explanations for known facts aren’t, since there are tons of them.
Consider which equation best explains two points on a graph. While a linear one is preferred due to Occam’s Razor, there are an infinite number of curves which would explain the two points. If the equation successfully “predicts” that a third point is on it, then you have something. Not a proof, just more confidence in that that particular equation is correct. The more points accurately predicted, the higher the confidence.
I like it. And a poster who didn’t bother to make this prediction and support an expedition to find such artifacts would rightly be asked “Why are you not looking for the evidence that would be strong support for your idea?”
Like that stupid “Science says bees can’t fly” thing, which was really “The equations that describe fixed wing flight don’t work for bees, so that’s a phenomenon that will require a different kind of analysis”
First kill all the scientists. Then take control of all the media. Then you can simply tell the populace what you choose to have them believe. Your secret police and informal army of informers should take care of any pesky unbelievers.