Conspiracy theory spans a pretty wide range, from the very probable to the batshit insane. For example, elections being manipulated by hackers or surreptitious government surveillance are entirely realistic possibilities. At the very least, there's certainly no evidence against them. This is very different from claiming the Earth is 6,000 years old and flat - there's overwhelming evidence against those fantasies.
I was always looking for a better term to distinguish the two. Personally, I defined conspiracy theories as ideas which are easily and overwhelming proven wrong. However, more realistic scenarios are often dumped into the same pool.
The School of Life has a fantastic video out which proposes a new term - Intelligent Skeptic. This is precisely what I was looking for! But there's much more here - the video highlights how we can take the best from being skeptical while avoiding the pitfalls of irrationality. Yes, the main distinction is as expected focusing on evidence while rejecting emotional biases. I'd like to add avoiding confirmation bias - something the video fails to mention.
Check it out, highly recommended!
