Anthony Magnabosco is the most well-known practitioner of the craft of “Street Epistemology”, which he defines as: “a dialog where you use questions to explore somebody’s claim to see how they concluded that it’s true.” While commonly associated with atheism (the term comes from the book “A Manual for Creating Atheists” by Peter Boghossian) Street Epistemology can be used to explore any kind of belief. There’s actually quite a bit of crossover with how to talk to conspiracy theorists.
Anthony and I discuss our mutual experiences with talking to people, how our approaches are similar, and how they differ. It’s a fascinating conversation, and while we go for the full hour, we were actually cut short by a minor emergency, and I hope to continue in the future.

* Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule. “Conspiracy Theories” (Crippled Epistemology)
* Phil Plait at TAM in 2010: Don’t Be A Dick.
* StreetEpistemology.com
* Anthony’s YouTube channel
* Maritza (water for spirits, footsteps):