WEll since you say generally it seems fortunately there are exceptions, which means any particularly conspiracy theory needs to be looked at individually.
But let’s just look at that sentence: it is built around a term that is irrational and used to suppress contrary opinions. Obviously there are conspiracies or most legal systems are simply foolish given the large numbers of crimes of conspiracy. So a theory that there is a conspiracy should not be pejorative term. It should be a neutral term. But it is not, and it is a term created by critics of non-mainstream hypotheses for the causes of certain events. Like say the theories about the real motivations for the Neo cons going into Iraq and the administration conspiracy theories about Hussein conspiring with Al-quaida and having WMDs. This was a mainstream conspiracy theory, and of course not wrong because it was a conspiracy theory, but wrong because it was bullshit as is clearly accepted even in the mainstream press itself, though it took a long time.
The truth is that 9/11 has two main conspiracy theories. 1) that this group of Muslim fundamentalists did it or 2) that some agency or group within the government of the US did it or allowed it. (the last is really a combination of both theories)
So if we look at your statement we know you mean the pejorative use of the term. You mean that what gets called a conspiracy theory in the mainstream press is not good for prediction. This would be poor science on your part.
What I mean is that the category is made by people in a vague, hard to pin down real world specific variables way. It puts all kinds of theories from Flat Earth to reptile illuminati to yes, that issue with WMDs in Iraq to critics of GM corps to people who think there were immoral conspirational aspects to how Aspartame got passed by the FDA and so.
IOW hypotheses made by different people with varying degrees of evidence and thoroughness that are different from mainstream CURRENTLY accepted explanations.
These all get batched as conspiracy theories and these are dismissed by you and others as a batch.
Here couched in a what might be considered epistemologically as scientific terms.
But for you to conclude this in this batched way you 1) make the error of batching and 2) have no doubt reached this conclusion via non-scientific intuitive methods, unless you have done incredibly research.
First you would need a control study. How well do conspiracy theories of the mainstream work predictively? What could we predict based on the 9/11 mainstream conspiracy theory with the Muslim team? How did you verify the predictive value of that theory? What events since 9/11 that you have verified with that and how does this compare with one of the better conspiracy theories on the other side?
Easy to do intuitively. But damn hard in any off the cuff not actually carefully reading both theories and then analyzing events since to see which is better predictively.
How much harder to do this when one wants to lump all non-mainstream conspiracy theories and make a conclusive statement about their predictive value.
But that corporations put financial goals ahead of people’s health at least, often, is easy to verify. And I will bet we can predict rather well using that hypothesis.
The hypotheis that Monsanto has incredible control of the very agencies meant to regulate them is already demonstrable.
That Monsanto has lied, and for years, about the risks of its products is also historical fact.
That Monsanto has bribed and threatened government officials of other countries is also a demonstrable fact. That Monsantos products already cause much damage to soil, people’s health and financial status is already demonstrable.
Monstantos theory that their products help people has had NO PREDICTIVE VALUE AT ALL.
If you demanded as much predictive value from Monsantos claims as you do for what you are calling conspiracy theories, you would stop making statements about being in favor of GM as tool without at least including a serious critique of the usefulness and safefy of GM products now. You would not feel responsible leaving the real world current status out.
Monsantos claims about what they can do, are doing, and will do are not a conspiracy theory, per se. But is it a theory about what a group of people are collaborating on and the motivations. I do not see that theory holding up in the least.
It will take introspection on your part to find out why you treat epistemologically the claims of corporations known to be liars with less rigor than you do the entire batch of theories of people how vary greatly in expertise and background.
I hope you can do this introspection.