Why some conspiracy theories just won’t die | Elise Wang | TEDxDuke

America has a crisis of conspiracy theory belief. Not only are they at the heart of recent far-right terrorist attacks, they spread like wildfire on social media, and they are gaining ground among the young and educated. What is their appeal? And what can we do to stop them? Elise Wang has been teaching at Duke since January 2018, after receiving her PhD at Princeton and master's degree at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She believes that teaching is a transformative act. In settings from prisons to university lecture halls to ESL classrooms, Dr. Wang strives to bring all students - but especially those who feel themselves at the margins of the classroom - to the center of scholarly debate. She feels strongly that such attention helps students connect deeply to their education, because it allows them to see it not as a measure of their value, but as a supporting character in the story of their lives. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx