Thanks for taking the time to dig into this and writing about it, as well as sharing links to back up your comments and for us to follow up should we chose to do so.

As for what can be done, on the personal level, yes more commitment to critical thinking seems first and foremost, as does more of an "I don't know" humble approach to life and an "I need not be able to explain everything with one theory" orientation. I know I'm working on this in myself.

Second, I would like to point out that we DO need to look at how much untruth has permeated our culture and be honest about that, and demand more from each other in terms of integrity. We have whole industries in public relations and advertising that spin the truth and our traditional media outlets seem to be more and more comfortable promoting questionable worldviews as fact. Living in such an environment naturally pushes people to worldviews based on distrust, which means conspiracy theories about who is "behind the scenes" manipulating things. Perhaps, though, the Wizard is not behind the curtain---but is a lot more on the surface than we care to admit.

Not an easy problem to solve, but ultimately one we must face and address as honestly as possible.