Braced Myth

About

According to Mike Sutton, braced myths are supermyths that have been promoted a stage further than basic supermyths as veracious exemplars of the need to be sceptical of other claims. So when a basic supermyth myth is used in this way to bust another myth, such use further strengthens (braces) its own association with verity.

Put simply, a braced myth is influential counterknowledge (misinformation packaged to look like fact) that is created by an expert authority and then believed by credulous yet highly influential skeptics, who not only fail to adequately check its accuracy by way of primary data sources and/or fail also to question the rationality of its premises, but then promote it as veracious ‘knowledge’ and, with unintended irony, ignorantly deploy it to promote the need to be sceptical of the knowledge claims of others.