This is in my sketches blog which means it’s still a work in progress…

It’s impossible to distinguish the two with an absolute degree of certainty but it’s often fairly easy to get 90% of the way there. It’s impossible to ever ascertain certainty because simply disproving one version of an idea doesn’t mean there doesn’t exist a more sophisticated version which is immune to your disproof and proving that your idea survives an argument doesn’t mean there’s a more sophisticated argument that punctures it.

I’m going to expand on this piece in a little bit…

It drives me crazy that your solution for how to distinguish between the two is that it’s impossible. Even if someone were to “reach the cliff”, for any cargo cult idea of significance one man’s assertions would be quickly covered up by those who have lived their lives in support of the false idea.

You mention “only probabilistic measures are possible” but I a having a hard time conceptualizing for what sort of circumstances you could argue disproving the cargo cult idea is “possible”. Or maybe you just mean possible on a one-on-one basis.

How frustrating.

Do you have other examples of good cargo cult ideas that exist similarly to the atheist vs. christian argument?