If you think you can just have chat gpt write you a paper that you can use as a source, then you don’t understand what a source is. Drawing a false equivalency either indicates that you don’t know how to differentiate between valid sources and invalid sources or that you’re intentionally attempting to fracture public faith in the entire concept of fact-checking in order to further the spread of disinformation for objectively questionable motives. I don’t have a tin foil hat on right now, so I’ll just assume that you’re uninformed and could benefit from reading a book on the subject or taking a class on it.

It’s easier to dismiss all evidence and just believe whatever feels right, but the common people will have what little money and power they have sucked away from them if lies are permitted to influence who to give their money and power to. There is a real benefit to controlling narrative and swaying public opinion, so the people being equipped to identify weaponized disinformation is a valuable defense for basic democratic function and individual prosperity.

That’s why I feel the need to respond to what you’re saying. At best, you’re accidentally sowing distrust in an essential skill set in the modern information age; at worst, you’re intentionally attacking the working class at the behest of the ruling/owning class. Again, no tin foil hat, so I think you just didn’t understand what the logical conclusion of what you were saying was.

And you don’t know what a source is.

You claimed that they see a single source and are just satisfied based on the existence of any paper. That is not an accurate or justified interpretation of their statement.

Studies suggesting something don’t definitively prove it, sure, because, as you say, contrary evidence can exist. But no one claimed that - they just said studies “back it up”. This is true. Studies can indeed “back up” claims.