How is the conspiracy theory of the MH-370 flight being covered up subject to the kind of scrutiny proposed by John Oliver. You may want to watch the YouTube video of Last Week Tonight before applying John Oliver's critical-thinking questions to an actual conspiracy narrative. As a critical thinker, don't forget to ask why, as Oliver does, to illuminate the question what makes conspiracies so very appealing and so resistant to rational thought and debunking.

He usefully covered three points:

• (1) why conspiracy narratives are popular,
• (2) how to detect them, and
• (3) how to stop them.

Then he offered three questions to help debunk a conspiracy myth:

• (1) Is there a rational non-conspiracy explanation?
• (2) Has this narrative held up to scientific or expert scrutiny?
• (3) How plausible is this conspiracy as a practical matter?