Oh good, a quick reply. Based on the last reply being in 2017 I wasn't sure if/when a reply was coming. So thanks! :)
I wouldn't say that I'm typical of people who have fallen down the rabbit hole because I haven't fallen. I have been walking down it for many years because this is of interest to me. It's a choice not a mistake.
I also tend towards great skepticism of most theories, including ones like, "NASA went to the moon!" My default is that I need to see/hear things that prove theories to me. Since most things can not be proved, the baseline for what I consider proof is therefore up to me.
The same is true for everyone, even though most people do not accept that this is true. If Neil DeGrasse Tyson says that something is a fact, 98% of the planet immediately uses this as proof, even though this is not actually proof of anything other than that he either thinks its true or has some bias towards wanting to believe it is true or he's lying for some reason. Most people accept the words of a scientist or doctor as always being factually true even though time and again the end up being humans with all the same flaws and biases that we all have.
They have mortgages and are funded by corporations with a board and a reason/motivation to skew all findings in a certain direction and frequently do just that. This isn't a theory. It's common practice, and anyone that thinks otherwise is simply being naive. There are countless volumes written about corporate greed funding studies and picking and choosing what they like out of that study to back up what is clearly a flawed or even dangerous decision. Read "Evidence of Harm" for a great read on Big Pharma's willingness to poison people, even children, to make a few billion bucks.
So, yes, of course, it's up to the claimant to prove what they say is true.
But that's also the problem. What is the baseline for what you will accept as proof? Most of what we accept as proof is in reality just our willingness to believe what we are told. We accept the veracity of someone or we don't. But that's certainly not a very scientific method of proving something. The fact is, we do not have the time or means to actually prove for ourselves that most of what we believe is actually true, so we settle for choosing who we will trust/believe.
That's how it goes brother.