Wait. Isn't the "field" part of the conspiracy that keeps us from seeing the real truth about all these conspiracies?
I'm being tongue in cheek on purpose here. It seems clear to me that folks who believe in these conspiracies have chosen either a) to rely on their own technical ability to evaluate the matter whether justified or not; or b) have chosen to put their faith in the alternative "experts" extolling these conspiracies.
For me - as well as, I suppose, for most others - it is a mixture of a) and b). And the initial step to acceptance of both was the examination of the public activities of many self-proclaimed "defenders of science", that were are a mixture of...
a) Oversimplifed and exxagerated (at best) or openly distorted and misrepresented (usually) caricatures of the science heretics' views.
b) Insultive, hysterical, hateful personal attacks, name-calling and defamation, often accompanied by unproven accusations.
c) Institutional repression of heretics themselves, suppression of their positions, oppression of any heretical activity.
In many cases, even a) was claimed to be too much - "these crackpots do not deserve debate" - and all force was put into b) and c).
After being shocked by these behavoirs of the "fighters against pseudoscience", one naturally start to acquaint oneself with their positions - as well as, importantly, with the research of the weaknesses and perils of the modern academia.
And, soon one finds that the aforementioned unethical behavoir is actually a norm of a modern academic dealing with contrarian positions. And that the roots of this unethical-behaviour-turned-normality are:
a) Systemic commercialisation, structural bureaucratisation and pervasive ideologisation of the modern academia, that made it into a hybrid of corporate enterprise, hierarchic power-structure and propaganda outlet - rather than a free community of truth-seekers it was supposed to be in the start.
b) Vested interests, stubborn dogmas and personal ambitions of the members of the academic elite, that are encouraged by incentives produced by the aforementioned structural degradation. And, because of this very degradation, they are also provided with many opportunities to be enacted in an openly unethical way.
с) Near-religious worship of capital-S Science by the "mainstream" sectors of society makes the corrupt academia largely immune to "respectable" criticism - any criticism of it immediately branded as "conspiracy theory" and dismissed without examination - and allows it to turn itself into the power-institution along with govermental and corporate organisations.
One also finds that:
a) The actual positions of heretics are far from the twisted caricatures provided by the mainstream - in fact, they are often consistent with the evidence, intellectually coherent, socially plausible and persuasive.
b) The heretics themselves are far from being insane fiends painted by the mainstream - in reality, many of them are knowledgeable, reasonable, tolerant and polite people.
c) The informal organisations created by the heretics appear to respect the original - this is, drawn from its pre-corporate, pre-bureaucratic, pre-propagandist era - ethical norms and demands of science. Much unlike the official academic institutions that have given up on classic ethical principles of science and are proud of it.
So, in the end one loses one's institutional trust in the academia and develop selective personal and communal trust instead of it. And one also learns how to evaluate persons and communities, so to choose the ones that deserve of one's trust. In the same time, one can learn some specific areas of the heretical science and scholarship deep enough and long enough to develop one's own strong, well-informed positions about them.
So, this is me - I do not trust institutions of the academia (well, being an anarchist, I distrust other insititutions as well), yet I carefully examine people and communities to choose whom I can trust after all. I examine their positions as well. And these two examinations are naturally entwined and interconnected - to take one's argumentation and observation as worth detailed examination, I have to examine one's personal and professional integrity as well.
These complex examinations - and evaluations I made based on them - are neither perfect nor infallible. I may turn out to be wrong in the end. But the decisions I made are the best that I, imperfect and fallible as I am, could make. And I stand by them.