Conspiracy theories are easy to propagate and difficult to refute. Fortunately, until a decade or so ago, few serious conspiracy theories haunted the natural sciences. More recently, however, conspiracy theories have begun to gain ground and, in some cases, have struck a chord with a public already mistrustful of science and government.
‘Conspiracy’ is an essentially contested rhetorical concept that people apply to different events depending on their point of view. It is almost always pejorative. The Oxford English Dictionary defines conspiracy quite loosely as “an agreement between two or more persons to do something criminal, illegal or reprehensible”. While the law can precisely define the criminal act in any conspiracy, ‘reprehensible’ is in the eye of the beholder. Calling something a conspiracy makes it sound much worse than just saying, “people are ganging up on me.” Invoking the word conspiracy also implies that something is secret and hidden.
Conspiracy theories appeal to people who are discontented with the established institutions of their society and especially with elites in that society. They are likely to believe that conditions are worsening for people like themselves and that the authorities do not care about them. A conspiracy theory gives believers someone tangible to blame for their perceived predicament, instead of blaming it on impersonal or abstract social forces. The meme becomes a habit of thought: the more people believe in one conspiracy, the more likely they are to believe in others. The logic of the conspiracy meme is to question everything the ‘establishment’—be it government or scientists—says or does, even on the most hypothetical and speculative grounds, and to demand immediate, comprehensive and definitive answers to all questions. A failure to give convincing answers is then used as proof of conspiratorial deception. Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists offer their own alternative theories with the flimsiest of evidence, challenging the authorities to prove them wrong.
Studies have shown that your average person seems worryingly susceptible to conspiracy theories. There are many possible reasons for this, such as how humans seem inclined toward Pareidolia (a tendency to see patterns and shapes in random occurrences). There are numerous factors that can affect how readily you believe in conspiracy theories, but no real strong indicator, so it could be any one. Humans are social creatures, so require acceptance from others. Conspiracy theory networks seem like a friendly bunch if you believe what they do, so do some find conspiracy theorising offers this a sense of belonging? And this may lead to the next level of needs: achievement, recognition and respect. Finding connections and evidence that points to conspiracies, cover ups etc would undoubtedly lead to big kudos in the conspiracy group you’re part of. People desperately want to think there’s some order in the Universe, that there’s someone, or someones, in charge, and that things happen for a reason. They can’t handle the truth: that there’s a lot of crazy random non-deterministic stuff out there and things happen for no reason at all. It is also true (and folks like the FCC and FTC and whatnot actually use game theory to figure this out when this is the case) that people who appear to be in collusion are actually just responding rationally to a common set of incentives, and are not cooperating or collaborating at all. But that’s also too much for some folks to handle since they can’t perceive or understand the incentives.
That means you must first wade through and weed-out public opinion, pseudoscience and half-truths, understand that not everything that is presented will be true and then go forth with the simplest, educated opinion. There are always going to be, at least, two divisive sides to matters of public opinion.
People who bend the truth or misconstrue information to their own means are the true conspirators. They work their respective side of the coin of public opinion to alter the truth or heart of a given matter.
In a world of fabricated ‘Facebook alter egos’ and ‘bandwagon mentality’, isn’t it time to begin to engage the bombardment of photos, memes and 18 second videos for ourselves?
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