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Conspiracies and Paranoia

Entry 693, on 2008-02-10 at 20:41:58 (Rating 3, Skepticism)

I have recently been involved in a discussion regarding some theories which are - how should I put this - somewhat outside the mainstream. I'm talking about conspiracy theories which purport to prove that aliens visit us from other planets, that the US government was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and that JFK was assassinated on the orders of an American intelligence agency.

One of the key attributes of most successful theories which go against the balance of evidence is that they have a built-in defence mechanism which protects them from conflicting evidence and, in the best possible cases, actually uses that counter-evidence to support the belief.

Its not just conspiracy theories which have this mechanism - religions also commonly use this trick. For example, any physical evidence which doesn't support a religious dogma can be seen as either a test of faith by the deity or as being deliberately created by the deity's adversary (the devil, etc) to confuse people.

With conspiracy theories the protection mechanism is usually a massive government cover-up. So every time evidence against the theory is produced it can be claimed that it has just been put there to hide the truth by the forces in charge of the cover-up. The fact that the cover-up exists proves that there is something to hide so the original theory is actually supported by contrary evidence. Its very neat because both supporting and contradictory evidence can then be used to support the theory.

Effectively the theory becomes impossible to refute because anyone disagreeing with it is accused of either being part of the conspiracy or as being fooled by the conspiracy. Its very frustrating to debate these people of course, because they verge on paranoia when it comes to rejecting negative evidence.

I suppose its all about world views. The vast majority of people go through life without developing the skills which allow them to tell truth from fakery. When it comes to deciding on who shot JFK or whether those weird lights in the sky are actually alien visitors it doesn't matter too much. But many of these people live in democracies and they are expected to vote for a government which will take control of their country, and in the case of the more powerful countries, have significant control over the future of the planet.

If people can't make reasoned decisions on subjects like UFOs how can they possibly decide the facts on more subtle subjects like global warming and the wisdom of attacking Middle Eastern countries? They can't of course, which is why democracy doesn't really work. Sometimes I think the Internet is the answer because its a great way to distribute skeptical information, but when I google subjects like "alien abductions" I tend to get more crazy stuff supporting the idea than I do reasoned discussion of the real facts, so I'm afraid we don't seem to be any better off!

Comment 1 (1127) by SBFL on 2008-02-11 at 23:44:26:

Of course the fuel behind conspiracy theories is that the general populace don't know the whole truth and the logic doesn't always stack up, hence why they flourish. He who controls the information flow....

Comment 2 (1134) by OJB on 2008-02-12 at 05:21:30:

Many people do know the whole truth (for example, why the WTC collapsed has been explained many times) but they refuse to accept it. Once a conspiracy takes hold of a person its hard to escape from it. That's what I mean about the protection mechanism. See my blog entries on memes: "Viral Beliefs" and "Robot's Rebellion".

Comment 3 (1148) by SBFl on 2008-02-12 at 22:50:40:

I was referring more to the big ones, not the loons.

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