Why are conspiracy theories so popular?
88Stories are so much easier
The web is full of the most amazing conspiracy theories ranging from the claims that no-one has landed on the moon, through the CIA planning 9/11, right up to earthquakes being caused by testing experimental weapons. Somewhere in between comes the idea that climate change is a conspiracy between various agencies such as governments, light-bulb manufacturers, scientists, and environmentalists.
Along the way we have overlaps in irrationality between those who claim we are all descended from alien races, that the world is going to end sometime soon, and that there is some all-encompassing energy field we can tap into. Entertaining though these stories are, we might wonder why so many people are drawn into them and believe them so firmly.
The search for easy answers
What causes climate change? That is not an easy question to answer and it take years of consistent, painstaking research to identify the factors involved, their relative importance, and their interactions. It takes a long time to develop the technology to provide the appropriate measurements to test the predictions from theories. To understand how all this works, to understand the scientific details, take some serious effort in study.
Many people either are not able to, or are unwilling to devote the time to studying the science behind it, and therefore are looking for a conclusion they can grasp with less effort. Simple explanations would suffice if they were available, and many people are happy to go with simplistic explanations. That's often the basis of prejudice.
Some things are complex and in order to understand them, we have to make an effort. Conspiracy theories and irrational explanations cut out that time-consuming learning process and jump straight to the desired conclusions.
Deep suspicion
Many people are deeply suspicious of governments and official bodies. Because they distrust the drug corporations or governments, the assume that everything they say must by definition be false. Any of their actions must have some hidden motive which will invalidate whatever they claim.
In the case of governments, particularly in the US, some people resent the role of government in regulating public affairs. Brought up on an ideology of unfettered freedom and opposition to taxation, they see the growth of government as being against their interests, and are therefore predisposed to oppose government actions.
In the case of drug companies, they may feel that since every human condition is medicalised for profit, that therefore the whole of medicine is untrustworthy. They throw the baby out with the bath water.
Not understanding the need for evidence
Anyone can make any claims they like and the only way we can tell which is right and which is wrong, is by looking at the evidence. But if we have already ruled out the trustworthiness of anyone who might offer evidence, we won't even consider it.
In the absence of any evidence, one story is as credible as the next. So for example, once we have dispensed with the idea that clinical medicine can be trusted, we reject any medical explanation for any treatment. That opens the way for us to propose another alternative explanation, without evidence. Since we don't accept clinical medicine as offering reliable evidence, we don't need to produce any ourselves.
But the problem with this approach is that even if we dismiss established knowledge, an alternative still needs to establish its claim using reliable evidence. It doesn't become credible simply because the believer has rejected conventional, evidenced knowledge.
Ignorance of science
There are very many strange theories about undetected energies, the properties of various substances such as crystals and magnets, and sound and light. But in all cases, science has already established a wealth of knowledge about these subjects. We already know a great deal about energy, its various forms and the means by which one is converted to another.
Ignorance of these processes, these basic scientific concepts and facts, makes people gullible to fanciful claims about the property of things. Sometimes there is some effort made to use scientific terms but without the necessary rigour to give them meaning. For example, some people will talk about the fundamental frequencies of crystals, or the biophysical effects of magnets.
But they won't realise that all objects have a fundamental frequency and that crystals remain inert until excited by a strong external energy source. The crystal itself will do absolutely nothing. They will think that because a magnet attracts metal, it must affect your blood circulation because blood contains iron, and of course iron is magnetic. But they don't know that blood is not magnetic.
Notoriety in opposition
There are some people who enjoy standing out from the crowd. They like to be the centre of attention and enjoy being noticed by other people. Some do this naturally because they are congenial engaging people who develop their own popularity. Some have talents and expertise that naturally raise them to public attention.
But there are others who would like the attention, but lack the means of getting it. Adopting an oppositional stance provides some attention. Creating or supporting wacky theories serves the same purpose. Riding on the waggon of doubt, exploiting uncertainty, encouraging confusion, and spreading unsupported stories such as conspiracy theories, provides them with just the attention they want.
Running a business
Businesses run by selling things to people willing to pay for them. If there's a market already, we can join it by offering our products. But it is more profitable if a new market can be created in which we are automatically the market leader. And if we can sell a new belief, so much the better.
That is why during the alternative medicine boom of the 90s, so many differentiated theories of alternative medicine flourished. People started claiming to diagnose illnesses by looking at the iris in the eye, by pressing the feet, cracking backs, and all sorts of other approaches. Inspiration was often drawn from obscure mystical theories from the East.
Some people claimed water has a memory (it doesn't), others that healing energy can be transferred to people (it doesn't exist), or that you needed your chakras aligning (they don't exist either). The claims of alternative medicine have been scientifically investigated and consistently found to be groundless. It hasn't stopped people making money out of it.
Running a business based on unevidenced claims would normally run the risk of prosecution for fraud but alternative medicine can avoid the charge by carefully dressing the therapies in beliefs. It is highly profitable but also ethically highly questionable.
The need for excitement
If there was a healing energy floating around ready to be used to help people, that would be really cool. If it was possible to cure people with water that had a memory, that would be great. If you really could diagnose illness by pressing parts of the foot, that would save hospitals a fortune. If there were channels and chakras and doshas, and meridians and the like, it would be interesting.
But enjoying the success of a claim for treatment without showing the evidence, is just an illusion. It's believing in fairies, leprechauns, unicorns, magic. It enjoying that child-like fascination with fantasy, made up stories, imaginary characters, fictitious events, and exciting challenges.
Without a basic understanding of science or human biology, there are many fantasies about medical treatment and the causes of illness that persist in this fantasy state. It provides excitement for those wanting a better, simpler reality. Instead of the complexities of metabolic problems, we have some unbalanced chakra. And as long as you reject the science totally, you can maintain the fiction.
Rationalism is open-minded
It may seem a dull place where everything turns out to be fairly complicated and knowledge is accumulated by slow steady work. And being skeptical about new theories is being closed-minded, right? Wrong.
Science works by challenging theories, by questioning results, by looking for contradictions and evidence against the claims. Anyone can come along with a better explanation at any time and have it considered and checked by others. Scientists are extremely open-minded because they are driven by the desire to understand what is happening. They want to know the truth. They will consider any explanation on its merits. But they're not easily fooled.
If someone proposes for example, healing energy, it will be taken seriously and subjected to critical scrutiny. First in the list of questions is "what evidence is there for its existence?" That's not being close-minded but open-minded: they are open to consider anything and are inviting the presentation of new information in the form of evidence.
Theories are not all equivalent. Some are just wacky and stupid. Some are just plain wrong. Some are deliberately misinforming. Some are bordering on criminal in their social impact. We need to be able to filter out the silly and misleading ones, the venal and the dishonest, and we do that by using evidence. There's no shortcut.
CommentsLoading...
I find it interesting how they insulate themselves from evidence and facts. There's a curious psychology at work that allows them to dismiss science and rational explanation and yet still claim that their theories make sense.
A recent commenter on one of my hubs was promoting the idea that earthquakes and storms could be caused by some experimental work of scientists studying the ionosphere - they apparently didn't know what the ionosphere was.
It's curious that they will use scientific work as a suggested cause of problems, and yet not accept the scientific evidence itself.
Muy raro, as they say here in Spain!
Another good one, Bob.
As a conspiracy theorist I happen to agree with you on many points! I just found your site by the way, after reading your responses to Universal Laws hub about HAARP. I thought it was significant that she hasn't responded further. I am a former chemtrail believer by the way. Believers in this conspiracy will not listen to any other explanation.
Bard of Ely: Thanks for commenting. I don't think UL has any real understanding of science and although she talks about these things, the ideas are contradictory and inconsistent.
I don't have anything against conspiracy as an explanation but given the open nature of most if not all scientific data, any conspiracy involving science would have the most incredible security problems. And of course even conspiracy as an explanation still needs the evidence.
The vast majority of conspiracy theories are fatuous in the extreme, such as the UL version of the HAARP theory. The main problem with conspiracy as an explanation is that it requires far more complexity than is necessary. Way too many people need to maintain secrecy and have convergent interests than is at all likely.
Sometimes of course, there are conspiracies, such as the one that overthrew Allende in Chile. But in that case, there is now overwhelming public evidence, along with not a few confessions.
Conspiracies of any kind are an effective tool of manipulation; what better way to do so than to create doubt and fear? What better way to keep people busy and away from real issues than to give them a “theory” and provide an “answer” that is not backed up by anything except the word of the ones who come up with the conspiracy.
As for scientific research I have to say (some of my family members are involved in research related to the medical and nutritional field), unfortunately the conclusion of the study is “predetermined” by whoever offers the grant (ex. one day vine is good for your health, the day after beer is better and apple vinegar may be best – so on and so on).
Petra: Thanks for your comment. Some research sponsored by pharmaceuticals and industries are obviously looking for marketing support so they go on the hunt for evidence. That's why peer reviews are so important and the scientific standards maintained by the leading journals.
It's worrying that with the sponsorship of scientific institutes and the awarding of research funding from private bodies, that there is considerable pressure on scientists to find the right results for them.
Alt-med research suffers from a lot of the same problems. Uncontrolled trials, biased selection of candidates, poor methodology, reliance on anecdote, it all undermines any claim to evidence.
But at least when research is published, poor methodology and bias is often fairly obvious. Of course, that doesn't stop those who don't look at the detail from quoting it uncritically.
Bob, I've got one mite to add to your excellent discussion: conspiracy theories are a modern manifestation of the basic human impulse towards mythology.
This is related to the "need for excitement." Joseph Campbell and Jung are a little woo-woo themselves, but they collectively make a good point. One of the functions of mythology (says Campbell) is to help people find satisfying explanations for huge, scary and intimidating phenomena that we don't understand. The world is a scary place, Campbell noted, and it includes things that are very hard to accept, like death and having to eat living beings to exist. Myths attempt to give us a lifeline to accept the unacceptable.
Also, there is a link between mythology -- the stories that resonate with lots of people -- and human psychology. The thing about human psychology is that it's not rational. Therefore, the explanations that satisfy us most, speaking to both our rational and irrational sides, actually "stick" better when they include an irrational, emotional component. Purely scientific explanations (a) require more thinking and education and (b) don't engage our emotions as fully.
Also, as I discovered while trying to research an interesting phenomenon that science hasn't yet explained, scientists aren't going to publish much on a topic when they're still at the "let's throw some theories at a wall and see if it sticks" phase. They are hesitant to publish mere collections of anecdotal evidence. Conspiracy theorists are not so constrained, and rush in to throw around theories as fact. Chalk this up to your "Ignorance of science" category.
Ralph Deeds Level 6 Commenter 2 years ago
Great Hub! Hubpages is infested with a fair number of conspiracy theorists. And they are nearly impossible to convince that they are wrong--Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, Obama's birthplace, death panels, etc.