Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy Theories

I was fascinated by the speed of the conspiracy theories that were generated after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. Within days, if not hours, of the event, claims of lies and cover-ups were flying around the world. An Israeli assassination squad did it to stir up international problems. The US government did it in order to have an excuse to impose radical new gun-control laws leading up to the confiscation of all privately owned guns. Against all logic and without good evidence, conspiracy theorists said no children had been killed at the school. There were no grieving parents, no distraught teachers. The people seen on television and interviewed by journalists were “crisis actors” playing roles designed to dupe us. Sandy Hook—like the Kennedy assassination, the 9/11 attacks, and thousands of other terrible events—will forever have crude, disturbing, and unproven conspiracy theories attached to them. Why does this happen over and over? Why do people believe these kinds of claims?

Before analyzing the conspiracy-theory phenomenon, it is important to be clear that evil, destructive, and criminal conspiracies are very real. They happen all the time. Of course groups of people get together to plan and execute bad deeds. We are social creatures—for better and for worse. Both history books and today’s headlines offer countless examples of mischief by committee. Most popular conspiracy theories are not like supernatural/paranormal claims because they don’t seem to contradict what we know about how the natural world works. The problem is that many of us seem to have an irresistible urge or need to have complex and dramatic explanations when bad things happen, even if they lack proof and on the surface appear to be illogical and very unlikely. This should surprise no one. The following standard human characteristics make conspiracy theories of interest to most and irresistible to some:

We love stories. Telling stories and listening to stories is a fundamental aspect of being human. We are storytellers. Gossip isn’t just fodder for the tabloids and simple minds. Gossip is a crucial glue that binds us to one another. Since deep into prehistory, stories and gossip have been the devices by which we have shared important information, alerted each other of dangers, and inspired one another. One thing all good conspiracy theories have in common is that they are great stories. There usually are victims, villains, secrets, and a chance for justice to prevail—if only enough people will believe the story.

We don’t like little answers to big questions. It insults our sense of justice to accept that Lee Harvey Oswald, just one man, was able to kill the most powerful man in the world. There must have been many powerful people involved, right? Not necessarily, because human history and contemporary culture are not math equations that must balance in a way that conforms to our subjective tastes. Sometimes unlikely things just happen, and sometimes events violate our perceptions of what is fair and reasonable.

Those damn dots again! Not only can we see things that aren’t really there by connecting “dots” that don’t really have a connection, we often think that way, too. Our pattern-seeking ways do not end when we stop looking at clouds and inkblots. Sometimes we connect random dots within stories and information, too. With our minds, we seek out links between facts, comments, events, and people. If enough forced connections are made, then a conspiracy may come into focus, whether or not it’s really there. Just like our brains create and see the shape of a monster in a passing cloud, many of us create and see a monstrous secret in big events, even though it’s not real.

Because conspiracies really do happen, it is important for people, skeptics included, to avoid lumping all conspiracy theories together. Many of them deserve a hearing, not only for the sake of fairness but also to help counter claims of a cover-up. I think it’s crucial to continually steer away from emotion and conjecture with these ideas and stay focused on hard evidence. It is amazing what people will think and say when it comes to conspiracy theories. In 2012, I was a guest on the AM radio show Coast to Coast to discuss skepticism and science. We talked about many topics, but the conspiracy stuff generated the weirdest comments in the days and weeks after the show. I received e-mails and saw web posts that accused me of being a paid stooge of “Big Pharma,” out to promote profitable vaccines and spread disinformation about alternative medicine. My view that al Qaeda was probably responsible for the 9/11 attacks and that the Moon-landing-hoax claim is almost certainly wrong led some to declare that I was “obviously” a government-paid “black operator” on a mission to mislead the public. Clearly some believers have allowed emotion and suspicions to distract them from the need to focus on evidence. However, some conspiracy theorists don’t have that problem. They go to extremes with evidence. They have mountains of evidence and will happily bury you with it if you allow them to. In my experience, the proponents of conspiracy theories who do the hard work of accumulating evidence are far from dim. They tend to be bright, energetic thinkers. What they seem not to realize, however, is that conspiracy theories are the near-perfect trap for confirmation-bias problems. When one analyzes a complex crime, large organization, or major event, it is all too easy to cherry-pick the data in order to present a lopsided case. I’m not suggesting that they are dishonest. It is only natural to subconsciously do this. Confirmation bias is universal. Conspiracy theorists, no matter how intelligent and how sincere, certainly are not immune to it.

The best advice I can offer about conspiracy theories is to keep an open mind, because groups of people, corporations, religious organizations, and governments really are capable of doing just about anything. History proves it. But don’t embrace a wild conspiracy claim because you think it could be true or because you feel it should be true. Play hard to get. Hold out for proof.