The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer [113]
10
Belief in Conspiracies
Agenticity need not be so ephemeral as ghosts, gods, angels, and demons. Agents may be flesh and blood, even while retaining an element of near-invisibility, cloaked from our normal senses, secretive in their actions, and inferred by their effects. This form of agenticity is more familiarly known as a conspiracy, and the inference is a conspiracy theory.
Pattern of Conspiracy
Conspiracy theories are a different breed of animal than conspiracies themselves. Whether there was or was not a conspiracy behind the assassination of JFK (I contend that there was not), theories of JFK conspiracies abound, as they do for the assassinations of RFK, MLK Jr., and Malcolm X; the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa; and the deaths of Princess Diana and assorted rock stars, not to mention conspiracy theories behind the fluoridation of water supplies, jet contrails depositing chemical and biological agents in the atmosphere (chemtrails), the spread of AIDS and other infectious diseases, the dispersal of cocaine and guns to inner cities, peak oil and related oil company suppression of alternative energy technologies, the moon landing that never happened, UFO landings that did happen, and the nefarious goings-on of the Federal Reserve, the New World Order, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee of 300, Skull and Bones, the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the Learned Elders of Zion and the Zionist Occupation Government, satanists and satanic ritual cults, and the like. The list is seemingly endless.
The term conspiracy theory is often used derisively to indicate that someone’s explanation for an event is highly improbable or even on the lunatic fringe, and that those who proffer such theories are most probably crackpots. Since conspiracies do happen, however, we cannot just automatically dismiss any and all conspiracy theorists a priori. So what should we believe when we encounter a conspiracy theory? What are some of the characteristics of a conspiracy theory that indicate that it is likely untrue?
1. There is an obvious pattern of connected dots that may or may not be connected in a causal way. When the Watergate conspirators confessed to the burglary, or Osama bin Laden boasts about the triumph of 9/11, we can be confident that the pattern is real. But when there is no forthcoming evidence to support a causal connection between the dots in the pattern, or when the evidence is equally well explained through some other causal chain—or through randomness—the conspiracy theory is likely false.
2. The agents behind the pattern of the conspiracy are elevated to near superhuman power to pull it off. We must always remember how flawed human behavior is, and the natural tendency we all have to make mistakes. Most of the time in most circumstances most people are not nearly as powerful as we think they are.
3. The more complex the conspiracy, and the more elements involved for it to unfold successfully, the less likely it is to be true.
4. The more people involved in the conspiracy, the less likely they will all be able to keep silent about their secret goings-on.
5. The grander and more worldly the conspiracy is believed to be—the control of an entire nation, economy, or political system, especially if it suggests world domination—the less likely it is to be true.
6. The more the conspiracy theory ratchets up from small events that might be true into much larger events that have much lower probabilities of being true, the less likely it is to be grounded in reality.
7. The more the conspiracy theory assigns portentous and sinister meanings and interpretations to what are most likely innocuous or insignificant events, the less likely it is to be true.
8. The tendency to commingle facts and speculation without distinguishing between the two and without assigning degrees