The Definition According to the Social Sciences
Within the last four years or so, the academic interest in conspiracy theories, conspiracism, alternative medicine beliefs, and pseudoscientific beliefs has gained a lot of ground. I can speculate as to why this trend exists, but it would only be speculation. The first is the resurgence of the flat earth movement which is a pseudoscientific meta-conspiracy theory. That gained news coverage because it's so abjectly ridiculous that it easily makes for a puff piece in the 24 hour news cycle. The fact that it was endorsed by semi-famous people in the music world, and famous people in the basketball world gave it a popular interest in the crazy thing that some people believed. The second, was that facebook had finally reached everyone, and while we can again speculate as to who was pushing the conspiracy theories--that is irrelevant because regular people shared them all over the place. The third is probably predictable--the current US president who has endorsed Alex Jones, 9/11 conspir