Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

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...

We call them "conspiracy theories" and the first part seems obvious. We have accusations of groups of people meeting in secret to concoct a plan. This is, by definition, a conspiracy. However the latter part of the term is suspicious. Are they even "theories"? The problem that we are having is that there is a colloquial definition of the word and a formal definition of the word. Formally a theory is a construct of a series of propositions, supported by evidence, indicating an explanation of an event or phenomenon. In an earlier post I indicated how we can have historical theories of conspiracy using such events as the "Pazzi Conspiracy" and the standard in the literature "Watergate." In both of these cases there is an accusation of conspiracy supported by historical evidence. They are explained in the words of Dentith that the "conspiracy" is the salient cause of the events, in other words, without the direction of a secretive group t...

My dissertation is on conspiracy theories, and one chapter of that dissertation concerns the demarcation line between science and pseudoscience. My dissertation topical defense will be within a month from now and I am working on fixing the written defense for the oral presentation of it. The demarcation chapter is, admittedly the weakest part, mainly because the connection between science-pseudoscience and conspiracy theory-theory of conspiracy isn't that clear. Also because the crux of the argument is based on a legal argument that is related to a court case regarding intelligent design in the classroom. Essentially, my fix of this chapter is to make a large justification for why it matters, which to me, is one of those things that is so obvious that I have trouble writing it down. The issue at large is that pseudoscientific thinking is conspiracy thinking. We just don't usually frame it that way. Conspiracy theories are typically thought of in stereotypes of shadow organi...

The focus of many conspiracy theories, the direct super theories are often held, by believers, to be the responsibility of those that are termed "elites." The "elites" here are usually a group of individuals that have no responsibility to anyone else but themselves, are secret, and exclusive. They go by many names: the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, etc. These are the groups responsible for ushering in a "New World Order" that will have large effects that are typically explained in two camps: the first camp is unspecified cataclysm. The downfall of civilization is always the end result coupled with a fascist/totalitarian government in charge The second camp is ultra specific and is sometimes literally camps. The subversion of the monetary system through the federal reserve, usually explained by people that have little understanding of monetary systems and the federal reserve. The elimination of specific rig...

Note: This is the introduction to my topical defense for my PhD dissertation. I've been working on a heavy rewrite which is why this blog has been updated so infrequently. I'll be posting sections and snippets of the topical defense. All comments are welcome. We cannot be more painfully insulted then when someone takes the trouble to destroy the illusions in which our vanity has veiled itself.”—Adam Weishaupt (founder of the actual Illuminati), Diogenes’ Lamp (1804)             We have all been exposed to conspiracy theories. Anyone who has spent more than a passing moment on the internet will no doubt have scrolled passed or perhaps even clicked on a story that purported to tell the real truth of some event, current or past. This was once not the case, but conspiracy theories and conspiracism (the belief in them) is now a regular occurrence. The internet made it everywhere, while in the early 90s conspiracy theories be...

Drawing a line between a theory which is explained by the actions of a conspiracy and a "conspiracy theory" is a focus of this intermittently updated blog. The issue, in a nutshell, is when does an explanation transform from a "conspiracy theory" to "theory containing a conspiracy" of which the latter has at least the resemblance of plausibility (remember possibility for the purposes of this blog is defined in the logical manner, not the colloquial one). So the standard test case for this position is the Watergate affair. Prior to the event called "the Saturday Night Massacre" anyone claiming that the Watergate break in had presidential approval or even knowledge could be dismissed as "merely a conspiracy theorist." For the most part that would be correct, the accusations were coming with little to no evidence and only a minor book by two obscure Washington Post reporters were even trying to make any kind of link.* So we have event ...

This is revisiting the same subject as last post, creating a hierarchy. Barkun gives us a pretty bare bones but essential categorization of CTs. His hierarchy lists three different categories: Event, Systemic, and Super. Each category builds off of the previous one. An event CT revolves around a singular event and is roughly encapsulated within that event. If a person thinks that a shooting was really a false flag and ends it there, it's an event CT. A systemic CT is one that links different events, involves a conspirator(s) with an involved plan, and a goal that necessitates the events in question. To link it with our previous example: if that person then continued on by saying that all mass shootings are false flags in some poorly thought out plan to reduce gun ownership we would have a systemic CT. The super CT is global. It involves a group that controls world events, has a dedicated hierarchy and a some kind of plan that would likely be to strengthen its world domination...