The purpose of this diary is to reflect on recent experiences related to my public outreach on the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster (including but not limited to the DailyKos) and to report on a fine book by Joseph Uscinski and Joseph Parent entitled American Conspiracy Theories. My previous professional outreach experiences, mostly related to climate change, led me to believe that conspiracy theorizing and evidence blindless was mostly confined to the those on the more far-right end of the political spectrum. My own recent experiences indicate that this is not so. Not surprisingly this was already known by others and aspects of this interesting line of research are outlined by Uscinski and Parent in the book in question linked to above. Indeed, we all hold conspiracy theories. But which are most likely to be true? Some comments on the book and my experiences with outreach below the fold.
I have not lead a particularly sheltered existence but I have learned a significant amount about how people view the world since I began writing and speaking publicly on the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster. Though not a comprehensive list, my eyes have been opened to the following terms and conspiracies:
- The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) being used to control weather worldwide
- Chemtrails
- How the Queen of England helped to invent climate change to promote nuclear energy
None of these have significant evidence in support and most evidence based views of the world would reject these theories. There are many conspiracy theories out there. That is not new.
If the questions of why and how conspiracy theories develop and who are the people that hold them of are of interest to you I highly recommend reading a recently published book by Uscinski and Parent called American Conspiracy Theories. My writing here is not meant to be a formal review of the book but just to highlight some interesting findings by the authors which seem to hold given my experiences of late.
The book by Uscinski and Parent aims to try to generalize who holds conspiracy theories and why they hold them. In brief a conspiracy theory has the following elements:
- a group
- acting in secret
- to alter institutions, usurp power, hide truth, or gain utility
- at the expense of the common good
To understand the why's, who's, how's and when's of conspiracy theories the authors looked at three original databases: 1) an opinion survey designed to understand peoples beliefs and thoughts, 2) sampling 121 years of Letters to the Editor of the New York Times and, 3) 3,000 articles and posts from internet blogs and news outlets.
They codified these polls and writings to look at trends in time and who is most likely to subscribe to conspiracy theories.
For example, the opinion poll was constructed as follows. To determine how prone to conspiracy belief you might be the authors gauged response to the following statements as to whether one strongly agreed or disagreed (5 to 1):
Much or our lives are being controlled by plots hatched in secret places.
Even though we live in a democracy a few people will always run things anyway.
The people who really "run" the country are not known to voters.
Based on these responses the authors define a "Conspiracy Dimension" independent of political leaning that determines how likely an individual is to accept conspiracy theories. Where do you think might score on the "Conspiracy Dimension"?
What they found
In brief the authors found that almost everyone believes in at least one conspiracy theory but that some individuals are more prone to believe in conspiracies than others. This tendency to believe in conspiracy was independent of political orientation or sex despite predominant stereotypes. I'll drill down into detailed results in a future diary.
How to gauge whether conspiracy theories are true or not
To close this brief blog I will present a series of tests that the authors above suggest are useful to testing our own predispositions and beliefs. To see if what we believe is actually true or not.
To verify the truth of your own conspiracy theories apply the following tests:
Occam's Razor
Look for the most parsimonious explanation. The more complicated in most cases the least likely is the explanation. If you find yourself taking an incredibly tortuous path to make connections between unlikely allies and accomplices in the absence of concrete evidence to make your case perhaps you are moving away from the truth.
Falsifiability
Scientific method relies on hypotheses that can be proven to be false. If it is impossible that there can be evidence that your theory is wrong then it is not likely to be proven true. You must ask yourself the following questions:
What evidence would falsify my belief?
What other beliefs would be true if I applied my own level of falsifiability to them?
Worst Intentions
Many conspiracy theories attribute very terrible and, in fact, evil intentions to those accused of being the villains in their worldview. If this level of depravity is unlikely in the accused agents a conspiracy is equally unlikely.
The Cui bono Test
Asking who benefits from a conspiracy is an important question. Weigh the risks and rewards to a proposed conspirator. Does it make any sense that they might do what they are proposed to be doing?
The Impartial Spectator Test
How convincing is the evidence to an impartial observer (someone who does not share your political or ideological predispositions)? In many cases a theory that widely diverges from the story put forward by experts is unwarranted. Yet, in many cases conspiracy theorists ignore information and opinion from experts and rely on more esoteric and unreliable sources of information. Why do people mistrust experts? Well experts can be wrong. But more often than not they are correct. Perhaps it is because individuals overestimate their ability to explain and understand different phenomena. A good test of a conspiracy theory is to place the evidence supporting it in front of impartial individuals whose predispositions are unlikely to selectively accept or reject information.
Subjecting your pet conspiracy theory to the preceding tests can help to determine how likely the theory might represent the truth.
I recommend picking up a copy of the Uscinski and Parent book if any of this discussion or outline catches your interest.