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Suspicious Minds

Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories
Jan 31, 2016paul1 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
An excellent summary of why all kinds of people (smart, dumb,educated, uneducated, right wing, left wing, etc.) see conspiracies in all manner of world events. I like the fact that Brotherton points out humans are pattern seeking animals that connect dots into patterns. Quite often these patterns are real but also the patterns can be illusions. Especially since confirmation bias skews our worldview that reinforces our beliefs. Counter-intuitively the more intelligent someone is the more likely they are to fall for conspiracy theories. What was eye-opening was the study proving that people have a "proportionality bias". That means big events must have big causes (like if I want a high score on a dice roll, I'll throw it harder pg.209). So if a president is killed it can't be due to a single guy with a gun, it has to be due to a powerful shady cabal. Also he shows how it is nigh-impossible for a conspiracy theorist to see that their pet conspiracy is full of holes and they go through convoluted thinking to rationalize their beliefs (ie, anti-vaccinationists think the lack of evidence between autism and vaccines is not because there is no link but due to a Big-pharma cover-up).