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Paper On Conspiratorial Thinking Invokes Conspiratorial Thinking

Posted by Soulskill on from the elvis-lives-on-the-moon-with-hitler dept.

Layzej writes "Last summer a paper investigating the link between conspiratorial thinking and the rejection of climate science provoked a response on blogs skeptical of the scientific consensus that appeared to illustrate the very cognitive processes at the center of the research. This generated data for a new paper titled 'Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation (PDF).' The researchers reviewed the reactions for evidence of conspiratorial thinking, including the presumption of nefarious intent, perception of persecution, the tendency to detect meaning in random events, and the ability to interpret contrary evidence as evidence that the conspiracy is even greater in scope that was originally believed. Some of the hypotheses promoted to dismiss the findings of the original paper ultimately grew in scope to include actors beyond the authors, such as university executives, a media organization, and the Australian government. It is not clear whether the response to this paper will itself provide data for further research, or how far down this recursion could progress. I fear the answer may be 'all the way.'"

11 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It is Psychology, Science! Fact! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You wouldn't take people's freely written statements as being evidence of what they think?

    Evidence does not have to be perfect to make an objective study. The brain may be an inaccessable black box as far as psychology is concerned, but if there are identifiable patterns in its output, you can still work from that.

  2. Is this a joke? by elucido · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People believe in conspiracies because they don't have anyone in authority they can trust. It doesn't help when authority lies to them about virtually everything.

    1. Re:Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People believe in conspiracies because conspiracies actaully exist. The US really did get lied into two wars, for instance, and those who did the lying knew exactly what they were doing. The motives were profit and power. Period. That's about as evil as it gets.

      Also, I think there is sufficient proof that government does NOT represent the interests of the people these days, that they do protect the interests of the rich, and that government gets seriously paranoid whenever there is an active movement opposing either it or the wealthy--see law enforcement's reaction to Occupy Wall Street for an example. The Bradley Manning case as another. The Aaron Swartz case as another. The list, unfortunately, goes on and on.

      Does that mean every conspiracy theory is true? Of course not. However, I'm sick and tired of "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theorist" being some kind of get out of jail free card for people who don't want to truly address what's going on in our society these days.

    2. Re:Is this a joke? by dabadab · · Score: 4, Insightful

      People believe in conspiracy theories because it is way much easier than to actually learn the truth. The great thing about conspiracy theories that you don't have to know the actual facts (in the case of many theories it is actually a hindrance), you don't have to be very rigorous with your logic and if there's any hole in the theory you are welcome to make up any explanation. Compare that to the hard work required to be competent in a real area of knowledge.

      Also, your reasoning does not make much sense: you cannot trust the authorities so you believe everything the first nut job tells you? Really?

      --
      Real life is overrated.
  3. Re:Random Randomization by Vintermann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There were not a lot of people shouting in the desert that "LIBOR are fixing interest rates for their own gain!", nor a lot of people saying "Nixon is using illegal means to keep track of his political opponents. Guaranteed!". Conspiracy theorists tend to miss the real conspiracies, it seems.

    --
    xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
  4. My own conspiracy theory. by frivolous_taco · · Score: 5, Insightful

    MEMBER OF THE ROYAL FAMILY, KING RICHARD III, FOUND MURDERED IN PARKING LOT, POLICE DECLINE TO INVESTIGATE!! CONSPIRACY??!! - Leave out one key piece of information and it takes on a life of it's own, but there is nothing untrue about the above. Conspiracies seem to live on the interpretation that those who believe them have a better understanding of the issue at hand than those in charge, or that they have all the relevant information, when they don't.

  5. Re:Random Randomization by dabadab · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This paper is about the thought processes, not about the actual truth. Actually there are no guarantees that you can not arrive to a right conclusion using flawed reasoning (however, I don't recall conspiracy theory nutjobs speculating about the LIBOR fixing).

    --
    Real life is overrated.
  6. Re:It is Psychology, Science! Fact! by MrL0G1C · · Score: 5, Insightful

    of course you're right, environmentalists aren't really interested in keeping the land, water, sea and air free of poisonous substances, its all just a big power play. (nice trolling)

    --
    Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
  7. Dunning Kruger effect by Martin+S. · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Conspiratorial Thinking is clear example of the Dunning Kruger effect at work.

    They overestimate their own intelligence or skill, and ignore contrary feedback. They disavow the intelligence or skill of others. These people are simply too stupid to invalidate their own hypothesis and recognise the validity of the alternative.

  8. Re:It is Psychology, Science! Fact! by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It fails their own stated goals of making a just world â"â" "climate justice" â"â"when a shack in Kenya that's supposed to store medicines and have a bed for the sick, has to choose between either keeping the fridge on, or the fan and lights, because the solar panel they have can't do both. And that's "climate justice" ????

    No, that's a slippery slope leading to an imaginary dilemma, in service of your balance fallacy.

    That's actually a rather strange scenario for you to create, since solar power is bringing energy to areas of Kenya traditional power doesn't or won't go.

    Is it a reference to this? Are they having problems with their equipment? If so, it is rather obnoxious of you to call their hospital a "shack".

    Or, is the scenario made-up, but still plausible? So where in Kenya are diesel generators illegal?

    Basically, what I'm asking is, is there some reason for us to not believe you are completely full of shit?

  9. Re:It is Psychology, Science! Fact! by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're making the point that true free markets are poor at dealing with the environment. That's true. They are also poor at dealing with all sorts of other concerns, which is why markets are regulated in all sorts of ways. And taxed at varying rates. All decided on by politicians. This is just one more way.

    I'm quite open to non-market ways of dealing with the AGW problem. If you have any suggestions.

    Doing nothing, just because the idealised, imaginary, true free market has no way to deal with the issue, is certainly not the answer.