Headline: "Climate change, Benghazi, the Fed: The science behind the right’s irrational obsession with conspiracies"
The headline is unfortunate because this is a really good and in-depth article covering the science behind conspiracy theories. It outlines in detail how and why we have a tendency to create these theories and, even worse, refuse to let them die. It's just one more example of how the human brain can't be trusted to reach valid conclusions on its own.
It reminds me of the Wikipedia list of biases that seems to go on forever. With so many things working against us when trying to find out anything for sure, it's not surprising it's taken millions of years for us to get this far. Our brains act like an autoimmune disease against knowledge.
But because we now know about these problems, we can, if we want to, take steps to mitigate them by relying on evidence and processes that remove us as much as possible from the results. We just need to want to do so.
The headline is unfortunate because this is a really good and in-depth article covering the science behind conspiracy theories. It outlines in detail how and why we have a tendency to create these theories and, even worse, refuse to let them die. It's just one more example of how the human brain can't be trusted to reach valid conclusions on its own.
It reminds me of the Wikipedia list of biases that seems to go on forever. With so many things working against us when trying to find out anything for sure, it's not surprising it's taken millions of years for us to get this far. Our brains act like an autoimmune disease against knowledge.
But because we now know about these problems, we can, if we want to, take steps to mitigate them by relying on evidence and processes that remove us as much as possible from the results. We just need to want to do so.
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