A professional's response regarding conspiracy theorists

A small article appeared in WIRED online. It probably isn't much to worry about, but it got me thinking...,

Mr. Know-It-All on Conspiracies, Crossword Protocol, Scared Children

Emphasis in the following excerpts below are mine.

My brother swears that the twin towers were felled by explosives placed there by the FBI. I've presented him with reams of evidence to the contrary, but he hasn't wavered. Will he ever see the light?

There's hope, but your cogent arguments are unlikely to hasten any shift in your brother's thinking. In fact, your strenuous efforts at dissuasion could end up reinforcing his views. Some research suggests that when confronted with evidence that contradicts closely held beliefs, people tend to cling even more tightly to their convictions. The more you challenge him, the more your brother may suspect you're hopelessly naive—or worse, actually participating in furthering the conspiracy, as either a dupe or an agent of a government out to stymie truth-seekers.

So, simply ignore the conspiracy theorist. It is being touted as the 'right' thing to do.

Keep in mind that your brother's belief in a large-scale conspiracy may be a coping mechanism. The human brain has evolved to find patterns, which is useful when avoiding saber-toothed tigers but less so when confronted with opaque and complex events. Patrick Leman, a psychologist at the University of London who specializes in conspiracy theories, says people tend to be terrified by the fact that a few bad apples can profoundly alter the course of history. We prefer to believe that we live in a stable world where major events have understandable causes.

A 'coping mechanism' eh? And the escapist backdrop of the heavily edited MSM isn't?

While Dr. Leman may be a promising academician, I fail to understand how he is considered "a specialist" in conspiracy theories:

www.pc.rhul.ac.uk...

Excerpted from bio.

Interests here extend from an exploration of the links between work on social influence and socio-cognitive models of development, to issues of cognitive style, identity and knowledge in adult reasoning including beliefs about conspiracy theories and child and adult moral reasoning.

Yet his published work all related to child-behavior and cognition.

This young doctor may speak well regarding behavior justification and collective recall, it hardly makes him a specialist in conspiracy theory, it might make him a specialist in the area of the behavior of people who are conspiratorially-minded.

The whole "9/11 was an inside job" theory helps many people sleep at night.

Sorry, I don't "sleep better at night" knowing that a) a conspiracy of some kind took place on 9/11 - and we are purposefully denied access to the details, and b) the MSM continues is gradual mind-bending practices of marginalizing the legitimacy of those who are driven to demand the truth, and realize when it is not forthcoming.

You can't blame WIRED for finding someone who would confirm what they wanted said.

*sigh* I used to think WIRED was an OK publisher..., until recently.

Get this Dr on here and we'll sort him out or better,get his contact details and email him the best of the best threads on ATS for him to give a look over..though i doubt he will.

Originally posted by Solomons
Get this Dr on here and we'll sort him out

or better,get his contact details and email him the best of the best threads on ATS for him to give a look over..though i doubt he will.

I suspect your right. He probably would shun the contact. Perhaps one of the new ATS Press Core might be inclined to contact him for an interview.... all the information is there.

That person should look at my life. I have been monitored with mind control for 17 years since school, and everyone who knows me knows it is true, so he can take a run and jump, lol.

These people keep the general public ignorant.

wow, this is CRAZY TALK ... really ...

Some research suggests that when confronted with evidence that contradicts closely held beliefs, people tend to cling even more tightly to their convictions. The more you challenge him, the more your brother may suspect you're hopelessly naive—or worse, actually participating in furthering the conspiracy, as either a dupe or an agent of a government out to stymie truth-seekers.

This is true. As a student of social psychology I have to jump on the fence here.. although you might flame me tinders for it.

There are a number of intensively studied psychological effects that tell us that our mindset is more subject to unknown influences than we think.
Here's one you might know: Milgram's experiment. People are willing to hurt other people as long as it seems to be condoned by an authority figure..
Then there's Asch's conformity experiment, which is already a bit scarier, as it shows us how if we're in a group of people (whom we don't know), we will give the wrong answer to the simplest of questions if the whole group before us chooses so. This is very scary.
I don't know if you've ever seen the movie "Das Experiment" - well, it's a real experiment too. It's based on Stanford's prison experiment.

Those are just the famous experiment. They got famous because they shook people up - a lot of resistance came from the government, and nowadays those studies are being deemed too dangerous for the populace. However, before they got banned, we got hundreds of experiments, all confirming the effect - only differing marginal in how strong it is.

Then there are small effects which continue to be studied, but are nonetheless scary. For instance, the confirmation bias - which has been studied through many different experiments - is a mechanism which makes it less easy for us to absorb information that contradicts our current state of mind, and at the same time makes us look for anything that matches it. The annoying thing about this is that it filters our perceptions before it hits consciousness. It's not that we completely disregard information, but the mechanism that interprets information rather avoids conflicting information and instead substitutes anything that will fit. To make it abundantly clear, think of a little child that has just went into the "my"-phase. If it has it's pretty hands on anything at all, you can say "it's not yours!" however much you want, even if they understand the words "not" and "yours", they won't put it together in their head to the meaning "it's not mine.". Know that this is a mechanism; even though we grow out of the phase of possessions, there are many other reasons to avoid a certain conflicting meaningful interpretation.

Well, I'm boring myself now, so I'm not gonna list more biasing mechanisms, but trust me when I say that we're loaded with them (here's a list on cognition and one on attribution ).. PM if you'd like to hear more.

With all these different kinds of mechanisms working around the clock to make our mindset wholesome (or at least wholesome enough for us not to go crazy) -especially the social mechanisms - it's absolutely impossible to say who's right and who's not. It's clear though that groups with a large cohesion (groups that stick together - baseball teams, ATS) have even stronger effects on one another. So even though his statements are quite bold (judgements included), the mechanisms of which he speaks are something we should try to keep an eye on. Not collectively, because that's exactly where the problems start.
Try to keep your head clear


[edit on 3-5-2009 by scraze]

Wow! Very interesting, and worthwhile contribution.

Thank you.

My principle resistance to the source has it's roots in the clinical analysis of the emotionally-attached subject, and somehow equating the subject matter to it. It arises from the attribution of relevance between the believer and the belief.

Whether the collective belief is correct or not, the behavior patterns can have no bearing. It denies the truth that I can collect the most dysfunctional and anti-social people who share a belief I oppose, and use them to further my opposition to the belief. (As opposed to analyzing a group that believes similarly, but are not representative of cognitive dysfunction or anti-social tendencies.)

Consider, "you have to be crazy to believe in aliens!"

Do you?

[edit on 3-5-2009 by Maxmars]

I sort of agree with this guy...

While obviously a blanket policy of assumption that conspiracy theorists are always Wrong is a blind moronic approach to life...

plenty of STUFF actually goes on...

With that said though.

Most of the time he is right people do make stuff up to deal with reality all the time.

I would solidly maintain that most things people encounter aren't a conspiracy...

That the reality is that there are groups that control finance to a good degree, i.e. the bilderbergs do meet, they are just in the end groups of guys...very busy guys, who agree to agree on stuff and... it doesn't mean 90% of what even the ultra elite in any form, money religion, politics ever want comes to pass...

Mainly I'd say this

The biggest conspiracy of all is...

Not admitting how actually out of control it all really is...

A conspiracy we all are in on...

The Mans right... it's allot easier to look for an actual NWO, even though there are many little groups competing for power out there and... no really reason to believe these guys are anything more than fallible people who lie and screw allot of stuff up...

So long as we blame someone give it a name,

well at least someone is in charge

The reality

NO ONE IS IN CHARGE... IT'S ALL FRAIL AS HECK

reply to post by mopusvindictus


No doubt about it, if this is some megalomaniacal elitist group's concept of 'control' they have a looooooong way to go.

Nevertheless, at this point in time, I reserve the right to be skeptical about what these people in the government/corporate/media/oligarchy tell me is "true" and what "isn't". I lay that claim based upon the facts that are not in question, in particular regarding history - history which they refuse to acknowledge, and seek to have 'forgotten.'