Memories of the 28th Century

I was wondering whether the willingness or capacity to believe conspiracy theories and similar foolishness is a matter of education, or if it is inbred. Perhaps there is an innate predisposition to accept such things that needs to be triggered by something to become active. If the latter is the case, then many or even most people will erroneously think that the trigger is the cause, rather than just setting off the underlying condition. (This is a parallel with how many people think that smoking [as one example) causes cancer, rather than realizing that those cancers are caused by genetic defects that are triggered to cause cancer when the subject is exposed to any of a variety of irritants). I wonder about this, because I have encountered reasonably intelligent people who are capable of reason who believe some of the strangest things, Illuminati, New World Order, alien ancestors, etc.

To most reasoning people conspiracy theories are objects for laughter, but there are others who eat that stuff up, as if it were ice cream. I suspect that one cause is the lack of education in logic in the primary grades. I will confess that I had no such training until I got to high school and even then it wasn't a formal course but a matter of being taught by people who thought that way, and I did get specific lessons on some facets of logic. In retrospect I think it would have been better, if I had a more general and complete course in logic, and I think that most other people could use it even more. One thing that would help in regard to conspiracy theories would be learning how to apply Occam's Razor. I once tried explaining the relevance of Occam's Razor to the question of aliens having engaged in genetic engineering on humans, and I think that I made the point, and it may have been taken, because I never heard that person make the same argument again, so there is hope.

But how does one explain that it would be difficult to the point of impossibility for there to be a worldwide conspiracy of people who want to impose their ideas on the world at large. After all, there are a great many people who want to impose their wills on the world; that we know well. The impossible part is the conspiracy. They might all want the same thing, but it would be for themselves, rather than for the group. Instead of having a group conspiring to impose their collective will, we have a great many people trying to impose their own individual wills on the world, and working against the many others trying to do the same thing. We know that people want themselves first, but it would be introducing a new and different factor to claim that they were trying to do that for a large group, rather than for themselves; thus making it a violation of Occam's Razor; entities were added without necessity.
I suppose that it is conceivable that there is a huge worldwide conspiracy that is planning to get rid of the excess population, so that they will have pleasanter lives, but there is no good evidence for it other than claims by people who have trouble thinking, and it is easier to explain any of the actions that may have been ascribed to the New World Order as actions by individuals. This is another place where Occam's Razor should be applied. Some people would insist that one individual couldn't possibly take over the world, but that is unnecessary, because no one has taken over the world. If someone succeeds in world domination, then we will look at the matter again. In the absence of any confessions by people who were in the upper levels of the New World Order, there is nothing to worry about from that quarter. Then there is the matter of the Illuminati. They were banned more than two hundred years ago, and there has been no sign of them since, except in works of fiction.

If you enjoy conspiracies, then the most entertaining one relates to reptilian creatures from another planet having cultured humans from hybrids of chimpanzees and themselves. Bringing in the aliens is supposed to account for the differences between us and the chimps. That might be an interesting theory, if there weren't so many intermediates evolutionary stages for which there are fossils. The days of searching for a “missing link” are long past. Then there's the problem that the genes of chimps today being different from the chimps of seven million years ago. But there is a much simpler explanation for the existence of the human race: evolution. I just went searching for information about the genetic engineering done by aliens, but I only found assertions that there was some genes that are from alien sources, but the particular sites were not specified, so that is an incomplete claim. That makes this a red herring, and by their nature red herrings need to be slashed away with Occam's Razor.

Next time I will slice away the aliens that some people claim built the Egyptian pyramids, even though humans did a fine job without aliens or their mysterious sources of energy, unless the Illuminati chase me away. .



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/fo...age1447176/pg1