Was the moon
landing staged? Was 9/11 an inside job? Are vaccines and GMOs harmful? Is the
government covering up crash landings by alien beings? The vast majority of
conspiracy theories perpetuated mainly on social media have no or very little
basis in fact or reality. An example of
a proven one began in the 1960’s when Big Tobacco paid off a small group of
scientists to disseminate the lie that cigarette smoking does not cause cancer
and numerous other diseases. The following are nine clever ways propagators of
conspiracy theories manipulate and deceive the public. Insights taken from
public health advocate and medical journal author Sara
E. Gorman, PHD and science author and researcher Jack M. Gorman, MD.
Conspiracy theorists portray
themselves and their cause as beleaguered victims of conspiracies:
“These
anti-science leaders want to be seen as courageous lone wolves who are crying out
against powerful and malevolent forces. They also represent themselves as
belonging to a higher moral order than their opponents, who generally are
depicted as ruthless and money-craving. Their messages about conspiracies can
be terrifying and infuriating. In this ‘us’ versus ‘them’ contest, the
conspiracy theorist tries to make us believe that if we don’t follow his/her
lead, our very survival will be threatened.”
Conspiracy theorists take advantage
of the powerlessness many feel when facing overwhelming societal, economic or
political issues. Their theories:
“…assign
blame to secret, powerful, and malevolent forces for things we feel we cannot control
and therefore both give us an explanation for what is going on and somewhat
ironically let us off the hook for doing anything about it. If the conspiracy
involves the government, big corporations, and the entire healthcare
profession, then no individual need feel remiss if he or she is not doing anything
about the perceived problem. This makes the entry of a charismatic leader who
claims to have the ability to fight back against the conspiracy an attractive
option.”
Conspiracy theorists manipulate
listeners by emotionally hijacking the brain without the targets realizing what
is happening:
“Our minds
are programmed to respond more strongly to emotional appeals and vivid
representations than to dry facts and statistical analysis ….. Simple, vivid,
emotional messages, especially when they evoke unpleasant feelings like fear
and disgust, activate more primitive regions of the human brain and inhibit the
more rational, contemplative regions. It makes sense that these primitive
regions, which include structures such as the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and
insula, are more rapidly and easily engaged …… The result is an inability to
control emotional responses. Anti-science conspiracy theories are characterized
by a great deal of dramatic, emotional content. Everything is couched in terms
of inflammatory words and phrases – brain damage, armed intruders, radiation
sickness, rich, corporate giants, and so forth ….. They pack emotional appeals
into their presentations, hoping to activate a lot of amygdala-hippocampal
memory systems … and ensure that their message will be resistant to future
attempts at reasoned falsification.”
The
ingrained memory of the indignant emotion is all that is needed:
“If we are
aroused with anger and fear when we are told that GMOs will somehow do
mysterious things to our genes and give us cancer or some other dreaded disease,
the memory of fear and those ‘facts’ are stored in the brain together. Now every
time anyone brings up the topic of GMOs, we simultaneously become angry and
fearful because the idea that GMOs cause cancer immediately comes to mind. In
that frame of mind, any attempt to dissuade us from the idea is rendered nearly
impossible….”
Conspiracy theorists persistently
exaggerate the power and control alleged conspirators have over people and
organizations:
“In the case
of Watergate, there was no need to exaggerate the power of the conspirators – they
included the President of the United States. But in a case like the alleged
cover-up of vaccines’ ability to cause autism, we are asked to believe that
drug companies are so powerful that they can keep data secret from hundreds of
scientists and government regulators. Maybe drug companies are not so eager to reveal
dangers associated with medications they hope to profit from, and maybe the
scientists who work for the companies can be dissuaded from revealing those dangers
individually, but every bit of data accumulated in drug company studies must be
turned over to the US Food and Drug Administration.
“Also,
another government agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
conducts surveillance studies on a host of things that might affect the public
health. One such CDC endeavor showed no connection between vaccines and autism.
So now we must believe that all of the scientists at two government agencies
are in on it.
“Furthermore,
independent scientists at universities all over the world have, without getting
funding from drug companies, also reached the conclusion that vaccines don’t
cause autism. Somehow, all of them must be in on it too. In essence, this
massive conspiracy is controlled by super-powerful drug companies that can,
even without paying them, control people.”
Conspiracy theorists prey on people’s
envy and frustrations at not having achieved anything important in life. Corporate
greed is real and inexcusable…..
“But the
notion that if someone makes money from something then there is automatically
something immoral, dangerous, or illegal being done is obviously unhelpful. We
are not here debating the ethics of capitalism, the income gap, or free market
economies. Rather, we are simply pointing out that it is entirely possible for
someone to make a lot of money making a product or providing a service that is
useful and safe. That is, it is insufficient to say that because a profit is
being made, the result must be evil. Yet this is in general what conspiracy
theorists assert, and in doing so they are preying on our feelings of envy and
life dissatisfaction rather than arguing science.
“Just because
a drug company makes a lot of money producing vaccines does not mean that
vaccines are dangerous. It is true that in order to preserve profits, the drug
company has an incentive to cut corners around safety and to cover up problems
with its drug, but that does not mean it is doing so. Although we advocate
greater disclosure and transparency of the fees doctors and scientists receive
from corporations, we do not believe that every, or even most, doctors who get
money from drug companies are guilty of misrepresenting the safety and efficacy
of medications.”
Conspiracy theorists will never admit
that in many cases, they are the ones doing harm and creating victims:
“These
include children starving in Africa because bugs eat the crops they could be
eating if GMO seeds had been used; teenagers who shoot themselves with their
parent’s guns; unvaccinated children who catch measles and develop
life-threatening encephalopathies or pass measles on to children being treated
for cancer who cannot be vaccinated; people with severe depression who do not
respond to psychotherapy or antidepressant drugs and kill themselves when they
could have been saved by ECT; and so on. Scientists generally do not give
emotion-laden appeals in which these victims are discussed, even though they
are real, whereas the conspiracy theorist ‘victims’ are too often fabrications.
“Recently, anti-smoking
advertisements have become increasingly graphic, showing people with severe
pulmonary disease gasping for air. Scientists are more comfortable with making
statements like ‘The risk of acquiring chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or
COPD is greatly enhanced by cigarette smoking.’ But as we have seen, that
statement does not carry the human, amygdala-provoking, memory-enhancing power
that so many of the anti-science statements do. Perhaps it is time to realize
that anti-science conspiracy theorists are in fact the conspirators who create
real victims. Those victims are the people who actually deserve our empathy,
but we know almost nothing about them.”
Conspiracy theorists take advantage
of any flaws or shortcomings in conventional medicine and blow them up to
mammoth and menacing proportions. An example is some doctors taking money from
drug companies to promote their products and give the following excuse:
“The drugs
have been shown in scientifically rigorous studies to be effective and to have
acceptable levels of adverse side effects; they have been approved by the US
Food and Drug Administration after careful review; so why not get paid to talk
about them? The fact that doctors take money from drug companies to talk about
the virtues of those companies’ brand name drugs does not, of course, mean the
drugs are prima facie dangerous or
that there is any conspiracy afoot. But even the appearance of such a conflict is disillusioning to us.”
How to spot an anti-science,
anti-reason, hysteria-inducing conspiracy theorist:
“They are
characterized by chagrined scientists and doctors who have felt slighted by
their colleagues. They often form new organizations with long and provocative
names; name themselves the president, director or CEO; and frequently avoid
disclosing how large the membership actually is. Most important, they tend to
portray themselves as lone wolves who are the victims of huge and powerful
conglomerates usually comprised of some combination of industry, government and
professional societies.
“The
techniques that these conspiracy theory originators use are also telltale signs
of an anti-science position. Motive is emphasized over outcome. Anyone who
makes money is automatically criminal. Yet how the conspiracy theorist earns a
living is never discussed. The power of the conspiracy is vastly exaggerated.
The list of people implicated in the conspiracy grows and grows. Perhaps most
important, conspiracy theorists exploit the affective heuristic by couching all
of their messages in angry, frightening terms that avoid scientific discourse
in favor of high emotion and drama.”
Primary Source
Sara E. Gorman, PHD and Jack M. Gorman, MD, Denying To The
Grave: Why We Ignore The Facts That Will Save Us, Oxford University
Press, 2017
Conspiracy theorists manipulate
people by making them feel “special” when they learn secret knowledge. Leading
researchers in the field report:
“We argue
that people high in need for uniqueness should be more likely than others to
endorse conspiracy beliefs because conspiracy theories represent the possession
of unconventional and potentially scarce information. […] Moreover, conspiracy
theories rely on narratives that refer to secret knowledge or information,
which, by definition, is not accessible to everyone, otherwise it would not be
a secret and it would be a well-known fact. People who believe in conspiracy
theories can feel ‘special,’ in a positive sense, because they may feel that
they are more informed than others about important social and political
events.”
Photo:
http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/content/wls/images/cms/202044_1280x720.jpg
Related Posts
30 Prying and Probing Questions To Bolster Critical Thinking http://www.mybestbuddymedia.com/2016/10/30-prying-and-probing-questions-to.html
Sinister Schemes: Unmasking Conspiracy Theorists http://www.mybestbuddymedia.com/2016/01/sinister-schemes-unmasking-conspiracy.html
21 Quick & Undeniable Facts Exposing Conspiracy Theorists http://www.mybestbuddymedia.com/2013/12/conspiracy-theories.html
Strange Gleanings From A Conspiracy Cruise http://www.mybestbuddymedia.com/2016/09/strange-gleanings-from-conspiracy-cruise.html
7 Concise Reasons Why Alex Jones Is A Fraud http://www.mybestbuddymedia.com/2017/05/7-concise-reasons-why-alex-jones-is.html
12 Simple Facts Debunking Big Pharma Conspiracies http://www.mybestbuddymedia.com/2017/05/12-simple-facts-debunking-big-pharma.html
The Basic Cruelty and Inhumanity of The Sandy Hook Hoaxers: 17 Examples http://www.mybestbuddymedia.com/2016/10/the-basic-cruelty-and-inhumanity-of.html
Jerry De Luca is a Christian freelance writer who loves perusing dozens of interesting and informative publications. When he finds any useful info he summarizes it, taking the main points, and creates a (hopefully) helpful blog post.
0 comments :
Post a Comment
Feel free to leave any comments...