dommyboysinjapan
Thinker
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2008
- Messages
- 143
Walter Ego,
No-one. The point is that when regular people turn on the TV to watch History Channel's 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Fact or Fiction, and they see that the first half hour of the program is dedicated to these phychological theories as to why conspiracy theorists think the things they do, they may assume that there is a clinical pathology that has been identified using real science as opposed to recognizing that the program is deliberately wasting time with the flawed pseudo scientific speculations of authors, and political scientists, because they would rather not spend more time discussing the evidence.
Well, I have to thank you, at least, for finding studies that have been done by real psychologists at least (something all the other posters couldn't seem to do.)
Your psychologists came up with the not too surprising conclusions that there is a correlation between people who believe in conspiracy theories and those that:
1) exhibit low levels of trust
2) feel alienated from society
3) are prone to making assumptions.
In regard to the first two, what does this correlation prove? How can you establish causation? For example is the sitauation a) ctists are mistustful of others and feel alienated so they tend to overspeculate? or b) People who have researched the very real criminal behaviour of many organizations throughout history and have discovered very real scandals tend to be less trusting and feel more alienated than those who are living under a false security blanket or have a false sense of security because they are unaware of the dangers in life (much like teenagers are much more likely to take stupid risks when they drive because they are simply ignorant to the dangers.)?
In regard to the third premise, it may well be that people who are more aware of real past scandals may tend to speculate more about other possible scenarios than people who are oblivious to the very real scandals of which they are unaware. Again the correlation is there but the causation seems to be missing. It depends on whether the conspiracies are true or not.
Remember at the beginning of the video when the psychologists stated that it was not a concern whether the conspiracies were real or not?
No-one. The point is that when regular people turn on the TV to watch History Channel's 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Fact or Fiction, and they see that the first half hour of the program is dedicated to these phychological theories as to why conspiracy theorists think the things they do, they may assume that there is a clinical pathology that has been identified using real science as opposed to recognizing that the program is deliberately wasting time with the flawed pseudo scientific speculations of authors, and political scientists, because they would rather not spend more time discussing the evidence.
Well, I have to thank you, at least, for finding studies that have been done by real psychologists at least (something all the other posters couldn't seem to do.)
Your psychologists came up with the not too surprising conclusions that there is a correlation between people who believe in conspiracy theories and those that:
1) exhibit low levels of trust
2) feel alienated from society
3) are prone to making assumptions.
In regard to the first two, what does this correlation prove? How can you establish causation? For example is the sitauation a) ctists are mistustful of others and feel alienated so they tend to overspeculate? or b) People who have researched the very real criminal behaviour of many organizations throughout history and have discovered very real scandals tend to be less trusting and feel more alienated than those who are living under a false security blanket or have a false sense of security because they are unaware of the dangers in life (much like teenagers are much more likely to take stupid risks when they drive because they are simply ignorant to the dangers.)?
In regard to the third premise, it may well be that people who are more aware of real past scandals may tend to speculate more about other possible scenarios than people who are oblivious to the very real scandals of which they are unaware. Again the correlation is there but the causation seems to be missing. It depends on whether the conspiracies are true or not.
Remember at the beginning of the video when the psychologists stated that it was not a concern whether the conspiracies were real or not?
