Conspiracy theories

Yesterday I was listening to Radio New Zealand, and there was an interview with Dr. Marc Wilson, who is a senior lecturer in psychology at Victoria University. He was talking about his study of conspiracy theories. (That particular interview is still up, but will only be there for a couple of weeks.)

At one point Kim Hill asked Dr Wilson for the strangest belief that he has come across in his studies. He thought about it a bit and said that actually the strangest one was when he discovered that 50% of the people he interviewed said they believed that the Rainbow Warrior was blown up by agents of a foreign power.

I thought that was pretty funny (what did the other 50% think?), and also a little bit sad. I guess we tend to judge the truth or otherwise of a theory (or fact) in a large part by the context in which it is stated, and in this situation (given a list of conspiracy theories) probably many of the interviewees were more concerned about not appearing overly credulous or gullible than about whether or not any given fact might be true. I suppose, if most of them were students, then they didn't have any memories of the Rainbow Warrior incident. (I'm feeling old again.) And of course, given that we don't have time to put in the research necessary to make an informed judgment about everything we hear, we have to use context, possibly a lot more than we realize. New Zealand is not exactly a hotbed of activity by foreign agents or terrorists, so if you don't know the facts, then the idea of foreign agents blowing up a ship in New Zealand doesn't sound very likely.

Still, it is sad that so many people don't know the facts about that one.

I wonder, though - can a conspiracy theory still be called a conspiracy theory if it happens to be true?

And which conspiracy theory do you favour?


(Personally, I'm in favour of the one that says George Bush is a shape-changing alien reptile.)