In these days
that the corona virus spreads around the world theories about its origin seem
to spread even faster ̶ theories that say that the virus has been made by some
malicious scientists or politicians who have developed it for their own evil
purposes. Here I cannot write about corona virus conspiracy theories as such in
order to unmask them, but I think that this is a good occasion to write
something about conspiracy theories in general in order to give you some
handles that will help you to see why they are false.
Before I’ll
present my arguments against conspiracy theories, I want to state clearly that
I don’t deny that conspiracies happen. The murder of the American president
Abraham Lincoln is a famous case in point. Nevertheless, I think that almost
all if not all so-called conspiracy theories are false.
What then
are conspiracy theories? Let’s see, for instance, what the Wikipedia
says about it. According to the English version, a “conspiracy
theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by
sinister and powerful actors, often political in motivation, when other
explanations are more probable.” Already this definition points to a reason why
conspiracy theories are false. Often they suppose a complicated network of
internationally cooperating scientists, politicians and administrators, although
in practice such networks always are difficult to realize. Moreover, as a rule there
are much simpler theories to explain the phenomenon (event or situation) that
conspiracy theories try to explain. Then argumentation theorists say: Use
Ockham’s razor. The 14th century philosopher William van Ockham said already
that you must cut away what makes your explanation complicated. Simplest is
best. It’s true that viruses can be made by man and spread among a population or
in a country that you want to destroy. However, already as long as man exists and
before man could construct viruses, they came into being spontaneously and killed
people arbitrarily. Why would it now be different?
So, preferably a theory must be simple, but
it should also be likely. Some say that the Chinese themselves have spread the
virus. Do you really think that they are so stupid to hurt if not destroy their
own population?
Next, any
theory must be formulated that way, so methodologists say following Karl R. Popper,
that it can be falsified. However, many conspiracy theories are formulated in
such a vague manner that they cannot be tested. So, if a theory says that a
virus has been escaped from a secret laboratory somewhere, ask
then exactly which laboratory? For a really secret laboratory cannot be
discovered if it is really secret, which makes the theory a circular argument.
Or, even more extreme: “They want to make you think that there is no conspiracy.”
We have come full circle.
A related
argument against conspiracy theories is that people believing them tend to look
for information that seems to confirm the theory concerned and to ignore information
that contradicts it. This is the so-called confirmation bias. People in the
West tend to believe that China has something to hide about the corona virus,
while they ignore that the WHO praises China’s openness. Moreover, people tend
to be uncritical towards information that seems to confirm their views. So, videos
on the Internet tell us that people in China got the corona virus by eating bat
soup. However, these videos have not been taken in China and there is no proof
that bats have anything to do with the present corona virus.
My handbook
on fallacies mentions yet a few other bad arguments that are often used in support
of conspiracy theories. I’ll mention them here in brief without much comment.
These bad arguments are:
- Moving
the goal post: If one argument for the conspiracy is rejected, it is simply
replaced by another related argument.
- Proof by verbosity:
Using a lot of words in order to obfuscate your case. This can include giving
random information (or even misinformation) that is not relevant but that gives
the impression to support the case. For who will check it?
- Big
events have big causes: The idea that if a phenomenon is very important and has
big consequences, it cannot have a simple explanation. A simple virus with a
natural origin cannot have such a big impact as the corona virus unless it has
been brought in the world on purpose by some people.
So far my
short treatise why conspiracy theories are false. However, each conspiracy theory
has its own characteristics. Theoretical arguments must be specified for individual
cases and once a conspiracy theory has been undermined another one will pop up.
So, the main lesson of this blog is: Be critical, and don’t believe what others
say, simply because they say it; and don’t belief what is on the Internet
simply because it is on the Internet. Think yourself.
Sources
- Arp, Robert; Steven Barbone; Michael Bruce (eds.), Bad arguments. 100 of the most important
fallacies in Western philosophy. Oxford, etc.: Wiley Blackwell, 2019.
- Keulemans, Maarten, “Vaste
prik bij virusuitbraken: complottheorieën. Hoe wapen je je ertegen?”, https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/vaste-prik-bij-virusuitbraken-complottheorieen-hoe-wapen-je-je-ertegen~bc545426/?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
- other websites
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