Originally published at: From Sonic Booms to Mystery Drones: How Science-Based Panics Take Hold - TPM – Talking Points Memo
In Rough Edges, Mike Rothschild writes about fringe groups, conspiracy theories and how the Internet broke our brains. This column is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. Americans love when things explode. We love fireworks, action movies, and cannons shooting off. Americans also love weird science stuff we don’t really understand, like UFOs, the…
An explanation of a thing or event made with the fewest possible assumptions is usually correct
The Law of Parsimony aka Occam’s razor.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
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Or as us actual geeks tend to say it (when there are no mortals around) - “Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology…” 
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Americans love when things explode.
An episode of “The Simpsons” shows Chief Wiggum somehow getting trapped inside a barrel and then rolling down a long hill only to hit a tree and then explode.
Funniest goddamn thing ever.
Conspiracy theories are all the essentially the same and not just science based but everything based. And what makes them work is lack of knowledge about how things work.
Like all the RW election fraud conspiracy theories. Just now fat Florida Man Randy Fine is claiming election fraud by people digging tens of thousands of election ballots out of dumpsters and filing them. Like all RW election fraud claims this is based on ignorance. Not one would be counted even if the story was true for a number of reasons. Randy might know (or not), but like Trump (also ignorant) he knows MAGA doesn’t know or maybe care. Anyone who has worked as a poll worker like me even one time knows that all those claims are BS, even in states not requiring ID.
Lack of critical thinking skills, also a product of basic education, also plays a part. Ignoring any critical thinking skills people do have, as particularly required by American fundamentalist Christianity, adds to it,
My very nice older woman neighbor recently said something about “chemtrails.” Simple science I learned in high school - water vapor is a product of combustion just like the visible steam from a car exhaust seen when it’s really cold, only up there it’s -40°F to -70°F so it freezes into ice crystals and stays visible. Not complicated but I knew any explanation would be too much.
I guess mental and emotional engagement might be part of the lure. Endorphins or whatever. The rest of us get that positive reinforcement from experiencing real (including purely intellectual) things. An empty mind is the devil’s workshop.
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I had the identical experience. I merely replied with something vague.
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I might try “Bless your heart” the next time I have to listen to one of these experts.
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Water vapor:
Education – even at the level of jr and upper high school – gives us filters.
People who accept urban folklore at face value have few, if any filters.
Someone says, “Those white streaks are the government chemical trails to feed us bad chemicals for our brains”. The person hearing this says, “Wow, really? I never knew that”. Believe me it is that simple.
I recall a guy with a 6th grade education telling me that JFK would install the Pope in DC near the White House. That piece of horse shit had been around since the 30s.
These 30% who still support trump are just poor, dumb bastards, unless they are wealthy and want trump for selfish reasons.
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