HPS 2501/Phil 2600 | Philosophy of Science | Fall 2020 |
Back to course documents.
Kate Tucket, ed., Conspiracy
Theories. Berkley Books, NY, 2005.
Michael Newton, Handbook of Conspiracy Theories. Facts on File, Inc. 2006
John Grant, Denying Science: Conspiracy Theories, Media Distortions and the War Against Reality. Prometheus, 2011
James McConnachie & Robin Tudge, The Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories. 2013.
and now something more academically respectable
Michael Butter and Peter Knight, eds., Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories. Routledge, 2020.
and of course
Wikipedia, List of Conspiracy Theories
Reported in Nature, May 28, 2020, "Battling the Infodemic"
The original BioHackinginfo.com page
https://biohackinfo.com/news-bill-gates-id2020-vaccine-implant-covid-19-digital-certificates/
as it appears July 31, 2020: pdf
Snopes debunking. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-id2020/ pdf
But there there's
"Bill Gates will use your microchipped body to mine cryptocurrency"
https://biohackinfo.com/news-microsoft-patent-wo2020060606-human-biometrics-crypto-mining/
at July 31, 2020: pdf
More...
Wikipedia has roughly 100 pages of
"Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_related_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic
at july 31, 2020: pdf
David Coady, ed., Conspiracy Theories: the Philosophical Debate. Ashgate, 2006.
Matthew Dentith, The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories. Palgrave MacMillan, 2014.
Marc Pauly, Conspiracy Theories, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Belief in conspiracy theories is the result
of mental aberrations.
Michael J. Wood et al., "Dead and Alive: Beliefs
in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories", Social Psychological and
Personality Science 3(6)(2012) 767-773
Group identification drives beliefs.
Dan M. Kahan, "The Politically Motivated
Reasoning Paradigm, Part 1: What Politically Motivated Reasoning Is
and How to Measure It," Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral
Sciences. Eds. Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn. John Wiley
& Sons, Inc. 2016
Diagnosis 1.
Conspiracy theories are defective because of
a structural defect in all conspiracy theories.
Brian L. Keely, "Of Conspiracy Theories," The
Journal of Philosophy, 96, No. 3. (Mar., 1999), pp. 109-126.
Are conspiracy theories are structurally
identifiable by a computer algorithm?
Timothy R. Tangherlini, "An automated
pipeline for the discovery of conspiracy and conspiracy theory
narrative frameworks: Bridgegate, Pizzagate and storytelling on the web".
PLoS ONE 15(6): e0233879
Diagnosis 2.
Conspiracy theories systematically
misconstrue evidence
Brian L. Keely, "Of Conspiracy Theories," The
Journal of Philosophy, 96, No. 3. (Mar., 1999), pp. 109-126.
Diagnosis 3.
There is no problem generically with
conspiracy theories. Some a pathological. Some are not. They should be
treated on a case by case basis.
Matthew R. X. Dentith, "When inferring to a
conspiracy might be the best explanation," Preprint for Social
Epistemology, 2016.