I always avoid using the word "conspiracy", precisely because it has become a word so overloaded with negative baggage. I'm also interested in the impaired psychology of people at the other end of the bell-shaped event explanation probability curve - those people whom the author calls "coincidence theorists". I don't much like that expression either, because it is'nt totally illuminating of the mindset. I prefer to think of those people who always hold to a view, when it is put to them that governments have done disturbing things in particular situations , that "if I have to choose between a conspiracy or a stuff-up, I will always opt for a stuff-up", as people wedded psychologically to a presumption of regularity. The phrase is Jack Waterford's - see in my book A Certain Maritime Incident.

Intelligent people are comfortable in the middle of the bell-shaped probability curve - not looking for conspiracies, but not having a blind faith in the decency of governments and their dependent bureaucracies either. And, being ready to sceptically test government claims against the available public evidence on particular unexplained events, using a disciplined approach to probability, and using inductive reasoning when necessary. That does not make a conspiracy theorist. It makes a person who has not let their mind and informed conscience be lulled into blind faith and complacency. The truth usually lies somewhere around the middle of the bell-shaped curve.

Fully-fledged conspiracies are rare: but so are highly improbable chains of unfortunate extenuating coincidences. "If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck" is not a conspiracy theory. It is a reasonable hypothesis until proof comes along.

TK1, there is no reason why truth should lie near the centre of the spectrum of public opinion--and good reason why it should not. Simple consistency forces one away from the centre.

Would you find a centre between Einstein and Newton?
Would you hold that in Nazi Germany, the truth about Jews lay in the middle of the spectrum (confine them to ghettos)?

Belief that the truth lies in the middle leaves to people shifting their views in response to those who take absurd views in the effort to shift what is perceived as the centre. Look at the efforts to have people accept that a left liberal view is a left wing view instead of a middle of the road one. I'm sure there are some conspiracies involved here.

Great article.

If someone wants to be rational about it, then perhaps they could use the laws of probability when determining what is likely to be true, or what is irrational, or what is a conspiracy, or what is a political version of events only.

For example:- How probable would it be that someone could fire 3 shoots in 5.6 seconds with a bolt action rifle, but each shot accurately hit a small moving target 80 metres away when the telescopic sight on the rifle was later found to be defective.

I think it could be possible, but highly improbable, but it was accepted as being true by the Warren report.

Wow, it didn’t take long before someone tried to derail this thread into a discussion of their pet “C” theory.

In any case, I think that most of these theories rely on a flawed concept of human behavior. There are no true conspiracies, because people are just incapable of keeping secrets for long. There are no secrete cabals, because human behavior would destroy them in internecine conflicts.

The attempt to create the “coincidence theory” label is nothing more than an attempt to nullify just criticisms of the conspiracy theory culture.

“Highly improbable chains of unfortunate extenuating coincidences” are the causes of most major disasters throughout history.

Mr Anon E Mouse

It would be interesting if you could nominate a source of information that everyone could rely upon as being accurate and unquestionable (EG a newspaper, a magazine, a web-site etc).

In the case of coincidence and disasters, I think it is verifiable that many industrial accidents can be traced back to a lack of correct procedure being applied at some stage.

In the case of larger scale disasters, then I think most damage is done when there is a war, but I think most wars are purposely designed and don’t occur accidentally or as a matter of coincidence.

Either one or both sides have planned the war long before it officially begins. All that is needed is something or someone to kick start the war, and it is not a matter of waiting for a coincidence.