Conspiracy Theories and Ockham's Razor

Some people are going to be bothered by the following statement, but it is correct. There was no conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. The assassination of Kennedy was the work of only one man, Lee Harvey Oswald. If that statement makes some uncomfortable, it is a sign that they are persons who prefer conspiracy theories to sharp, rational, scientific evidence. There have been a number of studies proving conclusively that Oswald acted alone.

When I hear someone spouting conspiracy theories, I deduct 20 points from his or her IQ. People who believe in one conspiracy theory usually believe in others. That is because their weak minds are unable to deal with the kind of logic and precision needed to understand the modern world. Belief in a conspiracy theory is a form of mental laziness. It is a substitute for rational thought.

There are a lot of irrational conspiracy theories out there. One of them put out by people called “Birthers” is that President Obama was not born in America and therefore is not an American citizen qualified to be President. Now that the State of Hawaii has squelched this theory by producing a valid birth certificate, you would think that the Birthers would drop to matter. They haven’t. They think the birth certificate is part of a dark conspiracy.

Another theory being put-out by right-wing crazies is that illegal immigration is part of a conspiracy to return the southwestern United States to Mexico. They believe that it isn’t jobs or money that is luring those people across the border; it is a desire to make states like Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona part of Mexico again.

One foaming-at-the-mouth talk-show host named Alex Jones claims that 9/11 was a conspiracy by the military-industrial complex and "global elites" to bring-on totalitarian world government. Huh?

Another group of brain-damaged people believe that the moon landings never happened and were faked by the government to dupe the public.

Glenn Beck, who has established himself as a full-fledged paranoid psycho-moron, said on his radio show that the Obama Administration is going to use the automobile alert system, OnStar, to spy on Americans and enforce martial law.

There are lots of conspiracy theories about secret societies like the Masons, Yale’s Skull and Bones, and the Catholic order of Opus Dei. There are people who believe that the world is run by a secret group called “The Illuminati.” That is about as credible as believing that the world is run by the Xenia chapter of the Elks.

The murder of President Kennedy profoundly influenced my philosophy of life. I came to realize that much in life is the result of arbitrary forces for which there is no reason and no explanation. Things just happen. I developed a lawyer’s method of reasoning based on “Ockham’s Razor.”

Ockham's Razor (or Occam’s Razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham. The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). In other words, the simplest explanation is almost always the best.

Why do people continue to have faith in conspiracy theories? Because people do not want to believe that the bad things that happen to us are arbitrary and have no real meaning. They want to believe that there is an explanation for everything, and that most of the bad things that happen can be attributed to some evil person, conspiracy, or spirit. Most such people are quite superstitious.

It is true that there are actual conspiracies out there; 9/11 was a conspiracy. But most conspiracy theories are bogus. The truth is that most bad things that happen are not the result of any conspiracy. They just happen.