Photo credit: Lenart J. Kučić
TRANSCRIPT (NOT REVIEWED)
CF: My name is professor Chris French, I am head of anomalistic psychology research unit at Goldsmiths, University of London.
MP: I see. You seem to be one of the most serious sceptics out there, and by sceptik I mean someone who explores conspiracy theories with scientific approach. Would you mind explaining why did you so much focus on conspiracy theories. Why are you so passionate about it?
CF: Well my main research area, anomalistic psychology is primarily focused on the psychology of ostensibly paranormal experiences, things like people who claim to have been abducted by aliens, or people who claim to have paranormal powers and it was only fairly recently that we became very very interested in conspiracy theories. And that was for a number of reasons. One reason is that a lot of belief in things like aliens and so on do actually involve belief in conspiracy theories, but also that a lot of the ideas that we are around within anomalistic psychology that try to explain why people might believe in paranormal even in the fact paranormal forces don’t exist. Those ideas could be very readily applied to try to understand why people might believe in conspiracies, so there’s been a big focus for example on a kind of reasoning biases that people might have and the way that people evaluate evidence, and a lot of what people are seeing when it came to believing in paranormal claims also seems to apply to people who believe in conspiracy theories, so that’s really how we got into it, and it just then became very interesting area and its own ride and we have done a lot of research in that area since then.
MP: I See, and why people believe in paranormal?
CF: Again, we had maybe 20 hours to talk about that, it’s a big question. there are lots of different factors, and again one of the things that we do is to look at each of the different subdisciplines of psychology and say well what that has got to offer in terms of trying to understand the kind of experiences and belief that we’re interested in. But to try and give you a concise answer, one of the very important areas that we’re looking at relates to cognitive biases. Biases in the way that we process information. So a lot of our cognitive system are incredibly effective and do a really good job. There are times when we miss to see things, that we misremember things, we make faulty judgments about things, and I think a good case can be made that a lot of the times when people think they have had a paranormal experience, there’s often a plausible non paranormal explanation in terms of those kinds of cognitive biases. People misperceiving things, misremembering things, misjudging things and so on. So that addresses the cognitive side of the paranormal, but there’s also a motivational side, why do people want to believe these things, what kind of functions physiologically that these kinds of beliefs serve and in the case of paranormal beliefs, then I think one of the main underlying driving factors is our fear of our own mortality. We don’t like the idea that when we die, that is it. And so anything that appears to gives us evidence for the existence of life after death we will readily accept that kind of evidence, because it’s something we want to believe in anyway. And if you take that same kind of idea, as is confirmation bias, and apply it to belief in conspiracy theories, then the question arises is, well why would anybody want to believe in conspiracies. Well actually believing in conspiracies is a way that people sometimes adopt of making sense of events. Actually in real life good things happen to people, bad things happen to people, but very often some very bad things happen completely out of the blue. That’s the way life is. And that makes people very very uncomfortable. The fact that these awful things can suddenly happen. And in a strange way believing that things are actually more ordered than that, there’s someone who's’ made these things happen, gives a kind of sense of understanding and control even if it’s illusory but it’s one that people find psychologically comforting. I think the same thing applies across lots of different areas of what I would refer to magical thinking, whether we are talking about belief in conspiracies, paranormal beliefs, other new age beliefs, even religious beliefs, they give people a sense of control and understanding.
MP: Now that you explain it I think it’s normal that we do have conspiracy theories. And you might have a list of most influential conspiracy theories, theories that brought most of people’s attention through the time. What is then the first big conspiracy theory, and what is your favourite?
[05:00]
CF: Well, I mean, historically in terms of the first conspiracy theory I think this is a really difficult one to answer. We know we can trace conspiracy theories back kind of hundreds of years, there were lots of conspiracy theories around the time of the French revolution for example, but there are other examples that go back even further, So I think that because our tendency to think in these terms is an inherent part of our human nature, probably as long as people have been able to talk talk to each other, people have developed conspiracy theories. They have always been around. One thing that has happened recently of course is that the internet has meant that conspiracy theories can spread around the world in a blink of an eye. The moment there is any major international event, there will be people blogging about it, there will be people sending tweets on Twitter, it will go all around the world that that wasn’t really what the way it was presented. It’s actually a conspiracy, there’s something else going on. So that’s kind of an interesting thing from historical point of view. In terms of my own personal favourite. I think I’ve got lots. I mean the JFK assassination is I think probably the classic conspiracy idea, the notion that there wasn’t the act of a lone gunman, it was in fact a result of conspiracy involving lots of different people, the fake Moon landing I think is another of my favourites. 9/11 I suppose would also be up there as a contender. The idea that 9 11 was an inside job. One of the things that you notice about the conspiracy theories that really last and last and go on for ever no matter how much disconfirming evidence is put forward is that they’re always complicated. There’s lots of different aspects to them and anyone who’s ever tried arguing with conspiracy theorist would I’m sure have had the frustration of feeling that it’s like trying to nail jelly to the wall. Everytime you knock down one part of the argument, the come back with, oh yes, but what about … and they talk about something completely different. And you just go around in circles, you never actually get anywhere. But, yes, there are lots of, there are some really interesting conspiracy theories, and some of them as I say are incredibly convoluted.
MP: Yes, and it’s OK to read about them on the internet, but do for example British media also print them in news stories.
CF: That’s right , that happens a lot. The moment in the british press we’ve seen a revival of claims satanic abuse for example. I mean there was a big space of this kinds of stories back in the eighties and nineties, particularly in America and in the UK and often around other countries around the world, and again this is something which involves claims of large scale conspiracies. The claims here were that children, basically the idea is that satanic abuse is, that there are lots of cases where babies were being sacrificed, where people were being sexually abused in more horrendous ways, cannibalism, the worst most pervert acts that you can think of were supposedly going on on a wide scale, often involved extremely powerful individuals. And the reason this conspiracies have to involved very powerful people, is that when it comes to looking at forensic evidence for all these claims, there just isn't any. There are no bodies, there are no blood stains, nothing. So the question is, well, how could that be, well obviously that means that Police must be involved. They are actually covering up the evidence. And this is another characteristic of conspiracy theories. They are virtually non falsifiable, because any evidence that even remotely seems to hint that conspiracy might be true, is seized upon and any evidence that shows quite definitely my eyes that conspiracy can't be true is just dismissed as being misinformation or disinformation put there by the conspirators to put people off the fend. So, there’s no piece evidence that you can put forward that conspiracy theorists would look at and say, oh actually that proves I’m wrong. That just doesn’t happen.
[9:35]
MP: With the internet you can find evidence for practically anything, there’s a lot of science, but also a lot of pseudoscience, bad science, and conspiracy theories. If you are a strong believer in a particular theory, is it possible to prove him or her - with facts - that the theory is false?
CF: In general I would say that no. I mean there will be exceptions to that. There will be people, and in fact I have met people who would, who will say I used to believe in all this stuff but now I don't anymore. Other people obviously can go the other way. It’s interesting the way how these beliefs can change. One example that comes to mind of someone who was a very very strong believer in conspiracy theory but then had a change of mind, is a chap in the UK called Charlie Veitch who took part in a documentary for the BBC. It was called the Conspiracy Road Trip as I recall and Charlie and a number of other 9/11 Truthers, these are people who certainly believe that 9/11 was an inside job. They were all taken on a coach around various places in America to visit various sites that related to 9/11 conspiracy and to meet people who were in some way involved in that tragedy and just talk to them. And I was quite surprised that of the 5 or 6 conspiracy theorist who went, one of them, Charlie, actually did change his mind. He decides at the end of that process that he was wrong, having been a very vocal truther, somebody who was kind of very active in 9/11 so called Truth movement. He did an about-face and said there was no conspiracy theory and of course for that he was vilified and hated by the people who had once took to and admired him, but that was a very brave thing to do. But it was a very interesting case and very very very rare. But I mean it shows it can happen. The importance of trying to publicly question these conspiracy claims in not so much in the claim that you will change the people who very strongly believe in conspiracy theories, because usually that does not happen, but there are lots of people in the middle ground, people who have maybe just hear rumours about 9/11 conspiracy or the idea that we didn't land on the moon and whatever conspiracy there may be, and they maybe able to listen to the evidence and actually decide, you know what, I don’t think there is a conspiracy. So we do need to keep talking about these things, but the other thing to say that my own research and research of other psychologists who are interested in belief in conspiracies, is it doesn't start at position where we are saying there are no conspiracies. We accept that conspiracies do occur. Obviously they do. If you look at the Watergate or various other examples, conspiracies do take place. The question is, what explains the difference between those people who are very very eager to accept conspiracies and those people who are much more resistant. We can show for example in control studies that people will accept a completely fictional conspiracy, one that you and I could make at a cup of coffee and would put out on a survey, would give it out to a number of people and even though clearly that we have no evidence for it, because we just made it up, there will be some people who will tick the yes, I believe that’s happening. Also, people will endorse conspiracies that contradict each other. There is a very nice study by of the Karen Douglas and her team University of Kent, where it’s shown that if you tend to believe for example that Osama bin Laden is still alive, you also are more likely to believe that in fact he was killed years before the Americans said that they had killed him. So really these two things contradict each other, but if you believe in one conspiracy, you are much more likely believe in other conspiracies, even conspiracies that are totally unrelated to each other. And what this reflects is a higher order factor what really conspiracy belief is all about. Is not saying, or very rarely is it saying that I know what the truth is and it giving detailed counter explanation compared to the official account, it’s just saying I don’t believe the official account. Things have been covered up, we have not been told the whole truth. That’s what drives the whole thing.
MP: Now I am thinking I should make an experiment, and think of something and test it on our audience and see how they react to that. You mention that people turned against Charlie Veitch. What is the psychology behind such group. Is this groupthink?
[14:40]
There are definitely those kinds of factors. I mean certainly there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that one of the reason, one of the motivational reasons that people might endorse conspiracy theories is because they feel like outsiders, they don’t feel like mainstream society, they maybe feel that life hasn’t treated them fairly, and if you were in that kind of position, then it’s psychologically quite natural that you develop kind of ingroup and outgroup mentality.You can identify other groups, out groups out there that you can project all of this distrust and hate onto, is a kind of scapegoating approach where it’s not my fault that I don’t have a fantastic live, it’s one of those people, it’s because of the Jews, because of the CIA, it’s because of government, it’s because of aliens, it’s because of somebody else. It’s not my responsibility. It’s other forces out there. There is certainly evidence to support that line of argument. It can obviously become very destructive thing. Interest in research looking at ways that extremist groups use, well, certainly they believe in the conspiracy theories themselves, but they also use them as recruiting tools, use them to keep people motivated as an engaged, involved, and ultimately to carry out atrocious acts of terrorism.
MP: You said that conspiracies do happen, so some theories are false and other correct. Are there simple questions that can help me determine whether a theory is true or false.
CF: There are kind of warning signs rather than,... in some cases it can be difficult. Typically the kind of events that become the subject of conspiracy theories they are often kind of major international event and as they are actually unfolding, there are a lot of news media that are trying to report and there will be inconsistencies in those reports. There will be things said that subsequently turn out not to have been true, but it was said at the time, because that was the information that the reporter had, that was thought to have been going on, and so on, etc, etc, any tiny anomaly the conspiracy theorists will pick on them and say, ha, that shows they are lying to us. And actually it doesn't. It shows that we are not perfect, that news reporters aren’t perfect, sometimes there’s a noise in the system. But the kind of things to look out for in terms of trying to decide whether a practical claim is true or not, one thing, is it inherently non falsifiable. Is there no evidence that could ever falsify it. I mentioned kind of satanic abuse example earlier, the idea there would be that these powerful conspirators can clean up after themselves when they had carried out these horrendous ceremonies and so there’s no forensic evidence. Well if you got a situation like that, if there could not be any forensic evidence, I mean, you’re in a situation there where it's heads - I win, tails - you lose. If any suggestive evidence were to be found, which it just typically isn't, but if it was to be found, fine, we will have that, but the fact that there’s a lack of evidence doesn't show that we’re wrong and so either way the conspiracy is maintained. So that would be one warning sign. It is interesting as well that conspiracy theorist seem to have this notion that the conspirators are all powerful, completely evil and could achieve actually everything. I mean, nothing happens by accident in conspiracy theories. I mean really if there was a conspiracy to try to assassinate Diana, princess of Wales, then would you really choose as a method of assassination to get her driver a little bit drunk so that he would crash his car. It’s not the most reliable technique to assassinate someone, and it’s far more likely that what actually what we saw there was just tragic accident. But look for those kind of logical inconsistencies and absurdities that can arise. And also, did a conspiracy theorists keep on changing their claim, as one element of what they are arguing is answered, do they then just turn to other elements and say, OK, you might be right about this, but what about this over here, … that kind of thing. And then the best antidote of all is just a general kind of education and critical thinking, and it’s really only saying, show me the evidence. If the evidence is conclusive and convincing, well fine, and again, just going to go back to satanic abuse claims. Here in UK, as I said, there’s a currently the very worrying situation where certain newspapers are beginning to repeat these claims of widespread satanic abuse and supposedly the evidence for this, if it’s the same as the last time round, and so far there’s no reason to believe it isn’t, tends to be based on recovered memories, people who have been treated by dubious memory recovery techniques, and sincerely believing they were the victims of abuse, but the only evidence is these recovered memories. There’s no forensic evidence whatsoever. Now in sharp contrast to that, there are some cases, a very worrying cases in UK of kids typically from African communities, who are the victims of ritual abuse and this is being done by religious fundamentalists who believe these children are possessed and the abuse is taking place, is an attempt to exorcise these demons, and there have been cases of kids who had been killed and certainly severely abused and injured. But in these cases, we have lots of forensic evidence, including unfortunately dead bodies. So yes, it’s definitely happening. We are not saying that atrocities cannot happen but in one case there’s no need for conspiracy theories. We know it’s happening, we have got the forensic evidence, in the other case we have nothing but very very wooly unsubstantiated claims based on recovered memories so called.
MP: I would like to bring up one more name: David Icke. Did you have an opportunity to meet him?
[20:15] Thank you very much. Yes, I have met David Icke on one occasion. If any of your listeners, it was not one of my finest moments on television I have to say ...
MP: But it was not with Terry Wogan?
CF: It was not with Terry Wogan, no. I took part in a documentary, for british TV company, and they arranged a kind of confrontation between myself and David Icke in typical kind of TV stuff,they had us walking towards each other on a beach. It was like a scene from a western, you know, and I knew before I got there, I mean I have to admit this is not my finest hour, I am not proud of this, but I was not going to waste my time reading the vast number of books that David Icke has published. Where he is arguing that the world is run by shape shifting lizards, etc, etc, I mean, I am a very busy many and I just haven’t got the time to read this stuff, sorry, but I just don't, once you get to the point of shape shifting lizards, I can’t think, no, that’s not very likely, that’s not a very good investment of my time. But he quite understandably, first question he asked was, have you read my books, and there’s no point in lying, I just said, no I haven’t. In which case he made an immediate turn around and said that’s just sheer prejudice on your part then. And knew he'd do that and unfortunately there was no way out of there. So it’s not my finest hour but if you listeners would like to have a good laugh at my expense then have a look at that clip on Youtube, but I mean the whole thing with David Icke is, his world view has become so totally distorted. I mean his views over the years have got in my opinion weirder and weirder. And everything is seen in conspiracy terms and every conspiracy links to other conspiracy. And as I say, I do find it incredible he has such a huge following, I mean he can fill arenas with people who want to listen to what he has to say, when to my ears and eyes what he is saying is obviously such total nonsense. And you know, if you do take the time to look at some of the evidence so called that he puts forward to his claims, it really isn’t convincing at all. But he’s clearly got a message that a lot of people want to hear. And that in itself is very interesting from a psychological point of view. What is it about David Icke’s message that resonates with those people, and makes them see him as a hero.
MP: So he fills arenas just like Eddie Izzard?
CF: He does indeed and sometimes he is almost as funny as Eddie Izzard.
MP: Yes, and I heard a theory, could it be a conspiracy theory that reptilians theory was actually an experiment to see how fast such an idea can spread.
CF: I haven’t actually heard that, but it’s an appealing idea. There’s a nice illustration of the way that these conspiracy theorist think which if you’ve got time I would tell you. We organized one day event in London with number of speakers and the topic was belief in conspiracy theories. And we had someone, David Aaronovitch, who was meant to be one of our speakers but unfortunately had to pull out, we got to beforehand, and we had also heard that on a number of conspiracy theories websites, how the event was being discussed and people thought that this was some kind of plot was going on. So we thought we try and sort out the problem by inviting one of the conspiracy theorist to come and do a presentation as part of the day. Which is what we did. It made a very interesting day. Afterwards in the pub we were chatting away, kind of sceptics and conspiracy theorist together over a pint and one of my post graduates, Rob Brotherton who did his PhD on belief in conspiracy theories and is currently writing a book which I’ve no doubt will be excellent, he was in conversation with one of the conspiracy theory supporters, and Rob made the fairly obvious point, well, look, if what you’re saying is true and there are all this conspiracy theories and to expose them is incredibly dangerous, you’re putting your life at risk, the authorities will have you assassinated, how is it that we just heard a one hour talk from your conspiracy theory guy there and he’s still alive, he is doing these sort of .. , he has appeared on TV, why hasn’t he been assassinated. And the guy he was talking to leaned forward and very quietly said, well, to be honest, we think he is a plant. We think he works with the government. Yes, what can you do.
MP: That explains everything.
CF: It does.
CF: And it explains nothing.
MP: Thank you.
