UscinskiConspiracy

• UscinskiConspiracy

Conspiracy Theories : a primer

Joseph E. Uschinski 2020 Tigard 001.9 USC

• https://www.joeuscinski.com/

• Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami

• American Conspiracy Theories 2014

• Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (ed) 2018

• p-vii: FBI report about conspiracy theories

• p02 ref 6 Stanley Kubrick allegedly helped fake Moon landing, Refuted by daughter Vivian

• pxx ref 32

• p48 Likert scale .p58

• p59 Ch 3 ref 81 Paranormal America 2017 survey "25% of Americans believed that people can move objects with their minds"

• p59 Linda Lyons, "Paranormal Beliefs Come (Super) Naturally to Some"

• p67 conjunction fallacy -> conspiracy theories and paranormal phenomena

  • Do I Think BLS Data are BS? The Consequences of Conspiracy Theories Political Behavior Vol. 37 pp. 679–701 (2015), Katherine Levine Einstein & David M. Glick

• p67 Some strongly need cognitive closure, intolerant of uncertainty

• p67 overactive cheater detectors, heavy debt + large insurance policy + house fire = suggests arson

• p67 death of Supreme Court conservative Antonin Scalia 2016. Obama conspiracy? or overweight 79yo smoker with diabetes and heart problems?

• p69 Cass Sunstein: conspiracy theories stem from crippled epistemologies

• p69 Walter Lippmann: People look to the news the way a drunk looks to a lamppost -- not for illumination, bur rather for reinforcement.