Free Republic

Go figure: If you’re a birther or a 9/11 denier, chances are you aren’t much fun to be around. Sure, we’ve been saying this about our wack-job uncle for years — but now it’s backed up by science. With contemporary conspiracy theories targeting everything from myths surrounding the Mueller report to the chilling “secret” behind Disney’s “Frozen,” this cultural phenomenon is certainly ripe for clinical exploration. As such, the new study measured participants’ “belief in general notions of conspiracy” as well as how much they agreed with specific theories (“There was an official campaign by MI6 to assassinate Princess Diana”)....

Link only due to copyright issues: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/i-watched-an-entire-flat-earth-convention-for-my-research-heres-what-i-learned/

Conspiracy theories are an infection indeed, a cancer that grows in many different forms by pretending to be unrelated to each other. When they all have a number of important common traits. They all come from the human desire to explain events that make sense. The problem is, not everything makes sense. When John F. Kennedy was shot, the conspiracy theorists had theories because they simply could not believe that some nutcase would do it for such a vague reason (insane people complicate everything). It's a part of human nature, to question something that's too simple. If you ask Einstein...