On the Bookshelf — Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational by Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer’s career has focused on understanding conspiracies, pseudoscience and skepticism. He is the executive director of The Skeptic’s Society and the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine. For almost two decades he wrote a monthly column for Scientific American, and he is the author of numerous books. In his latest book, Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational, Shermer guides readers through a three-part presentation of useful information for those seeking to understand conspiracies:

• Why people believe conspiracy theories (Part 1)
• How to determine which conspiracy theories are real (Part 2)
• Talking to conspiracists and rebuilding trust in truth (Part 3)

One of the points that Shermer makes early and often is that some conspiracies are, in fact, real, and as such, evolutionarily speaking, it is better to believe something that is not true than the reverse. According to Shermer, “The former [a false positive] just makes you paranoid, whereas the latter [a false negative] can make you dead.” (p. xi).

In part 1, Shermer describes three “buckets” of conspiracism as he looks at “why” people believe conspiracy theories. Proxy conspiracism occurs when someone’s belief in the conspiracy theory results from related, deep-seated beliefs or personal truths, such as distrust in government. In these cases, evidence (or lack thereof) will not change the individual’s belief. Tribal conspiracism is related to proxy conspiracism in that once someone has a particular belief, they will be more likely to agree with those who have the same or similar beliefs. Constructive conspiracism relates to the evolutionary benefit of being skeptical for survival. Our nature to seek patterns and give them meaning contributes to this latter type of conspiracism.

Part 2 of the book offers a “conspiracy detection kit” and discusses some specific conspiracy theories and believers in more detail, including 9/11 truthers, Obama birthers, and the JFK assassination.

The final part of the book focuses on how to interact with people who believe conspiracy theories and “how to rebuild trust in truth.” A coda at the end of the book describes the results of a survey that Shermer and colleagues conducted in the summer of 2021 to assess attitudes and beliefs related to 29 different conspiracy theories.

Find out more or get the book:

• Johns Hopkins University Press
• Barnes & Noble
• Amazon