A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable. The term has a negative connotation, implying that the appeal to a conspiracy is based on prejudice or insufficient evidence. A conspiracy theory is not the same as a conspiracy; instead, it refers to a hypothesized conspiracy with specific characteristics, such as an opposition to the mainstream consensus among those people who are qualified to evaluate its accuracy.
The New World Order (NWO) is a conspiracy theory which hypothesizes a secretly emerging totalitarian world government.
9/11 conspiracy theories attribute the preparation and execution of the September 11 attacks against the United States to parties other than, or in addition to, al-Qaeda. These include the theory that high-level government officials had advance knowledge of the attacks. Government investigations and independent reviews have rejected these theories. Proponents of these theories assert that there are inconsistencies in the commonly accepted version, or that there exists evidence that was ignored, concealed, or overlooked.
The 9/11 truth movement supports a conspiracy theory that disputes the general consensus of the September 11 attacks that a group of Al-Qaeda terrorists who had hijacked four airliners and crashed them into the Pentagon and the original World Trade Center Twin Towers, which consequently collapsed. The primary focus is on missed information that adherents allege is not adequately explained in the official National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report, such as the collapse of 7 World Trade Center. They suggest a cover-up and, at the least, complicity by insiders.
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is a British investigative journalist, author and academic. He is editor of the crowdfunded investigative journalism platform INSURGE intelligence. He is a former environment blogger for The Guardian from March 2013 to July 2014. From 2014 to 2017, Ahmed was a weekly columnist for Middle East Eye, the London-based news portal founded by ex-Guardian writer David Hearst. He is 'System Shift' columnist at VICE covering issues around global systems crises and solutions. He is now Special Investigations Reporter at Byline Times
"The Paranoid Style in American Politics" is an essay by American historian Richard J. Hofstadter, first published in Harper's Magazine in November 1964. It was the title essay in a book by the author the following year. Published soon after Senator Barry Goldwater won the Republican presidential nomination over the more moderate Nelson A. Rockefeller, Hofstadter's article explores the influence of a particular style of conspiracy theory and "movements of suspicious discontent" throughout American history.
David Vaughan Icke is an English conspiracy theorist and a former footballer and sports broadcaster. He has written over 20 books, self-published since the mid-1990s, and spoken in more than 25 countries.
George Edward Griffin is an American author, filmmaker, and conspiracy theorist. Griffin's writings promote a number of right-wing views and conspiracy theories regarding political, defense and health care. In his book World Without Cancer, he argued in favor of a pseudo-scientific theory that asserted cancer to be a nutritional deficiency curable by consuming amygdalin. He is the author of The Creature from Jekyll Island (1994), which advances conspiracy theories about the Federal Reserve System. He is an HIV/AIDS denialist, supports the 9/11 Truth movement, and supports the specific John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory that Oswald was not the assassin. He also believes that the Biblical Noah's Ark is located at the Durupınar site in Turkey.
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Inc. (AE911Truth) is an American non-profit organization promoting the conspiracy theory that the World Trade Center was destroyed in a controlled demolition, disputing accepted conclusions around the September 11 attacks, including The 9/11 Commission Report, as well as FEMA's "WTC Building Performance Study" (2002). Their claims and theories lack support among the relevant professional communities.
Michael Barkun is an American academic who serves as Professor Emeritus of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, specializing in political and religious extremism and the relationship between religion and violence. He has authored a number of books on the subject, including Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement (1996), A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (2003), and Chasing Phantoms: Reality, Imagination, and Homeland Security Since 9/11 (2011).
A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America is a 2003 non-fiction book written by Michael Barkun, professor emeritus of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
Zeitgeist is a series of three documentary films released between 2007 and 2011 that present a number of conspiracy theories, as well as proposals for broad social and economic changes. The films, Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007), Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008) and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011) are all directed by Peter Joseph.
Family of Secrets is a book by Russ Baker. Published by Bloomsbury Press in 2008, the book describes alleged connections between the Bush family and the Central Intelligence Agency. The book asserts that President George H.W. Bush was linked to the Watergate scandal and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Stephan Lewandowsky is an Australian psychologist. He has worked in both the United States and Australia, and is currently based at the University of Bristol, UK, where he is the chair of cognitive psychology at the School of Psychological Science. His research, which originally pertained to computer simulations of people's decision-making processes, recently has focused on the public's understanding of science and why people often embrace beliefs that are sharply at odds with scientific evidence.
Big Pharma conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories which claim that the medical community in general and pharmaceutical companies in particular, especially large corporations, operate for sinister purposes and against the public good, that they conceal effective treatments, or even cause and worsen a wide range of diseases for the purpose of profitability, or for other nefarious reasons. Some theories have included the claim that natural alternative remedies to health problems are being suppressed, the claim that drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS are ineffective and harmful, the claim that a cure for all cancers has been discovered but hidden from the public, claims that COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective, and that alternative cures are available for COVID-19. In each case the conspiracy theorists have blamed pharmaceutical companies' search for profits. A range of authors have shown these claims to be false, though some of these authors nevertheless maintain that other criticisms of the pharmaceutical industry are legitimate.
GMO conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories related to the production and sale of genetically modified crops and genetically modified food. These conspiracy theories include claims that agribusinesses, especially Monsanto, have suppressed data showing that GMOs cause harm, deliberately cause food shortages to promote the use of GM food, or have co-opted government agencies such as the United States Food and Drug Administration or scientific societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Critics charge that GMO conspiracy theories are largely promulgated by those opposing the production and sale of GMOs, and instances of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories have lately occurred in the context of public health issues that are mostly unrelated to GMOs, including the 2015–16 Zika virus outbreak and concerns over food safety at Chipotle Mexican Grill.
Joseph E. Uscinski is an American political scientist specializing in the study of conspiracy theories. His most notable work is American Conspiracy Theories co-authored with Joseph M. Parent. He is an associate professor at the University of Miami's Political Science department, and author of several academic publications. He has been made a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry in 2020.
Thomas Milan Konda is author of the book Conspiracies of Conspiracies and is professor emeritus of political science at State University of New York at Plattsburgh.
Philosophy of conspiracy theories is the academic study by philosophers of the phenomenon and history of conspiracy theories. A conspiracy theory has been defined as an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, or more narrowly a conspiracy where other explanations are more probable. The term has a negative connotation, implying that the appeal to a conspiracy is based on prejudice or insufficient evidence.
Conspiracy theories in United States politics are beliefs that an event or situation in US politics is the result of a secret plan made by powerful people striving to harm a rival group or undermine society in general.
