How I Became a Conspiracy Theorist

By Margaret Howard[1]

and

Caoimhín P. Connell[2]

?November 7, 2022

?FOR the last 30 some odd years, I have been lecturing in various aspects of Industrial Hygiene and human exposure assessments involving toxicology, risk assessment, statistical analysis, epidemiology, respiratory protection, and microbiological assessments.

?During that entire time, although technology has advanced, the science has largely remained the same.??This comment may come as a surprise for those who conflate technology with science and somehow presume the two terms are synonyms.

?As the terms are not synonyms, the science upon which I base my lectures has similarly remained quite the same – unremarkable – what Kuhn would call "normal science."[3]?We have made many advances in knowledge in the fields of epidemiology, toxicology, virology, etc., and yet those advances in knowledge remain within the same scientific paradigms.?The paradigms define the science, and the new discoveries are almost always developing information within those paradigms.

?During those 30 years, for my scientific positions I have been called many things, seldom derogatory, and my lectures and classes have generally received glowing reviews from the participants.?One thing my scientific positions apparently never warranted was that of “conspiracy theorist” since the charge was never levelled against me.?That is, since my positions and my lectures were based on sound, veridical science, it was received as such.

?Yet, starting in February of 2020, and lasting until about June of 2022, hardly a week went by on social media when I was not called a “conspiracy theorist,” and often the epithet was hurled at me several times each day.?What had changed? What was the basis of this label??Since I still held the exact same veridical scientific positions that I had been espousing for the last 30 years, and the science hadn't changed --- then what changed?

?In February of 2020, we saw the dawn of a new era – the age of expert worship.?At first, it was a troika of Deborah Birx, Robert Redfield Jr and Anthony Fauci, in that order of importance.[4]?And then eventually, according to Anthony Fauci[5] only Anthony Fauci represented science- to criticize him was to criticize science itself.?We saw vast societal decisions being made based on one man who effectively claimed: "I am the science." ?Sadly, many people believed such drivel.

?Certainly, holding science hostage is not new and neither is pathological science, but now we entered a new age where "science" became a religion, and one man claimed he represented that religion.?But does the provenance of science deserve such unquestioning respect??Are there conspiracy theorists in science?

?To answer that question, we must first understand that the charge of “conspiracy theorist” has nothing to do with conspiracies or theories.?

?The Oxford dictionary tells me:

Conspiracy - … combination of persons for an evil or unlawful purpose.

Seems fair enough.?For example, that nefarious theme is consistent with the criminal code of my state, Colorado, which identifies conspiracy as an inchoate:

A person commits conspiracy … if, with the intent to promote or facilitate its commission, he agrees with another person or persons that they, or one or more of them, will engage in conduct which constitutes a crime or an attempt to commit a crime, or he agrees to aid the other person or persons in the planning or commission of a crime or of an attempt to commit such crime.?No person may be convicted of conspiracy to commit a crime, unless an overt act in pursuance of that conspiracy is proved to have been done by him or by a person with whom he conspired. [6]

That all seems straightforward enough.?So, one would think that a "conspiracy theorist" would just be someone who has a theory about a conspiracy.

?I think most reasonable people would agree that the Global Crossing incident involving John Rigas and his sons was a conspiracy.?How about HealthSouth and Richard Scrushy? Conspiracy??What about Andrew Fastow and Jeffery Skilling with Enron? Conspiracy?

?Were the Federal Prosecutors who developed the legal theories used to bring criminal charges against these people crazy "conspiracy theorists"??

?If not, why not?

?Does anyone really accept that the "Club of Rome" is not a conspiratorial group? (What is it about Rome anyway, considering the weirdness surrounding the Propaganda Due Masonic Lodge scandal and the Vatican's shenanigans regarding the Gagnon Investigation??Hmmmm. Maybe something is in the Roman water… now there's a conspiracy theory!)

?But, of course, Enron, Global Crossing and the Banco Ambrosiano and their like is the world of high finance, governmental corruption and commercial intrigue and we have come to expect such conspiracies as normal business.?But science??We all know that science is as pure and spotless as the driven snow, right??Just ask Dr. Fauci – he told us he represents science.

?Was the Piltdown Man a conspiracy??How about phlogiston??When you stop to think about the scientific fact called "phlogiston," did the advocates of that theory not meet the definition of a conspiracy since in the face of overwhelming evidence they tried to suppress those fringe "science deniers" who believed in the theory of oxygen instead? How about the continued appearance of Ernst Haeckel's drawings in college textbooks, decades after the fraud[7] was well established??Were two or more people involved in that intentional publication of that misinformation? Is that not a conspiracy?

?But those were all in the "past," right? That's history, not science, right? That couldn't happen now, right?

?OK, more recently: 1976-1977, what about David Sencer, Don Millar, the CDC and the flagrant collusion of misinformation that occurred during the "deadly" Swine Flu Epidemic, "The Epidemic That Never Occurred"[8].??(For that matter, what about the Tuskegee Affair? Conspiracy?)??What about the vast published scientific works of Robert Slutsky or Stephen Breuning, or Elias A.K. Alsabti or John Darsee with the Harvard Medical School??They didn't self-publish all those peer reviewed papers; they had help from the science community itself as well as their respective Universities.?And what about all the co-authors, do they not share some responsibility for the fraud in those peer reviewed papers??Were the collective actions of the co-authors, at least proximally conspiratorial??Can anyone honestly say on the one hand they are co-authors, but on the other hand, they were completely unaware of what was in the papers??Seriously?

?Could Harvard's John Darsee have succeeded without the help of Gene Braunwald??What about the peer reviewed work of Malcom Pearce, or Viswat Gupta??How did John Anderton (sponsored by Pfizer) or University of Bristol's Mark Williams get away with scientific fraud if it wasn't for the help of the likes of Stephen Frankel??I haven't even mentioned the tragic affair of David Baltimore or how the National Cancer Institute ignored the fraud of Roger Poisson.????This isn't ancient history.

?Even more recently, what about the roles of Met Office's Hadley Centre Climate Programme Professors Vicky Pope and Julia Slingo regarding Phil Jones, Michael Mann, the University of East Anglia, and the leaked emails surrounding Climategate.?No serious person on either side of the Climate Change argument can brush away Climategate and not conclude it is a conspiracy[9] (or perhaps David Holland is actually just a Right-wing conspiracy theorist and Climategate never really occurred).?

?Is Diederik Stapel's 2011 Science article ancient history??What about the 58 articles by Stapel that have since been retracted due to scientific fraud?[10]?Ancient history??Did Diederik Stapel act alone, or is it reasonable to believe that his fraud was known by at least one other person such that the behavior would have met the definition of "conspiracy"?

?Is the 2016 case of Paolo Macciarini and his publications in the Lancet ancient history??Did the Karolinska Institute try to cover up the fraud or not??If so, was that not a conspiracy??What about the role of the Lancet itself which initially defended Macciarini, but later retracted his papers? I'm not picking on the Lancet since both Science and Nature have their own Haruko Obokata and Woo-Suk Hwang and Michael LaCour (2014).

?In each of the above cases, was there not at least one other person who was knowledgeable of the foul play??Would anyone really think that all of this can happen without anyone's knowledge.?Seriously?

?So, am I a conspiracy theorist because I know of these events??Am I a conspiracy theorist because I accept the factual historicity of the same?

?Is each of the above ONLY an example of a singular historical event (very oft repeated) or do the numerous examples above (as well as the hundreds of examples I could have included) constitute a constellation that points to current problems that realists face in the scientific world on a daily basis??I have to ask, because three days ago, I received my weekly summary from "Retraction Watch" which contained the following:[11]

?Three days ago.?Not the 1800s, not the middle 20th Century, not early 2000's… three DAYS ago.?Conspiracy theory? ?Does Anthony Fauci represent those 500 papers since that is science?

?"Conspiracy Theory" according to the Oxford dictionary:

conspiracy theory?n. the theory that an event or phenomenon occurs as a result of a conspiracy between interested parties; spec. a belief that some covert but influential agency (typically political in motivation and oppressive in intent) is responsible for an unexplained event.

Ugo Volli says: [12]

?In order to give a useful contribution on this matter, semiotics must carefully distinguish between actual conspiracies and paranoiac conspiracy thinking (sometime [sic] denominated “conspiracism”), the result of which is often described by the expression “conspiracy theories” (albeit somehow inaccurately from a semantic point of view, because there is no actual theoretical dignity in these “theories”).

Yet, real life conspiracies are not just historical facts, they are a daily event, which is why we have criminal statutes regarding them and State and Federal prosecutors investigating them.?

?But let's dig a little deeper…

Conspiracy Theory:

In this introduction to the EJSP Special Issue on conspiracy theories as a social psychological phenomenon, we describe how this emerging research domain has developed over the past decade and distill four basic principles that characterize belief in conspiracy theories. Specifically, conspiracy theories are consequential as they have a real impact on people's health, relationships, and safety; they are universal in that belief in them is widespread across times, cultures, and social settings; they are emotional given that negative emotions and not rational deliberations cause conspiracy beliefs; and they are social as conspiracy beliefs are closely associated with psychological motivations underlying intergroup conflict. We then discuss future research and possible policy interventions in this growing area of enquiry.[13]

Here, then, is the meat and potatoes:?Given the premise that the above assessment is reasonable and reasonably factual, I ask:

?Does the above statement better apply to the loonies who were running around during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic wearing facemasks and practicing "social distancing" and claiming that SARS-CoV-2 was the most dangerous virus in the history of man and that people are dropping like flies… Or, does the above definition apply to those who, based on sound, veridical science point out that the overwhelming vast majority of science tells us that not only will the goofy face-masks not have an impact, or the "social distancing," but the overwhelming vast majority of "COVID" cases and deaths are gross mischaracterizations?

?The question is very important and pertinent since at the heart of the issue regarding "conspiracy theorists" is not the person labeled a "conspiracy theorist," but rather, the pathology rests with the person making the accusation.?Consider the following in the context of the madness we witnessed during the two years of "COVID terror."

?Medical doctor and psychiatrist, Joost Meerloo had the unfortunate fortune to study totalitarian regimes up-close and personal (indeed, he was captured and imprisoned by them).?In his 1956 classic, The Rape of the Mind, Meerloo develops his exemplar totalitarian country "Totalitaria" (which can be of any political stripe) and he explains:

?Totalitaria is constantly on the alert for social sinners, the critics of the system, and accusations of descent is equivalent to conviction in the public eye.

Criticism is baaaaaaad.?Thus sayeth St. Fauci:

So it’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science. That’s dangerous. To me, that’s more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me. I’m not going to be around here forever, but science is going to be here forever. And if you damage science, you are doing something very detrimental to society long after I leave. And that’s what I worry about.

Think now of the "Karens,"[14] the "Kens," and government officials who were vilifying anyone who dared to reference actual science and refused to wear a mask or participate in the paranoia of "social distancing" or refused to receive a vaccine.?Think of how Karen and Ken singled out such horrible people as an example of why things are not better.?Dr. Meerloo continues:

Projecting blame onto others reinforces each citizen's sense of participation in the totalitarian community and stills the nagging internal voice demanding that he act as a self-responsible individual.

…

Somewhere deep within him, the citizen of Totalitaria knows that he has abdicated his maturity and his responsibility; public purgings relieve his sense of shame. "It is the others, who are guilty and dirty, not I," he thinks. "It is they who are constantly plotting and conniving." But the very things of which he suspects others are also true of himself.?He is afraid others will betray him because he cannot be sure in his own mind that he will not betray them.

That person, the citizen who has cowardly abdicated their personal responsibility to be sure they are not found in the crosshairs of their neighbors must be SEEN to be one of the crowd; they must ensure that they are visibly one of the crowd, they wear a facemask.??In a further attempt to show everyone else that they are indeed, one of the virtuous crowd, they loudly decry those who maintain their integrity and maintain critical thinking capacity as "Conspiracy Theorists."

?And so it is with those who publicly called me a "conspiracy theorist."?They were precisely the ones who were actually acknowledging the tacit conspiracy to which they themselves were trying so hard to belong.?Meerloo points out that in Holland during the Nazi occupation, the most cowardly citizens were the ones quickest to point their finger at their innocent country man and yell "Conspiracy Theorist!"

?He will accuse others of conspiracy in order to prove his own importance. He will try to intimidate those who are neither so iron-fisted nor so hot-headed as he, and temporarily he will drag some people into the web of his delusions. Perhaps he will wear a mantle of martyrdom to arouse the tears of the weak-hearted. With his emotionalism and suspicion, he will shatter the trust of citizens in one another. His delusions of grandeur will infect those insecure souls who hope that some of his dictatorial glamour will rub off on them.

?Deflecting their lack of critical thinking and courage, labelling others as "conspiracy theorists" is the safest, smug, way to show the crowd you are on board with the big lie, wink, wink.?Some things never change.

?What do we see amongst the mask-wearing covidiots who were denouncing their fellow citizens as "conspiracy theorists"??Consider again the words of Jan‐Willem van Prooijen and Karen Douglas mentioned above when we define the beliefs of "conspiracy theorists," viz:

?1)???It's a social psychological phenomenon.

2)???False beliefs that are consequential; they have a real impact on people's health, relationships, and safety.

3)???Those false beliefs are universal; they crossed time, cultures, and social settings.

4)???Those false beliefs reject objective facts and science - they are emotional. Negative emotions and not rational deliberations which cause conspiracy beliefs.

5)???They are social as conspiracy beliefs are closely associated with psychological motivations underlying intergroup conflict.

?Who, in the last 30 months have held those beliefs? The "science deniers" who refused do don a facemask or the Faucists?

?The retractions have started.?A couple days ago, a covidiot by the name of Emily Oster[15] did what I have now seen hundreds of other covidiots try to do publicly – backpedal.?Those cowards who supported facemasks, and social distancing and lockdowns and claimed the vaccine would bring it all to an end are now doing back-flips trying to distance themselves from their anti-science, anti-intellectual positions.?They would have us believe that "the science has changed"[16] or "Well, we didn't know at the time" or "The CDC is at fault because they gave us bad information, and we didn't know any better." And other false justifications.

?These are the shadows of those who in Holland in the 1940s were scrambling after the war to try and convince their fellow citizens they were not Nazi collaborators at all, but rather, the whole time they were sneakily trying to get the Nazis to think they were when in fact they were good Dutchmen who loved their country.

?As a closing note, and returning to the original theme, consider the following characterization of the classic scientific "miscreant" offered by neuroscientist, Charles Gross while writing on scientific misconduct.[17]

?He is a bright and ambitious young man working in an elite institution in a rapidly moving and highly competitive branch of modern biology or medicine, where results have important theoretical, clinical or financial implications. He has been mentored and supported by a senior and respected establishment figure who is often the co-author of many of his papers but may have not been closely involved in the research. ??

Does that description match anyone who has seemingly, constantly ?been in the news for the last 30 years?

Just asking.

?Related Discussions by CP Connell (references follow)

Another Mask Paper Not about Masks.?A reveiw of Bagheria G, Thiedea B, Hejazia B et al "An upper bound on one-to-one exposure to infectious human respiratory particles" Nov. 2021?

Evolution of a Scientist:?From Two-Handed Threat to Forked-Tongue Savior

Holding Science Hostage?- How the fearful and powerful corrupt science for political gain.

Napoleon's Coffee - With or without a mask?Getting data to fit the Procrustean Bed.

How to Peddle Backward?- What happened to the 2020 Flu Epidemic? A summary of the US Crude Mortality Rate's refusal to cooperate with the popular narrative.

WHO thought this was a good idea...?(Comments regarding the December 1, 2020, "Mask use in the context of COVID-19".)

The Failing Mask Cure Aid?a review of Bundgaard H, Bundgaard JS, Raaschou-Pedersen DET, et al, "Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers, A Randomized Controlled Trial" (Ann. Int. Med. Nov 18, 2020, https://doi dot org/10.7326/M20-6817).

?Don't be a Maskhole, Karen?A review of?Zeng N, Li Z, Ng S, Chen D, Zhou H,?Epidemiology reveals mask wearing by the public is crucial for COVID-19 control. (Medicine in Microecology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.medmic.2020.100015):??

?Masks, and the new Doctor Schnabel von Rom: Review of Stadnytskyi V, Bax CE, Bax A, Anfinru P, The airborne lifetime of small speech droplets and their potential importance in SARS-CoV-2 transmission?(Approved by PNAS May 2020: https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2006874117)

Pathological Science?- Zhang?et al?and the PNAS: Zhang R, Annie Y Zhang L, Wang Y, Molinae M: Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19 (fast-tracked through the PNAS on June 11, 2020)

Defacing Mask Science?- Rossettie S, Perry C, Pourghaed M, Zumwalt M, "Effectiveness of manufactured surgical masks, respirators, and home-made masks in prevention of respiratory infection due to airborne microorganisms" The Southwest Respiratory and Critical Care Chronicles 2020;8(34):11–26

Masks - Don't look behind the curtain: Review of Vivek Kumar, Sravankumar Nallamothu, Sourabh Shrivastava, Harshrajsinh Jadeja, Pravin Nakod, Prem Andrade, Pankaj Doshi, Guruswamy Kumaraswamy "On the utility of cloth facemasks for controlling ejecta during respiratory events "

?Size matters!?A Brief Description of filtering mechanisms and size.

Materials v. Masks:?A review of Konda A, Prakash A, Moss GA, Schmoldt M, Grant GD, Guha S "Aerosol Filtration Efficiency of Common Fabrics Used in Respiratory Cloth Masks" (American Chemical Society, April 2020)

"Junk Science: In Favor of Community Face Masks - a return to Lysenkoism"?A review of: Jeremy Howard, Austin Huang,?Zhiyuan Li,?Zeynep Tufekci, Vladimir Zdimal,?Helene-Mari van der Westhuizen,?Arne von Delft,?Amy Price,?Lex Fridman, Lei-Han Tang, Viola Tang,?Gregory L. Watson,?Christina E. Bax,?Reshama Shaikh,?Frederik Questier, Danny Hernandez, Larry F. Chu, Christina M. Ramirez, Anne W. Rimoin Face Masks Against COVID-19: An Evidence Review NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 13 May 2020

Wishful Science?- A review of Anna Davies, BSc, Katy-Anne Thompson, BSc, Karthika Giri, BSc, George Kafatos, MSc, Jimmy Walker, PhD, and Allan Bennett, MSc Testing the Efficacy of Homemade Masks: Would They Protect in an Influenza Pandemic? (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2013;7:413-418)

If Manikins Could Fly…?A Review of Eikenberry SE, Mancuso M, Iboi E, Phan T, Eikenberry K, Kuang Y, Kostelich E, Gumel AB "To mask or not to mask: Modeling the potential for face mask use by the general public to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic" (Infectious Disease Modelling 5 (2020) pp. 293-308)

Review of?Cheng VC, Wong S, Chuang V, So S,?et al?"The role of community-wide wearing of face mask for control of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic due to SARS-CoV-2" (Journal of Infection April 30, 2020;16:13)

Gassed Masks!?Reactivation of viruses and deoxygenation during mask wearing.

Masking the Truth?- A discussion of aerosols and droplets

We R0 New York City?- A discussion of the basic reproduction number.

The epidemic of ignorance:?Lessons from "Flattening the Curve" April 14, 2020

Think Tanks!?The Dangers of Group-Think April 13, 2020

?REFERENCES

?[1] Assistant to Dr. Cyril Lodowic Burt, see Oliver Gillie, London Sunday Times, Oct. 24, 1976?

[2] Forensic Industrial Hygienist, Forensic Applications?Consulting Technologies, corresponding author.

[3] Kuhn TS, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962

[4] Atlas SW, A Plague Upon our House, 2021

[5] Interview with Anthony Fauci, November 28, 2021

[6] Colorado Revised Statutes 18-2-1(1)(2)

[7] Judson HF, The Great Betrayal, Fraud in Science (2004)

[8] Neustadt RE, Fineberg HV, Epidemic That Never Was, (1983)

[9] Darwall R, The Age of Global Warming, (2013)

?[10] Ritchie S, Science Fictions, (2019)

?[11] Copyright material (Used here without permission under fair use doctrine pursuant to Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 (USC Title 17), criticism, teaching, scholarship, education and research.)

[12] Volli U, "Anti-Semitism as protype of conspiracy theories" Lexia, Rivista di semiotica, 23–24 Complotto 19–34(December 2016)

[13] van Prooijen J, Douglas KM, "Belief in conspiracy theories: Basic principles of an emerging research domain" Eur J Soc Psychol. 2018 Dec; 48(7): 897–908. Published online 2018 Aug 24. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.2530)

[14] McDonald M, The United States of FEAR, How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis, 2021

[15] Oster, E "LET’S DECLARE A PANDEMIC AMNESTY- Let’s focus on the future, and fix the problems we still need to solve." The Atlantic, October 31, 2022

[16] Dr. Leana Wen, February 7, 2022 on CNN with anchor John Berman

[17] Gross C "Disgrace: On Marc Hauser - A case of scientific misconduct at Harvard." The Nation, December 21, 2011