
Scientists discover the reason people believe in conspiracy theories - AndrewDucker
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/conspiracy-theories-creationism-psychology-911-moon-landing-fake-a8499511.html
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sbinthree
As easy as it would be to dispel this as something only low IQ / low capacity
for development people would fall for, teleological thinking tends to slant
towards schizophrenia-spectrum nervous systems. If you plot schizophrenia on a
continuum from subclinical (one symptom) to clinical (threshold for diagnoses)
you see teleological thinking / religious zealotry / conspiracy and paranoia
in all parts of the spectrum, where it mostly gets worse as it progresses to
clinical levels. Those of us on the autism spectrum tend to have the opposite
neurology, with a low capacity for teleological thinking and more capacity for
reductivism. Neurodiversity is interesting because whether you fall into one
camp or the other (or somewhere in between) doesn't change much through your
life, or affect IQ or other conventional measures of development capacity. The
future is going to be interesting as evolution selects for more extreme traits
in each of these domains.

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api
I'm not sure one way or the other about the schizophrenia link, but it is
interesting.

As far as IQ goes I completely agree. If anything I'd say that most of the
people I've known who are into conspiracy theories have above average IQs.

It's one of many reasons I'm not a believer in the IQ cult. There are so many
other factors that lead to success in any area. Some are biological and some
are intellectual and cultural. Someone with a high IQ but insane beliefs is at
a large disadvantage vs. someone with a more average IQ and more rational
beliefs. If anything a high IQ person with irrational beliefs will more
effectively delude themselves and others.

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sbinthree
Schizophrenia incidence goes up with IQ from average, as does high functioning
autism and bipolar disorder, the only health conditions that increase as you
go up in IQ (all others decrease or aren't affected).

