If you want to use a big word to impress people, try apophenia. It’s defined as “the perception of connections and meaningfulness in unrelated things,” which is exactly what happens when people believe conspiracy theories.

The human mind is apparently prone to “a pervasive tendency … to see order in random configurations.” For example, see the “Face on Mars.” What clearly looks like a gigantic human face carved on the surface of Mars is, in reality, only a series of random topographic features and shadows, which the human mind is predisposed to perceive as a face.

It makes sense that our brains are programmed to recognize human faces, even when they’re not there. Research studies have found that newborn babies prefer to look at “faces and face-like stimuli.”

(Another research study found that babies as young as two to three days old stared longer at faces adults had rated as more attractive rather than those rated as less attractive. Such tendencies appear to be hardwired at birth.)

But people also seem pre-programmed to perceive other patterns that often do not exist – the pattern of evil, powerful people secretly manipulating others– the template of a conspiracy theory.

Perhaps sensing such a pattern was useful in surviving the politics of the small tribal bands of pre-history, in which failing to see a plot against you could be a fatal mistake.

For whatever reason, like the “Face on Mars,” many people see a supposedly simple good vs. evil pattern in events that are typically much more complex and not nearly as sinister.