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.

Conspiracy theories often rely on arguments that take the following form: “Because there is a mystery with no ready explanation, this means that things are not as they seem; there is a hidden reality, which I can explain.”

Perhaps the most well known supposed mystery surrounds the Moon landing in 1969. The American flag that the astronauts planted appeared to be rippling in the wind – but there’s no wind on the Moon, so how could this have happened? Conspiracy theorists used this mystery as “evidence” that the entire event must have been staged in a studio on Earth.

Instead of an elaborate charade, there is a very simple explanation for why the flag appeared to flutter in the breeze. NASA didn’t want the flag to hang limply, so it constructed a telescoping, horizontal bar to which the top of the flag was attached. When the astronauts deployed the flag, they could not get this bar to extend fully. This caused a kink in the flag, which made it appear to be rippling in the wind. Later crews left the flag like this because they liked the way it looked. Conspiracy theorists took this mystery, which had a very simple, but not well known, explanation and presented it as “proof” that the moon landing never took place.

This technique of pointing to supposed mysteries can be surprisingly effective. It may be that our minds are especially attuned to look for anomalies, perhaps as a sign of danger. This may have been very useful for survival in the wild, but is not very useful for understanding our complex, largely man-made world. Most apparent mysteries can be explained if one does the necessary research.

London Times columnist David Aaronovitch has written a new book on conspiracy theories: Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, published in the UK. It covers the Kennedy assassination, The September 11 attacks, Princess Diana’s death, Marilyn Monroe’s death, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the moon landing, the attack on Pearl Harbor and other popular conspiracy theories.

I haven’t read the book yet, but Aaronovitch published excerpts in The Times on April 29 and gave a talk on this subject at the London School of Economics on May 7.

Aaronovitch makes the point that conspiracy theories assume unworkably complex arrangements. He writes, in The Times, about those who wrongly believe the U.S. government planned the September 11 attacks:

This group of conspirators would have had to suborn, dupe or train 19 hijackers, create elaborate background stories for them, send them to flying schools to be seen around Florida and other parts of the US, before disposing of them either in the crashes or, in the case of Flight 77, in a manner unknown.

… The conspirators would have had to have sent experts in to rig the two main [World Trade Center] towers and WTC7 with sufficient explosives to be sure of bringing the first two buildings down some time after the planes had hit them, and WTC7 whenever it was felt expedient to do so. But the explosives had to be sufficiently inert not to be triggered either by the impacts of the planes or by the thousands of gallons of burning aviation fuel, an especially tricky proposition since no precedent existed for the crashing of a large civil airliner into a 1,000-foot skyscraper. …

Hundreds, if not thousands, would have to have been directly involved in different aspects of the conspiracy. And all of them would have to have been either fanatically committed to the project or else almost unimaginably immoral.

Yet, as Aaronovitch points out, a government that allegedly engaged in such a super-secret conspiracy, with absolutely no leaks, couldn’t accomplish the infinitely easier task of “plant[ing] weapons of mass destruction in the vastnesses of the Iraqi desert.”

Sounds like a good read to me.

The scholarly journal Arab Insight contains five articles on conspiracy theories in the Arab world.

Conspiracy thinking has grown, especially since the September 11 attacks, says Mohamed Abdel Salam, Head of the Regional Security and Arms Control Program at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Egypt. His article, “The Modes of Arab Conspiracy Theories,” says “markedly non-scientific modes of thought prevail throughout the Arab world,” one form being conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theories are consciously used in the Arab world to justify failures, defeats and strife and to malign opposition groups, argues Hani Nasira, Director of the Al-Mesbar Center for Studies and Research in the United Arab Emirates. His article, “Skepticism in the Arab World: The Base of Conspiracies,” states, “even though only God knows our true intentions, conspiracy theorists … appropriate for themselves the ability to uncover the true intentions of their political opponents and those who disagree with them.”

“Most ruling parties or monarchies in Arab government use conspiracy theories to blame other groups for government failures,” writes Hamdy Hassan Abdul Ainien, Dean of the School of Mass Communication at the Sixth of October University in Egypt, in his article, “Inventing Fiction? Conspiracy Theories in Arab Media.” But public attitudes are also important, he argues, noting that “the waves of rational thinking that swept into Arab life are perennially unable to confront the brand of metaphysical thinking dominant since Muslims chose to follow Al-Ghazali rather than Averroes.”

Arab textbooks often teach conspiracy-based versions of historical events, says Egyptian political science researcher Hoda Al-Bakr, in the article “Teaching Fiction? Conspiracy Theories in Arab Public Schools.” “The classic case,” Al-Bakr writes, “is the use of the colonial experience, seen as a grand conspiracy, to excuse most of the region’s present shortcomings.”

Egyptian political analyst Nezar Elthahawy analyzed 304 articles in Al-Azhar magazine, published by Egypt’s Islamic Research Academy, for his article “Preaching Fiction? Conspiracy Theories in Religious Institutions.” He concluded 20 percent of articles showed conspiracy-centered thinking.

The conspiracy theorist’s natural inclination is to answer “Yes!” In their mental/emotional world, bad things are caused by powerful, evil people acting behind the scenes. Speculators fit this profile perfectly.

For a different perspective, see the June 13 New York Times story on speculators. It cites “people with years of knowledge about how commodity markets work” as saying that “without speculators these markets do not work at all.”

Farmers, miners, oil producers and others involved in producing or consuming commodities – such as food and oil – use futures contracts (a contract to buy or sell commodities at a specified price at a certain time in the future) to decrease uncertainty about the price for which they will eventually sell their production or, if they are consumers, buy it. Without futures markets, there would be much more uncertainty about future prices. This would likely scare some producers away. And if the supply of a commodity goes down, its price goes up. So, future markets make costs lower than they would be otherwise.

Speculators pour additional money into these markets, making them larger and, experts say, less volatile. They argue this makes likely lower, not higher, prices.

If speculators are not the “bad guys,” who are? The article cites several factors causing higher food and oil prices:

• High-growth economies in China and India
• Bad weather
• Increased demand for corn-based ethanol, which drives up corn prices
• The weakening U.S. dollar, which drives up the cost of commodities, such as oil, that are priced in dollars.

In other words, increased demand and decreased supply drive up prices. That’s economics 101.

Unfortunately, complex, abstract causes don’t fit with the very human need to find a villain when things go wrong. So, conspiracy theories, which meet this need, multiply.

Conspiracy theories are a peculiar form of belief.

They assume the existence of an omnipotent and evil group of conspirators who are, at the same time, powerless to protect their secrets from rather ordinary observers – those who champion conspiracy theories.

Instead of eliminating those who have pierced their veil of secrets, the supposed conspirators, who allegedly know all and control all, do nothing.

This contradiction makes no sense, but conspiracy theorists do not seem troubled by it. They have a ready explanation for everything.

In a way, conspiracy theories are the lazy man’s monomyth.

Folklorist Joseph Campbell, who studied heroic myths from different cultures, concluded that, at their core, they all tell the same story, which he called the monomyth.

In his 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell described the monomyth’s basic narrative, followed by mythical heroes in all world cultures:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

Conspiracy theories resemble the monomyth, in some ways.

Both types of fables derive their drama from the threat posed by wicked evil.

The monomyth calls for the hero to challenge evil, risking his life to best it in battle.

But the conspiracy theorist does not challenge evil; he just complains, without actually doing anything. And the imagined evil forces don’t do anything to him, either.

We all recognize the myths of other cultures for what they are – stories based on their power to inspire, not on fact.

But many do not recognize that conspiracy theories are a similar type of fable – the lazy man’s monomyth.