Conspiracy theories more likely to appeal to Creationists

♦creationists are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, a Swiss study has found.

Researchers at the University of Fribourg found that there was a significant link between people who believed in such notions as faked moon landings and agreeing that God created humans and the Earth less than 10,000 years ago.

In one of three studies 1,252 participants in France were asked about their level of agreement with conspiracy theories such as faked “false-flag” terror attacks and if the assassination of John F Kennedy was staged.

They found people who believed in “teleological thinking” – the idea that things happen for a reason – shared the assumptions of creationists regarding conspiracies and were likely to have faith in horoscopes.

The authors of the study, published in the journal Current Biology, suggested that fateful reasoning was “an obstacle to the acceptance of evolutionary theory”. They also said it was “a more general gateway to the acceptance of anti-scientific views and conspiracy theories ... We suggest that this powerful cognitive bias extends to social and historical events, and nowadays to conspiracy narratives”.