Created in a lab (on purpose) – 47%
Created in a lab (by accident) – 10%
Spread from bats/monkeys – 38%
Cannibalistic ritual cover-up – 5%
This is a poll question recently asked for a news website. Whilst there is unfortunately no indication on the number of respondents, most appear to endorse a conspiracy explanation, with the official explanation currently trailing 9% behind.
Conspiracy theories highlight inconsistencies or ambiguities in official accounts. They can be seen to accompany many significant political and social events, such as the death of Diana, Princes of Wales, the U.S. government involvement in 9/11 and the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The Ebola crisis can therefore be also added to the list.
Conspiracy theories allow people to address feelings of powerlessness and lack of control, avoid feelings of uncertainty and allow people to make sense of events. They also however, undermine confidence on important topics such as the workings of science. This can have potentially detrimental consequences, where belief in conspiracy theories has been associated with lack of condom use and being less likely to seek treatment for HIV. Exposure to conspiracy theories has also been found to reduce people’s intention to engage in the political system, take action against climate change and vaccinate a fictional child.
Similarly therefore with belief in conspiracy theories concerning the Ebola crisis, this could lead to people not taking the appropriate protection or seeking the recommended treatment. For example, people who endorse such a viewpoint may avoid health workers who are trying to offer advice and support. This may only lead to an increase in the spread of the virus.
Conspiracy theories may allow people to meet important psychological needs, but their consequences may be detrimental to society. With Ebola cases increasing by the day, it is important that conspiracy theories are not just thought of as simply harmless fun and therefore of little concern. Instead conspiracy theories may have an alarming impact on social systems that should not be taken lightly.
Ebola is in danger of becoming a worldwide crisis, with the potential to reach 1.4 million cases by January, at what point should the conspiracy theories be challenged?
The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories 
Pingback: Five Feet of Fury – Kathy Shaidle – Psychology Of Conspiracy Theories blog looks at Ebola virus theories
“Ebola is in danger of becoming a worldwide crisis, with the potential to reach 1.4 million cases by January, at what point should the conspiracy theories be challenged?”~Jolley
And if Ebola isn’t a pandemic anywhere near such a scale, when do we challenge the fearmongers making such predictions?
And what of the forced guaranteeing that is being considered by the state? And the possibility of forced vaccinations?
Does this author, Daniel Jolley have the medical expertise to understand what is and is not Ebola? Or is he relying on the word of “Authority”? Like so much of the twaddle I read on this site, I know the answer. Jolley has the faith of a “True Believer” when it comes to any ‘Official Narrative’. It is a constant MO of this blog.
Jolley if fully satisfied with playing the “what-if” game when it comes to Mainstreem projections. But what-ifs such as; ‘What if the vaccine has toxins in it that will damage the immune system, and makes the host more susceptible to Ebola virus?” are totally beyond the imaginations of such as these ‘Anti-Conspiracists. They forget the blankets infected with smallpox intentionally given to the Native Americans during the Anglo-European colonialism of the American continent. They pretend that there aren’t really state facilitated labs working on biological weapons.
“Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.”~Santayana
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Ebola Bonanza
Big pharma bets on Ebola vaccines, treatments
Posted: 25 Oct 2014 10:00 PM PDT
Drugmakers are racing to develop vaccines and drugs to address the worst outbreak of Ebola in history. It’s unclear who will pay for their products, but companies are betting that governments and aid groups will foot the bill.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blacklistednews/hKxa/~3/2ek6yf7ImbQ/M.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
Two of the big pharma biggies that want to develop ebola drugs/vaccines are Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Johnson & Johnson has been under scrutiny for years for refusing – after being informed – to remove CARCINOGENS from its shampoos and other “health & beauty” aids. GSK is in the news now for its recent “accidental” dump of LIVE POLIO VIRUS into a Belgian river.
Corporations say they could develop ebola drugs/vaccines if only the regulatory “hurdles” were removed. Big pharma always says that (so do big oil, big GMO, etc. etc.). In fact, due to revolving-door industry shills on regulatory agencies (FDA, EPA, etc.), the regulatory agencies now rubber-stamp nearly every goddamned thing the industires want, even though the product is harmful or lethal.
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“While some in the controlled corporate media dismiss such inquiry out of hand, serious researchers know that there is a long and well-documented history of governments experimenting with, deploying and even creating bioweapons to use as a means of warfare, population control and consolidation of governmental power.
Biowarfare itself goes back to the earliest periods of recorded human history. The ancient Hittites over 3000 years ago drove plague victims into enemy lands with the intent of infecting the enemy population. Athenians poisoned the water supply of their enemies in Kirrha with a toxic plant called hellebore sometime around 590 BC. Scythians in 4th century BC learned to smear their arrow tips with snake venom, blood and even animal feces in order to infect their enemy’s wounds. In the 18th century, the British commander Lord Amherst famously wrote about a plan to infect Native Americans by giving them smallpox-infected blankets, and researcher Kevin Annett has documented similar actions by the Canadian government, which acted in coordination with the Catholic, Anglican and United churches in Canada’s, Anglican and United churches in Canada’s residential school system to facilitate the genocide of Canadian natives.
http://www.corbettreport.com/articles/20090501_biowarfare_history.htm
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Fluoride’s neurotoxicity has been the subject of academic debate for decades, and now a matter of increasingly impassioned controversy among the general public, as well. From ‘conspiracy theories’ about it being first used in drinking water in Russian and Nazi concentration camps to chemically lobotomize captives, to its now well-known IQ lowering properties, to its ability to enhance the calcification of the pineal gland – the traditional ‘seat of the soul’ – many around the world, and increasingly in the heavily fluoridated regions of the United States, are starting to organize at the local and statewide level to oust this ubiquitous toxicant from municipal drinking water.
Now, a new study published in the Pharmacognosy Magazine titled, “Curcumin attenuates neurotoxicity induced by fluoride: An in vivo evidence,” adds experimental support to the suspicion that fluoride is indeed a brain-damaging substance, also revealing that a natural spice-derived protective agent against the various health effects associated with this compound is available. The study was authored by researchers from the Department of Zoology, University College of Science, M.L. Sukhadia University, Udaipur, India, who have spent the past decade investigating the mechanisms through which fluoride induces severe neurodegenerative changes in the mammalian brain, particularly in cells of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex.[i] [ii]
The study opens by describing the historical backdrop for concern about fluoride’s significant and wide ranging toxicity: “Fluoride (F) is probably the first inorganic ion which drew attention of the scientific world for its toxic effects and now the F toxicity through drinking water is well-recognized as a global problem. Health effect reports on F exposure also include various cancers, adverse reproductive activities, cardiovascular, and neurological diseases.[1,2]“
http://globalresearchreport.com/2014/04/10/the-spice-that-prevents-fluoride-from-destroying-your-brain/#sthash.c6icUJH2.dpuf
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As of this date the total cases of Ebola in US and Mali are: 7. – the total deaths in both countries are: 4.
The WHO situation report of 12 November reported 4 cases and 4 deaths in Mali. One probable case and death has been reclassified and is now excluded from the Mali case count.
**The outbreaks of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Senegal and Nigeria were declared over on 17 October and 19 October 2014, respectively. A national EVD outbreak is considered to be over when 42 days (double the 21-day incubation period of the Ebola virus) has elapsed since the last patient in isolation became laboratory negative for EVD.
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/case-counts.html
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How CIA invented “Conspiracy Theory” term
Stigmatizing truth seekers
http://goo.gl/AG0mIH
“How CIA invented ‘Conspiracy Theory’ term Stigmatizing truth seekers”
Wow! A meta-conspiracy theory!
I got Ebola on my penis
Since June 2014, the weekly case count is under 100 infections worldwide.
So how well did this fearmongering bullshit work out for you Mr Jolley?
“Ebola is in danger of becoming a worldwide crisis, with the potential to reach 1.4 million cases by January”
It is now February, and you have a large dish of crow awaiting your consumption.
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Wow. These comments certainly support the point of the post. I’ve been “exposed” to adherents of several conspiracies – chemtrails, vaccine damage coverups, birth control meds in vaccines, climate change hoax… It’s completely astounding. I’ve found your articles quite fascinating. Thanks.
Here’s some psychology for you: the author believes “authority figures” more readily than he believes less powerful people, regardless of facts. the author is susceptible to alarmism, to the availability heuristic/bias, and to extrapolating trends into the future whether or not it is rational to do so. Based on these common psychological quirks, he let himself believe that there would be 1.4 million cases of Ebola by January. He was wildly misguided in this prediction.
As of April 2015 we find that this prediction by Jolley was totally fallacious, and that the conspiracy of psychological theories is as baseless as this bogus prediction.
The “psychologist” pretenders here must have gotten the message themselves that they are full of it. They seem to have given up on this site altogether now. Good riddance.
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Reasonable people will recognize that the potential impact of a conspiracy theory varies. Let’s look at the question raised, and the options provided in this poll (which don’t cover all of the theoretically reasonable possibilities, such as a combination of the 3rd and 1st options).
First of all, in terms of response, what difference does it make which cause one believes? Whether the virus was created in a lab or spread by bats, that doesn’t alter the fact of its existence, nor is it likely to be a predictor of whether someone seeks treatment upon falling ill with ebola. The “cannibalistic ritual cover-up” people, if they actually exist, might be an exception, although that’s not likely. (It isn’t very likely they actually exist; it’s far more probable that those respondents chose the answer to be funny. Although that would make for another interesting theory — do people giving bogus answers on polls actually believe those answers?)
In the bigger picture, though, it makes a bigger difference whether one believes whatever is true than whatever seems more plausible. If the disease came (entirely) from natural sources, and one believes it was lab-derived or altered, what action (or inaction) is likely to result from the belief, that causes harm? Extra caution? I can’t really think of anything particularly threatening that’s likely in this scenario. The only possible exception would be whether someone would submit to an ebola vaccination, and that’s really more an issue of one’s belief about the vaccine manufacture and safety than about where the virus originated, per se.
If the disease was lab-derived and one believes it to be of natural origin, what then? The perpetuation of a potentially dangerous experimental program? Assuming certain treatments will work, when they don’t because the virus has been altered?
The point is, sometimes it’s less important to have confidence in any of the narratives than it is to recognize what the potential dangers are of each, and what the impact would be of believing or disbelieving each — because generally speaking, none of us has access to incontrovertible empirical evidence so we’re all making educated guesses, really.