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List Of Conspiracy Theories
This is a list of conspiracy theories that are notable. Many conspiracy theories relate to clandestine government plans and elaborate murder plots. Conspiracy theories usually deny consensus or cannot be proven using the historical or scientific method, and are not to be confused with research concerning verified conspiracies such as Germany's pretense for invading Poland in World War II. In principle, conspiracy theories are not always false by default and their validity depends on evidence just as in any theory. However, they are often discredited ''a priori'' due to the cumbersome and improbable nature of many of them. Psychologists sometimes attribute belief in conspiracy theories and finding a conspiracy where there is none to a number of psychopathological conditions such as paranoia, schizotypy, narcissism, and insecure attachment, or to a form of cognitive bias called "illusory pattern perception". However, the current scientific consensus holds that most conspir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cognitive Bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. Although it may seem like such misperceptions would be aberrations, biases can help humans find commonalities and shortcuts to assist in the navigation of common situations in life. Some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive. Cognitive biases may lead to more effective actions in a given context. Furthermore, allowing cognitive biases enables faster decisions which can be desirable when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as illustrated in heuristics. Other cognitive biases are a "by-product" of human processing limitations, resulting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pan Am Flight 103 Conspiracy Theories
Pan Am Flight 103 conspiracy theories suggest a number of possible explanations for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988. Some of the theories preceded the official investigation by Scottish police and the FBI; others arose from different interpretation of evidence presented at Libyan agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's 2000–2001 trial; yet others have been developed independently by individuals and organisations outside the official investigation. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) was the first suspect, in light of a threat it issued against U.S. and Israeli interests before the bombing. The state of Iran was also in the frame very early, with its motive thought to be revenge for the July 1988 shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by . This theory was later reinforced by Abolghasem Mesbahi, former head of Iranian intelligence operations in Europe, who stated after defecting to Germany that Iran had asked Libya and Abu N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helderberg Disaster
South African Airways Flight 295 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei, Taiwan, to Jan Smuts International Airport, Johannesburg, South Africa, with a stopover in Plaisance Airport, Plaine Magnien, Mauritius. On 28 November 1987, the aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 747-200 Combi named ''Helderberg'', experienced a catastrophic in-flight fire in the cargo area, broke up in mid-air, and crashed into the Indian Ocean east of Mauritius, killing all 159 people on board. An extensive salvage operation was mounted to try to recover the aircraft's flight recorders, one of which was recovered from a depth of . The official inquiry, headed by Judge Cecil Margo, was unable to determine the cause of the fire. This lack of a conclusion led to conspiracy theories, debates and speculation about the nature of Flight 295's cargo being advanced and a subsequent post-apartheid investigation, in the years following the accident. Aircraft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1986 Mozambican Tupolev Tu-134 Crash
On 19 October 1986, a Tupolev Tu-134 jetliner with a Soviet crew carrying President Samora Machel and 43 others from Mbala, Zambia to the Mozambican capital Maputo crashed at Mbuzini, South Africa. Nine passengers and one crew member survived the crash, but President Machel and 33 others died, including several ministers and senior officials of the Mozambican government. A board of enquiry blamed the captain for failing to react to the Ground Proximity Warning System. Another theory was that the crew had set the aircraft's VOR receivers to the wrong frequency, causing them to receive signals from a different airport, or even that a false beacon had been used to lure the crew off course. While there was widespread suspicion in other nations that South Africa, which was hostile towards Machel's government at the time, was involved in the incident, no conclusive evidence was ever presented to support that allegation. Crash :''All times in this article are local (UTC+2).'' Aircr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arrow Air Flight 1285
Arrow Air Flight 1285R was an international charter flight carrying U.S. troops from Cairo, Egypt, to their home base in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, via Cologne, West Germany, and Gander, Newfoundland. On the morning of Thursday, 12 December 1985, shortly after takeoff from Gander en route to Fort Campbell, the McDonnell Douglas DC-8 serving the flight stalled, crashed, and burned about half a mile from the runway, killing all 248 passengers and 8 crew members on board. , it is the deadliest aviation accident to occur on Canadian soil. At the time of the crash, it was the deadliest aviation accident involving a DC-8; , it is the second-deadliest, behind the crash of Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 six years later. The accident was investigated by the Canadian Aviation Safety Board (CASB), which determined that the probable cause of the crash was the aircraft's unexpectedly high drag and reduced lift condition, most likely due to ice contamination on the wings' leading edges and uppe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kashmir Princess
The ''Kashmir Princess'', or Air India Flight 300, was a chartered Lockheed L-749A Constellation flight owned by Air India. On 11 April 1955, it was damaged in midair by a bomb explosion and crashed into the South China Sea while en route from Bombay, India, and Hong Kong to Jakarta, Indonesia. Sixteen of those on board were killed, while three survived. The explosion was an assassination attempt targeting Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, who missed the flight due to a medical emergency and was not on board. The Chinese government concluded that the Kuomintang (KMT) were responsible for the bombing. Explosion Flight 300 departed Hong Kong at 04:25 GMT carrying Chinese and Eastern European delegates, mainly journalists, to the Afro-Asian Bandung Conference in Jakarta. At approximately 09:25 GMT the crew heard an explosion; smoke quickly entered the cabin from a fire on the right wing directly behind the No. 3 (or right inboard) engine. Upon hearing the explosion and seeing the fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agent Detection
Agent detection is the inclination for animals, including humans, to presume the purposeful intervention of a sentient or intelligent agent in situations that may or may not involve one. Evolutionary origins It is believed that humans evolved agent detection as a survival strategy. In situations where one is unsure of the presence of an intelligent agent (such as an enemy or a predator), there is survival value in assuming its presence so that precautions can be taken. For example, if a human came across an indentation in the ground that might be a lion's footprint, it is advantageous to err on the side of caution and assume that the lion is present. Psychologists Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner wrote: Role in religion Some scientists believe that the belief in acting gods is an evolutionary by-product of agent detection. A spandrel is a non-adaptive trait formed as a side effect of an adaptive trait. The psychological trait in question is "if you hear a twig snap in the forest, som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolutionary Origin Of Anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat whereas the latter is defined as the emotional response to a real threat. It is often accompanied by nervous behavior such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination. Anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness and worry, usually generalized and unfocused as an overreaction to a situation that is only subjectively seen as menacing. It is often accompanied by muscular tension, restlessness, fatigue, inability to catch one's breath, tightness in the abdominal region, nausea, and problems in concentration. Anxiety is closely related to fear, which is a response to a real or perceived immediate threat (fight or flight response); anxiety involves the expectation of future threat including dread. People facing anxiety may withdraw fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolutionary Psychology
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evolved to solve. In this framework, psychological traits and mechanisms are either functional products of natural and sexual selection, non-adaptive by-products of other adaptive traits, or noise. Adaptationist thinking about physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, and the liver, is common in evolutionary biology. Evolutionary psychologists apply the same thinking in psychology, arguing that just as the heart evolved to pump blood, and the liver evolved to detoxify poisons, there is modularity of mind in that different psychological mechanisms evolved to solve different adaptive problems. These evolutionary psychologists argue that much of human behavior is the output of psychological adaptations that evolved to solve recurrent p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Species
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, and language. Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which bolster human society. Its intelligence and its desire to understand and influence the environment and to explain and manipulate phenomena have motivated humanity's development of science, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other fields of study. Although some scientists equate the term ''humans'' with all members of the genus ''Homo'', in common usage, it generally refers to ''Homo sapiens'', the only extant member. Anatomically modern hum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Consensus
Scientific consensus is the generally held judgment, position, and opinion of the majority or the supermajority of scientists in a particular field of study at any particular time. Consensus is achieved through scholarly communication at conferences, the publication process, replication of reproducible results by others, scholarly debate, and peer review. A conference meant to create a consensus is termed as a consensus conference. Such measures lead to a situation in which those within the discipline can often recognize such a consensus where it exists; however, communicating to outsiders that consensus has been reached can be difficult, because the "normal" debates through which science progresses may appear to outsiders as contestation. On occasion, scientific institutes issue position statements intended to communicate a summary of the science from the "inside" to the "outside" of the scientific community, or consensus review articles or surveys may be published. In cases wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
