The kinship between miracles and conspiracy theories

New paper argues that both are pseudo-explanations that place emotional satisfaction above evidence

The first book-length piece of nonfiction I wrote is O Livro dos Milagres (“The Book of Miracles”). It was first issued in Brazil in 2011 by a small publisher dedicated to science popularization books; after that heroic company folded, it was reissued, a decade later (with corrections and updates), by a prestigious Brazilian academic press, and soon after translated into Spanish by an Argentinian university, as El Libro de los Milagros. It was quite a rush to have a book debunking the purported supernatural character of religious phenomena issued in the pope’s (now the late pope's) homeland!

My beef with miracles comes from my time as science editor for a prominent São Paulo newspaper. Brazil was — and still is, despite the growth of neo-Pentecostal denominations — a predominantly Catholic country, and the newspaper I worked for was a very conservative one. That being the case, there was always space for news about miracles, especially “graces received” by someone who prayed to a Brazilian candidate for Catholic sainthood (to be officially recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church, one has to perform two miracles after death).

So, “Vatican recognizes that the healing of Ms. A's cancer was a miracle, something science cannot explain, brought about by prayers to dead Saint Candidate B” was big news because it meant that Candidate B now had a stronger shot at sainthood. And the newspaper would publish it, tacitly accepting the judgement “science cannot explain” without reserve.

The whole thing was quite annoying. The newspaper treated the Vatican decision (this cure was miraculous, unexplainable by science) at face value, without any attempt at balance or counterpoint; sometimes, the “miracles” were so close to sheer quackery — as in the case of “Friar Galvão” pills, small pieces of paper with prayers written in them that ill people would swallow — that promoting them acritically seemed to me irresponsible, if not downright unethical (Friar Galvão was cannonized Saint Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvão by pope Benedict XVI in 2007).

And don't even get me started on the frickin’ Shroud of Turin.

So, after the newspaper decided that paying a living wage to a science editor wasn’t cost-effective and sent me packing, the first thing I did was to sit down to write a book showing that yes, science can explain purported “miracles”. The whole process got me thinking about all the other stuff that the press — and the culture at large — treat as “controversial” or “mysterious" when, in reality, the true facts of the case are very well established. I already wrote a piece on willful ignorance, so to be brief: for me, the existence of such a state of affairs, where the truth about something is known, but the press, for commercial convenience or cultural conformism, pretends it isn't, is a big journalistic sin.

In this position of “bad faith”, or “false consciousness” (to borrow from more well-established vocabularies), we can find several pseudosciences, several examples of science denial (like climate change denialism, or vaccine “skepticism”), and some conspiracy theories that went mainstream, like the ones around JFK's murder.

So, when I saw this paper arguing that miracles and conspiracy theories are epistemically related, it got my attention. The authors characterize conspiracy theories thus:

Conspiracy theories purport to be explanations, accounts that make sense of the facts. Yet, they pick and choose, twist and turn the evidence to fit a preconceived picture. They give the impression of doing one thing (explain the facts as indicated by the evidence), while doing something different, not to say the opposite (pull the rug from under any attempt at evidence-based inquiry). Conspiracy theories are not bad theories, but are something else entirely, masquerading as proper theories.

And, by noting that any appeal to “divine intervention” does the same work of a paranoid conspiracy ideation — pretends to explain while pulling the rug from under any serious attempt at explanation —, they build a connection to miracles that leads to:

Conspiracy theories are, we might say, the modern equivalent of miracles. They are analogous in three respects: psychological, epistemic, and political. First, both miracles and conspiracy theories aim to dazzle, to win people over, by overawing them. Second, they rationalize rather than explain. They wear an appearance of explanation, but in fact serve to seal off the evidence rather than engage it, to vindicate, reassure, please, or entertain rather than enlighten. Finally, they typically serve a political end—namely, to entrench an identity, a social order, or a system of control.

The paper then goes on to make some suggestions about how to deal with the social effects of conspiracy theories that, at least to me, sound a little too naïve, but the idea of a deeper kinship between different social systems of pseudo-explanation is a very enlightening one. Even the identity politics aspect of the parallel is spot on: a newspaper that caters to religious conservatives in a Catholic country uncritically divulges Catholic miracles that go on to reinforce Catholic identities and help rationalize Catholic beliefs and uphold Catholic authority.

Conspiracies work the same way; the only difference is that the creeds they uphold tend to be more explicitly political. A right-wing/left-wing publication will uncritically divulge right-wing/left-wing conspiracy theories that will reinforce right-wing/left-wing identities and help rationalize right-wing/left-wing beliefs and uphold right-wing/left-wing authority. And again, taking a page from Religion’s playbook, both left and right-wing conspiracy ideologues will use belief-shaming (“woe to thee of little faith!”) to corral any recalcitrants in.