Science finally tries to determine the viability of conspiracy theories. David Grimes, a physicist at Oxford University, designed a new math model for testing these theories left until now outside the interest of mainstream science.
Conspiracies can make it difficult for policy makers and researchers to convince the general public that they are based on misinformation. Conspiracies can also make it more difficult to promote theories and facts accepted within the scientific community.
This issue inspired Grimes to find a way of testing conspiracy theories. His model is based on the fact that various conspiracies have been revealed throughout history. Grimes' model estimates how long a conspiracy could be kept secret rather than providing a true-false output. The math model was published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Grimes declared for The Telegraph that some conspiracies revolve around science. He added that some conspiracy theories may not be harmful and gives the example of believing the Moon landings were faked. However, according to Grimes, some other conspiracies can be fatal, for instance believing misinformation about vaccines. On the other side, not every conspiracy theory is necessarily wrong. For instance, some theories about the activities of the US National Security Agency (NSA) were confirmed by Snowden's revelations.
Grimes built a scientific model to find out how long a systematic secret could be kept hidden from the general public by using a combination of knowledge of past conspiracies and mathematical logic. His model analyzes the length of time and the number of parties involved in order to determine the likelihood that a conspiracy would be inadvertently revealed or uncovered by a whistleblower.
By using his model to analyze popular conspiracy theories, Grimes came to the conclusion that intrinsic failure to keep a secret hidden for long would be imminent, according to the website upi.com. For example, if the moon landing would actually been faked, the conspiracy would have been revealed within 3.68 years according to Grimes' math model.
