I think this is pretty much exactly right. It's also tough to accept that the world is a messy place with a lot of loose ends that will never be tied. Religion

I think this is pretty much exactly right. It's also tough to accept that the world is a messy place with a lot of loose ends that will never be tied. Religion used to 'make sense' of the what and why for a lot of people. But when you don't have that, and you don't want to think we are all just the result of a huge amount of luck, conspiracy theory gives you something to believe in. Much like religion it's also next to impossible to argue against, because you're arguing against belief and not reason. You can show someone a thousand pieces of evidence and they'll say "that's what they want you to believe". But a single piece of 'evidence' in the opposite direction, however spurious, is enough to yield a thousand "I told you so / I was right all along" comments. With chemtrails, for instance - you can point out the science as much as you like, but as soon a believer reads something like the cloud seeding over Asia [1] or the germ war testing off the UK [2], you might as well give up. Similarly with pretty much any other conspiracy theory. [1] http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-and-indonesia-begin-cloud-seeding-to-fight-haze-how-cloud-seeding-works http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-and-indone... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalscience http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalsc...