Scientific American 201907

6 Scientific American, July 2019

LETTERS

[email protected]

CONSPIRACY DRIVERS
Melinda Wenner Moyer’s article on “Why
We Believe Conspiracy Theories” took me
back about a decade to when I was a
member of a team of HIV/AIDS research-
ers and activists battling the denialists
who variously argued that HIV did not ex-
ist, was not the cause of AIDS or was cre-
ated in government laboratories for evil
purposes. At that time, AIDS denialists in-
fluenced national policies on HIV/AIDS in
South Africa, costing an estimate of more
than 300,000 lives, and manipulated vul-
nerable individuals worldwide to make
health-threatening choices.
Much of what Moyer describes reso-
nates with my experiences (such as threats
and smears regularly sent to my universi-
ty’s administration or me) and the collec-
tive strategies employed by my colleagues
and me. We, too, found that most of the
more prominent HIV/AID denialists were
also members of other conspiracy groups,
whether health-related or more generally.
This link was a weakness we could ex-
ploit, particularly for those with academic
connections: our pointing out to universi-
ties that a faculty member published on,
say, the existence of the Loch Ness Mon-
ster or how the U.S. faked the moon land-
ing helped to erode that person’s intramu-
ral credibility while having a positive ef-
fect on individuals who believed they were
receiving expert advice. And we could rea-
son with and better educate such at-risk

people, something that was utterly unpro-

ductive with the hard-core naysayers.

The AIDS denialists are still around.

Their damaging effects have diminished

in recent years, but many of them are now

active in the “anti-vaxxer” movement,

ped dling the lies that compromise vac-

cine uptake by a significant number of

people, with adverse public health out-

comes that are all too apparent. Publicly

naming and shaming these conspiracy

theorists for who and what they really

are—and what they also believe—can be

an effective tactic. The gloves should

come well and truly off.

John P. Moore Weill Cornell Medicine and

Scientific American ’s board of advisers

No writer on the topic of conspiracy theo-

ries can afford to overlook the remarkable

1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in Ameri-

can Politics,” by Richard Hofstadter, one

of the great scholars of American history,

who was active during the 1940s to 1960s.

It has been reprinted many times and is

currently available on the Internet. Hof-

stadter traces the recurrent waves of polit-

ical paranoia in American society going

back to the 18th century, listing the targets

of those waves, the similarities in how cer-

tain groups have responded to those per-

ceived threats, and the important differ-

ences between normal fears and concerns

and what he terms the “paranoid style.”

His analysis clearly parallels that pro-

posed in Moyer’s article. The targets have

changed over the years, but the story and

the style of its telling have not.

Sydney Ruth Keegan

Port Hadlock, Wash.

Moyer notes that the perceived powerless-

ness in the face of real and imagined social

forces creates susceptibility to conspiracy

theories. Many believers in such theories

were driven into economic insecurity, de-

spite years of hard work in often highly

skilled occupations that did not require

college degrees. People who are financially

secure and who have an education condu-

cive to seeking out and evaluating evi-

dence are less vulnerable to such notions.

Jeff Freeman  Rahway, N.J.

SHARED FEELINGS

In “The Orca’s Sorrow,” Barbara J. King

presents accumulated observations that

suggest that animals grieve. Everyday ob-

servations strongly support that animals

experience emotions similarly to hu-

mans. The reverse would be quite sur-

prising because it would somehow call

for the evolution of emotions strictly or

separately in our species. Emotions are a

key driver of behavior and clearly have

deep and adaptive evolutionary roots.

Occam’s razor and sound science place

the burden of proof on those who deny

animals have them. A corollary is that

cruelty to animals is as intolerable as

cruelty to our fellow humans.

Richard Frenkel Swampscott, Mass.

KING REPLIES: Emotions have indeed

evolved widely in the animal kingdom to

guide behavior. Yet denial of this cross-spe-

cies similarity still happens routinely: In

my article, I describe how the orca Tahle-

quah carried her dead calf for 17 days. In

the Guardian, zoological writer and con-

sultant Jules Howard writes that classify-

ing her behavior as grief means “making a

case that rests on faith not on scientific

endeavour.” Howard has it precisely back-

ward, though; it’s good science to recognize

visible evidence of animal emotion and of

evolutionary continuity. We owe it to ani-

mals to see them for who they are.

MANIA FOR CLASSIFICATION

In “The Undiscovered Illness,” Simon Ma-

kin states that unipolar mania—mania

that does not occur alongside depressive

episodes—is not listed as a “distinct and

unalloyed condition” in diagnostic sys-

tems. But that does not mean it is neglect-

ed everywhere. The diagnosis features in

clinical practice, perhaps most commonly

in countries where formal classification

March 2019

“Everyday

observa tions

strongly support

that animals

experience emotions

similarly to humans.”

richard frenkel

swampscott, mass.