One his blog, Overcoming Bias, economist Robin Hanson suggested that conspiracy theories are denigrated because the folks who offer them are the same type of person who would engage in conspiracies.
In fact despite public antipathy to conspiracy theories many are believed in by average people and these people are not shunned for these beliefs because they do not talk about them over and over again. As a self test, do you believe any of these?
1. Oil companies and the government have unrevealed technology for cheap, fuel efficient cars.
2. Global warming is a myth designed to funnel grant money to climatologists.
3. Global warming is a myth designed to cripple capitalism.
4. Trolley systems in American cities were destroyed so the General Motors could sell more cars.
5. Darwinian evolution has been disproven and is only taught as a Trojan horse for Naturalism and Atheism.
6. The US government either allowed or caused the man-made disaster on 9-11-01, to give George Bush an excuse for invading Iraq.
7. The CIA killed John F. Kennedy.
I would consider all of these to be conspiracy theories although I'm not sure all of them are wrong. The point is even if you believe these conspiracy theories, if you do not structure your life around them your belief will have little or no social cost. It's not conspiracy theories by themselves that are disliked, it's the autistic behavioral style of some conspiracy theorists.
The thing is, such a behavioral style, which is a personal problem for me, is often seen by others as tiresome. Conspiracy theories are actually fairly normal. It is not the theories but the behavioral style of some who hold them that is disliked and those people are not seen as bad, merely boring and strange.
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