2.1. The utopia of the knowledge society and the empire of beliefs

Like several major technological innovations, the Internet has roused many fears and hopes, and various well-selling books testify to both the former and the latter¹. Some think that the Web, as it allows an exponential mass diffusion of information and potentially free access to this information for everyone, seems capable of giving rise to the knowledge society. This notion, first used by Drucker [DRU 69] and on several occasions taken up again and expanded on [MAN 98, STE 94], is based on one observation: the alterations of our production systems have led our societies to regard knowledge and innovation as key factors in economic development, and free access to this knowledge as the fundamental issue of our democratic future. The theory of the knowledge society claims to be analysis and political project at once. From this perspective, the UNESCO world report Towards Knowledge Societies may be regarded as a sort of manifesto (p.17): “The current spread of new technologies and the emergence of the Internet as a public network seem to be carving out fresh opportunities to widen this public knowledge forum. Might we now have the means to achieve equal and universal access to knowledge, and genuine sharing? This should be the cornerstone of true knowledge societies, which are a source of human and sustainable development.”

This report is fundamentally based on a two-point analysis: on the one hand it acknowledges the existence of a digital divide, i.e. the gap between and within societies themselves concerning access to information sources, contents and infrastructures. This digital divide has the potential to hinder the development of knowledge societies, and thus it is important to reduce it quickly, not only to favor democratic values, but also to boost economic development everywhere. On the other hand, it explains that this effort, if necessary, would not be adequate since (p. 47): “Transforming information into knowledge presupposes an effort of reflection. Information as such is only raw data, the basic material for generating knowledge.” Thus, it is necessary to take note of the existence of a “cognitive fracture” that characterizes people’s inequality (essentially because of the difference between education levels) in terms of the “mastery of certain cognitive, critical and theoretical skills that are precisely what knowledge societies will seek to develop”. This mastery would allow a person, according to the authors of the report, to find his bearings in the sea of information, thus enabling him or her to find the dry land of knowledge.

The moral and political intentions of this program are quite likeable, but it is not mandatory to accept its analysis without discussion. The assessment provided by the UNESCO report – which claims the expertise of famous names: Régis Debray, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Françoise Héritier, Julia Kristeva, Bruno Latour, Jean d’Ormesson, Paul Ricœur, Dan Sperber, Alain Touraine and many others² – seems questionable if we take into account the mechanism of actual competition between knowledge and belief products³. I do not wish to discuss here, point by point, the program of the knowledge society. Instead, I choose merely to allude to it since, in my opinion, it reveals an error of judgment on the processes of non-selective dissemination of information that characterizes the relationship between cognitive supply and demand, especially on the Internet.

2.2. The ditherer’s problem

We have seen that the ease with which information is accessed and massdisseminated is advantageous to the confirmation bias, which is the cornerstone of any belief’s longevity. But there is something else, which the different critics of the Internet culture do not seem to have realized: the fact is that the cognitive market is hypersensitive to the structure of supply, and automatically to the providers’ motivation. This is one of the main factors in the organization of cognitive competition on this market.

Information seeking can be carried out from two main perspectives. On the one hand, this search can be handled through the confirmation bias: we already have a belief (which may be conditional) and we will tend to look for information in order to reinforce it. This is often the case when we think, for example, about social networks. Whatever his point of view, a Facebook member “posts” a piece of information on his wall, whether it is supposed to be funny or shocking, his “friends” often react by carrying on the same wavelength by producing other related information and links, thus substantiating the idea the user started with. Naturally, there may be arguments on Facebook but when these different orientations are stubbornly carried on, friends soon separate and take refuge in a friendly niche that is more favorable to their ideas. Facebook itself is conceived in this sense, since it allows us to “like”, but not to “dislike”, a post.

On the other hand, this search can be carried out with no preconceived ideas and thus without the hovering danger posed by the confirmation bias. This may happen either because of our incompetence – “I would like to know a little bit more about Armenia, I have no knowledge about that country” – or because we have no definite ideas about the topic yet, i.e. we have some knowledge but we remain undecided – “I hear a lot of contrary opinions about nuclear energy and its dangers, I would love to know more”.

This scenario depicts an irresolute person. It is crucial since there is reason to believe that, statistically, it is him/her who is likelier to be influenced by the structure of the cognitive market he/she will join. In other words, since he/she has not formed a definite idea on the topic, he/she is going to be more sensitive than anyone else to the way the cognitive market makes this or that kind of argument more accessible. It is as if a shopper wanted to buy a box of washing powder at a supermarket without having any specific ideas about the right brand for him. This person is likelier than others (who, when looking, will give priority to their usual brand) to be influenced by the shelf layout. I have tested this hypothesis by conducting, with some students, an experiment on how convictions change.

2.3. Competition between belief and knowledge on the Internet

To find an answer to these questions the author examined what an Internet user with no preconceived ideas could be “offered” on many topics on the Web. To simulate his approach, he took into account the survey results⁶ about people’s cultural practices in the digital age, which unsurprisingly show that we search the Internet more and more. We can also notice that for people in the 15 to 24 year-old range, for the first time since the appearance of television, the time spent in front of the small screen (besides the time taken dedicated to newspapers, books and radio) has dropped whereas the time devoted to the Internet has not stopped increasing. This shows that information searching on the Internet represents a growing share of the young’s demand on the cognitive market. We can also see that it is youth as a category that contains the largest proportion of people ready to believe what they read on forums or on social networks⁷. Furthermore, half of Internet users spend more than 70% of their time online looking for information on search engines, among whom Google has attained an oligopolistic position (nearly 49 billion searches were carried out on this search engine during July 2008, i.e. 65 million searches every hour) [POU 11, p. 59]. Besides an Internet user, whenever his or her search is unsuccessful, in 76.4% of cases the searcher will try a second time with a different keyword but the searcher will keep using the same search engine, rather than trying a new one. This persuaded me to use Google to simulate how the average Internet user could gain access to a certain cognitive offer.

Google owes part of its popularity to some simple, yet clever, technical devices. The actual algorithms that organize the effectiveness of the world’s first search engine remain secret, but we know that its cornerstone is called pagerank (PR). It is an algorithm that gauges the importance of a Website in relation to its popularity. This measurement is established mainly on the basis of the number of links to a Website, and this number itself is weighed depending on the popularity of the websites that originated these links. To establish this, thousands of robot programs roam all over the World Wide Web. Thus, the higher the “pagerank” of a website, the greater its chances of being clicked on. The availability of supply is thus somehow revealed by the workings of Internet itself.

The question I asked myself was very simple: what will an Internet user, who does not necessarily have any preconceived ideas, be offered on Google in relation to the five following topics: astrology, the Loch Ness Monster, aspartame (sometimes considered to be carcinogenic), crop circles and psychokinesis.

The experiment I have undertaken on these topics does not claim to settle the question of what an Internet user will find convincing or unconvincing among all the pieces of information presented to him or her by Google, even if it is well understood that the nature of the source as it is perceived by the user will play a part in the credibility of the information [BOV 53, CHA 08, SHE 61].

These topics have also been chosen because scientific orthodoxy disputes the veracity of the beliefs they give rise to. This happens with psychokinesis [LAU 80, BRO 89], the Loch Ness Monster, crop circles seen as marks left by extraterrestrials, astrology⁸, and also with the suspicions once focused on aspartame⁹. These five topics represent an interesting vantage point from which to assess the balance of power, on the cognitive market, between the information deemed orthodox by the scientific community and the information that is instead rejected, which the author will consequently treat as beliefs¹⁰. The word “belief” is not used here to disqualify these propositions – there is no need now to examine the question of the veracity of these statements – but to underline a reality which would vanish without this distinction. In other terms, what needs examining here is the competition between two types of statements, both claiming to give an account of the same phenomena, but only one of which has the possibility of invoking the consensus of scientific expertise. It goes without saying that in no case are these propositions an expression of public opinion in general or, more specifically, of Internet users; however, they give an idea of the Internet’s offer to meet information demand.

Search engines, however, often display hundreds, even thousands, of websites about any given topic and it is common knowledge that a user would never read through all of those to find information. Thus, to make my research more realistic, the author only focused on what we know about the users’ behavior: 65% of them merely check the first page (the first 10 websites), 25% stop at the second page (the first 20 websites), and only 5–10% go on to the third page before concluding their search. More than 95% of Internet users go no further than the first 30 pages. Besides, 80% of them key in at most two keywords for their search.

The method they chose was always the same: among thousands of websites mentioned by the search engine, they only checked the first 30. Furthermore, they conducted his research by always using the shortest and most neutral input they could: “psychokinesis”, “Loch Ness Monster”,“aspartame”, “astrology”, “crop circles”¹¹. The first 30 websites displayed by Google on these topics were then put into four possible categories:

• – Irrelevant websites: On the one hand, a website is considered irrelevant when its content uses a theme as a pretext to address a completely different topic, as does this website advertising lamps in the shape of the Loch Ness monster: http://www.gizmodo.fr/2010/03/11/le-monstre-du-loch-ness-nest-pas-en-ecosse-mais-dans-mon-salon.html (7th website displayed for the input “Loch Ness Monster”). On the other hand, it is considered irrelevant when its content does not develop any argument or point of view in relation to the belief we are interested in, as is the case for the forum of this website, dedicated to the discussion of the chemical formula of aspartame: http://forums.futura-sciences.com/chimie/223689-formule-aspartam.html (19th Website displayed for the input “aspartame”).
• – “Neutral” websites: A website is considered neutral when it deals with the opposite arguments of both scientific orthodox propositions and unempirical beliefs, regardless of its context (even when it is a website favorable to any other kind of conviction). For example the AMESSI website (11th result displayed for the input “aspartame”), which promotes aromatherapy as much as hypnotism, offers a seemingly impartial article about aspartame – reminding readers that the dangers posed by aspartame are not scientifically proven and yet constantly emphasizing that suspicions are alive and well – and it is thus classified as “neutral”.
• – Websites against beliefs: A website is considered skeptical either when it only develops arguments and points of view detrimental to beliefs, or when it only deals with the arguments supported by believers to better emphasize their futility.
• – Websites pro-beliefs: A website is considered pro-belief either when it only develops arguments and points of view advantageous to beliefs, or when it only deals with the arguments supported by skeptical to better emphasize their futility.

The following sections give the results obtained for the first 30 websites – displayed by Google and classified according to their orientation – on five heterogeneous objects of belief.

2.4. Psychokinesis

Psychokinesis is the alleged ability to exert mental influence on an object, a process, or a system without using known mechanisms or forms of energy. Websites in favor of the hypothesis that mind powers exist are the most numerous, followed by the neutral ones, and ultimately by the skeptical ones. They represent, if we only take into account websites that clearly take sides, 74% of the views expressed, against 26% in favor of the skeptics¹².

2.5. The Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness Monster topic alludes to the hypothesis that a creature, unknown to official zoology or at least considered to be extinct, lives in the waters of the Scottish lake.¹³ This topic, as we can see, produces a large number of irrelevant websites (27%), which can be attributed to the legendary creature’s fame, which inspires fictions and subjects relayed from certain websites but unrelated to the belief itself. Pro-belief websites are the most numerous, followed by the irrelevant ones. If we only take into account websites that clearly take sides, they represent 78% of the opinions expressed, against 22% in favor of the skeptics.

2.6. Aspartame

One of the hypotheses about aspartame claims, in opposition to international scientific expertise, that this molecule poses dangers to our health. The author has chosen the keyword “aspartame”, which seemed less biased to him than “aspartame and health” or “aspartame and cancer”¹⁴. The drawback of such a vague statement was its lack of discrimination, so that we find a significant number of “irrelevant” websites (23%) for this topic too. Once again, pro-belief websites are the most numerous, followed by irrelevant websites. If we only take into account websites that clearly take sides, they represent 70% of the opinions expressed against, 30% in favor of the skeptics, which makes it the weakest balance of power recorded. Given the smallness of the sample considered, we should still be cautious, but maybe is it because economic issues are at stake on this theme (at least for aspartame producers) and, in these circumstances, some skeptics may have more important reasons to express their point of view. We will come back to this.

2.7. Crop circles

Crop circles are large circles that mysteriously appear, in general, in wheat fields¹⁵. They can be simple circles or have more complex shapes. No one doubts that these incidents actually happen, but there are various clashing interpretations. The most immediate sees it as a hoax, particularly as these phenomena, which mainly happened in the south of England in the 1980s, could easily be reproduced artificially. Incidentally, in October 1991, two artists, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, claimed that they had been the creators of more than 200 crop circles since 1976. All over the world, groups called circle makers follow these phenomena, which would then exclude the hoax and the artwork hypotheses. Then they allude to the notion that these circles may be created by the action of extraterrestrial technology. The theory according to which they may be alien landing strips is one of the most common and was popularized in Night Shyamalan’s movie Signs. Pro-belief websites are the most numerous. If we only take into account websites that clearly take sides, they represent 87% of the opinions expressed, against 13% in favor of the skeptics. However, we note that this topic gathers the largest number of “neutral” websites. Even when data come from websites open to any kind of beliefs, moderate and cautious opinions are often expressed, as was the case with psychokinesis, maybe because both topics have given rise to notorious frauds.

2.8. Astrology

The economic issues at stake for the theme of astrology undoubtedly justify why the balance of power is tilted so strongly in favor of belief for the first 30 websites displayed by the search engine¹⁶.

So, if we only take into account websites that clearly take sides, we can see that 97% of them are in favor of astrology. In general terms, the economic factor, which should not be ignored, still cannot explain how the balance of power is always unfavorable to orthodox knowledge for the five topics analyzed, even when no evident interests are at stake.

2.9. Overview of results

If we average out the results obtained for these five topics, we find out that, out of the websites that clearly take sides, 81.2% are pro-belief. This kind of result is confirmed year after year by students, who carry out the same experiment with similar themes: the lunar effect on births, the existence of Lizardmen, telepathy and various conspiracy theories. These results seem as achievable in the French-speaking world as they do in the Englishspeaking world, or even in the Chinese one – at least in relation to the “crystal skulls” myth (these alleged Mesoamerican sculptures are regarded by some as supernatural in origin and power), the only topic on which one Chinese student focused (he has to confess that he has not checked his results because of my linguistic incompetence, so he can vouch for their exactitude on a trust basis).

2.10. How can we explain these results?

The Internet reveals some very distinctive interactions between pieces of information. In particular, the structure of supply depends much more, for certain subjects, on the suppliers’ motivation than it does on the buyers’, and it especially relies on those who are technically able to create competitive and contradictory offers. In other terms, believers are generally keener than skeptics to support their point of view and to devote time to it.

The first reason is that conviction plays a major role in the believer’s identity, who will easily be keen to look for new information that can make it more widely accepted. A conspiracy theorist, for example, will try to recall some of the arguments that make us believe that the 9/11 attacks were fomented by the CIA. A skeptic will often be indifferent. He/she will reject the belief, but he/she will need no reason other than the fragility of the statement he/she is dismissing. This can be seen on forums. Out of the 23 forums examined for all the topics combined, nine cannot be used because of their “irrelevance”. Across the remaining 14, 211 points of view are expressed: 83 pro-belief, 45 against and 83 neutral. Upon reading the forums, what is striking is that skeptics often merely write ironic messages, making fun of conviction rather than developing an argument against it, whereas those who support a statement bring up arguments in favor of it, despite their unevenness (links, videos, copied and pasted sections of text, etc.). Out of the posts written by those who support a belief, 36% are backed by text, a link, or a developed argument, which is the case for only 10% of the skeptics’ posts.

The second reason is that those who can put forward a cogent list of arguments against the believers’ claim are not too interested in doing so. Let us return to the astrology example. Any astronomer could easily promote some of the reasons that lead us to find astrological propositions dubious, which some actually do. However, most of the time they feel merely irritated by astrological claims since they pose no danger for them, and to fight them would be both time-consuming and of no institutional interest whatsoever. This is the position adopted in 1869 by Thomas Henry Huxley, the eldest Victorian scientist, with regard to spiritualism: “I have no time for such an inquiry, which would involve much trouble and much annoyance. The only case of spiritualism I have had the opportunity of examining into for myself, was as gross as imposture as ever came under my notice”. Similarly, we could give an account of an astronomer’s feelings toward UFOs: “I refuse to be questioned about this patent absurdity. I think the topic is dull through and through and serious scientists should not be involved with it unless they have nothing better to do (…) to devote a significant part of one’s time to UFOs would be a professional suicide”¹⁷.

We can understand these scientists’ reasons, but their lack of motivation has resulted in believers, much more resolute than them, managing to institute a paradoxical cognitive oligopoly. Their point of view is much easier to find on the Internet than that of people who could effortlessly show the futility of astrological propositions. If this was already common knowledge in relation to the book market, the Internet has amplified the phenomenon to the extent that it considerably reduces the supply costs.

2.11. The Titanic syndrome

The author would like to recall in some detail a TV debate that took place on the French Channel 5 on 22nd April 1988 in order to illustrate the idea that sometimes it takes a lot of motivation to counter the believers’ claims. This TV channel had started broadcasting regular brief confrontations at lunchtime. It was quite common for these to see scientists pitted against followers of the conventionally so-called pseudo sciences (astrology, etc.). Now, upon rereading in extenso the content of these debates [CUN 88], one is struck by how scientists rarely come across as actually convincing. There is a lingering feeling of support toward the pseudo sciences, often conveyed by such statements as: “I do not really believe in that, but there may be something true” or “There must be a grain of truth in it”.

On that day, the debate saw Yves Galifret, psychology professor at the University of Paris VI, pitted against a “magician” called Desuart (a clairvoyant). The latter defended the existence of precognition and, in order to convince his audience, cited the history of Morgan Robertson’s novel Futility, published in 1898, which describes “the greatest ocean liner ever built”. Here is what Desuart stated: “1898. An American sci-fi writer, Morgan Robertson, writes a novel in which he talks about a massive ship that sets out on its maiden voyage on an April night. It carries 3,000 passengers, it is 800 feet long, it has a tonnage of 70,000 tons and, unluckily, it collides with an iceberg, it sinks and, since there are only 24 lifeboats, more than 1,000 people drown. This novel is real: 1898! Would you like to know what that fictional ship is called? The Titan. Now, in 1912 – 14 years later – the Titanic sinks on an April night after colliding with an iceberg. It was sailing at 25 knots per hour, it was 800 feet long, had a tonnage of 66,000 tons, and 1,000 people died because there were only 20 lifeboats.” His interlocutor, Yves Galifret, is uncomfortable before the “evidence” presented live by Desuart and tentatively says: “First of all, your information needs to be verified scientifically…”, then he adds: “coincidences do exist”. The psychologist is certainly right but it is not clear whether his arguments have convinced the audience. The problem is that Yves Galifret is not prepared to counter a classical account of “parapsychologic” reasoning since, if a counterargument can be used, as we are going to see, it also entails a significant commitment in terms of time and mental energy, i.e. motivation. First of all it would have been necessary to read Robertson’s novel, which the psychologist did not do (without a doubt he did not even know about its existence), but for that matter neither did Desuart, otherwise he would not have distorted its fiction as much as he actually did. So, he claims that the Titan was as long as the Titanic, which is not the case since, in the novel, the ocean liner measures 214 meters long against the actual 269 meters. This is a 55 meters difference, which amounts to nearly 30% of the Titan’s size. This difference may be marginal but it does play a certain role when we take into account how Robertson wrote his book, as we are going to see. Desuart is also mistaken, if not as much, about the ship’s tonnage. Now we only have to consider the number of dead people and lifeboats. As for the former, the magician does not pay too much attention to details: he claims that “more than 1,000 people die” on the Titan and 1,000 on the Titanic. It is this vagueness in his formulation that leads us to believe that the figures mentioned in Robertson’s novel are prophetic. Actually, the number of victims in the novel amounts to 2,897, whereas the actual fatalities were 1,523, which still constitutes a difference of close to 100%. As for the lifeboats, it is true that, in both cases, there were not enough.

These preliminary remarks will most certainly fail to convince someone who wants to believe that Robertson’s novel was somewhat prophetic. The believer will not be convinced by these details, since he or she will still be persuaded that this is a fictional tale that foresees, broadly speaking and with relative accuracy in its details, a tragedy that will occur 14 years later. Would it not be hypocritical to deny this?

Morgan Robertson was quite knowledgeable about the maritime world, being the son of a captain; he was a cabin boy for around 10 years on freighters. In short, he was a writer specialized in maritime adventures. It would not be crazy then to imagine that he was keeping himself up to date about the latest developments in shipbuilding. The building of enormous liners was quite rightly on everyone’s lips even before Robertson had started writing his novel. It is thus unlikely that he did not know anything about the building of one of the biggest liners in the world, the Gigantic. It is all the more improbable since on September 16th, 1892, i.e. 6 years before the prophetic novel was published, the New York Times mentions the event: “The White Star shipping company has commissioned the prominent shipwright Harland and Wolf of Belfast to build a transatlantic liner that will break every size and speed record. The ship has already been named Gigantic: it will measure 700 feet long, 65 feet 7 and a half inches wide, and will make 45,000 horsepower. It is predicted to reach a cruising speed of 22 knots and a top speed of 27 knots. Moreover, it will be equipped with three propellers, two of which will be arranged like those of the Majestic and the third of which will be positioned at the center. This ship should be ready by the 1st of March 1894”¹⁸. Robertson undoubtedly draws from the Gigantic – which itself hoped to outshine the Majestic – for his Titan in terms of engine power, number of propellers or even dimensions. The characteristics of the Titan, which seem extraordinarily similar to those of the Titanic to the ordinary person, are actually automatically linked to the dimensions of the liner. So, the number of watertight compartments cannot vary that much and the number of lifeboats was, at that time, linked to the ship tonnage. As their number did not depend on the number of passengers, there was bound to be a shortage of lifeboats, a fact of which Robertson was well aware and from which he undoubtedly drew his inspiration as a writer. It is after the Titanic tragedy that things changed. In other words, once a ship tonnage has been established, a certain number of elements (number of watertight cabins, speed, engine power, number of lifeboats, etc.) must depend on it and subsequently the prophetic qualities of Futility become much less interesting. Robertson did nothing more than follow the competition between shipbuilders and write a well-informed futuristic novel. Many novels revolving around the sea were written back then, thus it is not surprising that one of them anticipated the tragic incident. Do we recall that both the Titan and the Titanic sank in April? Once again, if Robertson wants to relate the story of a liner, deemed unsinkable, that defies the forces of nature, he needs to find a plausible cause for its shipwreck. Given the size of the ship, an iceberg is an ideal candidate. Robertson knows, as the sea connoisseur he is, that this is one of the greatest dangers for a ship of those dimensions. He also knows that this danger is particularly real in April, a period of snowmelt.

We cannot bear our colleague Galifret a grudge for not having been ready to reply appropriately to all the lines of argument put forward by a believer. The problem underlined by this example is a common problem. Scientists in general have no interest, whether academic or personal, in devoting time to this competition. It is understandable, and yet this situation quite paradoxically results in believers having managed to institute a cognitive oligopoly across a wide spectrum of subjects both on the Internet and in the official media, which have become fairly sensitive to the sources of heterodox information across a range of themes.

2.12. When Olson’s paradox plays against knowledge

The existence of this cognitive oligopoly illustrates Olson’s famous paradox [OLS 78]. What is it about? Let us suppose that five people share the same interests. By joining forces they could profit, let us say, in economic terms. However, everyone knows that in order to make a profit it is necessary to invest some time and money. Their possible gain would far exceed this investment, but they are also well aware that there is no need for all of them to make this commitment. It is only necessary for some of them to commit since, if they are successful, everyone will benefit. Olson’s paradox may occur when it is in the general interest, with everything to gain, to act collectively, which does not actually happen since many expect to profit from a collective claim without having to pay their share (in terms of time, energy or even money). It is the “let someone else do it” strategy. Since it is in someone’s best interests to let others do the work and thus profit from a very advantageous gain/cost ratio, it is inevitable that many refrain from acting and this collectively attractive objective cannot be met. These kinds of paradoxical situations are always favorable to those groups; however, small a minority they might be, they are keen to impose their point of view. These small groups can thus dominate larger groups, since the members of the latter, as irritated, stunned and dismayed as they may be by the stance of the former, are never keen enough to disagree and take over the market of cognitive supply. Thus, orthodox knowledge is paradoxically outvoted on many topics. The “rationalistic” world is an exception to this tendency since its members, on account of their militancy, are sufficiently eager to devote time and mental energy to this opposition. Out of all the opinions against the five beliefs whose presence on the Internet the author examined, 37% belong to self-styled rationalistic websites (the Art of Doubt, AFIS, the “Sceptiques du Québec”…). If we exclude the aspartame case, where skepticism was not particularly pronounced, the figure goes up to 54%.

The fact that the Internet is a cognitive market hypersensitive to the structure of supply and to the eagerness of suppliers is relevant way beyond the boundaries of the topic of “conviction” since, as Keen [KEE 07] remarked about Digg.com¹⁹ – a website boasting 900,000 subscribers – 30 people were enough to determine a third of the texts displayed on the homepage. On Netscape.com²⁰, one user was the sole author of 217 published articles, i.e. 13% of all the most popular articles at the time. We can notice the same kinds of phenomena in relation to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, since the 100 most active contributors have written more than a quarter of [FIL 10, p. 69]! This is a power law called 1/10/100, as Cardon explains ([CAR 10, p. 19]): “Whereas in real life every work team struggles to accept the unequal participation of its members, online voluntary cooperation is characterized by a great heterogeneity of commitments. The participation (…) of a tiny fraction of contributors is very active, so that a minority contributes regularly and everyone benefits from the community’s resources without playing a decisive part in it.”

The author finds it acceptable to suppose that this competition on the cognitive market draws from the believers’ motivation, which is superior to the skeptics’. In other words, the believers are statistically more active than the skeptics. When there is a heated social debate on a topic, the skeptics are perfectly able to go into action and take their space, as is natural, in the public debate, but most of the time it is as if the soft underbelly of our contemporary rationalism were more and more, if paradoxically, giving way to irrationalism. If by “irrationalism” we mean “the organized discourse of contestation” over the ability of rationalist verification – as it has expressed itself in both theory and practice in the history of science – to generate and back statements whose descriptive and explicative power, ceteris paribus, is much superior to that of any other statement with the same ambitions – whatever its mental approach – then this irrationalism is truly wide-ranging. As I have already said, we would be very mistaken if he believed that, for me, this contemporary irrationalism, which counters scientific orthodoxy both bizarrely (crop circles, astrology, etc.) and more seriously (GMOs, waves and vaccines), has no reason to do what it does. Those who claim the right to doubt, and rightly regard it as a democratic principle, do not surrender to conviction without good reason. Not only do the new conditions of the cognitive market facilitate in part the propagation of this irrationalism, but they also strengthen its expressions, as diverse as they might be. The fact is that a cognitive product, in order to spread, needs to be believed and, since our contemporaries are not brainless, it also needs a solid argumentative system able to counter rationalistic arguments. This is what Charles Fort knew back in his time. If people did not pay attention to him back then, they certainly do now.

2.13. Charles Fort, his life, and his works in a few words

In 1910, Charles Fort resolved to take over and even go beyond the boundaries of scientific knowledge available in his time. This ambition may seem bizarre, but the man was the farthest thing from crazy. He allowed himself 8 years to excel in every science. It was a huge project; Charles Fort was indeed an eccentric. He was born in Albany in 1874 and died in New York in 1932, after jotting down four works that may easily be the strangest things ever written. He spent his life examining all sorts of facts, be they weird or serious (raining frogs, meteorites, allegedly inexplicable cataclysms, disappearances, etc.), which he named the “sanitarium for overworked coincidences”.

Would Charles Fort remain a simple collector? Of course not. His ambitions were much higher: he wanted to believe that the world and all those strange facts that, according to him, eluded the knowledge of his time were evidence of the existence of hidden realities, which he planned to uncover. He may have supported untenable theories, such as the one that the Earth is flat, but he was neither crazy nor stupid and, if anything, most of his contemporaries attributed a form of atypical intelligence to him. His main passion was supporting improbable theories by backing them up with a large and heterogeneous number of arguments. Undoubtedly, he aimed to weaken the notions of argumentation and evidence themselves, his objective being a sort of knowledge by contradiction. In this sense, we can say that he was a strange and forgotten precursor of relativism. His first published work, and the most famous, is The Book of the Damned, which caused quite a stir upon its publication because of the incongruity of the theories he supported and was qualified by T. Winterich as “a Golden Bough for lunatics”. What we have to focus on here is the method advocated by Fort to make conviction prevail. He described this method very metaphorically in the preamble to his book (FOR 55, pp. 23–24): “Battalions of the accursed, captained by pallid data that I have exhumed, will march. Some of them livid and some of them fiery and some of them rotten. Some of them are corpses, skeletons, mummies, twitching, tottering, animated by companions that have been damned alive. There are giants that will walk by, though sound asleep. There are things that are theorems and things that are rags: they’ll go by like Euclid arm in arm with the spirit of anarchy. (…) The spirit of the whole is processional. The power that has said to all these things that they are damned is Dogmatic Science. But they’ll march. (…) The solidity of the procession as a whole [will come from] the impressiveness of things that pass and pass and pass, and keep on and keep on and keep on coming”.

In other words, Fort aimed to create an argumentative “mille feuilles”: each layer of his demonstration might well have been fragile, as he confesses in the quoted passage, but the building will be so tall that the overall impression will be one of truthfulness. The equivalent of an expression like: “There must be a grain of truth in it.”

It is undoubtedly necessary to have a glance at one of Fort’s books to realize how he carries out his program but, to be honest, many 20th Century works, some of which have met with immense public acclaim, can be qualified as “Fortian” to the extent that they all at once mobilize arguments drawn from archeology, quantum physics, sociology, anthropology, history, etc. In most cases, these disciplines are mentioned quite casually, but their reference makes it possible to set up a line of argument that appears credible to the ordinary layman, who will be struck by such universal culture and will be neither competent nor keen enough to search, point by point, for the technical information that would quell the attraction these beliefs are going to exert on him or her. Each of these arguments, when taken separately, is actually quite weak but their sum seems as convincing as any body of evidence can be. This is what makes “Fortian” products appealing on the cognitive market: it is arduous to counter each of the arguments one by one since they make use of a number of competences too large for one person. Thus, someone will always be left with a feeling of ambiguity when unprepared as he or she is faced with these kinds of beliefs even without necessarily adhering to them. This is the best definition of what we may call a Fort effect, which is what Charles Fort unequivocally relied upon when he was writing The Book of the Damned.

2.14. Fort products: argumentative mille-feuilles

Jacques Bergier, who co-authored The Morning of the Magicians – one of the best-selling books of the 20th Century – with Louis Pauwels in 1960, claimed Fort’s legacy and the right to argumentative eccentricity. One of the theories supported in this famous book is better known as the myth of the Ancient Astronauts [STO 99]. It claims that humankind was created by extraterrestrials and that a kind of initial knowledge, now forgotten, allowed our ancestors and their alien allies to build buildings (the Great Pyramid of Giza, Thihuanaco, etc.) that require sophisticated technological means. According to this myth, religions are nothing more than the muddled and incomplete transcript of the recollection of these events and the Gods mentioned by the sacred texts correspond to our distant space fathers. Several books have supported this kind of theory, among which are Robert Charroux’s One Hundred Thousand Years of Man’s Unknown History (1963) and especially Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past (which sold more than 40 million copies worldwide). The latter provided, to back up his theory, 80 “pieces of evidence”, all heterogeneous, exclusively in relation to archeology or history: 44 archeological monuments, 12 Ancient Testament passages, three works written by the Essenes sect, 16 mystical accounts taken from non-Western cultures and five historical documents.

This proliferation of arguments made it possible to adopt a double line of defense. On the one hand, when some agreed to devote time to the technical discussion of the Ancient Astronauts myth [GAL 65], the supporters of these beliefs had no trouble rejecting facts, as Stoczkowski ([STO 99, p. 57]) states: “Did archeologists suggest recent dates? The argument would be hindered by questioning the reliability of the dating methods. Did they show evidence of primitive tools on megalithic statues? They would be told that savages had simply tried to work with their ridiculous axes on stones that had been previously laser-cut by aliens. Even the most irrefutable claims of fraud were unsuccessful. Of course there are counterfeit carved stones in Ica, Charroux and Von Däniken acknowledge at once, but out of thousands of forgeries there must be some authentic stones; why couldn’t they be those on which dinosaurs or surgical procedures are represented?”.

On the other hand, the supporters of the Ancient Astronauts myth all agreed, in the footsteps of Charles Fort, who inspired them, to admit that many of the elements backing this theory were mere conjectures. Bergier and Pauwels even claimed in advance that hundreds of them would undoubtedly turn out to be completely incoherent. However, taking up a line of reasoning we very often see, they add that “there must be a grain of truth in it”. Consequently, one of their strategies revolved around the claim that, even if some of their arguments were proved to be false, this demonstration could not invalidate their theory given the sheer number of facts it was based on.

This argumentative mille-feuilles increasingly often characterizes the adulterated products that can be traded on the contemporary cognitive market. The success of a novel like The Da Vinci Code and the confusion it provoked in some minds are the direct consequences of a demonstration based on elements which are false, yet plausible to the ordinary layman, and numerous enough to create a Fort effect. This account, however fictional it may be, drew from essays that had already met with a certain public success for example [BAL 82] and that claimed to support factual theories.

In a similar way, contemporary conspiracy theories have been able to capitalize on this Fort effect to increase the base of their audience. Upon reading, even superficially, conspiracy websites, whether they attempt to shed light on the 9/11 attacks or on Michael Jackson’s death, we are struck by the breadth of argumentation and by the hardships an unprepared mind has to go through in order to give a rational reply to this mass of pseudo evidence. The fact is that if Fort products have been around for a long time (at least since the start of the 20th Century), they have now taken over the public space due to the technical possibilities provided by the Internet.

2.15. The sharing of the arguments of conviction

Rumors and conspiracy theories have long been under the influence of the “utterance”. These stories were spread around the social space by word of mouth and, while this still happens quite often, the Internet has provided them with a new means of expression. If formerly it was quite expensive to gain access to this market (to publish a book, to write an article on those media that reach a wide audience, etc.), this tool now allows everyone to produce a line of argument easily accessible by all (as a text, an image, a movie, etc.). This phenomenon entails three major things for the universe of belief. First of all, it makes it possible to reduce the volatility of every utterance, which is precisely what characterizes the exchange of information between people, as it was shown by Allport and Postman’s famous works on rumor [ALL 47].

2.16. A Fortean product in the making: Michael Jackson’s fake death

Nowadays a variation like: “they are hiding the truth” on such a classic theme as the death of a celebrity organizes a series of very sound arguments with a promptness ascribable to the possibilities of data sharing on the Internet. For example after Michael Jackson’s death, the rumor that he was actually alive started circulating.

Some suspected that the staging of his own death would allow the singer, whose career was in decline, to come back triumphally. Those fans who refused to believe that the “King of Pop” had died dissected thousands of available documents and, as the old saying goes – “seek and ye shall find” – they managed to share some microelements that, once combined, formed a cognitive product more solid than people would think.

They underline that, first of all, Michael Jackson had seemed in good shape the last few times he appeared on television and nothing suggested he might soon have a heart attack. Besides this, the phone call to 911 came from a hotel 3 minutes from the singer’s mansion, rather than from his own house.

Second, the self-styled believers wonder why he was given cardiac massage, which is only effective when performed on hard surfaces – as the cardiologist must have known – on his bed.

Third, the ambulance left the house in a clumsy and questionable way, reversing out on the main driveway where those paparazzi that will give this news to the world were standing.

Fourth, the pictures of the “King of Pop” being carried away show someone who looks much younger. They must be touched up: it is actually a picture taken a few years back when the singer was resting in his oxygen chamber. It is then discovered that the photographer who took these pictures was one of the singer’s friends.

Fifth, a man no one knew, in a hat that partially covered his face, is present at the tribute ceremony and at the funeral service. The staff in charge of the ceremony is made up of dancers of the This Is It show the singer was working on. Now, strangely they are all smiling, as if they actually knew the truth.

In the sixth place, the recording of the funeral service is directed by Kenny Ortega into a sort of grandiose public display and the images broadcast are different from those shown by journalists.

We may also add the way believers interpreted the funeral message issued by the Jacksons or the picture (on the booklets received by those who had purchased a ticket for the concert which would never take place) where the King of Pop posed smiling behind a camera, or even his movements on the stretcher on the way to the hospital when he had already been given up for dead, etc. All of this makes some fans think that the whole incident was staged.

These processes of evidence accumulation are particularly useful for the conspiracy theorist’s imagination since, unlike other conviction systems which are based on evidence or “facts”, it is often enough for the conspiracy myth to unearth anomalies or enigmatic elements to generate an uncomfortable emptiness, which it soon fills up with a story. This account will be based on a revelatory effect or, in other terms, it will attempt to create a coherence out of the intriguing elements that until now seemed unrelated. This revelatory effect, as is the case when we eventually find the solution to a logic or mathematical riddle, provokes intense cognitive satisfaction, which dangerously inspires a feeling of certitude.

2.17. When Fort reinforces Olson

The Internet provides technical support to all of those who desire to combine argumentative elements which, when taken separately, may seem insignificant and easily invalidated but, when shared, create an argumentative corpus that requires those people who are trying to contradict it to spend time and energy. Things are much worse in relation to conspiracy theories that involve more important social issues, such as those about 9/11. This theory is supported by nearly a hundred different arguments! Some pertain to material physics, some others to seismology and others again to stock market analysis [ANF 10]. A counterargument would require competences that no man on his own can have. So, to mention only one argument out of the mixture, conspiracy theorists claim that the Twin Towers could not have collapsed the way they did, since they were held up by metal structures whose melting point was 2,800°F (i.e. 1,538°C). As David Heller explains, skyscrapers with metal structures have never collapsed just because of a fire [HEL 05]. Those of the World Trade Center should have been no exception since no kind of fuel, not even jet fuel, which is made of refined kerosene, can produce a temperature exceeding 1,500°F (i.e 816°C). The idea supported by the theorists, and also backed up by other technical arguments, claims that these buildings collapsed because they were blown up with dynamite, which is evidence that these tragic events had been planned by American policymakers who wanted them to pass off as spectacular terrorist attacks. This single argument is already disconcerting enough for anyone without knowledge about material physics: we can see then how a certain number of arguments, seemingly technical and yet easily understandable, may create a very appealing myth.

However, every argument put forward by conspiracy theorists in relation to this topic has been contradicted. So, Thomas Eager and Christopher Musso explain that the temperatures produced by the 9/11 attacks were certainly not high enough to make the steel structures that held up the buildings collapse but on the other hand that, as any expert on these materials knows well, steel loses 50% of its strength at 650°C and up to 90% at temperatures nearing 980°C [EAG 06]. Then we only need to add, as Phil Mole did, that the weakening of the general structure, caused by the collision and the fire, perfectly explains how the buildings collapsed [MOL 07].

To refute even one of these arguments demands a considerable commitment for anyone who is not an expert on these matters and, the larger the number of arguments, the harder for our mind to doubt in a general way the propositions made by these conspiracy theorists. This leads us back, once again, to the simple matter of motivation. We cannot reasonably expect the ordinary person to agree in order to devote as much time to these questions as the believer does. Once again we can find Olson’s paradox, which allows a small group of motivated people to take over a non-representational space in the cognitive market.

Olson’s paradox is understandably amplified when the amount of commitment (in this case to make a belief lose ground, and to create and memorize a line of argument that can be used to refute conspiracy theories) grows exponentially. Now, this is precisely what Fortean products occasion. Not only do they strengthen the credibility of conspiracy theories, but they also produce, on account of their sheer breadth, a sort of intimidation in all of those who would like to weaken them. When faced with this intimidation, how can the ordinary man or woman react? There are three kinds of possible answers.

First, he or she can refuse to believe and give up on the argumentative battle altogether. Faced with the believers’ claims, he/she may shrug his/her shoulders and use irony, but he/she will often be aware of the illegitimate nature of hisher reaction. In fact it is quite hard to reject an idea on the pretext of its unreasonableness when we have nothing reasonable ourselves to set against a torrent of arguments. This situation may at least seem slightly awkward to him/her and he/she may try to put an end to this discomfort by saying: “Well, I’m not interested in your stories, tell someone else about them.” However, this unease may as well be the first step toward a more ambiguous form of mental availability.

Second, he/she may claim to suspend judgment because of his/her inability to argue against the belief. To remain consistent, he/she may claim to have no point of view on the matter and postpone until later the moment when he/she has to form an opinion. He/she may then actually look for information and risk, if he/she searches the Net, being faced with the believers’ cognitive oligopoly, thus either sliding into the third category or, quite the opposite, finding information that will help him/her go back to the first option. But he/she may as well, which is the likeliest outcome, given the amount of commitment entailed, avoid searching for information altogether and gradually cultivate the idea that there must be a grain of truth in these conspiracy theories and in this outlook, which is systematically suspicious of any official utterance. Without having turned into a believer, he/she may still reply to skeptical people that “things are complicated”, a conclusion which is less the expression of hisher wisdom than that of his/her cognitive avarice.

Third, he/she runs the risk of becoming a believer him or her elf, having no desire or means to develop arguments against the believers’ propositions.

2.18. Would you believe it!

The Internet enables, as we saw, the open sedimentation and the equally free circulation of layered lines of argumentation not authorized by the spoken word, which tends to “strip” accounts of everything but their structural stereotypes. Fortean products are the result of an incubation period that makes them alarming, but their argumentative structure gives rise to another equally frightening mental effect. It is produced by the concurrence of all these arguments and leads its endorses to say: “It cannot be a mere coincidence”. Once we have a look at the videos, documents, and arguments of conspiracy theories, we can see how the concurrence of these arguments is often represented ironically. “Would you believe it!” is used to underscore the coincidence of several facts, all portrayed as disconcerting. This is the usual feeling produced by a large number of arguments converging on any given mind. As Lino Ventura said in The Great Spy Chase – Audiard was the screenwriter – “A beard is a beard, three beards make a spook!”. Our impression that several coincidental events cannot be the result of mere chance reveals another problematic aspect of our brain’s workings: our inability to properly evaluate unpredictable phenomena.

The technical means offered by the Internet for the sharing of arguments of belief stimulate this inability since, regardless of the quality of the evidence provided, they create an impression of interdependence between these pieces of evidence in such a way that, for those whose mind is willing to believe, the probability that they may lead to nothing approaches zero. The way we reason when faced with these kinds of cognitive products is approximately this: “It seems very unlikely that a set of n suspect elements may be used to back up this theory, unless there is something fishy going on. We may admit that one of these elements is a simple coincidence, maybe two, but the whole lot of them?”. Quite simply all of that seems so unlikely that we would be lying to ourselves if regarded it as a product of chance.

However, chance and the unpredictable are perfectly compatible; it is only a matter of sample size.

The miscalculation of sample size

Let us suppose that someone flipping a coin claims to have guessed right about the result 10 times in a row. This may seem strange insofar as it is unlikely, given that the odds of obtaining such a result are 977/1,000,000, i.e. slightly less than one out of 1,000. If this person showed this result to a panel on TV, he could give thousands of people the impression that this did not happen by mere chance and that mind powers do exist (in this case precognition). The only reasonable question we may ask this person is how many times he has flipped the coin in order to obtain this result. The (supposedly honest) answer we receive is 1,000 times! Subsequently there is no mystery anymore and the result obtained seems quite normal. This occurrence is indeed unlikely but it is the result of trial, which makes it nothing more than what we would normally expect from chance. By flaunting only the positive outcome and keeping secret the larger number of negative results, this person has flattered a banal mistake, made by our mind, which we may call the miscalculation of sample size. Thus it should come as no surprise for us that sometimes astrologists or clairvoyants make a right prediction, given both the number of predictions they make and the fact that they only publicize those that, by chance, hit the mark. More generally, the miscalculation of sample size takes place when we consider an event unlikely in itself but resulting from an immense number of occurrences. Then we regard it as extraordinary since we cannot, or are unwilling to, take into account the nature of the series out of which it resulted and we somehow isolate it from its context. Some coincidences seem so exceptional to us that we find it reasonable not to consider them a product of chance. The problem is that a phenomenon may be extraordinary (i.e. unlikely to happen) and still be a product of chance, provided that it is the result of a large number of occurrences.

The miscalculation of sample size is a widespread mental form of temptation and indeed not the only one that threatens our mind whenever it tries to grasp reality. New information technologies allow us to gain access (often visually) to phenomena. This kind of access is incomparably “wider” than it was in the past and automatically produces an enormous mass of data: the motivated believer will always be able to extract from this mass one or several facts that may be regarded as suspect, all the more easily since they will be isolated from the larger number of those that are not.

We only have to think about the countless pictures taken at the time of the 2001 attacks in New York against the Twin Towers. The collapse of the two buildings was filmed and photographed, and this tragic event created a substantial mass of data that anyone interested in finding out the truth behind the official version could compete to dissect. The actual truth sometimes being potluck, people end up finding what they actually seek. Watching the towers collapse, snapshot by snapshot, one was bound to see hidden shapes created by the curls of smoke caused by the fire. Why not the shape of the devil? Well, this is exactly what happened.

The Philadelphia Daily News featured an article on September 14th, 2001 that wondered whether Satan had actually “raised his hideous head” in the ashes of the attacks occurred 3 days before. What justified such a preposterous question was an image, out of the countless photographs taken of those terrible events, in which it was possible to make out a sort of face in the smoke caused by the fire of the World Trade Center (Figure 2.1). The newspaper remarked how these curls of smoke seemed to “reveal Satan’s face, his beard, his horns and his evil expression, which represented for many the awful nature of an act that wreaked havoc on a city that did not expect it”.

Out of the thousands of pictures that might have been taken of this event, it should come as no surprise that one of them contains shapes resembling familiar things. It is what we often did with clouds when we were children. This ability to see shapes where there are none is called pareidolia and is nothing more than a mental reflex. However, when a motivated mind is faced with these thousands of photographs, its chances of giving in to this reflex inevitably increase. What these pictures show, together with any kind of data, is our tendency to organize the information that makes up our reality. As believers will focus their attention on elements they can “exploit” as far as their belief goes, while disregarding the larger number of unusable facts, they start thinking that it cannot simply be a matter of coincidence. It is exactly this mental process that led a journalist, who undoubtedly started off with good intentions, to believe that the Bible contained secret prophetic messages.

2.19. It is all in the Bible, all of it

Gematria is a doctrine claiming to give an interpretation of sacred texts based on a numerical transcription of the value of each letter in order to discover their hidden meaning. Those who decide to devote themselves to this cryptological obsession will soon be struck, whatever their reading techniques, by extraordinary coincidences. By doing that they will also strike the imagination of a very large readership, since Gematria has inspired some nice best-sellers and can still guarantee a substantial profit for any unscrupulous publisher. One of the numerous examples is Robert Gold’s God and Π, which claims to prove that “the decimals of Π represent the world’s genome” by unearthing, even obsessively, traces of Π throughout the Ancient Testament. The Bible Code²², a world bestseller written by American journalist Michael Drosnin, is even more appalling. According to him, the holy text of Judaism and Christianity is coded and hides some incredible prophecies that anticipate Hitler’s rise to power as well as President Kennedy’s murder, or even Itzak Rabin’s assassination in 1995 at the hands of Ygal Amir. Should someone know the “secret code of the Bible”, he or she would be aware that the extinction of the dinosaurs also figures in the narration. These cryptological approaches to sacred texts are nothing new. Somehow, these attempts started with Kabbala, which claims to attribute a number or a symbol to every letter of the Hebrew alphabet or, in other terms, to unearth a code that enables the reader to find out the real meaning behind the surface. This tradition has continued uninterruptedly ever since the 13th Century and, in the first part of the 20th Century, rabbi Michael Ben Weissmandel carried out similar research on the Ancient Testament. However, we will focus here on one of his disciples, Eliyahu Rips, who carried on his teacher’s work by making use of IT from the 1980s onwards [WIT 94]. The power introduced by computation is much superior to the combined analytical abilities of the Gematria researchers. From then on, the discovery of coded messages encrypted in the Bible speeds up. The technique employed is actually quite simple, yet so time consuming that only a computer can carry out the task in a short time. For example researchers decide, for a text, to only keep track of one letter every 12, nine, five, etc. or, in other terms, of “equidistant” letters. The chosen interval between each letter is of no consequence since researches working on Gematria will mainly keep track of those combinations that allow them to extract the most spectacular messages. So we can decide, as a rule for the word “superstition”, to take into account only one in every two letters, which will give us the meaningless word “SUPERSTITION”, i.e. SPRTTO. In some cases, however, words formed like this may have a meaning, or even make up coherent sentences. What should we think? Journalist Michael Drosnin was hesitant at first. He claims he was convinced by Eliyahu Rips when the latter managed to show him how the Torah had predicted the Iraq wars. The journalist, from skeptical, turns into a disciple of Gematria, so much so that in 2003 he publishes a second volume, The Bible Code II, which is equally well-received. He says that he was persuaded to write this book when, after the 9/11 attacks, he started using his computer to search the Bible for evidence of major events. He was soon able to read on his screen, stupefied, the words “twin”, “towers”, “plane”, “it caused the collapse” and “twice”. By now there was no doubt on his mind that someone had, in the very distant past, inserted prophetic messages into the Bible. What is the matter about? Drosnin tends to consider it more the sign of an alien civilization than God’s, which is something, in either case, that does not have to do with my point. The main argument supported by Michael Drosnin, Eliyahu Rips and their colleagues is that the chances of such messages appearing in the Bible are so slim that the results obtained cannot be the product of mere coincidence. These claims can persuade the general public, who lack the means to counter them and who easily fall prey to the miscalculation of sample size, but leave a number of people, among whom mathematicians and statisticians, skeptical. Then Drosning inadvertently provides them with an idea that will be fatal to his theory, as he does in Newsweek while assuring readers that it is impossible to discover such coded messages in any other book but the Bible. He claims: “When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I’ll believe them”. That was all it took for Brendan McKay, mathematics professor at the National University of Australia, to buckle down [MCK 99].

While abiding by the cryptological rules set by The Bible Code, he starts carrying out research on Moby Dick. His discoveries undermine the journalist’s prophetical ambitions. No fewer than nine messages about the assassination of a prime minister, among which Itzak Rabin’s, are coded in this famous novel. McKay also discovers, encrypted in the novel, Lady Diana’s death together with the name of her lover and that of their chauffeur. The claims advanced by Michael Drosnin and Eliyahu Rips constituted an intellectual bluff. Contrary to what they said, it was indeed possible to find any sort of random message in Moby Dick, provided one devoted enough time to it and owned a powerful computer. Besides, it is Drosnin himself who provides the most blatant contradiction to his own theory by predicting, in the second volume of his Gematria-related exercises, a nuclear war in the Middle East… for 2006.

Thus, it is possible to find words, even coherent sentences, in whatever kind of book by applying an arbitrary system of decryption. However, this discussion does not emphasize how, most of the time, we find a considerably larger number of incoherent phrases and meaningless letter clusters. Whenever a computer is used, the worthless and enormous amount of waste produced by this method of decryption is concealed. McKay’s experiment would be enough in itself to end the discussion, but other mathematicians also made an effort to show the fragility of the theses put forward by Michael Drosnin and Eliyahu Rips. By applying to the Bible the above-mentioned reading technique that only takes into account equidistant letters, Doctor James Price was able to find such messages as: “God is odious”, “hate Jesus”, and even such contradictions as: “There is a God” and “There is no God”.

This example seems particularly enlightening to me since it reproduces, on a much smaller scale, the way technical progress can serve the believer’s will to considerably widen the spectrum of facts he or she as evidence. The miscalculation of sample size is an immutable feature of our way of thinking and yet we could free ourselves, with some organization, from its influence on us, were it not for the fact that the conditions of our informationbased modernity strengthen, rather than inhibit, this mental state of confusion.

2.20. The transparency paradox

The power of technology nowadays does not only enable us to scan the Bible for “evidence” but also, somehow, to scrutinize the whole world. So Mohamed Al-Faiz, the manager of the Islamic Studies Center in Colombo (Sri Lanka), claimed he had seen Allah’s name written in Arabic on the receding surf and foam of the deadly wave that hit Asia at the end of 2004. At least according to what he said to Al-Arab, a London newspaper. Those who made a point of verifying Mr Al-Faiz’s claims never even started to believe that the fatal wave had shaped anything at all. Ahmed Halli, quite ironically, declared on Le Soir d’Algerie (January 2005) that, as a good Muslim, he actually examined these pictures and saw nothing miraculous in them. We have to admit to this journalist that it does take some imagination to see a parallel between this wave and Allah’s name written in Arabic. Imagination and the will to believe that a tragedy that created hundreds of thousands of victims cannot be meaningless. The manager of the Islamic Studies Center in Colombo is blunt in his claim that the tidal wave is a punishment: “God has written his name and chastised those who ignored his laws”. Be that as it may, it was satellite pictures, taken when the tidal wave hit the West coast of Sri Lanka which made this exercise in pareidolia possible. In this case, out of the countless photographs of the accident, Al-Faiz only chose those that could vaguely stimulate his religious belief. This is exactly how billions of visual aids worldwide now support the empire of beliefs. So, Google Moon (a service that shows satellite images of the Moon) provided some patient people with a shot in which they seriously believed they could see a man leisurely strolling on the lunar surface. While actually nothing more than the shade cast by a hillock, this mysterious apparition was shared all over the Net, in whose wake followed, as is often the case now, the wildest imaginings. The same goes for all those things that people imagine to have seen on Mars ever since the small rover Curiosity roamed all over it and sent us several shots of the red planet (mysterious light, totem, humanoid, etc.). There are then billions of eyes simultaneously scrutinizing our planet as well as the sky, ready to justify any interpretation.

Yes billions… the estimate is not off the mark. Thus nearly every modern cell phone can take pictures or videos, countless documents that will afterwards circulate all over the Internet. In 1997, there were no more than 210 million cell phone users, whereas now there are more than 5 billion, each of whom has the potential to record a segment of reality. These devices have mostly taken over the first video cameras, which appeared on the market at the end of 1970s, were popularized during the 1980s, and are still numerous, besides the fact that most cameras can also record. There are 10 million CCTV cameras worldwide, of which there are currently more than 300,000 in France, although the number is supposed to reach a million soon. The possibility to record a part of reality and spread it around a global network, with no significant costs involved and in record time, exponentially enlarges the sample size of reality from which believers can draw, each more than the next. The number of pictures posted every year on Flickr is estimated at 1 billion²³ whereas for Facebook the figure goes up to 2.5 billion. The average American internet user watches 182 videos a month. The Economist recalled, in its 02/27/10 feature, how contemporary societies were experiencing a “data flood” and how this accumulation and dissemination of mass-information had a great impact on our daily lives. If we stop and think about it, humankind produced 150 exabits of data in 2005, which is already an enormous figure, but in 2010 the number had increased eight times…

The believer is naturally motivated but, on his/her own, he/she would collapse like anyone else under this heap of information. However, it only takes one of them to find a single nugget of information in the mass of dross to occasion immediate data sharing. Since many others do the same worldwide, after a few weeks or months, although usually less, highly competitive Fortean products start appearing on the cognitive market. It is this way that, by tirelessly scrutinizing the countless images of Michael Jackson’s death, people ended up noticing a movement of the sheet that covered his motionless body being carried to the hospital on a stretcher. This will be added to other arguments surfacing due to the commitment of the self-styled believers and will soon create an argumentative monster, as we saw above.

It goes without saying that these technological aids, which allow us to go beyond the limits of common sensory perception, are not exclusively used for the dissemination of beliefs. They establish technically what some have called, sometimes with joy and sometimes in fear, the society of transparency.

Sometimes they provide us with anecdotic information, which nonetheless will be shared all over the world, as happened in February 2010, when Sarah Palin was caught red-handed with a cheat sheet scrawled on the palm of her left hand at a Tea Party Convention. The Alaska governor had put herself in an awkward situation because of the trivial nature of the words that were supposed to help her out: “energy”, “tax”, “American spirit” and “budget cuts”. The situation was all the more embarrassing since Palin had just finished mocking Obama for relying too much, according to her, on autocue.

Some other times it is pictures taken on a cell phone and showing the abuse suffered by some prisoners in the Abou Ghraib jail, during the second Iraq war, that will move public opinion all over the world. We could come up with many more examples of how the society of transparency organizes every sort of opposition to official power. The most significant one is undoubtedly the mesh of lies in which Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar got caught in after the Madrid attacks on March 11th 2004. While the election campaign was in full swing and polls announced the victory of the Popular Party at the general elections, several bombs exploded on a train at Atocha station, resulting in 190 casualties. There were two possible culprits, ETA or Al-Qaida. The Spanish army’s involvement in the second Iraq war had not been especially appreciated by the country’s public opinion (80% of Spaniards declared to be against it). Consequently, if these attacks had been carried out by Islamists keen on punishing Spain, this would have certainly not helped the situation for the government. Thus Aznar, with the general consensus of the traditional media, would support the ETA hypothesis stubbornly (he personally called the different newsrooms of the most important Spanish newspapers to make sure that it was this version that would be supported). What happened next made it clear that it was a lie, but the government only needed to hold out for a few days until the election day, which was scheduled on March 14th. However, the consensus of the traditional media was not enough for this deception to last long enough. The Internet traffic had multiplied eightfold since the day of the attack [THO 04]! Chats and forums were buzzing while websites dedicated to alternative sources of information were taken by storm (www.vilaweb.com, www.iblnews.com, www.indymedia.org). In addition to this, Internet users turned to the websites of international newspapers, which gave a very different interpretation in relation to the theories proposed for this attacks (on the CNN, MP Jack Straw declared he was sure about the Islamist hypothesis).

On March 14th, the election results are incontrovertible: the Popular Party 35 seats and the majority, whereas up to a few days before this affair it was winning the polls.

The Spanish Popular Party’s unlucky attempt has become highly significant since it shows how hard it is for a politician, contrary to popular opinion, to keep a lie of that kind hidden for long. The government needed to hold out only for a few days, which was too long. This is why most conspiracy myths are not credible if we distance ourselves from the mass of arguments they support. The notion that a plot as elaborate as the one that might have led to the 9/11 attacks, involving as many accomplices, or entailing a coalition between governments and alien civilizations, or even enabling the United States to strike Japan in 2011 with a terrible earthquake due to a secret weapon could be kept secret is extremely unlikely. How can we explain, for example, the fact that no conclusive documents on this or that plot have been published on Wikileaks, which guarantees the anonymity of its contributors? Unless we suppose, of course, that even this website is in on the plot… which will be certainly deemed plausible by those readers who are reading these lines and are sensitive to conspiracy theories.

This leads us to a possible definition of the transparency paradox: any piece of information is now likelier than ever to enter the public domain, even when it constitutes an attempt to manipulate opinions. This exposure, given to even the most trivial of these attempts, gives the impression that their number is increasingly growing, whereas this transparency is actually a form of intimidation with the potential to reduce it! Anyone falling prey to this transparency paradox is victim of the proportionality bias.

2.21. A shorter incubation period

On January 12th, 2010 a terrible 7.3-magnitude earthquake shook Haiti and resulted in more than 200,000 casualties. This is one of the poorest countries in the world and the tragedy might have plausibly seemed a horrible stroke of bad luck. Seismic events are hard to predict and control, but this is not everyone’s opinion. So, only 10 days after the tragic event, an article supporting the notion that this earthquake had little to do with chance appeared on the website of Voltaire network. Once again, brandishing the “right to doubt” as a weapon of intimidation, Thierry Meyssan, who had also created the 9/11 conspiracy myth on the same website, wondered whether it was actually the United States which had provoked this earthquake²⁴. According to him, the United States could technically do something of that sort. From the 1970s onwards, this country has carried out research on seismic weapons and its army now deploys “plasma and resonance impulse generators, combined with blast wave bombs” (sic). He also wonders, have we not seen strange American naval activities carried out in the Caribbean ever since 2008? Since Haiti’s location was geopolitically important for the USA, this earthquake would have allowed the powerful country to invade the island on the pretext of false humanitarian reasons. Behind this conspiracy hypothesis, we can find a widespread fantasy about research called High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). This acronym refers to a kind of scientific and military research carried out by the USA whose aim was to understand the mechanisms regulating the ionosphere (an outer region of the atmosphere). The goal of this program, run by the University of Alaska, was mainly to improve long-range communication. It may be the case that the planners of this research have other intentions, but the notion that such an instrument might generate earthquakes would be risible, were it not that it also has to do with such tragic events as these deadly earthquakes. By now no seismic event, tsunami, or weather anomaly can happen without the HAARP’s shadow hovering over the conspiracy imagination. Conspiracy theorists take this idea very seriously and mention some mysterious reports from Russia’s Northern Fleet that could establish the facts and show the correlation between activities detected in the ionosphere and the seismic events that took place in Haiti at the beginning of 2010.

They actually draw their inspiration from a book coauthored by Jeane Manning and Nick Begich, called Angels Don’t Play This HAARP and published in 1995, which supports the theory that this program is much more dangerous than the official version would have us believe. According to the authors, this project does not only aim to control the sky and the seismic dimension, but also human minds! Due to wave control, the USA is ready to subjugate our brains whenever it thinks fit. I would not have mentioned this book or this theory, were it not that the term “Haarp” has become a simple linguistic indicator that can show the appearance of a conspiracy theory after a seismic event. This traceability of the conspiracy hypothesis, due to the term “Haarp”, allows us to focus on one of the many ways the revolution of the information market favors collective credulity. Formerly, a certain “incubation” period was needed for the development of a conspiracy theory. If an upsetting event happened – such as a mysterious assassination, a disappearance, or a natural catastrophe – a conspiracy theory might have developed, usually slowly by word of mouth. As the news world is now fast and a topic brushes aside the next, most events, unless they were especially traumatizing, barely excite the conspiracy theorists’ imagination. This imagination somehow lacked the time necessary for the sedimentation of a good story, which needed too much time for its dissemination, so the interest it had provoked could not last. The dissemination speed of conspiracy hypothesis is fundamental for its chances of propagating and lasting. Evidently, the Internet contributes majorly to the ability of conspiracy myths to spread breathtakingly quickly.

If we recall the earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12th, 2010 and examine Internet users’ searches on Google during January and February 2010, the following graph will show us two things. On the one hand, the dotted line representing searches carried out for the words “earthquake/Haiti”, indicates how from January 13th onwards users have extensively been looking for information about the event. On the other hand, the other curve shows how, starting on Thursday 14th January, users have begun to search all over the Net for links between the earthquake and HAARP!

The graph also shows us how users (at least French-speaking users) were only worried about the event until the end of January, whereas HAARP-related concerns were present until the end of February. Undoubtedly, this demand for conspiracy links could not be met at first but it was soon afterwards satisfied by the supply we have talked about (to which Meyssan contributed, among others).

The time it takes it to disseminate information is then essential to the strength of the empire of beliefs. By now, the hypothesis of a correlation between this earthquake and HAARP is available on the Net and will remain available for everyone, even if the event will soon seem old. According to a “Fortian” process, which we now know well, this event will add to a line of argument that is built like a mille-feuilles: despite the shakiness of every layer – taken singularly – the overall impression that a general observer receives is one of solidity.

Now conspiracy myths can appear a few days, or even hours, after the occurrence of the events they draw from. For instance, a conspiracy theory in relation to the May Sofitel affair, which involved Dominique Strauss-Kahn, appeared on the Internet only hours after facts had been made public. In this sense, the most striking example is undoubtedly the torrent of crazy theories that appeared merely hours after the deadly attack on French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, which would later catch the world’s attention. On January 7th, 2015, the day when the attacks took place, there were already 26 arguments pertaining to conspiracy theories! The day afterwards, on Janaury 8th, 21 additional arguments were available to establish an alternative version of the official events according to which these attacks had been perpetrated by two young radical Islamist brothers. Some claimed that the color of the wing mirrors of the murderers’ car had changed, while others thought that the President of the Republic had arrived too quickly on the scene (he must have known already), etc. Through their collaboration, their meticulous study of all the anomalies that could be found in the available pictures and videos of the accident, and of course their will to believe, they helped give a spine-chilling example of a Fortian product in the making. The following graph shows the increase in the number of conspiracy-related arguments available on the cognitive market day by day.

Thousands of such stories can be found on the Internet but, if they are in any way relevant to the purpose of this book, it is more because they stress the new conditions for the formation of beliefs than they amuse the reader.

First of all, they can illustrate how an increased dissemination of information allows certain fabrications to last longer, whereas in other circumstances they could have never appeared on the cognitive market or, in any case, would have been short-lived.

Afterwards, they show how the spectrum of subjects that can give rise to beliefs, rumors and conspiracy theories has widened, which automatically increases the belief rate across the social space.

Last, they enhance the ramifying nature of the conspiracy theory, which feeds on everything and tends to appear on the cognitive market in the shape of Fortian products.

This reduction in the incubation period necessary for the appearance of unverified accounts on any topic puts such pressure, due to the Internet, on the competition that the traditional media cannot always keep up with. This situation is a cog in the wheel that favors the advent of the believers’ democracy and underlines how competition in the field of information does not always promote truth-telling, as we are going to see.