identify a conspiracy theory - past or present - and analyze it according to some questions that I have adapted from Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit. For the purpose of this exercise, I am defining a conspiracy theory as "a theory or explanation that features a conspiracy among a group of agents as a central ingredient" ("Conspiracy Theories," Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). More importantly, the conspiracy theory that you identify must be about one of the following:

• A specific person (e.g. George Soros)
• A specific event (e.g. JFK's assassination; the Egyptian pyramids)
• A specific thing (e.g. West Virginia's Moth Man,Bigfoot, etc.)
• A specific group (e.g. the Illuminati)

 

Please avoid broad, general ideas, such as:

• Religion
• Politics
• God (or any other deity)
• Vaccines, etc.

That is, the conspiracy theory can deal with these topics, but the theory must be specific. So, if you tell me: "My conspiracy theory is about vaccines"...well, what about them? What claim about vaccines are you analyzing? So, you would need to narrow it down to something like (and I'm making this up): "The government laces vaccines with nano-robots to spy on American citizens."