Why So Many People Believe Conspiracy Theories

William of Occam would have hated conspiracy theories. A 14th-century philosopher and Franciscan friar, William is celebrated for developing the "law of parsimony," better known today as "Occam's razor." According to the razor principle, the simplest explanation for an event is almost always the best; shave away any extraneous assumptions, and what you've got left is usually the truth.

That's not exactly the way conspiracy theorists think.