A nation of conspiracy theorists can’t be wrong

From miracle diets to creationism to rumors about the origins of 9/11, a new book traces our irrational love of misinformation.

Story at Salon.com

Excerpt: The U.S. government blew up the twin towers. The AIDS virus was engineered by scientists to kill African-Americans. Chinese explorers landed on American shores in 1421. Crystals will heal you. Aliens landed at Roswell. The Priory of Sion is protecting the secrets of the Messianic bloodline. Barack Obama is a Muslim.

If you believe any of those propositions, you are … well, let’s tack toward charity. You have been swept along in a tide that the British polemicist Damian Thompson likes to call “Counterknowledge.”