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Paul Krugman (8 May 2006). "Who's crazy now?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 August 2019. A conspiracy theory, says Wikipedia, 'attempts to explain the cause of an event as a secret, and often deceptive, plot by a covert alliance.'
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A:A key feature of conspiracy theories is that they are unfalsifiable, in the sense that they rely on circular reasoning and thus resist any attempt to assess their veracity. At best one can say that conspiracy theories are, by definition, not even wrong. This kind of hair-splitting misses the point, however. Conspiracy theories are not descriptions of real events. If they were, they would be called conspiracies.
Just a small edit request, on the first sentence of the wiki for 'conspiracy theory'...
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.
Can it be re-written as
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful groups, often political in motivation, and frequently concealed), when alternate explanations are more widely held as true by the general public. Fredderf24 (talk) 22:23, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This doesn't strike me as an improvement, so I'd oppose such an edit. I'll also note that the current lead sentence of the article is the result of a well attended RFC (see archive 20/21) and is the result of a lot of discussion by a lot of different people, and it should not be rewritten lightly - I doubt anyone wants to kick that process off again. MrOllie (talk) 22:30, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
when alternate explanations are more widely held as true by the general public <--- Not what our cited sources say, so no, it's not an improvement. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:40, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
