When I lie in bed unable to sleep I make up stuff.  I’m trying to get the world to accept a term for people who ignore the most obvious explanation for an event.  I call it Occam-averse behavior:

Occam-Aversion
The Paradox of Pseudo-punditry in the Logically Challenged

It is a universal observation that in the face of disaster news someone nearby will make a stunning pronouncement that the obvious explanation of the event is wrong, that there was some unseen conspiracy to create the chain of circumstances that we, the unthinking masses, cannot grasp.

People making such observations have some common characteristics.  They have been made outcasts from some perceived group, either by themselves or by the group itself.  The cause of their dismissal is their inability to perform according to the norms of the group.  Intellectual performance is the usual measure but it can be merely a failure to act the same as others in the group.  Self awareness of a failure is the cause of the pseudo-punditry response.  People who have become outcasts still want to belong.  By providing the Occam-averse explanation to a disaster those people are saying “I see something that the rest of you smart people didn’t catch.  I’m smarter than you and I deserve to be brought back into the group.”  They are offering the paradoxical pronouncement, “I am making myself different by presenting what will be seen as a different or rejected explanation in order to be accepted as the same as others.”  

The perception, not reality, of not belonging is the real cause. The ostracization doesn’t need to happen physically.  Such people may simply feel a bit less capable than others or at a loss to compete intellectually on the terms of the group.  They may not even realize that their self-perception is that of intellectual inadequacy.

Manifestations may be much less dramatic than saying that Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t act alone.  They may be such things as saying “drinking soda pop can kill you through dehydration,”  etc.  The observations will universally be things that seem to contradict the common wisdom.  Motivation for such statements, therefore, is not an analysis of the evidence, but an immediate mental search for an alternative without a need for strength of logic.  The slightest hint of a connection is sufficient to get them thinking in a unique direction in a search for recognition.

How did I do?  Do I belong?

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