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This is Scientific American 60-second Science. I'm Julia Rosen.

Along with COVID-19, something else is spreading across America.

Conspiracy theories. In the dark alleys of the Internet, people have concocted a dizzying array of

unfounded explanations for the pandemic. The phenomenon doesn't surprise John Cook, a cognitive scientist at

George Mason University. When people feel threatened, when they feel out of control, when they feel

like random events are sweeping over them, they're more, I guess, vulnerable or likely to

gravitate towards conspiracy theories because it gives people a sense of control.

We're just uncomfortable with randomness.

Humans are patent detectors.

We need meaning.

We need control.

We need to know that there is a system.

There's an order to how the world works.

Cook's expertise is studying climate denial, and he sees many similarities with COVID

conspiracies. Both play on distrust of science and the tension between personal liberty

and the need to protect society as a whole. The difference Cook says is the sheer number of

COVID myths and how fast they're spreading. I feel like I'm trying to scoop up floodwater with a spoon.

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