From: Mark Mills (mmills@htcomp.net)
Date: Fri 06 Dec 2002 - 14:29:34 GMT
Modeling Rumors: The No Plane Pentagon French Hoax Case
Serge Galam
The recent astonishing wide adhesion of french people to the rumor claiming
`No plane did crash on the Pentagon on September the 11", is given a
generic explanation in terms of a model of minority opinion spreading.
Using a majority rule reaction-diffusion dynamics, a rumor is shown to
invade for sure a social group provided it fulfills simultaneously two
criteria. First it must initiate with a support beyond some critical
threshold which however, turns out to be always very low. Then it has to be
consistent with some larger collective social paradigm of the group.
Othewise it just dies out. Both conditions were satisfied in the french
case with the associated book sold at more than 200 000 copies in just a
few days. The rumor was stopped by the firm stand of most newspaper editors
stating it is nonsense. Such an incredible social dynamics is shown to
result naturally from an open and free public debate among friends and
colleagues. Each one searching for the truth sincerely on a free will basis
and without individual biases. The polarization process appears also to be
very quick in agreement with reality. It is a very strong anti-democratic
reversal of opinion although made quite democratically. The model may apply
to a large range of rumors.
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