Interesting article, and not unexpected. Namely if you think the World Trade Center bombing was done by the US Government you are more likely to have a low level influence to believe other conspiracies. That is also tru of science. Most interesting to me is the question of whether there are other groups and what of the people, even scientists themselves, that question scientific theories.

We must remeber that that genetic determinism was inviolate fact in past decades, Newton seemed pretty smart about physics at one time, etc. Scientific "truths" do change as new data develops. That said, certain truths like evolution are unlikely to be incorrect at any time in the future. On the other hand, current truths are less well accepted in the scientific groups in which expertise exists than others. Thus to conflate evolution and vaccines with global warming and other scientific "truths" shows some inability on the authors part to dis aggregate complex thinking. Well accepted truths in science are not always as widely held as believed, nor are all as certain to be truths going forward.

How did the authors come to what they called conspiracy?

Also, the elephant on the table is this is an internet poll, the worst type of polling wherein self selection and bias are huge. What was evvery person polled and how were they identified? Where is this data?