I am curious about your answer to my question ".. but how will this single out the investigations of conspiracy theories?".
If a position is a position that isn't in mainstream journals and is described as fringe by the mainstream press then it is an issue. If the subject needs its own journal to specifically push a position then it is in that category. If the position relies on assuming unknown technology exists (e.g. faster than light travel, plane sized holograms, nanothermite) then it is in that category.
After the terrorist attacks at Charlie Hebdo, conspiracy theories quickly arose about who was behind the attacks.
People who are critical to the west easily swallow such theories while pro-vest people just as easily find them ridiculous.
I guess we can agree that the most rational response would be to enter a state of aporia until sufficient evidence is at hand.
Yet very few people do so. People are guided by their previous understanding of the world, when judging new information. It sounds like a fine Bayesian approach for getting through life, but for real scientific knowledge, we can't rely on *prior* reasonings (even though these might involve Bayesian reasoning). Real science works by investigating evidence.
So, how do we characterise the human tendency to jump to conclusions that have simply been supplied by their sense of normativity. Is their a previously described bias that covers this case?