This is a good analysis of what is the complexity bias is:
Complexity Bias: Why We Prefer Complicated to Simple
I mostly agree with the author, but this part:
Shane stated it <the bolded part> as an axiom. Am I correct in saying, that the majority of people, that participate in this forum are highly educated and they do believe in some "conspiracy" theories? Thusly, debunking the above statement...
This guy has it backwards IMO. People who reject conspiracy theories out of hand are constitutionally driven to do that because complexity is difficult for them, NOT EASY, and they seek simplicity
predictability and control. Complexity is difficult for most people, we're all 'wired' to want to make sense of the world, ideally in the simplest way possible to reduce the effort involved, but some people are able to put in more effort. They're called 'conspiracy theorists' by the 'simple minded', yet that is just because they are able to see more and hold more variables and more complexity in their minds at the same time. For them, the desire for the truth trumps the biological urge to seek the 'path of least resistance'.
Conspiracy theories don't posit an oversimplified version of reality, as some people claim, but
a more complex one. For one example, when 'conspiracy theorists' claim that governments are engaged in conspiracies, the usual response to that is "things are more simple, they're not evil, they're just stupid/make mistakes'. That is clearly a more simple version of reality than that posed by 'conspiracy theorists'.
In that article, the guy says
We often find it easier to face a complex problem than a simple one.
A person who feels tired all the time might insist that their doctor check their iron levels while ignoring the fact that they are unambiguously sleep deprived. Someone experiencing financial difficulties may stress over the technicalities of their telephone bill while ignoring the large sums of money they spend on cocktails.
This doesn't seem correct to me. What he is describing here is a narrative not a "complexity bias". The person who goes for the iron levels instead of sleep or the telephone bill instead of cocktails does so because they (mostly unconsciously) want to keep the late nights and cocktails, not because those answers are more "simple" than the others.
In the task he mentions where participants had to establish an arithmetic rule, participants were using pattern recognition, not "complexity bias". They were going for the most simple explanation of the rule associated with the series of numbers, 2, 4, 6.
The guy's overall problem in the article (apart from a lack of understanding of human psychology) seems to be a belief that all humans are fundamentally the same and at the same 'level'. That's clearly untrue, and in fact, that is what produces a lot of complexity when trying to view the world as a whole.
When he says:
Uscinski and Parent found that, just as uncertainty led Skinner’s pigeons to see complexity where only randomness existed, a sense of losing control over the world around us increases the likelihood of our believing in conspiracy theories.
Again, I think he has it backwards. It is the "conspiratorial" suggestion that the world is much more complex than we can imagine that provokes a sense of losing control in some people - i.e. the loss of the ability to understand the world in simple,
predictable,
consistent, and unalarming ways -
and increases the likelihood that they will REJECT conspiracy theories.