THE RUMORS THEY CARRIED

If, as Barbara Tuchman once wrote, “books are the carriers of civilization,” what is the Internet but the carrier of conspiracy? And while we appreciate the thorough report released this week on the death of Diana, princess of Wales; know of no plot hidden by the 9-11 Commission; and are grateful for the persuasive comments from the spokeswoman for Sen. Olympia Snowe that showed the senator had nothing to do with a recent car accident, we know the Internet will keep shouting about such events with a voice that never tires.

Nothing is so delightful as a good conspiracy, and if it includes royalty, so much the better. So as you would expect after a three-year, $7 million investigation into the tragic death of Diana in Paris nine years ago, the mere fact that investigators found the car crash to be only that hardly stops the rumors. Nor would the 9-11 Commission’s labors stop a group this weekend from dumping its report into Boston Harbor “to cast off the tyranny, deceit and lies imposed on the American Public by way” of the report.

But Maine had its own Internet conspiracy this week with the accident that didn’t involve Sen. Olympia Snowe, in which a 50-something woman from Falmouth driving a Cadillac made a U-turn and caused a chain reaction that slightly injured five people and caused a lot of damage.

Maine’s senior senator, a 59-year-old woman from Falmouth who sometimes drives a Cadillac, however, was in Washington at the time, as her voting record shows. Nevertheless, Web sites abounded with speculation that the senator was involved in a cover-up right up until the time police released the actual name of the motorist involved.

All of these rumors create conspiracy by applying the dull end of Occam’s razor – the theory that says when considering more than one likely explanation for a phenomenon, shave away the complicated and keep the one that requires the fewest assumptions. Conspiracies love complication, and the Internet, where electronic gossip that would once have been ephemeral, hardens it into theory and then to sturdy fact.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, as long as you know what you are reading.