EclecticLip

There probably isn’t much crossover between 9/11 conspiracy theorists and “intelligent design” proponents — they probably come from opposite ends of the traditional political/cultural spectrum (progressive + secular vs. conservative + religious).

But their central premise is similar: that events were too complicated to have occurred without “extra help”.

From Wikipedia on intelligent design:

“certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection”.

Adapting this to 9/11 conspiracy theorists, one might come up with a clause to the effect of:

“certain features of the [9/11 attacks] are best explained by [powerful and purposeful governmental complicity], not an [nihilistic] process such as [suicidal terrorism].”

Just as intelligent designers don’t believe that life’s rich pageant can be explained without a powerful actor planning things out on a chessboard… 9/11 conspiracists don’t believe that the spectrum of horror on 9/11 could be explained without powerful actors (evil-minded government insiders — perhaps a secular equivalent to the Olympic Pantheon) helping out.
Harper’s did a story a few years ago about how peak oil doomers were the secular equivalent of Apocalypse-predictors. Perhaps this is another case of the same meme expressing itself in secular and religious environments.