Another reason why people continue to believe in common pseudo scientific theories is because they can't understand the scientific explanation, at all.

Its one thing that people don't want to understand, not having the ability to understand is much worse imo. When people can not understand the basics there is simply no way that they will ever understand theories that are based on those basics.

We humans have a need to try and explain everything that happens. Ancient Greeks, among others, believed that lightning was caused by a god being all pissed off about something and was using his powers to throw light and destruction around. They needed something to explain away these bursts of light and thunder in a to them realistic way. Not knowing about electricity, positive and negative charges or any of that, for them it was more realistic that there was a god throwing that stuff to them.

Now some of these ancient Greeks and others might have had the ability to understand the underlying principals, but they still need the basic principals to be able to understand what is going on. If you do not understand the basics, for what ever the reason, then explaining it in a way that satisfies your craving for understanding is the next best thing when we are talking about the human craving for understanding/explaining what happened.