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Blogs - Dave Sorensen - Conspiracism Explained
Author: Dave Sorensen (Show other entries)
Date: May 23, 2010 at 15:14
By Dave Sorensen
Conspiracy theories stem from a complex web of ideas, which is constructed over many years, revolving around important historical events and political issues. There are many psychological factors and logical fallacies at work when devising a conspiracy theory and this is what I will try and cover in this essay. First we must go over what a "theory" actually is and why the term "conspiracy theory" has been coined. A theory in science is essentially a body of facts and knowledge used as an explanatory model for a set of phenomena. History uses similar methods but rarely ever refers to events like the Holocaust to be a theory.
We can infer that the holocaust happened because of an extraordinary amount of physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, letters, documents and differences in population demographics from the affected regions in Europe. When there are conflicting accounts of a historical event, we will recognize that there are two or more competing theories each with their own arguments. To contrast with the geological sciences, there was a debate over how the dinosaurs went extinct. While there are more than just two explanations, I will narrow it down for simplicity's sake. You have one camp arguing that an asteroid took out the dinosaurs, and another saying a volcano did. Both have submitted their findings to peer reviewed journals in which they are examined and critiqued by other scientists. A conspiracy theory is played off by true believers as if it's an alternative view that is both reasonable and evidence based. They would probably agree that it's another serious theory that needs to be considered, just like the volcano theory mentioned above. This then seemingly separates their belief from unfounded or weakly-based speculation, and gives them more recognition just because it is called a theory. But this is just a play on words.
There are multiple definitions of the word theory, one which defines most scientific theories, and another version that simply means: "An assumption based on limited information or knowledge."(1) Most researchers who look at CT claims would agree that what they are doing is just weak speculation, and would therefore be considered the latter definition of theory. Their "theory" is said to be reasonable because of a set of arguments used to establish that some form of government conspiracy took place, and in order to justify this you would need some form of evidence. But when a skeptic questions the narrative of a particular CT, it seems that the true believers lack any real answers or have been misinformed about the evidence. One of the main reasons why conspiracy theories prosper is because the true believers think that their view is rational and evidence based. By reading some of the many articles on this site, you will find out that this is not so. From time to time I will hear the line: "If we had any good evidence it would be a conspiracy fact!" But this classic form of conspiracy thinking is contrary to all of their beloved forums and websites, containing lists and videos outlining all of their "smoking gun" evidence.
Whenever it comes to the point of presenting positive evidence for their claims they fail to deliver. They are seemingly ignorant to any of the countless counter arguments and dodge any important questions that they should know the answers to. An example would be Dylan Avery (loose change filmmaker) who when asked 'what happened on 9/11', responded, 'I don't know'. You would think that investigating a historical event for 9 years would lead to some kind of knowledge. Their problem is that they use the wrong kind of skepticism to evaluate evidence, which is something I will get back to later. Not only is lack of any good evidence a problem for an alternative theory, but a good argument also needs to be logically sound. After all it's possible though highly unlikely for a conspiracy to be played out so well that there are no fingerprints left behind, but there needs to be some good reasons for believing an alternative theory to make up for the lack of evidence. This is where argumentation comes into play. The standard rules for argument building consist of first establishing a set number of premises composed of facts and then ending with a conclusion. An oversimplified example would be:
1. Autism rates are rising
2. Vaccines Contain Mercury
3. Mercury is Unsafe and can cause neurological damage
4. Therefore Vaccines cause autism
The problem with this argument is that one of the premises is just wrong and the other two are very misleading. (2) A recent study suggests that autism is found amongst 1% of all age groups which Is not what you would predict if the cause of autism was from thimerosol. The increase in autism comes from better surveillance and a widening of the definition of autism to include Asperger's syndrome and other behavioral disorders. Mercury is safe in small dosages and it's important to note that vaccines use Ethyl mercury. Methyl mercury is the kind found in fish, and this can be harmful if you eat too much. Ethly mercury is much safer and leaves the body after 1-3 days of consumption. Study after study the link between autism and vaccines has failed to show up, even when removing the feared ingredient thimerosol. This conspiracy theory is one of the few that you can actually make solid, testable predictions from. If thimerosol caused autism in infants, removing it from vaccines should show a decrease in autism rates. This prediction was wrong and in fact no alteration to the rates occurred at all. Once you understand why these premises are terribly flawed, the argument falls apart.
The same can apply to the vast majority of conspiracy theories out there. What makes up the premises must be examined with careful scrutiny. You have to weed out any biased or dubious sources and get a simple understanding behind the history and science of the event. Both historians and scientists use peer review, which is the best method in pursuing the truth. One of the reasons why conspiracy theorists have so many websites and books is because they can't make it past other experts without someone questioning their premises. They target people who are unfamiliar with the facts and the science. They also use a reverse scientific method, where they reach their conclusions and then try and jam the "puzzle pieces" together. And their style of argument should stand out as very questionable if you are familiar with common logical fallacies and how science and history actually work.
Authors of "Alternative History" like to attract new people to their works by utilizing a series of techniques. The first is what I like to call the "Long list effect". In almost any conspiracy book you will find somewhere a list of their smoking gun evidence. Sometimes this list gets ridiculously long to a point where the reader stops and begins to think the author must be on to something. As the old saying goes "Its quality not quantity." If they ever had good quality evidence they would be able to convince a lot more people including large political activist groups and also be able to convince lawyers and take these things to court. The attempted lawsuits so far by the truth movement are laughable at best. (Judy Wood and the space beams). David Ray Griffin is a good example of an author who uses such the long list technique. Now I'm not saying that these authors are knowingly deceiving people by using this technique. I'm just describing what it is they do and why it convinces people. Another technique is the argument from historical precedent or the "The complex question fallacy". The CQF is committed when a question is asked (a) that rests on a questionable assumption, and (b) to which all answers appear to endorse that assumption. (3) This is a common tactic used by the 9/11 truth movement. They use Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin and the Reichstag fire as all examples of historical precedents of false flag terror, when anyone who reads up on the events will know that at best they are controversial at worst they have been debunked. (See false flag wiki)
Next up is the "Magic Bullet Argument". "Alternative historians" will often employ this argument to ridicule the official story. "JFK couldn't have been hit by a swerving, dancing bullet. Therefore the official story is false." But no one seriously believes that the bullet behaved that way. There are simple straight lines of trajectory that Oswald's bullet could have taken to kill JFK and injure Governor Connolly, thus eliminating the need for such a ridiculous alternative. Authors also use a variety of non-sequiturs (doesn't follow) , ad hominem insults, and the argument from ignorance. "We don't know what happened on 9/11, therefore we need a new investigation." In other words, they don't know anything about 9/11 because of their unjustified mistrust of any source other than conspiracy sites, books and other like-minded people. The only way someone could be so clueless about 9/11 is if they are using a faulty "Descartian" type of skepticism. This is an extreme form of skepticism which requires us to doubt everything from experience and just rely on words and emotion. But they ignore logic and critical thinking so all that's left is emotion, which is completely unsuitable for scientific inquiry. If you ignore what any disagreeing scientist says, you are not being skeptical at all. A true skeptic would take on any challenges to his belief system and pin point where others who disagree went wrong.
After reading the arguments constructed by conspiracy authors we end up with a jungle of claims. How can one sort through them all knowing which ones are true and false? If the argument is logically fallacious then it's probably not a good argument. If it's not being discussed amongst scientists and historians in the peer review process, it's probably not true. This may seem like an argument to authority, but it is really just showing that having 99% consensus on a single issue must require extraordinary evidence or a really good argument to compensate. The reason why most people subscribe to conspiracy theories is a simple lack of knowledge in the related areas and unfamiliarity with logic. There is also the psychological need to find purpose in one's life, and the preference to believing wildly imaginative myths over otherwise boring accounts. JFK being gunned down by multiple government sponsored mobsters is much more appealing than a lone nut. People often prefer fantasy for truth because sometimes the truth can take the fun out of things. I don't agree with that statement, but I happen to be in the minority.
Individuals who have a general mistrust of others and people who are overly paranoid can use conspiracy theories to explain the world's problems away. In some cases they use them to explain why they themselves cannot succeed in life. The third factor is the appealing notion of possessing secret knowledge that most people lack. This makes individuals feel important and more intelligent than others, giving their life meaning. This also ties into a sort of "rebel complex" where the individual feels like the ultimate bad ass for not buying into the government's lies. But this is where most conspiracy theorists come to a hault. You would think that if foiling the government's evil plans gave them a purpose in life they would go out and do something about it. It seems as if most CT's just like to complain about these delusions to other like minded people constantly using the government as a scapegoat for all their problems. This is unlike any other kind of political activist group. Cognitive dissonance, cognitive closure and hindsight bias are other important psychological effects that play a part in this kind of belief as well.
Lastly, conspiracy theorists hold onto their beliefs, even when thoroughly challenged by skeptics because of what I call the "expanding web theory." Whenever a claim is knocked off their web, another one fills in that spot. "Moving the goalposts" is another popular way to describe this defense mechanism. Even when every claim has been addressed, there is still the cognitive illusion that there is so much counter-knowledge and so the true believer will just continue to be duped, or they will admit they were wrong and become a skeptic. The latter case is extremely rare.
On skepticism
How do conspiracy skeptics manage to sort through the vast information highway that's out there and find out what's true? Skepticism is a methodology, not a belief system so it's not as easy as just hopping aboard the Skeptic's society train and listening to their experts blindly. Although I ended up agreeing with most of mainstream skeptics believe, I arrived at my conclusions by investigating the material on my own. It's important to be open minded, but not so open that your brain falls out. A good way to test this is to write up a narrative of whatever you currently believe happened during a historical event. Sometimes you can only catch the inconsistencies when you put everything together. If you find contradictions in your narrative, you went wrong somewhere. When you come across an extraordinary claim, or even a claim your just not sure about, see what other qualified experts have to say. Do these scientists have an agenda or bias? If they do then compare them to some neutral scientists, who have written papers about something related. An example would be the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. There were plenty of foreign scientific papers written by China, Japan, the UK and Norway that all arrived at the same conclusion as the NIST scientists. Some papers disagreed with technical details but there were no credible teams of scientists that came to the conclusion that there were bombs in the building, and this is a problem that the CT crowd has not solved.
Just to clarify, it would be logically fallacious to assume that all of the NIST scientists, AIA engineers and American Physical Society scientists were all biased because they either work for the government or work in the United States. But this is a common claim made by the truth movement and other conspiracy groups. Anyone who agrees with the official story is either dumb or part of the conspiracy. This is also a classic example of the false dilemma logical fallacy. There is a third option not mentioned because of their cognitive closure, or closed mindedness. But sometimes this argument needs to be broken down in order to understand why it really fails.
If someone makes the claim that a group of scientists or even an entire society of scientists are in on the conspiracy, they presuppose that a conspiracy went down. This presumptuousness can lead to their claim being unfalsfiable, which as philosopher of science Karl Popper always said, isn't scientific. An important question to ask believers in CT is "What would falsify your belief?" Or what evidence would convince you otherwise? If they can't answer these questions they can no longer consider themselves skeptics of the official story. They are cynics. Whenever I'm ever accused of being cynical I always say that my beliefs CAN be falsified. And this isn't just true for conspiracy theories but for any kind of claim. Show me a part of the saucer, or get ONE of your claims right! I cannot stress this enough. The one thing conspiracy theorists are competent at is getting claims wrong as I have yet to see them get one significant claim demonstrably right. For people who are stuck in the middle undecided, the best way to understand whether a group of scientists is being paid off is to do a bit of research and then using critical thinking and logic decide what's more probable. If there is no good reason to believe someone is part of a conspiracy, or that a conspiracy even took place, it is more probable that the scientist is just doing his job. Familiarizing oneself with both sides of the argument is probably the best advice I can offer. You get to understand why each side has its set of beliefs and from that you decide which is more convincing, which makes more sense, and all while building up critical thinking skills usable for other belief systems and everyday life.
1) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/theory
2) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=9
3) http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx
Conspiracy theories stem from a complex web of ideas, which is constructed over many years, revolving around important historical events and political issues. There are many psychological factors and logical fallacies at work when devising a conspiracy theory and this is what I will try and cover in this essay. First we must go over what a "theory" actually is and why the term "conspiracy theory" has been coined. A theory in science is essentially a body of facts and knowledge used as an explanatory model for a set of phenomena. History uses similar methods but rarely ever refers to events like the Holocaust to be a theory.
We can infer that the holocaust happened because of an extraordinary amount of physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, letters, documents and differences in population demographics from the affected regions in Europe. When there are conflicting accounts of a historical event, we will recognize that there are two or more competing theories each with their own arguments. To contrast with the geological sciences, there was a debate over how the dinosaurs went extinct. While there are more than just two explanations, I will narrow it down for simplicity's sake. You have one camp arguing that an asteroid took out the dinosaurs, and another saying a volcano did. Both have submitted their findings to peer reviewed journals in which they are examined and critiqued by other scientists. A conspiracy theory is played off by true believers as if it's an alternative view that is both reasonable and evidence based. They would probably agree that it's another serious theory that needs to be considered, just like the volcano theory mentioned above. This then seemingly separates their belief from unfounded or weakly-based speculation, and gives them more recognition just because it is called a theory. But this is just a play on words.
There are multiple definitions of the word theory, one which defines most scientific theories, and another version that simply means: "An assumption based on limited information or knowledge."(1) Most researchers who look at CT claims would agree that what they are doing is just weak speculation, and would therefore be considered the latter definition of theory. Their "theory" is said to be reasonable because of a set of arguments used to establish that some form of government conspiracy took place, and in order to justify this you would need some form of evidence. But when a skeptic questions the narrative of a particular CT, it seems that the true believers lack any real answers or have been misinformed about the evidence. One of the main reasons why conspiracy theories prosper is because the true believers think that their view is rational and evidence based. By reading some of the many articles on this site, you will find out that this is not so. From time to time I will hear the line: "If we had any good evidence it would be a conspiracy fact!" But this classic form of conspiracy thinking is contrary to all of their beloved forums and websites, containing lists and videos outlining all of their "smoking gun" evidence.
Whenever it comes to the point of presenting positive evidence for their claims they fail to deliver. They are seemingly ignorant to any of the countless counter arguments and dodge any important questions that they should know the answers to. An example would be Dylan Avery (loose change filmmaker) who when asked 'what happened on 9/11', responded, 'I don't know'. You would think that investigating a historical event for 9 years would lead to some kind of knowledge. Their problem is that they use the wrong kind of skepticism to evaluate evidence, which is something I will get back to later. Not only is lack of any good evidence a problem for an alternative theory, but a good argument also needs to be logically sound. After all it's possible though highly unlikely for a conspiracy to be played out so well that there are no fingerprints left behind, but there needs to be some good reasons for believing an alternative theory to make up for the lack of evidence. This is where argumentation comes into play. The standard rules for argument building consist of first establishing a set number of premises composed of facts and then ending with a conclusion. An oversimplified example would be:
1. Autism rates are rising
2. Vaccines Contain Mercury
3. Mercury is Unsafe and can cause neurological damage
4. Therefore Vaccines cause autism
The problem with this argument is that one of the premises is just wrong and the other two are very misleading. (2) A recent study suggests that autism is found amongst 1% of all age groups which Is not what you would predict if the cause of autism was from thimerosol. The increase in autism comes from better surveillance and a widening of the definition of autism to include Asperger's syndrome and other behavioral disorders. Mercury is safe in small dosages and it's important to note that vaccines use Ethyl mercury. Methyl mercury is the kind found in fish, and this can be harmful if you eat too much. Ethly mercury is much safer and leaves the body after 1-3 days of consumption. Study after study the link between autism and vaccines has failed to show up, even when removing the feared ingredient thimerosol. This conspiracy theory is one of the few that you can actually make solid, testable predictions from. If thimerosol caused autism in infants, removing it from vaccines should show a decrease in autism rates. This prediction was wrong and in fact no alteration to the rates occurred at all. Once you understand why these premises are terribly flawed, the argument falls apart.
The same can apply to the vast majority of conspiracy theories out there. What makes up the premises must be examined with careful scrutiny. You have to weed out any biased or dubious sources and get a simple understanding behind the history and science of the event. Both historians and scientists use peer review, which is the best method in pursuing the truth. One of the reasons why conspiracy theorists have so many websites and books is because they can't make it past other experts without someone questioning their premises. They target people who are unfamiliar with the facts and the science. They also use a reverse scientific method, where they reach their conclusions and then try and jam the "puzzle pieces" together. And their style of argument should stand out as very questionable if you are familiar with common logical fallacies and how science and history actually work.
Authors of "Alternative History" like to attract new people to their works by utilizing a series of techniques. The first is what I like to call the "Long list effect". In almost any conspiracy book you will find somewhere a list of their smoking gun evidence. Sometimes this list gets ridiculously long to a point where the reader stops and begins to think the author must be on to something. As the old saying goes "Its quality not quantity." If they ever had good quality evidence they would be able to convince a lot more people including large political activist groups and also be able to convince lawyers and take these things to court. The attempted lawsuits so far by the truth movement are laughable at best. (Judy Wood and the space beams). David Ray Griffin is a good example of an author who uses such the long list technique. Now I'm not saying that these authors are knowingly deceiving people by using this technique. I'm just describing what it is they do and why it convinces people. Another technique is the argument from historical precedent or the "The complex question fallacy". The CQF is committed when a question is asked (a) that rests on a questionable assumption, and (b) to which all answers appear to endorse that assumption. (3) This is a common tactic used by the 9/11 truth movement. They use Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin and the Reichstag fire as all examples of historical precedents of false flag terror, when anyone who reads up on the events will know that at best they are controversial at worst they have been debunked. (See false flag wiki)
Next up is the "Magic Bullet Argument". "Alternative historians" will often employ this argument to ridicule the official story. "JFK couldn't have been hit by a swerving, dancing bullet. Therefore the official story is false." But no one seriously believes that the bullet behaved that way. There are simple straight lines of trajectory that Oswald's bullet could have taken to kill JFK and injure Governor Connolly, thus eliminating the need for such a ridiculous alternative. Authors also use a variety of non-sequiturs (doesn't follow) , ad hominem insults, and the argument from ignorance. "We don't know what happened on 9/11, therefore we need a new investigation." In other words, they don't know anything about 9/11 because of their unjustified mistrust of any source other than conspiracy sites, books and other like-minded people. The only way someone could be so clueless about 9/11 is if they are using a faulty "Descartian" type of skepticism. This is an extreme form of skepticism which requires us to doubt everything from experience and just rely on words and emotion. But they ignore logic and critical thinking so all that's left is emotion, which is completely unsuitable for scientific inquiry. If you ignore what any disagreeing scientist says, you are not being skeptical at all. A true skeptic would take on any challenges to his belief system and pin point where others who disagree went wrong.
After reading the arguments constructed by conspiracy authors we end up with a jungle of claims. How can one sort through them all knowing which ones are true and false? If the argument is logically fallacious then it's probably not a good argument. If it's not being discussed amongst scientists and historians in the peer review process, it's probably not true. This may seem like an argument to authority, but it is really just showing that having 99% consensus on a single issue must require extraordinary evidence or a really good argument to compensate. The reason why most people subscribe to conspiracy theories is a simple lack of knowledge in the related areas and unfamiliarity with logic. There is also the psychological need to find purpose in one's life, and the preference to believing wildly imaginative myths over otherwise boring accounts. JFK being gunned down by multiple government sponsored mobsters is much more appealing than a lone nut. People often prefer fantasy for truth because sometimes the truth can take the fun out of things. I don't agree with that statement, but I happen to be in the minority.
Individuals who have a general mistrust of others and people who are overly paranoid can use conspiracy theories to explain the world's problems away. In some cases they use them to explain why they themselves cannot succeed in life. The third factor is the appealing notion of possessing secret knowledge that most people lack. This makes individuals feel important and more intelligent than others, giving their life meaning. This also ties into a sort of "rebel complex" where the individual feels like the ultimate bad ass for not buying into the government's lies. But this is where most conspiracy theorists come to a hault. You would think that if foiling the government's evil plans gave them a purpose in life they would go out and do something about it. It seems as if most CT's just like to complain about these delusions to other like minded people constantly using the government as a scapegoat for all their problems. This is unlike any other kind of political activist group. Cognitive dissonance, cognitive closure and hindsight bias are other important psychological effects that play a part in this kind of belief as well.
Lastly, conspiracy theorists hold onto their beliefs, even when thoroughly challenged by skeptics because of what I call the "expanding web theory." Whenever a claim is knocked off their web, another one fills in that spot. "Moving the goalposts" is another popular way to describe this defense mechanism. Even when every claim has been addressed, there is still the cognitive illusion that there is so much counter-knowledge and so the true believer will just continue to be duped, or they will admit they were wrong and become a skeptic. The latter case is extremely rare.
On skepticism
How do conspiracy skeptics manage to sort through the vast information highway that's out there and find out what's true? Skepticism is a methodology, not a belief system so it's not as easy as just hopping aboard the Skeptic's society train and listening to their experts blindly. Although I ended up agreeing with most of mainstream skeptics believe, I arrived at my conclusions by investigating the material on my own. It's important to be open minded, but not so open that your brain falls out. A good way to test this is to write up a narrative of whatever you currently believe happened during a historical event. Sometimes you can only catch the inconsistencies when you put everything together. If you find contradictions in your narrative, you went wrong somewhere. When you come across an extraordinary claim, or even a claim your just not sure about, see what other qualified experts have to say. Do these scientists have an agenda or bias? If they do then compare them to some neutral scientists, who have written papers about something related. An example would be the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. There were plenty of foreign scientific papers written by China, Japan, the UK and Norway that all arrived at the same conclusion as the NIST scientists. Some papers disagreed with technical details but there were no credible teams of scientists that came to the conclusion that there were bombs in the building, and this is a problem that the CT crowd has not solved.
Just to clarify, it would be logically fallacious to assume that all of the NIST scientists, AIA engineers and American Physical Society scientists were all biased because they either work for the government or work in the United States. But this is a common claim made by the truth movement and other conspiracy groups. Anyone who agrees with the official story is either dumb or part of the conspiracy. This is also a classic example of the false dilemma logical fallacy. There is a third option not mentioned because of their cognitive closure, or closed mindedness. But sometimes this argument needs to be broken down in order to understand why it really fails.
If someone makes the claim that a group of scientists or even an entire society of scientists are in on the conspiracy, they presuppose that a conspiracy went down. This presumptuousness can lead to their claim being unfalsfiable, which as philosopher of science Karl Popper always said, isn't scientific. An important question to ask believers in CT is "What would falsify your belief?" Or what evidence would convince you otherwise? If they can't answer these questions they can no longer consider themselves skeptics of the official story. They are cynics. Whenever I'm ever accused of being cynical I always say that my beliefs CAN be falsified. And this isn't just true for conspiracy theories but for any kind of claim. Show me a part of the saucer, or get ONE of your claims right! I cannot stress this enough. The one thing conspiracy theorists are competent at is getting claims wrong as I have yet to see them get one significant claim demonstrably right. For people who are stuck in the middle undecided, the best way to understand whether a group of scientists is being paid off is to do a bit of research and then using critical thinking and logic decide what's more probable. If there is no good reason to believe someone is part of a conspiracy, or that a conspiracy even took place, it is more probable that the scientist is just doing his job. Familiarizing oneself with both sides of the argument is probably the best advice I can offer. You get to understand why each side has its set of beliefs and from that you decide which is more convincing, which makes more sense, and all while building up critical thinking skills usable for other belief systems and everyday life.
1) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/theory
2) http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=9
3) http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx