FAQ - Skeptic Project

Featured

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the most frequently asked questions we receive.

You said you "can't find evidence of something", what does that mean?
What is your agenda?
How can you claim your site is scientific when it clearly isn't?
What conspiracies theories do you debunk?
Are there any conspiracy theories you can't debunk?
How much are you paid to run this site?
Why waste your time doing this?
Does this mean you believe the official 9/11 story?
Why is everyone in the media afraid to cover the NWO/Illuminati?
In your various articles you always point out individuals who are anti-Semites, why is that important at all?
Do you think anything will happen in 2012? / What do you think will happen in 2012?
Don't you know that Peter Joseph's real name is James Coyman?"
Is the hate mail section real? / I heard it wasn't real, is it?
Haven't you looked at the facts? There is a conspiracy with 9/11/NWO/NAU/etc..!
Can I use your web page as a source?
Can I copy / use information from your web site?
Why do you use Wikipedia / The Bible as a source?
Why do you use mainstream media sources?
Why do you use BC/AD instead of BCE/CE?
Do you realize that your site is full of spelling and grammatical errors?

You said you "can't find evidence of something", what does that mean?: One common criticism we have, usually about quotes being attributed to people, is that we sometimes have text like "I couldn't find a source for this", "I couldn't find any evidence of this." People often take that to mean "YOU CAN'T DISPROVE IT, IT MUST BE TRUE!"

Well, that's not how science works. In science you cannot prove or disprove a negative; in order words if I tell you to "prove that FDR didn't like spring rolls", well if he nor anyone else around him ever said anything about it, there's absolutely no possible way for someone to prove it.

This is a concept within science that's hard for some people to understand and why "creationism as a science" is valid to some. There are simply some things that we cannot prove or disprove - if there's no evidence that it ever happened or was said then there's nothing else we can do about it.

If anyone finds evidence of something we couldn't find evidence of, we insist that the person contact us about it - we do not accept links to conspiracy sites as evidence. If you have to ask "why?" then don't ever email us, ever... ever.
What is your agenda?: Our "agenda" is to find out whether claims made by conspiracy theorist hold water, and they usually do not; of course to many conspiracy theorists this means we are secret agents working for the government to put out disinformation, but if someone believes that about us, they're already too far gone for our web site to be useful to them anyway.
How can you claim your site is scientific when it clearly isn't?: First of all, it's our web site, we can do whatever the hell we please. Second of all if we wanted to bore the hell out of people, we'd write encyclopedias instead of the content on this site. Our method is straight forward: we look to see if something is held up by proper sources, if we can't find proper sources, then we say so. In both cases we will also sometimes offer our opinion, which doesn't mean that it's unscientific, it means that it's commentary. We will also sometimes offer hypotheses regarding the original claim, typically in this manner: "even if it were true then..."

This doesn't mean we're agreeing with both sides as many conspiracy theorists like to claim about us; unlike them, we have the ability to view information in a broad context, not just black and white, real or disinformation. We have this uncanny ability to offer our individual opinions, because also unlike many of them, we can think for ourselves, we don't let fat, loud mouths behind microphones do our thinking for us.
What conspiracies theories do you debunk?: We are willing to discuss pretty much anything there is, conspiracies, misconceptions, and so forth, it really depends on the specific contributor writing the content.
Are there any conspiracy theories you can't debunk?: This question implies that we go out of our way to dispel anything that goes against the status quo or the "official story." This is hardly the case. We do our best to provide the most accurate information regarding conspiracies, misconceptions, etc. be they true or false.
How much are you paid to run this site?: We get asked this question a lot by conspiracy theorists. They assume that in order for someone to disagree with them, that must mean that person is getting paid to; if nothing else this shows the scrambled circuits within their personality. The truth is we don't get paid anything to run this site, we do make some money from ads (but that pays for about half the hosting) and sometimes people make donations, but none of us are retiring to private islands anytime soon.
Why waste your time doing this?: The kind of people who ask this question tend to also believe that the only possible reason any of us could contribute to this is if we're getting paid to. Most of us contribute to the site because we honestly enjoy researching conspiracy theories and talking about them.
Does this mean you believe the official 9/11 story?: We get asked this a lot, and it's really a trap. The trap is that if we say "yes", then we must be a part of the conspiracy, but if we say "no", then we must be crazy to deny there's a conspiracy. Instead, the best answer is to say: based on the evidence provided by conspiracy theorists, we have yet to see anything of consequence that shows 9/11 was an inside job or was done by anyone else other than Osama bin Laden and friends.
Why is everyone in the media afraid to cover the NWO/Illuminati?: Because there's nothing to cover. It's basically been the exact same story for the last 50 years, and nothing much as change - just added a few more conspiracies as a part of the overall conspiracy. You can read more about NWO related articles by going to our NWO page.
In your various articles you always point out individuals who are anti-Semites, why is that important at all?: We think it's important to mention it because it is the base of an ideology which has been around for centuries, being most prevalent at the beginning of the 1900s. People who are anti-Semites tend to easily come to their conclusions of international conspiracy based on the idea that Jews control the world. This sort of irrationality is very important when mentioning someone's "theories" and recognizing any potential motives they have for their "theories" - especially when it comes to ones related to international banking and shadow governments.
Do you think anything will happen in 2012? / What do you think will happen in 2012?: Nothing.
Don't you know that Peter Joseph's real name is James Coyman?": We used to get a lot of email about this, but we never had any solid proof it was true. In early 2010 it came to light that his name was actually Peter Joseph Merola.
Is the hate mail section real? / I heard it wasn't real, is it?: We've seen on several sites people saying it isn't real, but it is, there's not much more to say than that.
Haven't you looked at the facts? There is a conspiracy with 9/11/NWO/NAU/etc..!: Yes, we have looked at the facts, but surprisingly our conclusions tend to be the opposite of conspiracy theorists. That's probably because we look up our information from many different places, not just conspiracy sites and from books/movies created by people who believe in the conspiracies in question.

Let me provide you with an example. Let's say you want to get an objective, non-religious, historical view of Buddhism. Following the conspiracy theorist logic, you'd only talk to Buddhists, watch documentaries by Buddhists, and ignore anything not written by a Buddhist - especially if it's critical, in fact if it disagrees with anything within Buddhism or is written by someone skeptical of Buddhism, such as a Taoist, you will not get a very objective view at all. This is exactly what happens in conspiracy circles, things that are claimed to be facts, are just pieces of so-called evidence created by the conspiracy theorists who wanted to prove something they already believed - it isn't any kind of analysis.
Can I use your web page as a source?: Yes, but secondary sources aren't good, you should instead review and use the sources we use.
Can I copy / use information from your web site?: That depends, if you want to talk about content on our site then go ahead, but if you want to copy it, then no. In fact the most popular pages on this site, we actually did spend the money to get them copyrighted. If you do want content, please contact us and we can talk about it -- it does not necessarily mean we will charge you to let you use it - but we do want to know a bit about you first.
Why do you use Wikipedia / The Bible as a source?: Originally, in 2007, a few links -- out of the hundreds of sources -- did go to Wikipedia articles for the sake of showing something existed, not really as a direct source, however this hasn't been the case in a very long time. This doesn't stop many opponents of the web site from repeatedly claiming all of our sources link to Wikipedia.; As for the Bible, the sources used for that are almost all references to specific verses and so forth. If we are quoting the Bible or talking about something from it, there is no better place to source from than the Bible itself. I personally can't imagine where else I could possibly source Bible verses and so forth other than in the Bible. Just because we use it as a source, doesn't mean we believe what's in it -- anyone who would think so is an idiot.
Why do you use mainstream media sources?: We use them because people like Alex Jones use them. It's true! Your conspiracy fathers use mainstream sources. What we find funny about conspiracy theorists is they'll use mainstream sources when it agrees with them, but anything that disagrees are lies -- interesting scenario, it makes it to where you're never wrong! How convenient! We'll make you a deal, we'll stop using them when conspiracy theorists stop using them. We could also be like conspiracy theorists and link to only people who share our beliefs and consider all others liars, but that'd be unfair.
Why do you use BC/AD instead of BCE/CE?: We get accused of being a Christians a lot, almost always by Zeitgeist supporters, but that's hardly the case for most contributors and it isn't really relevant because the members of the Editing Committee who double check information aren't. One piece of "evidence" used against us is how some of us will use BC and AD over the more "scientific" BCE and CE. The reason some of us use BC/AD is because more people know what it means and it seems silly to switch terms when everyone already knows the calendar is based on Christianity, simply changing the words doesn't change that fact at all.
Do you realize that your site is full of spelling and grammatical errors?: We do our best to keep speling and gramer inline, but with rally long articels like movies we often make mistackes. Conspiracy thurists oftun try to say thta our site is compltely incorrect because of spelling problemz, but that's what we call a redherring. Truth be todl, we do our best to make sure evrey thing is on the upnup, but its hard to check your own things for errors, and so we often rely on people emailing/contacting us about mistakes we've made regarding spelling, we will also read articles we've ritten a few weaks later and often will not ice errors then and will correct them.