Category: Conspiracies
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Now I can’t wait to see the Golden Compass (what kind of daemon do you have?)
It’s already got the fundamentalists up in arms. Apparently, one of them managed to read something outside the accepted cannon of Christ-like books and now they’re all bothered about the December 7th release (see trailer) of the first installment of Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy – the Golden Compass (IMDB). According to CNSNews.com, leading…
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WSJ and anti-government conspiracies
Leave it to AEI writing for the WSJ editorial page to allege a grand conspiracy of the government against pharmaceutical companies. Their proof? The government wants to compare the efficacy of new drugs to older ones to make sure they’re actually better. The reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (Schip), created in 1997…
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Denialism in the news
Alert readers have brought to my attention two articles of interest to the study of denialism. First a big fat article in Newsweek entitled The Truth About Denial is a good overview of the anti-scientific crusade of conservative crank tanks to dispute global warming. It has a nice timeline of the development of the denialist…
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Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?
New Scientist has an interesting article by Patrick Leman on the psychology of believing in conspiracy theories. Belief in conspiracy theories certainly seems to be on the rise, and what little research has been done investigating this question confirms this is so for perhaps the most famous example of all – the claim that a…
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Profile of a Crank – Julia Stephenson
Ben Goldacre at Bad Science is leading the way on opposing this new absurdity of “electric smog”, and one of it’s leading proponents in Britain, Julia Stephenson. It’s really too easy. Remember the crank HOWTO? Well, she’s just about a perfect example. It all started when she got wifi in her apartment…
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Old Timey Conspiracy Theories
WaPo shows us how a good conspiracy theory can never die. It’s depressing. We’re probably going to be hearing from 9/11 troofers for the rest of our lives. The new evidence that Kennedy was killed by someone on a grassy-knoll or the Cubans or whatever is that the metallurgical analysis that was used to prove…
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Friday Cartoon fun
I realize I’ve put this up before, but it’s too relevant to our discussions all week to pass up. Via xkcd.
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Never forget 4-29
How will we ever know the truth about 4-29. I say, it was a conspiracy to undermine 9-11 truth to show that fuel from a tanker truck could actually melt steel and cause a freeway to collapse. Initial photos from the site raise lots of questions.
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Conspiracy
Three can keep a secret if two are dead. -Benjamin Franklin What are denialist conspiracy theories and why should people be instantly distrustful of them? And what do they have to do with denialism?