Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

 Last week I began with a comment about the layout of this book. I remarked that each chapter seems to be a small snippet of the theory and that the book lent itself to a chapter-by-chapter dissection. This would be a change from the previous works where the chapters were significantly longer, denser with conspiratorial content, and terrible writing. This chapter however decided to be more like we’ve been used to and now I have to split the chapter. It’s not a problem, it’s just frustrating because I had gotten used to it already. This chapter is going to explain to us “how” NASA faked the Moon landing. The chapter begins with a quote from the book “Manhattan Project, the Untold Story.” Coincidentally, I believe that I read this book while I was in high school (I followed this with the 1995 Dark Sun, about the making of the hydrogen bomb). Originally it was published in 1967 (I read a revised edition for the 50th anniversary of the bomb), and is the story of the people who worked o...

 One of the most annoying things about this book is that it’s divided into chapters that are too short for a single post but too long to do two at a time. This chapter is a bit different because it becomes photo heavy. “ Here is shown that NASA has created the evidence for their conviction.” Sentences like this drive me nuts, when my students try this kind of bullshit, I hit it with the red underline and a comment saying, “don’t do this.” There’s a much easier way to say this, “I will show evidence NASA faked the landing.” It’s much clearer. Instead, Kaysing tries to get profound and fails. The content of the words makes something profound not simply the construction. If you’re familiar with this conspiracy theory, then you are going to be familiar with what follows: “ The photographs presented here are in 4 groups showing the major areas of discrepancy. ” The shortness of this chapter makes sense because it’s not important what Kaysing is saying…not really. What matters is that he...

“ If you can’t make it, fake it.”—Old Aerospace Saying If anyone is reading this book earnestly, they should immediately be turned off by the opening sentence of chapter 4. Firstly, this is not an old aerospace saying. This is a saying that people used to tell children if they thought that their sadness would reflect poorly on their ability to be parents (there’s a season 1 episode of The Simpsons about this). Secondly, to what does this apply? You can’t fake an airplane, I suppose you can fake a working schematic, or perhaps fudge the numbers on a test, but physics is one of those things that doesn’t care about how good the ruse is. I’ll repeat the phrase that has become the mantra of my skeptical life: facts don’t work. This isn’t a phrase that aerospace has any providence over. The phrase is just there to feed the emotional thirst that the readers have for the conspiracy. “See? The aerospace guy says they fake things that they can’t do, it’s something all of those people do.” It’s s...

Well, it’s that time of year, when an adjunct philosophy professor has to grade his papers. This means, that there is not going to be a proper post this week. However, I do have to address the weeks ahead. Given that Christmas Day is next week, and New Year’s Day is the week after; I’m going to update on Tuesdays. Then, once we hit 1/8, I’ll go back to Wednesdays. Have a good week, we’ll be back with Kaysings views on science next week once I get all of these business ethics papers graded.  

 What we know about Bill Kaysing is that he used to work at Rocketdyne, originally a division of North American Aviation, that built a variety of rocket engines for both military and non-military use (i.e. ICBMs and Space Missions). As I pointed out a few posts ago, Kaysing is not specific about what it is that he did there. He’s closer to the Moon Program more than any of the other chuckle heads that claim it was faked, but this could very well be a case of false authority. Bob Lazar, the fake Area-51 whistle blower, claimed to have worked at Los Alamos—but he did so as a photography developer. The implication that Kaysing wants us to gain is that he worked on the rockets or that he is some kind of engineer. This is the “natural flavors” problem. If you look on a carton of orange juice you’ll find a description that says something like “includes natural flavors.” Most people assume that “natural flavors” means “oranges,” but it doesn’t. At least, it doesn’t necessarily. However, t...

 If you read the academic literature on conspiracy theories the most important sticking point is how to define them. Ever since Keeley defined the concept back in 1999, there have been numerous tweaks and changes to the definition. My 2021 Dissertation had its own definition, and they continue to be adjusted and improved. One nearly consistent feature of the various academic attempts at defining “conspiracy theory” is that the theorists always has malicious motives for their theory. When I cover this in my courses I explain that I have doubts about this feature (in fact, I don’t use it in my definition at all); because while we can easily see the nefarious motives in covering up the truth about the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, or the Flat Earth; this isn’t necessarily the case. I construct a conspiracy theory about a secret plan to give everyone a free puppy (or kitten), even the philosopher Dentith talks about a conspiracy to throw a surprise part—which can hardly be considered ne...