Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

Coincidentally my wife purchased a new cell phone, and while she was busy tooling around with it, I read through the several little booklets that came with it. We can't call them manuals really because they are just warranty information, a picture that tells you where all of the buttons are, tucked into that booklet was the FCC warning regarding electromagnetic radiation (EM hereafter). The warning states that the phone is compliant and safe to use, gives a caution that the phone may get warm if pressed against the face, and that it shouldn't be used constantly against the skin. Interestingly, it leaves out why. The movie, "Thank You For Smoking" (2005), the protagonist ends the film having set a meeting with some cell phone executives and reminding them of the mantra that there is no proven link between cell phones and cancer. This being his long time advice for cigarette companies, who historically have spent billions throwing the science that linked cigarette smo

In order to further illustrate the difference between the informal fallacy of ad hominem and a proper use of an attack on a person's character we will delve into the meta-conspiracy of the end of civilization. This will not require us to get into anything specific, so pick your poison: Illuminati has destroyed civilization, the satanic/atheist/homosexual agenda has finally won, the Federal Reserve Bank has crashed the dollar for some reason. Which ever version is most appealing to you let's pretend we're already there. A popular mantra for people (like Alex Jones and Glenn Beck) claiming that the end of the world is near unless X is done is that gold is the only currency that will be accepted in the post-Calamity Mad Max world that is to come. You need to buy gold, and their food buckets, or else it's just a Hobbesian state of nature with some cannibalism to throw in there as well. The first question we want to ask is: do they have a point? Well it depends, and pred

All conspiracy theories operate under a fallacy. They have to otherwise they wouldn't be conspiracy theories and there are hundreds of fallacies that can apply. Everything from bias reporting, cherry picking, argument from ignorance, to newer ones that are just becoming apparent in the age of the internet. It becomes necessary when teaching skepticism to point out the most popular fallacies in reasoning, but then there lies the possibility of taking it too far. The problem with informal fallacies is that they depend on context. This is in contrast to formal fallacies which depend on neither context or words. P & ~P is always false it does not matter what "P" stands for. Our good friend Ockham said that the law of non-contradiction is the only law that binds god. Yet the informal fallacy is so context driven that the point gets missed by even intrepid, intelligent, and good looking informal logic instructors sometimes neglect it. We'll start with Ad Hominem fal

The first proper conspiracy theory that we deal with is the Flat Earth conspiracy. This conspiracy alleges that the shape of the Earth is really flat, rather than an oblate spheroid that literally everyone is taught. The first point I need to make is that, this is not merely an alternative explanation of the world. This isn't "People's History of the United States" style geography (physics? geology? I'm not even sure what to call it) an entire conspiracy is necessary that convinces everyone put a few intrepid investigators into "knowing" that the earth is, in fact, a globe. Why would anyone believe that the Earth is flat? There are a couple of answers to this. The first is religious literalism. The Judeo-Christian book repeatedly talk about the Earth having four corners. In the Old Testament the Earth is described as being underneath a dome, much like a modern stadium (there's a lot to list but for evidence sake: Psalm 19:1, Isaiah 45:12, Daniel

Last post we took a look at two different historical conspiracies in order to show that they have happened and how they failed. We will continue this today by looking at a couple more and one plan that was proposed but never put into action. We will also move our examples up to the 20th century so as to shrink the chronological distance of the events down to decades rather than centuries. Watergate 17 June 1972 The break in at the Watergate hotel is a very complex situation that entire rows of books at libraries cover. It was the subject of an excellent movie "All The President's Men" (except for the end where it just kind of gave up) and has such an impact that literally all scandals and accusations of a scandal are given the suffix --gate.  The Watergate break in was an attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in 1972. On the night of 17 June, taped latches on some doors were noticed by a security guard. He removed the tape during h

Our previous lectures have made a tentatively adequate definition of what a "conspiracy theory" is. While we are not at a sufficiently comprehensive definition as of yet, we can at least put down what we know so far: A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event, series of events, or state of the world that is hidden from the general public, pushed by a clandestine organization (or public individuals working in concert), and is almost universally nefarious in origin. No one has a conspiracy theory in which people are working for the general good. We have thus far, taken the position, that every conspiracy theory is false, i.e. they do not represent a true explanation of events. However this might lead one to believe that I am denying that any conspiracies have happened. Conspiracies that we know have happened and going through a few of them is helpful in separating conspiracy fact, from conspiracy fiction. The Pazzi Conspiracy : 26 April 1478 Florence Italy Florence

With the methodology explained, we must again return to the question of importance: why is any of this important? Since we can recognize the extreme cases of conspiracism, we know to reject them. Perhaps we may indulge our curiosity, and check out what some them might say. This is, probably, the first step that one takes in full blown agreement, but we're smarter than this...right? Even such there's no harm. So we shall investigate the harm by asking if there is harm in four actual conspiracy theories. Is there harm in believing: (1) That the CIA killed JFK and framed Lee Harvey Oswald? (2) That the person "William Shakespeare" did not write the plays attributed to him? (3) That the figure "Jesus of Nazareth" was married and had children? (4) That a secret group of Jewish elders controls the world's banks and media? With 1 and 2 there's very little harm that can be recognized. 1 would mean that the government has lied to the population regardi