The Validity of Conspiracy Theories

What I want to know is should conspiracy theories be dismissed outright as invalid critical investigations to the state and its actions, just because they are termed "conspiracies"?

If there are covert and illegal actions being carried out by states (and history has shown us that no country hasnt murdered political opponenets and innocents in order to achieve its goals), then who is left to follow up the leads and half truths of deeply hidden, and deliberately covered up stories?

Obviously we cant expect our mainstream media to come out with a story unless it can go all the way to court with it, but if there is circumstantial evidence available - not conclusive, but circumstantial - dont we have a right to know it and judge it on its own merit?

Yes "conspiracists" may be drawn into making conclusions too soon, but I think conspiracy journalists provide an essential function, and deserve credit for at least presenting otherwise drowned out findings: - we are all big enough to read between the lines and make our own conclusions- god knows you have to do so when you watch the six oclock news - so why not to the voices of conspiracy journalists?

I get the feeling that those who deride conspiracies outright live in a dreamworld, in which governments would never murder, and in which national interest is devised with humanity as a chief consideration. These people trust the state to act within law, both legal and moral - that is an enormous delusion.

An example of the scrutiny of the secret services under which we live:
A pretty stodgy and academic newsletter called Lobster which investigates the UK military/ss has lead to subscribers having their houses searched by unknown agents http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/ - no joke, think twice before you subscribe by post...

*the editors anti-conspiracy thread stance shows how derisable conspiracy theories are seen: fair enough, he's the editor, its up to him to set the tone for his site, but dont you think that conspiracy information should be judged on its own merits - and especially in a world of shit-scared, line-pulling, arse-embedded media, conspiracy journalism is more necessary than ever?

niksativa said:

What I want to know is should conspiracy theories be dismissed outright as invalid critical investigations to the state and its actions, just because they are termed "conspiracies"?

If there are covert and illegal actions being carried out by states (and history has shown us that no country hasnt murdered political opponenets and innocents in order to achieve its goals), then who is left to follow up the leads and half truths of deeply hidden, and deliberately covered up stories?

Obviously we cant expect our mainstream media to come out with a story unless it can go all the way to court with it, but if there is circumstantial evidence available - not conclusive, but circumstantial - dont we have a right to know it and judge it on its own merit?

Yes "conspiracists" may be drawn into making conclusions too soon, but I think conspiracy journalists provide an essential function, and deserve credit for at least presenting otherwise drowned out findings: - we are all big enough to read between the lines and make our own conclusions- god knows you have to do so when you watch the six oclock news - so why not to the voices of conspiracy journalists?

I get the feeling that those who deride conspiracies outright live in a dreamworld, in which governments would never murder, and in which national interest is devised with humanity as a chief consideration. These people trust the state to act within law, both legal and moral - that is an enormous delusion.

An example of the scrutiny of the secret services under which we live:
A pretty stodgy and academic newsletter called Lobster which investigates the UK military/ss has lead to subscribers having their houses searched by unknown agents http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/ - no joke, think twice before you subscribe by post...

*the editors anti-conspiracy thread stance shows how derisable conspiracy theories are seen: fair enough, he's the editor, its up to him to set the tone for his site, but dont you think that conspiracy information should be judged on its own merits - and especially in a world of shit-scared, line-pulling, arse-embedded media, conspiracy journalism is more necessary than ever?

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If you mean by "conspiracies" as secret acts of the military, then I think it would be rather better to stick to things that you can prove. Unfortunately there is a time-lag in information - "sexier" information is always recent history. Unfortunately, states aint gonna be stupid, and data will be suppressed until they have to release something.

You could drive yourself crazy trying to "prove" recent "conspiracies" without direct evidence. Imaginations run riot, and I am sure that they probably miss the point. "Conspiracies" often combine the conspirators political views with paranoia - for instance, a nationalist believes there is a secret world plot to take over nations etc.

If we use history as a guide, things can seem quite different to general perception.

For example, JFK is seen as a secret dove who wanted to pull out of the Cold War, until he was killed - the "liberal myth". Chomsky has shown that this presumption is a myth, using declassified evidence, and which makes sense in comparison with Chomsky's quite radical views. With JFK, I don't think anyone really knows what happened. As a lot of people have said, it might take another few years for more information.

If we interested in "real" conspiracies - we could talk about things like the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

The Editor probably gets upset my pure speculation - unfortunately too many conspiracy theories are racist and/or ultra-nationalist.

sponge said:

unfortunately too many conspiracy theories are racist and/or ultra-nationalist.

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Or just plain bonkers authored by unqualified nobodies and eagerly swallowed by conspiracy fans.

Loki said:

Or just plain bonkers authored by unqualified nobodies and eagerly swallowed by conspiracy fans.

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I dread to think what a qualified historian is - let me quote that liberal democrat, Karl Popper -

"There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. It is hardly better that to treat of embezzlement or of robbery or of poisoning as the history of mankind. For the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including, it is true, some attempts to suppress them.) This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as its heroes."

He wrote this during WWII .....

sponge said:

I dread to think what a qualified historian is - let me quote that liberal democrat, Karl Popper

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Karl Popper was a genius who helped define modern science. I'm talking about unqualified idiots like Joe Vialls (look it up if you can bear to) who many conspiranoids here have trusted unequivocally and reposted his nonsense here as "fact".

niksativa said:

What I want to know is should conspiracy theories be dismissed outright as invalid critical investigations to the state and its actions, just because they are termed "conspiracies"?

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Show us one 'theory' posted here that's subsequently been proved right, then.

Meanwhile, I'll point you in the direction of the MOSSAD thread that's currently residing in the bin as a perfect example of what's wrong with conspiracy theories that get dredged up here week after week.

Naturally, there's hundreds more laughable examples to choose from: invisible missiles, Huntley is Innocent, 9/11 planes didn't exist etc etc etc

niksativa said:

*the editors anti-conspiracy thread stance shows how derisable conspiracy theories are seen: fair enough, he's the editor, its up to him to set the tone for his site, but dont you think that conspiracy information should be judged on its own merits - and especially in a world of shit-scared, line-pulling, arse-embedded media, conspiracy journalism is more necessary than ever?

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Why should I give these fruitloop theories free publicity? The tiny handful of conspiracy-obsessed posters here have had ample opportunity to prove their claims here, but after years and years of relentless evidence-free speculation, they've proved jack shit - apart from their own gullibility and inability to undertale basic research (again; see MOSSAD thread for perfect example).

This site is one of the very few high profile boards to host such conspiraloonery, but I'm under no obligation to continue letting these people exploit the hard earned popularity of urban75.

I'm in no doubt that governments cover up the truth and lie to the people, but the unaccountable, dodgy-website-sourced shit that gets regurgitated here is usually straight outta Planet Bonkers.

Thing is, there's no connection between actual conspiracies and conspiranoids*.

People who uncover actual conspiracies are called journalists and historians. They are careful about evidence, logic and indeed physics. Often, they have found something that surprises them.

People who start off from the assumption "woo, there must be something spooky here" are unlikely to find anything (outside the confines of their own head, anyway). If you spend time talking with diagnosed paranoid schizoprenics, you'll get a handle on the kinds of leaps of illogic you find in conspiranoids' output.


* Except by accident. I did hear from someone working at Belleview hospital in NYC about a patient admitted complaining that the CIA was controlling his thoughts and the Mafia wanted to kill him. As it happened, one of these turned out to be true: he owed them money.

From what I've seen of Lobster, it bears no relation to the conspiracy theories we see here, where we are expected to believe outlandish ideas based on single, unaccountable sources.

I don't like the word 'theories' attached to these mad musings...it makes them sound vaguly valid.

Mrs Magpie said:

I don't like the word 'theories' attached to these mad musings...it makes them sound vaguly valid.

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Indeed.
'Conspiracy yarns' or 'conspiracy fantasies' would be more accurate.

niksativa said:

An example of the scrutiny of the secret services under which we live:
A pretty stodgy and academic newsletter called Lobster which investigates the UK military/ss has lead to subscribers having their houses searched by unknown agents http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/ - no joke, think twice before you subscribe by post...

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Oh well, better get the hoover out then....

And btw, Lobster does much more than poke and prod around the military/secret services. They broke the story about Tony Blair and half the people who subsequently ended up in his cabinet being members of the British/American Project, a "members only" club designed to imbue "up and coming" politicians with a (un)healthy dose of Atlanticism, a year before the mass media stirred their stumps, as well as publishing interesting stuff about colonial Nigeria, foreign and home policy, and fascism.

"Stodgy and academic"! Was it the footnotes that made you think that, or Ramsay's writing style?

Jo/Joe said:

From what I've seen of Lobster, it bears no relation to the conspiracy theories we see here, where we are expected to believe outlandish ideas based on single, unaccountable sources.

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Agreed. I've been a postal subscriber (gulp) for over a decade, and I've never yet seen Robin Ramsay publish anything that isn't tightly and multiply sourced.

He actually had a book on conspiracy theory published in the "Pocket Essentials" range, which serves as a very good guide on how to deconstruct CTs to see if they contain germs of truth.

ViolentPanda said:

They broke the story about Tony Blair and half the people who subsequently ended up in his cabinet being members of the British/American Project

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As I recall it, that was State Research and Tony Bunyan - starting before Lobster existed.

No, Lobster isn't in the Art Bell league.

I'd mainly treat it as a source of footnotes, though, and I wouldn't assume anything in it as significant without looking to see what footnotes aren't there, though. My impression is that Robin R tends minutely to document data that points toward the conclusion he's reached, without always paying attention to where it fits into the world at large.

I have no problem with people having their own theories about anything. I am willing to listen to anyone's reasoned argument for any point of view.

I quite agree with the original post that (a) it is likely that there are things going on which those in power (for a variety of reasons) wish to cover up and (b) that we will only usually have little bits of circumstantial evidence to suggest their existence in the first place.

Unfortunately, that is where most conspiracy theorists begin to lose the plot. Instead of looking for reliable / testable evidence (and the "circumstantial" refers to the relevance of the evidence, not it's reliability ), they frequently resort to the "They said / did this therefore such and such must be true" sort of approach to substantiating the theory. This is, of course, not proof of any sort but mere repetition of the theory.

Third party accounts (a friend of a friend, can't give their name ...) are frequently a feature and they are notoriously unreliable as they cannot be effectively tested in any way. That is why there is a presumption against hearsay evidence being acceptable in the UK legal system.

When choosing between cock-up and conspiracy, I will normally think cock-up is the most likely. Mainly because my 20-odd years experience of the police, and my dealings with other authorities, has convinced me that they are incapable of holding a conspiracy together on any sort of scale for more than about 10 minutes ...

detective-boy said:

I have no problem with people having their own theories about anything. I am willing to listen to anyone's reasoned argument for any point of view.

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How does it feel being in such a small minority?!

I think there is no validity in 'conspiracy theories'. The term has far too much baggage these days and acts as an all-encompasser, much to the detriment of us all.

Throughout history we have had those in power doing whatever they think they need to do to keep that power, and if greedy, to expand it. It is as obvious as night follows day that those in power conspire to retain and/or expand it. They have to conspire coz what they do is illegal, so they have to fool the public, via the media.

Where distrust of those in power deepens, is when we analyse their past record. Precedence a plenty.

Now I, for one, distrust those in power, particularly in US and UK. Therefore, rather like the Sun, i take whatever they say immediately to be wrong, and then i work from that starting basis. Possibly they were right on occasion, but i arrive at that conclusion from a start of not trusting it.

The other thing i think is that none of us know anything about what really happens, unless we are actually involved. Therefore what helps fan these ridiculous 'conspiracy fans' jibes is when folk call for evidence. None of us have any evidence.

The original single meaning of 'conspiracy theory' i'm sure applies to one where certain people disagreed with the official version of events put forward by the state.

And like i say, the state are notorious for lying to fuck. And where the US and UK are involved, bombing to fuck too.

On what possible grounds should we believe anything that they tell us?

This thread moved from World Politics to Theory as I was reading it. It's a conspiracy to prevent me reading the truth anbout conspiracy theories I tell you!

fela fan said:

Throughout history we have had those in power doing whatever they think they need to do to keep that power, and if greedy, to expand it. It is as obvious as night follows day that those in power conspire to retain and/or expand it.

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Some have, maybe even many have. But not all, and certainly not all of those at levels below the very top. This view is extremely jaundiced and makes sweeping assumptions about the motives of all politicians / civil servants.

fela fan said:

...What helps fan these ridiculous 'conspiracy fans' jibes is when folk call for evidence. None of us have any evidence.

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The first hand accounts of those who have been involved directly (like me, for instance) amount to "evidence". But many choose to ignore it / allege it is false. And other evidence always exists. It is just a case of looking for and finding it. And, if you don't find it, asking if there is an alternative explanation for it's absence other than someone has hidden it!

A good investigator (of anything) ALWAYS keeps an open mind and looks for reliable evidence (witness / real / forensic / whatever) which casts light on the subject one-way or another.

Loki said:

Karl Popper was a genius who helped define modern science. I'm talking about unqualified idiots like Joe Vialls (look it up if you can bear to) who many conspiranoids here have trusted unequivocally and reposted his nonsense here as "fact".

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karl popper should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt.

I wonder if you trust unequivocally what he had to say?

montevideo said:

karl popper should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt.

I wonder if you trust unequivocally what he had to say?

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Which Karl Popper would that be? The logician, or the polemicist?

(Yes, I know they had the same birth certificate. But do you claim his political views affected his logic? Do you know anything about his logic?)

Go on, define and describe:

• falsificationism;
• arguments against it; and
• the foundations of your epistemology.

laptop said:

Which Karl Popper would that be? The logician, or the polemicist?

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Popper's philosophy seems very coherent to me, and bloody good, I have to say.

montevideo said:

I wonder if you trust unequivocally what he had to say?

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About his philosophy of science, absolutely, it's self-evident what his achievements were. I don't know anything about his politics or other views.

detective-boy said:

When choosing between cock-up and conspiracy, I will normally think cock-up is the most likely. Mainly because my 20-odd years experience of the police, and my dealings with other authorities, has convinced me that they are incapable of holding a conspiracy together on any sort of scale for more than about 10 minutes ...

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Yes, my take on things too....and any conspiracy that does occur is likely to be a cover-up for a monumental cock-up.

all conspiracy theories require a step of faith.

detective-boy said:

... When choosing between cock-up and conspiracy, I will normally think cock-up is the most likely. Mainly because my 20-odd years experience of the police, and my dealings with other authorities, has convinced me that they are incapable of holding a conspiracy together on any sort of scale for more than about 10 minutes ...

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With 20-odd years experience of the police under your belt one might have been forgiven for thinking that your memory of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven would still be quite fresh.

The major "cock-up" in the Guildford Four fit up happened when a duty records sergeant was off work ill and his temporary replacement inadvertently handed Gerard Conlon's lawyer, Gareth Peirce, Guiseppi Conlon's file in error - or maybe it was the other way round. But in any case, what she found was enough to get their convictions quashed on their second appeal.

As we can see from just these 3 cases, the British authorities, including the police, were more than capable of holding a conspiracy together for longer than "about 10 minutes". With the Guildford Four, for example, the conspiracy held together for 15 years!!

bigfish said:

With 20-odd years experience of the police under your belt one might have been forgiven for thinking that your memory of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven would still be quite fresh.

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Er ... yeah. But they are significant miscarriages of justice and I would not place them in the category of conspiracy (and particularly not of organisational conspiracy). Although the police malpractice went to a significantly higher level than usual, I have not seen any evidence that it was driven from the top (other than by sort of vague suggestions that pressure from senior officers for a conviction encouraged rules to be broken by investigating officers).

In any event, if they were conspiracies they were particularly inept - allegations of malpractice (especially violent treatment whilst in custody) were made almost immediately and in open Court (where injuries were also visible), lots of other officers saw / heard bits of what happened during time in custody and these pieces came out later, drafts of final versions of written confessions / interview notes were left in files rather than destroyed ...

The length of time which passed before the miscarriages were acted upon raises a shed load of issues about the various parts of the criminal justice system but would not, in my view, provide evidence of a conspiracy such as those being suggested in relation to the bombings.

editor said:

Show us one 'theory' posted here that's subsequently been proved right, then.

Meanwhile, I'll point you in the direction of the MOSSAD thread that's currently residing in the bin as a perfect example of what's wrong with conspiracy theories that get dredged up here week after week.

Naturally, there's hundreds more laughable examples to choose from: invisible missiles, Huntley is Innocent, 9/11 planes didn't exist etc etc etcWhy should I give these fruitloop theories free publicity? The tiny handful of conspiracy-obsessed posters here have had ample opportunity to prove their claims here, but after years and years of relentless evidence-free speculation, they've proved jack shit - apart from their own gullibility and inability to undertale basic research (again; see MOSSAD thread for perfect example).

This site is one of the very few high profile boards to host such conspiraloonery, but I'm under no obligation to continue letting these people exploit the hard earned popularity of urban75.

I'm in no doubt that governments cover up the truth and lie to the people, but the unaccountable, dodgy-website-sourced shit that gets regurgitated here is usually straight outta Planet Bonkers.

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Well, I admit, the MOSSAD article wasn't as strong as I first thought, and I posted it hastily. Apologies! But why is the onus on people like me to get it right all the time? We're here to exchange opinions and see what stands up, and what doesn't. If we do that properly, then we are going to explore avenues and discard them, otherwise we aren't doing it right. Why is it all a personality contest?

Examples of where I was way ahead of the rest of the media is when I drew attention to the fact that 'suicide' bombers only committed suicide as a necessity to achieve their aims, and that the London Bombers probably had no idea their bags were going to explode with them attached. You should be proud that someone on your site was saying this long before anyone else. Now the police are going on the line that they were tricked!

Also I predicted that we wouldn't get a claim of responsibility like we used to with terrorist attacks (see "bite of the sheepdog" thread) which we haven't (I am of course discarding the totally unverified website nonsense which was already out when I posted the thread).

So I consider I've done pretty well on the London Bombings. Of course, if we all just parroted the rest of the media, then I'm sure there would be a lot less arguing; but do we want that?

And a conspiracy theory that was certainly proved right was that Saddam had no WMDs!

DrJazzz said:

Examples of where I was way ahead of the rest of the media is when I drew attention to the fact that 'suicide' bombers only committed suicide as a necessity to achieve their aims, and that the London Bombers probably had no idea their bags were going to explode with them attached. You should be proud that someone on your site was saying this long before anyone else. Now the police are going on the line that they were tricked!

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Hang on, this is cobblers. It's not a "fact", it's not even "probably" and I'd like to see your source for claiming that the police are "going" on any such "line".

Incidentally, when you use the term "totally unverified website nonsense" are you not referring to nearly everything that you yourself post?

DrJazzz said:

Well, I admit, the MOSSAD article wasn't as strong as I first thought, and I posted it hastily. Apologies!

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You did ZERO research before posting up that thread. None. Not even a five second web search. Nothing.

I'd like you research all future claims and provide credible sources or they're going straight in the bin from now on.

Ten characteristics of conspiracy theorists.

1. Arrogance. They are always fact-seekers, questioners, people who are trying to discover the truth: sceptics are always "sheep", patsies for Messrs Bush and Blair etc.

2. Relentlessness. They will always go on and on about a conspiracy no matter how little evidence they have to go on or how much of what they have is simply discredited. (Moreover, as per 1. above, even if you listen to them ninety-eight times, the ninety-ninth time, when you say "no thanks", you'll be called a "sheep" again.) Additionally, they have no capacity for precis whatsoever. They go on and on at enormous length.

3. Inability to answer questions. For people who loudly advertise their determination to the principle of questioning everything, they're pretty poor at answering direct questions from sceptics about the claims that they make.

4. Fondness for certain stock phrases. These include Cicero's "cui bono?" (of which it can be said that Cicero understood the importance of having evidence to back it up) and Conan Doyle's "once we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth". What these phrases have in common is that they are attempts to absolve themselves from any responsibility to produce positive, hard evidence themselves: you simply "eliminate the impossible" (i.e. say the official account can't stand scrutiny) which means that the wild allegation of your choice, based on "cui bono?" (which is always the government) is therefore the truth.

5. Inability to employ or understand Occam's Razor. Aided by the principle in 4. above, conspiracy theorists never notice that the small inconsistencies in the accounts which they reject are dwarfed by the enormous, gaping holes in logic, likelihood and evidence in any alternative account.

6. Inability to tell good evidence from bad. Conspiracy theorists have no place for peer-review, for scientific knowledge, for the respectability of sources. The fact that a claim has been made by anybody, anywhere, is enough for them to reproduce it and demand that the questions it raises be answered, as if intellectual enquiry were a matter of responding to every rumour. While they do this, of course, they will claim to have "open minds" and abuse the sceptics for apparently lacking same.

7. Inability to withdraw. It's a rare day indeed when a conspiracy theorist admits that a claim they have made has turned out to be without foundation, whether it be the overall claim itself or any of the evidence produced to support it. Moreover they have a liking (see 3. above) for the technique of avoiding discussion of their claims by "swamping" - piling on a whole lot more material rather than respond to the objections sceptics make to the previous lot.

8. Leaping to conclusions. Conspiracy theorists are very keen indeed to declare the "official" account totally discredited without having remotely enough cause so to do. Of course this enables them to wheel on the Conan Doyle quote as in 4. above. Small inconsistencies in the account of an event, small unanswered questions, small problems in timing of differences in procedure from previous events of the same kind are all more than adequate to declare the "official" account clearly and definitively discredited. It goes without saying that it is not necessary to prove that these inconsistencies are either relevant, or that they even definitely exist.

9. Using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims. This argument invokes scandals like the Birmingham Six, the Bologna station bombings, the Zinoviev letter and so on in order to try and demonstrate that their conspiracy theory should be accorded some weight (because it’s “happened before”.) They do not pause to reflect that the conspiracies they are touting are almost always far more unlikely and complicated than the real-life conspiracies with which they make comparison, or that the fact that something might potentially happen does not, in and of itself, make it anything other than extremely unlikely.

10. It’s always a conspiracy. And it is, isn't it? No sooner has the body been discovered, the bomb gone off, than the same people are producing the same old stuff, demanding that there are questions which need to be answered, at the same unbearable length. Because the most important thing about these people is that they are people entirely lacking in discrimination. They cannot tell a good theory from a bad one, they cannot tell good evidence from bad evidence and they cannot tell a good source from a bad one. And for that reason, they always come up with the same answer when they ask the same question.

A person who always says the same thing, and says it over and over again is, of course, commonly considered to be, if not a monomaniac, then at very least, a bore.

Cracking post, Justin!
Mind if I archive it on the FAQ/info section of the site?