Entry 2287, on 2023-08-23 at 18:05:45 (Rating 3, Skepticism)
I recently spent some time discussing conspiracy theories with a friend. Another friend of his had told him about an absolute classic, and he found the theory quite convincing. The actual example was the Moon Hoax, a conspiracy which claims that the moon landings of the late 60s and 70s were all faked, but there were others as well, including the idea that the attacks on 9/11 were an "inside job" and perpetrated by the US military, CIA, or other covert organisation within the US.
I have been a skeptic for many years, and I rarely take conspiracies seriously, but we need to be aware that there are real conspiracies, and automatically dismissing them all is not much more rational than believing them all. So the question should be not whether you believe conspiracies or not, but which conspiracies you believe.
Additionally, there is the complication that we shouldn't totally believe or reject a theory, but assign a degree of belief to it - a concept I have recommended in several posts here. So I might say I think the moon hoax conspiracy is extremely unlikely to be true, the 9/11 conspiracy is very likely untrue, but I might say I have a higher tolerance for COVID vaccine conspiracies. I'm not saying I think the vaccine has nano-particles in it, or was designed by Bill Gates to reduce the population, ar anything extreme like that, but I do think there are many actions taken as a result of COVID that were unnecessary and driven more by hysteria than science.
So let's have a look at a few classic and a few modern conspiracies and see how much credibility I attach to each one...
I'll start with the Moon Hoax, since that is the first subject I mentioned here. I did a detailed post on this just a few weeks back (in a post titled "All Sides of the Story" from 2023-08-02) so I'll just discuss this briefly this time.
First, the anomalies the conspiracy theorists think they see in the photos and other material from the Moon can all be dismissed by more mundane explanations. That doesn't mean that they were definitely not faked, but it does suggest the conspiracy is unnecessary. A basic tenet of rational discourse is (or should be) that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So the events could be part of a conspiracy, but they could also be exactly what NASA claim they are. We should accept the mundane explanation by preference.
Second, the amount of effort the US put into the Moon landings was extraordinary. Why would they build those Saturn V rockets, which many people saw launch, if it was all fake? And why would the Russians, who were the other contender to put a human on the Moon first, not point out, with great alacrity, the fact that the US faked it?
So, in summary, I would say the Moon Hoax is very unlikely to be true, and the official explanation is both sufficient, and by far the best explanation of the facts.
Now let's move on to 9/11. The basic conspiracy here is that the destruction of the buildings in New York was a deliberate act on the part of elements of the US hierarchy: either the government directly, or the CIA, or maybe the military.
Again, this relies a lot on anomaly hunting. The believers in this theory will say that the jet fuel fires weren't hot enough to melt the metallic supporting structures of the towers, or the incoming aircraft had odd features, or certain people stayed away from work in those buildings on that day, as if they had advanced warning. But like the Moon Hoax, these can be explained as well, or better, by conventional mechanisms.
If the US establishment wanted an excuse to go to war to avenge the attack on the towers, there would have been far less destructive and complicated ways to do it. After all, the US starts wars all over the world without having to deliberately kill thousands of its citizens in its biggest city.
My summary of this one is that the conspiracy is superfluous, and the official explanation makes more sense. About the only compromise I might make is to say that arguably the officials should have been more efficient in preventing the disaster, and maybe some would have found it a convenient excuse for war after the event.
Now let's look at one of the greatest conspiracies of all, which is one which has been around for many decades: the JFK assassination conspiracy.
Like the others, this one largely relies on what seem to be anomalies in the official story suggesting a conspiracy. Also, it was widely accepted that the president had certain views that the establishment might have found problematic. His actions over the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, were contrary to what some advisors wanted.
Then there is the apparently odd behaviour of the fatal bullet, leading to the "magic bullet theory" being used to ridicule the official explanation. But it's not rational to replace a convoluted official theory with an even more unlikely and convoluted alternative. Additionally, many of the claims simply aren't true.
It's certainly not impossible that some element of conspiracy existed there, but I think the official explanation is broadly true.
Finally, let's have a quick look at a more current conspiracy: the various theories related to COVID.
First, I think there is a good chance that the original virus did escape from a lab in Wuhan, which is contrary to the official explanation that it originated in a wild meat market. This is far from certain, but the fact that a new highly contagious virus was first identified near a lab dedicated to creating viruses with similar characteristics, is highly suspicious, and surely everyone would agree on this.
Some experts have said they think the DNA of the virus does not show signs of being created artificially, and this supports the official story, but I think there is sufficient doubt about this to not use it as absolute proof against the conspiracy. The fact that the lab was partly supported by American interests also encourages conspirational thinking.
Note that even though I take this conspiracy fairly seriously, I am in no way dedicated to it, and would be perfectly happy to reject it if further contradictory evidence arises.
What about COVID vaccines? There are numerous theories around those, including the claim that they contain nano-particles which have some nefarious purpose, and that they are totally ineffective and are only being used (by coercion in many cases) to increase the profits of big pharmaceutical companies.
I think there is good reason to doubt both the effectiveness of the vaccines, and some of the tactics used to increase their use, but I don't fully accept any of the conspiracies.
There is no doubt at all that big pharma warp the (so-called) science used to test their products so that they can increase their profits, but I think that the vaccines have some effectiveness, although nowhere near what we were initially promised. I also think that that the potential side-effects were largely dismissed or diminished, and should have been made more apparent to the populations being vaccinated. And I think the testing was insufficient, especially for the relatively new technology used in the mRNA viruses.
Someone asked me the other day whether I would have taken the vaccine if I hadn't been forced to, and I had to say probably not. At the very least, it would have been a question I would have thought about carefully, instead of just accepting the assurances that it was safe.
Here are a few related issues, which I will cover briefly. The lockdowns were overdone, although I could see a case for using them as a caution in the early stages of the pandemic, so that's a sort of conspiracy I have some time for. Masks have a small benefit, but I think they were also overdone, and I think they acted as more of a virtue signal of compliance than anything else. I do think that people with COVID isolating was (and still is) a good idea, and should be encouraged for all significant illness.
So there's my thoughts on conspiracies. I find the whole idea of them quite fascinating, and the fact that some turn out to be true just adds to that. I think they are worth taking seriously, but my default position would be that I assume they are false until good evidence is shown to the contrary. But just saying something is a conspiracy is not the same as saying it is false, as some people might like to believe.
Comment 1 by Jim on 2023-08-26 at 19:46:04:
I can agree with your conclusion on the moon and 9/11 conspiracies, but you believe the COVID stuff? I'm surprised!
Comment 2 by OJB on 2023-08-26 at 21:17:45:
Well I would be a bit boring if I didn't take some conspiracies seriously, wouldn't I? The difference is, I don't take them too seriously, and I have no political or emotional attachment to them (or very little, anyway), so if the evidence against them becomes enough, I am OK with abandoning them.
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