I do love a good conspiracy theory. I also love a good strong rebuttal.
But I truly hate knee-jerk rebuttals. If people go to the effort of developing a nice internally consistent CT that does not violate known laws of physics (positing unknown laws is acceptable, though), the least a Rebutter can do is come up with a good argument against.
The worst argument against a CT is that people wouldn’t keep the secret; that someone, somewhere, some time would have said something about the conspiracy. In my experience,
People most definitely can keep secrets; very important secrets.
Maybe someone did say something, and that what gave birth to the CT.
So, what arguments against CTs do you find ridiculous? General or specific is fine.
If nothing else, we might hone some debating techniques here.
I can’t see why this is a ridiculous rebuttal if the number of people required to carry out the conspiracy is large, or the conspiracy is spread out over a long period of time. As number of people required to keep a secret increases, likelihood that every single one of them keeps it decreases.
If a conspiracy requires two or three people to keep a secret, I’m willing to give that the benefit of the doubt (until I can rebut it in other ways, if necessary). But if a conspiracy requires the complete silence and cooperation of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people to all keep secrets. No.
That’s why there was no alien crash in Roswell, and Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK rather than a shadowy cabal.
Perhaps you’d consider this a bad rebuttal*, but to me a huge argument against elaborate, heavily argued conspiracy theories is that they never** undercover a genuine conspiracy.
The examples CTers come up with to justify their webs of intrigue either are not actual conspiracies or are secrets brought to light by something other than a band of dedicated conspiracy theorists.
*a “bad” rebuttal is, in general, any that assumes that the CTer has a genuine interest in considering facts that upset his/her carefully nurtured conspiracy theory.
**possibly the lone exception is the Dreyfus Affair.
The “that’s a conspiracy theory!” argument. The idea that claiming something is a conspiracy automatically means that it isn’t. Or that conspiracies never, ever happen.
The “it can’t happen here” argument. The argument that such things as political assassinations or election fraud can only happen in other countries.
The “they would never be so ruthless” argument; history definitely demonstrate that there’s never been a shortage of ruthlessness in the world, often even for trivial ends.
I’ve always heard that the Warren Commission was a classically bad anti-conspiracy rebuttal. As originally published, the bullet path through President Kennedy and Governor Connally was ridiculously convoluted, leading people to call it a “magic bullet”. But the problem wasn’t the bullet, it was the arrangement of the two bodies, one directly in front of the other, and both looking exactly straight ahead. But in the presidential limo, Connally was riding in a jump seat that was inwards and a little lower than Kennedy’s. Position them that way and turn Connally’s torso a little to the left and the wounds line up perfectly. But the whole magic bullet thing fueled conspiracy theories for years.
I think it’s a matter of motivation. For a conspiracy to have even a hint of credibility, everyone involved must have a direct interest in committing it, and a continuing interest in keeping it secret. That James Bond thing where the lackeys are getting mowed down by commandos while the mastermind slips out the back door? Doesn’t happen; there ain’t enough money to pay someone to take a fatal bullet. It’s not enough to explain why the leaders of a conspiracy have a motive; everyone involved has to have a stake.
I think a more interesting one is the Glomar Explorer. That was a ship built for the CIA to raise a sunken Russian sub and examine it. The cover story was that it was built by Howard Hughes to mine manganese nodules off the ocean floor. The truth was known to the press even before the recovery operation took place, although they were convinced to delay publishing.
I’ve heard that the Air Force’s Blue Book project did the opposite of what it was meant to do and convinced the UFO believers that UFOs were true and the government was covering them up. The problem as I understand it was that the Air Force didn’t take the whole thing seriously and so did a slapdash job; they did things like claim that a particular UFO was Venus when in fact Venus was below the horizon, something the UFO believers picked up on and interpreted as a cover up instead of as incompetence/laziness.
People do everything for a reason. They will need motivation to do/not do. Talk/not talk. They need a motive to keep quiet about a conspiracy, they need a motive to blab about a conspiracy.
JFK: Motive to talk: Look like a big shot, sell a book. Motive to keep silent: Death penalty. Hmmmm…
“Thousands, or hundreds of thousands”??? Uh, I think you are missing a key element.
Best wishes,
hh
What about the moon landings? Those involved thousands and thousands of people. Any one of them could have spilled the beans.
How about when Wayne Enterprises accountant Coleman Reese believes that he’s discovered Batman’s secret identity, and is trying to blackmail Fox.
Lucius Fox: Let me get this straight: You think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands. And your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck.
Ever read Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? As he points out in that, it’s easy to keep a secret (in his case, where the lunar catapults are located), even though thousands worked on putting them up – most people simply aren’t in the loop on that information. Even the ones who worked at the site were lied to about where the location was, and never learned otherwise.
Just because thousands of people were involved in an enterprise doesn’t mean they all knew its relevant facts.
But they know enough of the facts to piece together the situation afterwards. Once those catapults go off, the people who work on them start thinking, “So that was the mysterious project I was working on last May.”
In addition, Heinlein was writing fiction. Conspiracies work very well indeed in fiction. It’s the real world where things go all pear shaped.
Well, it’s no fun if the press knows the truth right off the bat. You need coverups, druggings, mysterious deaths, years of denials, phony investigations, the whole shebang.
A generic type of bad rebuttal to a CT is any that involves agreeing to a public debate with CTers. You can get together a panel of the best experts, and they can still be made to look bad by the rankest pack of CT loons. First off, agreeing to a debate puts the non-loons on an equal footing with the crazies (the public may conclude that both sides carry equal weight - “well, some say this, and some say the other thing”). The CTers are also skilled in tactics like the Gish Gallop, where they spew out such a heaping pile of pseudo-factoids and objections that no one can handle refuting them all at once, and so the logical folks either look unprepared or like they can’t deal with the Truth.
The best rebuttal I’ve seen recently was on the subject of 9/11 (on the Discovery channel, I think). They gave interview time to the CTers to present their favorite convincing arguments. After each clip, one or more engineers and other experts was interviewed, showing through video, diagrams and logical persuasion just how each of the CTer claims were debunked.
That’s the way you rebut conspiracy theories. And after the CTer guff is demolished, if they still keep yammering on, then you point fingers and laugh.
Crackpot conspiracy theories do not deserve the time or effort for detailed rebuttal. “Gawd, you’re a fuckwit” is generally sufficient. Especially if the whackjob promoting the conspiracy theory is a truther, birther, or moon hoaxer.
I once emailed Steven Lightfoot, the totally whacko conspirist that Stepehn King is shorter than John Lennon, yet Lennon is clearly taller than the person in this photo. He replied that Mark David Chapman is the same height as King!
Wow. Rapid blinking eyes smilie. I half expected to be shot down in flames and dragged into the pit. I impressed.
Der Trihs, thank you. Denial is no better than willful ignorance. However, I find ‘That’s a Conspiracy Theory’ a valid comment (though not argument); the phrase has become common short-hand for ‘You do realize that a lot of marginal people with emotional or financial problems, or unpleasant political agenda, believe that theory with no or very little evidence, don’t you?’
Harry, I’d like your definition of ‘conspiracy’, if secrecy is not a requirement. I think I’ll find your premise interesting.
I do not understand how this is an argument against conspiracy theories. How does the mechanism by which a conspiracy is brought to light effect the reality of the pre-existing theory? This might be an effective argument in favor of the premise that CTers are ineffectual losers, but that I don’t see any valid point about the CT.
Kolga, Otara, and Oakminster, I am assuming you all posted examples of bad rebuttals, rather than describing them.
Reducio ad absurdem is never a good argument; loving your child can be demonstated to be pernicous with that technique. Mis-stating a premise is not acceptable to a reasonable person. Flat denial has been dealt with by Der Trihs.
