I flit out to Flagstaff today to participate in a BBC documentary. It’s part of a series with an interesting approach: they take True Believers on a road trip to confront them with evidence against their obsessions. Some of you Brits out there might have seen an earlier episode, the 9/11 Conspiracy Road Trip, in which 5 9/11 Truthers were taken on a bus tour of relevant sites in the United States. It apparently got good reviews (except from 9/11 Truthers themselves). You can watch the whole program yourself!
There will be some new episodes of the show coming out. The one I participated in today was a group of 5 believers in aliens and UFOs who are on a grand bus tour of the Southwest — they’d talked to SETI people in LA, a NASA scientist at Meteor Crater, a biologist who tried to set them straight on evolution and aliens, and they’re on their way to, of course, Area 51.
All I had to do was have a conversation with these 5 believers in alien abductions. It was…interesting. They were all very nice people, but they ranged in rationality from people who’d experienced unexplained events and were trying to figure out what happened, to a real loon who was utterly convinced that Jews were alien hybrids, reptoids had hybridized with humans, and the stone blocks of the pyramids had been cut with lasers. We argued for an hour or two, all of it was recorded, and I’m sure it will all be cut to the 5 juiciest minutes for the final show.
Keep an eye open for it next year all you British-type people, and let me know how it turns out.
So if it is the BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation, why are they filming in the USA?
A rhetorical question. The USA is number 1, a world leader. We have the largest lunatic fringes on the planet*.
It’s just another episode of let’s laugh at those silly Americans. I’d laugh too if I didn’t live here.
*We have twice as many Geocentrists at 60 million than Canada has people.
Be sure and let us know when this program becomes available in
Dumbfuckistanthe U.S.!Oh come on raven, they could find plenty of loons in Europe, homeopathists, New Agers, etc.
I can’t imagine they’re going to change many minds, especially since many of the true believers don’t really have anything else “interesting” about them except for more lunatic nonsense. They got on TV, if nothing else.
Who’d have heard of James Fetzer aside from his idiotic belief in nearly every conspiracy theory that comes down the pike? Who’d have heard of dull plodding Stephen Meyer or Bill Dembski if they weren’t selling bullshit to the true believers?
It’s the old, if you can’t dazzle with your brilliance, baffle with your bullshit. Clearly it often pays off.
Glen Davidson
All the loons in this show are imported from the UK.
The number of USians abducted by aliens is large. It varies from poll to poll but a commonly quoted number is 15 million citizens, 5% of the population.
Did you get to see any of the Flagstaff sights? The historic observatory? Galleries of Native American art? The Grand Canyon? Sedona? The countless bars and brew pubs?
I lived there for 3 years, and it’s a pretty sweet place.
We have 60 million geocentrists in the US? That’s 20% of the population! Seriously? Citation?
Wikipedia Modern Geocentrism
Or just google it. It’s a real number and well known.
I can’t seem to find any evidence of the 60 million geocentrists claim. There was allegedly something on Wikipedia a while back (I actually saw someone referring to the factoid in an old SB Pharyngula thread and then referring to the Wikipedia article on modern geocentrism), but then I checked the Pfft! as it is now and nothing is mentioned. The term “United States” is only mentioned once in reference to geocentrism’s popularity here in the 19th century.
The original data is from polls, IIRC, a Gallup poll.
When you guys watched the video, were any of you raging as hard as I was when the conspiracy theorists blabbed on even after various evidence. For me, I was especially headdesking at the scientist guy, who thinks his expertise in his own field gives him the qualification to override on what others say on other fields of science.
At least I am glad that they changed the mind of one guy, and put two people on the fence. Oh, and one more thing. Seeing cognitive dissonance happen to people from the outside perspective is really an interesting experience.
Was that Alan Greenfield or one of his converts?
Aargh! I meant Art Greenfield!
Quoth Art:
“My ex-wife was abducted by the aliens right out of our bed. One of my daughters had 2 missing pregnancies. My son and his wife and my grand daughter saw 6 Gray alien shadow people behind their house twice, and 1 inside their house, as did my ex-wife. They apparently followed my ex-wife home and abducted her a few days later, with about 50 other local women that night. After that abduction, it jogged by ex-wife’s memory and she remembered several abductions from when she was a little girl. That sudden remembrance could very well have been the result a retrocausal foray back in time to get control of her to use her to distract me in a hellish alien love bite situation, to disrupt me from doing anything the aliens did not like…. A few months ago two abductees I know, who do not know each other, were abducted. During their abductions the aliens asked each of them, “What do you know about Art Greenfield?” “
And yet they still didn’t made an episode with brits believing that their empire still exist. Now that would make a fun episode.
So, will the BBC next do a Jesus Road Trip with 5 people who believe a rabbi who was born from a virgin changed water into wine, cursed a fig tree, got hammered to a cross, stood up and walked around a bit and then physically disappeared?
What amazes me about the conspiracy theorists is that NONE of them are experts in the fields they claim expertise in. NONE of these people were experts in building demolitions. NONE in how cellphones work on airplanes. This smacks of Dunning Kruger Effect (GOOGLE it). The vast majority of people have no idea how the world works, and they don’t even realize it.
gorilla199?
I think I have a name for my new post-contemporary freestyle artcore band
Glen:
I don’t think changing minds is the real point of the show. It’s entertainment for the more sane viewers. They could have titled it “Hey, Get A Load Of These Kooks!”
Interesting point about the conspiracy theorising making them more interesting. In conversation with conspiracy theorists, I’ve often felt that they use their theories to add spice to their lives. Not so much to impress other people, more to improve their self-image. Alien abduction guy sounds like he’s living in a movie in which he has the starring role, and it seems more fun than my fairly humdrum life (but I’ll stick with reality, thanks). Such people will only give up their conspiracy if they can find some other entertainment to take its place.
That’s OK, no hurry about returning them. We’ll manage somehow!
Hah! What do we need with a footling territorial empire in the 21st century? Didn’t you know, our revered monarch runs the international drugs trade? Lyndon LaRouche says so, so it must be true.
All the loons in this show are imported from the UK. – PZ
Sorry about that – problem of ours: from time to time we intellectually cleanse ourseleves. All went a bit wrong when the Mayflower found land but it seems we’re still at it.
Motion: I propose that, in comments, colonialist, neo-colonialist of post-colonialist slurs, jokes, insults, insinuations and the like be considered of the same category as racist, sexist and ablist slurs, jokes, insults and insinuations. All in favour?
Not yet, jand @ 24!
We Brits have by and large learned to laugh at our late imperialist pretentions. There are exceptions to this rule but they are usually silenced by someone waving a selection of The Truth i.e. history at them.
Once our American cousins have arrived at this blessed ability to see their own story as if from another continent then I’ll second your motion.
Now, all we have to do is physically get the Chagossians back to Diego Garcia. It may mean non-violently moving the USAAF out but I’m sure that will present no problem to such reasonable people.
You mean these facts are in doubt?
My mother was jewish, so I guess that makes me halachically reptoid, which is pretty cool.
maureenbrian @ 25
You’re right about Diego Garcia.
Would you also oblige and move Kelpers out of Malvinas (a.k.a Falklands)?
oops, my bad, those are white folks.
A man I’ve known for 15 years had a nephew, Jeremy Glick, (his niece’s husband) on Flight 93. We were supposed to meet up with him on Sept 12 and he phoned to tell us that he couldn’t come because he had to keep in contact with his family. His family has lived with Jeremy’s loss for the last 11 years.
So I get really fucking mad when people say that Flight 93 didn’t even exist. He made a phone call to his wife from the flight as did many other passengers. So all the families are lying or duped?
These arm-chair idiots treat real people like they are paper cut-outs in a fantasy of their own making.
#18 wcorvi: Unfortunately, there are a small handful of “experts” who side with the Truthers and feed their fantasies. These experts need to be examined. Some may have a degree in a field but are not experts in the pertinent areas. For example, they might have a degree in civil engineering and use that to give an air of credibility to claim they know how a building structure might fall in a controlled demolition but have no experience in structure collapse. Some of them just lie about their credentials. And some are just as loony as the Truthers. A degree doesn’t make you not an idiot.
I gotta say – kudos to people willing to have their views challenged like this.
Isn’t David Icke, the anti-reptilian, English?
–o–
I heard a coupla years ago that the blocks for the large pyramids could have been cast rather than cut. Anyone know how ridiculous that is?
jand,
Who was displaced from the Falklands? Who did the ‘kelpers’ drive out? Yes, they they tend to be a bit white, shame on them.
@hypatiasdaughter
As an engineer in this field, I share your anger at these conspiracy theorists. If you find practicing engineers holding these beliefs, have them read the FEMA report. If it doesn’t shut them up, it will keep them busy long enough for you to whack them repeatedly.
Like… the quarries have been found? And how do you cast Eocene sandstone with nummulites (big-ass foraminifera) in them?
don1 at 33
I think you missed the point. maureenbrian quite correctly pointed out the colonial outrage of the inhabitants of Diego Garcia having been forcibly evicted from their island by the British colonial authorities, but the same British authorities claim “self determination of the islanders” is their justification to continuing their colonial presence on Malvinas islands. And yes,there were other people living there in 1833, before the current inhabitants’ great great grandparents settled there.
I’ve seen this error before, and quite recently: the idea that the Great Pyramid (and other solid masonry pyramids of Egypt) was constructed of carefully formed blocks of stone. Anyone holding this position simply hasn’t looked at a photo of the pyramid. You can easily see that the blocks are extremely irregular, which in fact helps stabilize the structure by increasing the friction between blocks. See
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza_edge.jpg
True, the casing blocks and those lining the principal passages and chambers are carefully cut, but not the bulk of the structure.
So much for laser cut and molded blocks.
so the logic behind the comment about their whiteness is, of course, why didn´t 2000 Chagossians (non-white) deserve the same respect as 3000 “falklanders”(white)
A point I made to my Dad 30 years ago. I can’t remember his response exactly, but it amounted to: “No fair, using logical argument.” A fine man, my Dad – I’d say a better man than me in most ways – but with some notable blind spots.
Well, you grind up Eocene to make it easier to cart around, then you mix in the phosphate based cement.
Thanks. I really should look more into this subject. But it’s so much easier to just ask.
Yay! Exit polls in North Rhine-Westphalia indicate another hefty boot up the backside for Merkel.
Oh, but FEMA is the center of the conspiracy! They’re the ones building the camps to stick the True Amurricans® in once the Black Helicofloppers/Reptoids/ZOG/whatever take over! They hide their eeevillll behind the façade of incompetence–even using supernatural creatures to cover for them!
I mean, don’t you remember the Brownie they used for cover in 2005?
(Writing this conspiracrap make my head hurt!)
Please tell us how you were approached to do this. I’m trying to imagine that first phone call, the British accent saying “”ello! Care to chat with some nutters?”
Excellent idea for a series, and maybe a better question than “Where do they get the wack jobs?” is why has American TV been scooped by the BBC on this interesting variation of reality programming? Why do we sweep uncomfortable conversations like these under the national carpet?
I remember watching TV on 9/11. There was a shot of the WTC, burning and swaying. My physics teacher glanced at it, and said, “That building is going to collapse.”
Talk to a building engineer, and they’re pretty much unanimous (cranks aside) in their belief that once the planes hit, the collapse of the buildings was inevitable.
But it was thermite. Or whatever the fuck.
Because fringe is mainstream in the US.
Too much focus on one sort of whackjob, and soon people will start to notice the semblance to the whackjobs in Congress.
I’ve been involved in debates that the collapse of the towers was evidence of poor design.
I’ve argued all along that the fact the towers stood as long as the did after the damage was evidence of how well designed they were.
“See? How does it carry on going straight down?”
Oh dog. There’s this thing called ‘gravity’. If the skyscrapers fell sideways I’d be more surprised. There was nowhere near enough steel to give enough strength to a side for the towers to go sideways – well, perhaps if you *did* have a controlled demolition you could make it lean a bit – but given where the fault was put into the towers it still wouldn’t fall far from its footprint.
>>All the loons in this show are imported from the UK.
But one would have to watch a whole 30 seconds of the clip before commenting on it… that’s asking for a lot. I guess the 911 commission’s report is the one holy text that people are not supposed to be skeptical about… in any shape or form?
believing in conspiracy theories is like believing in god.
at the end of the video he says something to the effect that the people do not want to believe that the government is incompetent. They know that they personally are often far from perfect and do not always get it right. believers want there to be some all powerful cabal that can control things. People want reasons and purposes behind things they do not want chance and normal human behavior with all the mistakes that can happen to be the answer. for a monster to be real is preferable to chaos!
people give ants intelligence and foresight for christ sakes
uncle frogy
A conspiracy is basically any meeting you are not invited to. Believing that they don’t exist by definition is to be pretty thick. To me the way 911 was used to justify the invasion of Iraq is all the proof I need to know that yes officials in the government (probably everywhere) do conspire very often. Of course not all conspiracy theories are on the same level but throwing the baby with the bath water requires very little discernment. Lapping up the official government propaganda requires even less.
@Alareth
Quite right! The plane impact removed 3/4 of one wall, and the building remained standing for a considerable time after that.
Jacklewis,
Do you want to actually propose a substantive criticism of the commission report’s findings? You imply that non-911 conspiracy theorists are being dogmatic by accepting the consensus of the qualified experts. To me, it seems that those who are proposing that the structural engineers and demolitions experts are incorrect in their findings has the burden of supplying evidence that the main-stream consensus is wrong. So, specifically, what is wrong with the experts’ consensus view? What are your sources for concluding that the consensus view is incorrect?
What is the “baby” that is being thrown out? What specific claims do you find compelling that are supposedly being dismissed by the experts?
Do you lap up the official government propaganda about the moon landing?
Conspiracy theorists are selectively skeptical. The claims they propose stem from a cherry picking of data, appeals to ignorance, and often shove a pet-explanation or story into gaps in the “official explanation”. And, despite the irrational and non-skeptical nature of this approach, they condescend to people who don’t buy their bullshit just-so stories implying that we are the ones being unskeptical, that we are being dogmatic, and that we treat “official explanations” as “holy” and refuse to question them. Fuck that. Conspiracy theorists, stop trying to pretend that your pseudo-skepticism is an exercise in critical thinking. It is not. It is paranoid wanking. Put up the evidence that the experts are incorrect (pot-shot criticisms from non-experts do not qualify), or shut the fuck up.
Do you kiss your mother with that mouth my poor little boy? While I do not doubt that the two buildings that where hit by the planes fell “naturally”, I am far from sold on the official story about WTC 7 (sorry if that offends your over heightened sensibilities). There is no doubt that 911 was used to great effect by the Bush admin (not that I believe Bush himself to have been a key player) to destroy a lot of basic legal rights, spy on local citizens, invade iraq so on and so fourth. A lot of people profited very much from the event and could have facilitated it. There is nothing especially hard to grasp in basic concepts of power and interests.
>>Conspiracy theorists are selectively skeptical.
And you are entirely unskeptical… bravo???
>>Do you lap up the official government propaganda about the moon landing?
I trust NASA in that and also their global warming evidence. I am sorry to disappoint you there and the straw man you are trying to bill me as. That is where the previously mentioned discernment (a foreign concept I know) comes in. While you think you have to either believe all or nothing from the authorities, I use instead judgment.
And I forgot, in keeping with the elevated tone. Go fuck yourself.
@jacklewis
government planned said event. With your logic, the NAZI planned the Great Depression and WWI in order to take power.
Yeah, there is the problem. You use your own judgment, aka, your own ignorance in the subject of matter. Oh, and government taking advantage of an event
Jacklewis, do you know why a blacksmith heats metal before pounding on it to make a horseshoe? (Don’t help him, anyone.)
Do you kiss your mother with that mouth my poor little boy?
Tone trolls are the most annoying kind of troll.
Alright, a claim, you have problems with WTC 7. What specifically do you assert in regards to WTC 7? Perfect, now, fetch me that evidence so I, and others, can have a look.
More vague assertions. No evidence provided. You suggest that one of the many people who profited from 9/11 could have facilitated it. Fine, I agree. That could be the case. It is a possibility. You seem to believe that this is actually the case. What evidence do you have? Links? Like ibyea said, “government taking advantage of an event =/ government planned said event.”
I am not “unskeptical” in the sense that I am neglecting to apply skepticism to the topic. I am “unskeptical” in the sense that I reject the Truthers explanations (when they get around to making specific claims), because the evidence they supply, in my experience, has been shitty. Force me to reconsider by showing me some good support for your claims.
Discernment. Cool. Now, I assume you looking at various bits of info around the net and in other mediums so that your beliefs are informed by evidence. Show me what is coloring your judgement, make a specific affirmative claim, and link to some evidence for it so that I have a reason to accept it.
Look Jacklewis, no dirty words, just for you. Wait, I said “shitty” ARRRGH. Forgive me. I will be sure not to kiss my mother (even though it is mother’s day). I’m sure she will understand that dirty words are Teh Evil.
Hmm,… the way this starts immediately imparts the feeling of a new reality show on American TV.
So is there any overlap? Many people out there believe the truthiness that UFOs were directly responsible for 911?
So I watched the whole of that Conspiracy Road Trip show, and was surprised to find something more annoying than ‘Loose Change’, and that is ‘Loose Change: Eastenders’.
Do you get to see any of Louis Theroux’s programmes?
I think this is just a nice little holiday for the makers of this programme at the expense to the British public who have to pay the BBC.
Since the people who live on the Falkland Islands (jand; that’s what they are called in English, you know like, Londres – Spanish, London – English) want to remain in the British Commomwealth, they should do so. Likewise the people of Gibraltar. All those Spaniards bleating about it should think about Ceuta and Melilla.
Hey, we have a genuine “truther”, complete with entirely unevidenced claims that all non-truthers accept everything the Bush administration said! A 24-carat idiot who doesn’t realise that effectively taking advantage of events you didn’t cause or plan for is at least 50% of political skill. And a shit-for-brains tone-troll, to boot.
So let’s see. Did the ebil gubmint conspirators know the planes were going to hit the towers or not? If not, did they just happen to have their ebil plan to destroy WTC 7 ready on the day the attack happened? Even if they did know, how did they know debris from the towers would hit WTC 7, thus providing cover for their ebil plan to destroy it by some other, unspecified means? Why, in any case, did they want to destroy it? If there was smoking-gun type evidence of their ebil plan to do something else unspecified in the building, why not just send in the FBI/black helicopters/alien reptiloids to remove it? Easy enough to have the whole building evacuated on the pretext of a terrorist threat, after all.
I am far from sold on the official story about WTC 7 (sorry if that offends your over heightened sensibilities).
Why? What problems do you see with the “official story”?
“Truthers” of any bent always remind me of creobots. Lots of smoke and mirrors, a few unscientific papers by non-experts not published in the peer reviewed literature, and a dose of paranoia. *grabs popcornz, and waits for “answers”*
“why has American TV been scooped by the BBC on this interesting variation of reality programming?”
Because American TV THRIVES on perpetuating BS like the 9/11 conspiracy. Have you ever seen “Ancient Aliens” on The History Channel? Well, I guess they just call it “History” now.
Still waiting for a specific claim and some evidence, Jacklewis…
Good luck on that Woo_Monster. The one thing these twerps don’t understand is evidence-backed claims. Kinda like creoturds, come to think of it. Or chemtrail mushwits, like one in my neighborhood. Their paranoid fantasies are more important than reality, I guess.
9/11 Truthers are tenacious in their stupidity. They have almost as many weapons at their disposal as creationists. When you establish that a missile did not in fact hit the pentagon, they can retreat to Flight 93 being downed by a missile. When you establish steel can in fact be weakened by burning jet fuel to cause a collapse, they retreat to that not precluding demolitions being in WTC to begin with. They “know” it was a conspiracy. Somehow, 20 saudis boarding 4 planes, directed by KSM and funded by OBL is not a big enough conspiracy.
They have many conflicting mutually exclusive theories, which to them is powerful. You have to disprove them all before they’d listen to you. And then they can just appeal to authority (their one crackpot professor– but not a professor in a relevant field– to rescue them).
9-11 truthers demonstrate how religions and parasitic ideologies form, how mob rule works, how desperately stupid our species can get when it puts its mind(lessness) to it.
I’ll try to dumb it down even more but I doubt that will have any effect on the bottom half of the bell curve teenaged knee jerks round these parts.
Is there evidence that the bush admin knew about the possibility of planes being used to attack the US by terrorists? If you answered no here is some “evidence” to the contrary.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10398375/ns/us_news-security/t/memo-notes-us-feared-jet-attack-prior/
On what basis are we to believe that they had no clue instead of perhaps being privy to the plans and just not acting on the intel? Zero basis, we are to believe that this is just not the case, that higher ups would never do such a horrific thing. They could of course invade another country and kill thousands of innocents with zero evidence to support their claims of WMDs but clearly conspiracies do not exist.
I would laugh at this point but pity for the credulity of some of the posters here would be the more appropriate. Then you have probably most people here believing Bin Laden being the mastermind of the attacks but there is also no hard evidence that this is the fact (it could be who knows). Still being skeptic about government propaganda just attracts contempt from the average (or less than) typical american idiot.
Leading and paranoid question, with a non-evidential presuppositional answer. Bwahahahahahaha. Questions aren’t evidence. Anything you talk about or ask questions about isn’t evidence. You point to evidence.
Bwahawah is neither a question a refutation or evidence. This is other than pure knee jerking how exactly? I know, I know too many questions for the lawyer wanna be. Good job not bothering with the single link and the complaining about no evidence. How fucking pathetic is that?
>>You point to evidence.
Do I look like your special ed teacher?
That last one was rhetoric btw since I have to spell everything out for you.
It would be really interesting to do research on various electric phenomena that created the “UFO” meme.
The behaviour of plasma is still poorly understood. Normally, the water present in bedrock would prevent any charge to build up through piezoelectric effects, but the odd optical phenomena preceding earthquakes indicate that we have not worked out everything yet.
PS Tall buildings should be made of concrete/rebar for obvious reasons.
jackfuckwitlewis,
I doubt that the fact the Bush administration failed to take due account of warnings about possibile attacks is news to anyone here, and it does not go any way whatsoever toward being evidence that they knew about the plot. No, not even a little bit of the way.
On what basis are we to believe that they had no clue instead of perhaps being privy to the plans and just not acting on the intel? Zero basis, we are to believe that this is just not the case, that higher ups would never do such a horrific thing.
No, fuckwit, on the basis that:
(a) They had no plausible motive. If anything, 9/11 delayed the attack on Iraq, which was planned from the earliest days of the administration if not before, and which was claimed to be justified under international law on the (spurious) grounds that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and had not complied with UNSC 1441 and other UNSC resolutions, not on the grounds of any alleged connection to 9/11. Moreover, the failure to prevent the attack exposed the administration to justified claims of incompetence, as well as fuckwitted claims of prior knowledge or direct responsibility.
(b) It would have been enormously risky, because a considerable number of people would have known about it, and the likelihood of someone blabbing would have been high.
I notice you haven’t even attempted to answer the points about WTC 7 I raised @63.
Sorry, blockquote fail: Probably obvious, but the paragraph beginning “On what basis” @74 is quoted from jackfuckwitlewis.
No, you spelled out your fuckwittery, not evidence. I’m a scientist, so I know the difference between evidence, which requires refution, and opinion, which can be dismissed. All you had was OPINION.
jacklewis:
So you have no evidence, only “evidence”?
(heh)