Category: General

I really thought I’d write a lot more about the whole business of turning my thesis into a book. I don’t know what I imagined that would happen; I assumed the same when I was writing my thesis and that didn’t really work out.

I’m having a moment of “I don’t know which chapter to work on next!” ((The obvious answer, which is “The next one!” is a bad choice, for reasons I won’t go into right now, other than that it requires me to reread some material and I can’t be bothered with that today.)), so rather than waste my morning playing yet another hour of the supremely boring-yet-utterly addictive time waster that is “Godus”, I thought I’d say a little about chapters 2 and 3, which used to be merely chapter 2.

The first third of my thesis thus far goes something like this: a witty introduction, a statement of fact about how people have defined the concept of the conspiracy theory in the existing literature and then a defence of my own, somewhat radical definition. The first third of the book also follows the same kind of structure, but I’ve introduced a whole host of new material, which hasn’t just made some chapters overly long (chapter 1 used to be about six thousand works. It is now twelve thousand. It needs massive cuts. It makes me want to cry.) but it’s reintroduced issues I kind of gestured at in the thesis but want to deal with in the book.

It’s fair to say I defend a perfectly general, non-pejorative definition of what counts as a conspiracy theory and that my definition is just a tad radical. In the thesis I dealt with one strand of argumentation as to why we should reject pejorative definitions of conspiracy theories: they claim as essential to the concept that such theories should be about sinister plots and they typically exclude small-scale conspiratorial activity. I then used my argument as to why these features are not essential to the concept to argue, later in the thesis, that belief in conspiracy theories can be warranted and this is a good reason to reject the generalist argument that such theories are prima facie unwarranted.

Now, now I do things just a little differently. In rereading the literature I kept coming across people who use the thesis of conspiracism as a reason to reject the claim belief in conspiracy theories can ever be rational; as such I now deal to the pejorative sense of what is a “conspiracy theory” by arguing firstly that any definition which uses conspiracism as a base begs the question of whether specific conspiracy theories can ever be rational to believe and then I deal with the specific issues to do with whether the other pejorative sense, that such theories are about sinister, institutional activities is the right gloss on the concept.

Which is to say that I run an argument like this: When we talk about conspiracy theories in the pejorative sense we are either talking about them being prima facie irrational beliefs for agents to hold or we are claiming that these theories refer to sinister states of affairs. I think both pejorative senses mischaracterise the debate about the warrant of conspiracy theories and need addressing.

This was all well and good, but in order to make my argument I ended up rewriting chapter 2 such that it was a eleven thousand word monstrosity. That was far too long as ideally I’d like my chapters to zip along and be no more than, say, six thousand words ((Which I take it is a nice length the average reader will feel comfortable reading in one chunk.)).

So, I cut it in twain.

I’m declaring this to be a victory at this early stage, but part of me thinks it might be a bad idea. In structural terms, this means that it will take three chapters to get to the meat of the book, the sections where I stop copiously quoting people and actually express my own arguments unaided. In a thesis this wouldn’t be an issue, because theses are basically the long form academic equivalent of showing your working; you are expected to labour the point you’ve read everything and know everyone’s opinion inside and out. In a book… Well, as I said, part of me is dubious. It seems so very “student wanting to show the marker they did the requisite reading”.

Yet another part of me says “Screw that other part of you!” Although I don’t make this claim in any form of strong language in the book thus far I do think the existing academic literature on conspiracy theories is confused (in that individual theorists might very well have consistent and coherent views of their own, but those views often don’t fit together well with other theorists, even ones they claim to agree with). As such, a bit of heavy lifting in the first part of the book seems necessary just so I can set the stage for the analysis in the subsequent sections.

Which then brings me to the point I both do and don’t want to be at.

The best way for me to test whether chapters 2 and 3 are any good would be to give said chapters to someone to read (I have someone in mind) and that scares me a bit. The chapters now express the kind of arguments I want to give and I’m fairly happy with how said arguments progress. The writing style is still not exactly settled and some of the prose is a little awkward; in truth, I’m worried about sending these new words of mine out into the wider world where maybe they get savaged.

Which is a weird fear, given that once the book is out, I’m not going to be able to control in any way who gets to read it and who gets to review it.

Anyway, that’s my update. I’ve split a chapter in two and now I’ve got to see if the new content works. I’ll (probably) let you know how that goes.

From time to time people come to this site to learn more about the North Head Tunnels Conspiracy Theory. So, here’s an update from Martin Butler, whose book “Tunnel Vision” I partially reviewed last year:

I understood that the highly controversial content of ‘Tunnel Vision’ would solicit a negative reaction in some quarters. In fact I openly provided the book for review and comment in the hope that it might also draw out people who had something more to share. After 14 months since the book launch, much to my surprise, there were only three negative results. Quite amazing really.

The first was a Herald Newspaper book review that said that ‘Tunnel Vision’ provided no new information apart from the potential Chemical Weapons aspect. Of course the nameless (but very knowledgeable) reviewer was mistaken. The story of North Head’s history pertaining to the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the first Boeing aircraft has never been published before. As such it is all new information. In toto the nameless critic was so scathing about my poorly written and amateurishly produced book as to ensure nobody would pick it off the rack for an interesting read. The message was clear, I had pushed someones button and the writing of books should be left to professionals, – historians and archeologists perhaps?

The next was an online review, and once again it was an anonymous reviewer – GL.

http://www.archaeopedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Tunnel_Vision_-_Unearthing_the_Secrets_of_North_Head

He stated: ‘What is lacking here is a credible discussion of WW2 munitions storage in Auckland or the relationship between naval and army use of the North Head site. Some of the recollections of a tunnel large enough to drive into could well be confusing the later tunnels at the Devonport Naval Base, but these are not discussed either.,’

Excellent! I found this article to be rather positive overall, however, I was investigating North Head and did not really want to go down the ‘Tricks of memory’ path again (with the Devonport Naval Tunnel angle). However, I fully admit that perhaps there was a ‘historical hole’ that the original ‘Tunnel Vision’ did not address – that of North Head’s role during World War Two. I have since undertaken some further ‘research’ on this topic and the results are quite astounding, but more on that at a later date.

The third review was from Matthew Dentith, a ‘professional’ friend of David Veart (DOCs 1992-94 Chief Investigator). Mathew lectures on conspiracy theories at the University of Auckland and according to a conversation with him, he would regularly take his students to North Head to meet with David Veart. A tour of the known tunnels would validate his lectures and explain how all those eyewitnesses (the same 200-300 people who came forward around the time of the Earnshaw Court Case and specifically the 60 eye-witness affidavits) were mistaken. No doubt under more intellectual terms than ‘tricks of memory, lapses of memory or contamination of memory’.

It is quite interesting to note that Matthew admitted to me that ‘Tunnel Vision’ was the first time he had seen many of the eyewitness accounts – amazing. Yet in his article I am academically slain on the basis that I am neither an archaeologist, historian, a lecturer on conspiracy theory or a member of the judiciary.

Overall my assessment of Matthews article is that it qualifies as an unsubstantiated academic rant, possibly written after a few drinks when he was a little episto. I am sure you will enjoy reading it.

https://www.mrxdentith.com/allembracing/allembracing/2012/08/08/a-tale-of-two-conspiracies/

All in all, Matthew’s overall involvement and stinging attack on my ‘vanity-pressed historical account’ make his ‘professional’ opinion abundantly clear – unlike his motive for writing the comment in the first place. Which I suggest is more to do with the defence of his North Head lecturing over a number of years and his friendship with David Veart. Certainly there is nothing of value I could take from his article other than a lesson on intellectual arrogance. Whilst my ‘research’ techniques clearly do not conform to the accepted practices of Matthew Dentith (University of Auckland) or presumably David Veart (DOC) as neither of these gentlemen have managed to find a single tunnel at North Head, I am quite content to rely on the cognitive skills learnt in my own profession – related to critical thinking, judgment and decision making.

However, Matthew Dentith is correct when he begrudgingly states ‘Butler’s claims are, at the very least, theoretically testable. If certain new evidence came to light it could confirm or refute his view.’

Indeed! Certain new evidence would validate my view particularly in regard to the conduct of previous investigations. If just one tunnel were to be found, it would also call into question the credibility of Dentith’s (University of Auckland) conspiracy lecture course and its critical thinking model. However, unlike David Veart and possibly Matthew Dentith’s lecturing, I have never made any ‘claims’. On the contrary, I have assessed all the evidence available from what I dare to call ‘research’ and derived some logical possibilities. Those possibilities have then been applied to the Ockham’s razor principle (to quote David Veart). This principle endorses the analogy that if it ‘looks like a duck, walks like a duck and squawks like a duck’ then it is probably – a duck!

Based on that ‘duck’, I have invested my time and money with the intention of properly concluding the investigation of North Head. This involves keeping an open mind and using technology such as ground radar, photographic evidence and further ‘research’ to validate or reject various possibilities. My non-academic sanctioned technique, has never (in my opinion) been objectively used in any of the previous investigations of North Head. As a result of this technique, I have now reached the final test phase of my ‘research’ and wish to prove or disprove whether ‘forgotten’ tunnels exist at North Head.

However, given that I am an amateur, perhaps I am fortunate that this was the sum total of the individual criticism I have received. The next area is the level of ‘Official’ resistance. It came as no surprise that because ‘Tunnel Vision’ was attacking the ‘Official’ version of events surrounding the history of North Head from 1875 up until the present day, there would be ‘official’ resistance. Indeed the sustained, negative and unhelpful reaction from the Military, DOC, Government Ministers and the Historic Places Trust has been exactly as anticipated. All of these Government organisations continue to hide behind the ‘Official’ version of events as found by Judge Elias as a result of the Earnshaw Court-case. They have no wish to review the new information contained in Tunnel Vision, despite the possibility that the ‘Official’ version of events may be fundamentally flawed by undue reliance placed upon DOC’s 1992-94 investigation – that did not find any ‘forgotten’ tunnels.

The question that remains in respect to the level of ‘Official’ resistance encountered is – why? Surely – if there is nothing to hide – there is nothing to fear? This quote has been used extensively of late in regard to the GCSB Bill. Yet, the Government Departments mentioned earlier have all acted as though they have something to fear by not helping my investigation. Therefore, one must ask, – what are they hiding? Why not simply allow me to prove there are no ‘forgotten’ tunnels at North Head.

That said, after the trail of wreckage from previous attempts to gain DOC’s support (see earlier posts), my latest agreement with DOC now clearly defines a way forward albeit with a number of provisos. This includes an application document to the Historic Places Trust with substantive justification for my independent ‘archaeological’ investigation of North Head. Another essential component of my application is to gain the support of the local Iwi.

Also, if any new archaeological investigation of North Head is to succeed it will need to be based on compelling information that ‘forgotten’ tunnels may exist. Effectively I need to provide quantifiable data that will satisfy all the parties involved that a new investigation is warranted.

Clearly the first edition of ‘Tunnel Vision’ was not powerful enough in this regard, either that or DOC and Historic Places Trust professionals were unable or unwilling to apply their critical thinking skills to assess the new ‘balance of probability’ for themselves. Therefore my next attempt at obtaining Historic Places Trust (HPT) approval for an archaeological investigation of North Head will be multi-pronged.

In the next month or two a second edition of ‘Tunnel Vision’ will be released detailing the results of my further ‘investigation’, and showing even more compelling ‘anomalies’ at North Head as will be reflected in the final HPT application document. It will also address the role of North Head during World War Two and look at how that information interrelates with eyewitness accounts.

DOC’s support is required for my application with the Historic Places Trust as they are the caretakers of North Head. Indeed, DOC is in a difficult position. After the previous categorical statements by DOC to the public, if I can now prove just one ‘forgotten’ tunnel exists at North Head – this will be enough to destroy the testimony of all the (Earnshaw Court case) ‘expert’ DOC witnesses. It may also open up another new improved version of Pandora’s box.

As previously described my relationship with DOC to date has been ‘difficult’. This may be because they are defensive of their previous 1992-94 investigation of North Head and the status of current employees. However, their Chief Investigator during that investigation, David Veart, retired from DOC in February this year. As an organisation one can only hope that they will now seize the opportunity to review their management of my ‘Tunnel Vision’ application. They now have a fresh opportunity to put the past behind them and to prove that they can be impartial and objective. Clearly, they need to provide another archaeologist to review my application, a situation and process that was previously agreed – but then reneged upon. Either way, with my new DOC agreement in place one must assume that they will now act in good faith. Lets hope that is the case.

Clearly, because of the level of ‘Official’ resistance to date, it has taken an inordinate amount of time to line up a number of other backup ‘ducks’ as well. I had hoped I would be ready to proceed by now. However, whilst circumstance has meant some delay, I am now confident that the new evidence amassed since the first edition of ‘Tunnel Vision’ will ensure the success of my next HPT application. Indeed, the new evidence I have gathered is quite convincing, so much so that perhaps I will call the next edition of ‘Tunnel Vision’ – ‘I know you know I know’ (Kim DotCom)

Thank you for visiting this site and your continuing support. The great response I continue to receive on an almost daily basis and the comments by such people as Sir Richard Bolt, far outweigh the self serving attitudes of those hiding behind the facade of academia and ‘officialdum’.

Martin

This update has reminded me that I need to finish that review and post it ASAP.

Special thanks to Lee Basham for a incredibly useful email which made it clear that I hadn’t quite explained myself clearly here. As such, I’ve added in a few new sentences. Also, I really need to stop using the phrase “as such” as commonly as I do.

Two years ago I was engaged in a debate with a supervisor about my non-pejorative definition of “conspiracy theorist.” Typically, in political discourse, calling someone a “conspiracy theorist” is akin to calling them stupid or paranoid and whilst my supervisor agreed with my argument that the term shouldn’t have that implication, he wanted to somehow preserve that intuition by introducing a new term, the “conspired world theorist”.

I was never particularly taken with conspired world theorist, in part because it’s a little clumsy on the tongue but mostly because I had a nagging feeling we were trying to name something unnecessarily. I couldn’t help but think “No, there’s a term for this already.”

There is. It’s “conspiracist”, someone who subscribes to the thesis of conspiracism, a tendency to see conspiracies where there are none.

Why did I miss this/not pick this up? Well, for one thing, it’s a term which isn’t used much in the philosophical literature on conspiracy theories. For another, it’s a term (well, a set of terms) which is used very inconsistently in the wider literature.

Let me explain. I define a conspiracy theorist as “anyone who believes some conspiracy theory” and I define a conspiracy theory as “any explanation of an event which cites a conspiracy as a salient cause”.

Both of these definitions are general and non-pejorative: there is nothing in the definitions which marks out conspiracy theories or theorists as being irrational. As such, whilst I think belief in specific conspiracy theories can be irrational if there is no evidence which satisfies the inference to the existence of a conspiracy or there is insufficient reason to think that the conspiracy is the best explanation of the event on offer, I do not think we should build pejorative implications into the definitions of either conspiracy theory or conspiracy theorist.

A conspiracist, then, on my view, is someone who sees a conspiracy where there is none (and is, thus, a subscriber to the thesis of conspiracism). ((More properly, a conspiracist is someone who sees conspiracies where there is none; we should probably constrain conspiracism to a more general view.)) The thesis of Conspiracism is a psychological one (well, a folk psychological one), in that the accusation one is a conspiracist is the claim that the conspiracy theorist in question has a tendency to believe in or see conspiracies despite a lack of evidence. Conspiracists, then, are pathological conspiracy theorists and, as such, are a subset of the very general class. Whilst every conspiracist is a conspiracy theorist not every conspiracy theorist is a conspiracist.

Now, the problem as I see it is that many academics associate any belief in conspiracy theories with the folk-psychological thesis of conspiracism. Under that view, all conspiracy theorists are conspiracists and as all conspiracists are irrational (as the definition of conspiracism entails), it turns out that all conspiracy theorists are irrational.

Clearly, I don’t hold to that view and I provide, in the thesis and in the forthcoming book, arguments as to why I don’t think this construal does us any favours. However, my worry at the moment is that the literature is confused and confusing: it is not always clear which terms are in use. For example, several writers define conspiracy theorising in conspiracist terms without ever using the terms “conspiracist” or “conspiracism”. Some theorists defending belief in conspiracy theories co-opt conspiracist definitions from elsewhere because they have failed to notice that when writer X talks about conspiracy theorists they actually defined belief in conspiracy theories as conspiracist (and so they end up undermining their own arguments).

Annoying? Yes.

I am trying to both disentangle the literature and advance an argument which stipulates that we should use these terms carefully. However, as I keep finding, the nested nature of the definitions that are play keep tripping me up. I’ll find a quote which I think advances my argument, check its references and then sigh heavily because somewhere a term has slipped meaning.

Which is why it has taken nearly two weeks to write what will be, at most a 1,500 word section.

Back to the grindstone.

Have you ever read a PhD dissertation? For fun, rather than profit, say? As pieces of written work, PhDs are not pretty or elegant. At best, a PhD dissertation can be succinct. At worst, perfunctory. Actually, I suspect at worst they can be largely unreadable (where “at worst” I am referring to something which qualified the candidate to graduate), but let’s be kind and not cruel to those poor souls who have suffered through the last six weeks of completing a PhD. Frankly, if towards the end of writing a PhD someone can produce a sequence of words which obeys some cousin of grammar, well, that’s a triumph!

PhDs are readable in the same way a good instruction manual is. It’s a form of writing that both tells you what you want to know (and doesn’t linger on irrelevant details) and one that screams out “Give me a PhD! I’m bloody brilliant! And also slightly anxious that everyone is going to work out I’m a fraud…”

You wouldn’t buy an instruction manual, though, would you? Not for the sheer pleasure of reading it. ((I realise that, having typed this, it will turn out at least one of you enjoys the genre of the “instructional manual”. I apologise, but that’s very sad.)) In the same respect, you don’t tend to choose to read a PhD unless you really have to. This, I believe, is one of the reasons many publishing houses reject “thesis conversions”: the amount of work required to make a dissertation readable is…

Well, it’s more than I expected.

Sounds like whinging, doesn’t it? Poor me and my book contract. Wah! And it is whinging, but it’s interesting whinging (well, that’s my gloss on it), because there’s a lesson to be learnt about rewriting a PhD that I’m just not getting.

Hopefully by writing about it, I’ll get around to taking my own advice.

My PhD, “In defence of conspiracy theories” is a coherent argument, written in a style which, although readable, is perfunctory. The forthcoming book, “The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories” needs to be bright, it needs to be cheery and it needs to breezy (as well as coherent and well-argued). It will have the same basic structure as the dissertation upon which it is based, but with the added luxury of fifteen thousand more words. Most of the new material is new and novel content–the kind of thing which, if I wasn’t writing a book, I’d be writing up as articles. ((I’m still likely to write some of it up as articles, since the new material will be quite sketchy in the book. Hurrah for academic foreshadowing.))

Currently I am tinkering with the inherited prose from my PhD. Sometimes this works: there are a lot of redundant paragraphs in “In defence of conspiracy theories” and I must admit to, on occasion, describing an issue in excruciating detail. The downside to this approach is, though, that most days I will spend three or four hours hacking the PhD to pieces when more profit would have been had by writing an entirely new section covering the same points.

Think of the issue this way (I keep trying to tell myself): the dissertation was written in thesis-speak–a perfunctory, award-me-a-PhD style of writing–and converting thesis-speak into (possibly award winning) prose is like trying to turn an instruction manual into a novel.

At the moment elements of “The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories” reads like the Dan Brown version of academic writing.

The easiest way to avoid this trap would be (I keep telling myself) to write everything from scratch, following the general structure of the thesis, in a breezier style. But, psychologically-speaking, this is hard. I mean, I already have tens of thousands of pre-written material. Why wouldn’t I want to reuse those?

Why would I want to jettison my children into the cold, hard vacuum of space?

Well, because those words are awkward, that’s why. They look especially out of place compared to the newly written sections. I keep telling myself “Rewrite! Rewrite! Rewrite!” and yet I can’t stomach the thought of throwing away sentences I (in some cases literally) cried over.

This really is a problem.

New studies: ‘Conspiracy theorists’ sane; government dupes crazy, hostile claims Dr. Kevin Barrett of PressTV.

You may have seen the link on Facebook or Twitter. Maybe someone sent you the article via e-mail. Whatever the case, the title of that article is just the first misleading thing about it.

As regular readers should know, and as new readers might want to trawl the archives to find out, I don’t think conspiracy theorists (defined here as someone who believes some conspiracy theory) are necessarily insane or irrational. ((Some will be, because under my general definition almost everyone is a conspiracy theorist of some stripe and as a sub-section of the general population is either insane or irrational, that should be reflected in the population of conspiracy theorists as well.)) I’ve argued for this position in my thesis and I’m arguing for it again in my forthcoming book (which I should be writing en lieu of working on this piece). However, nothing irritates me more than a bad argument in support of a position I agree with, and the PressTV piece is not just a bad argument, it’s also dishonest.

The gist of Kevin Barrett’s piece is this:

Recent studies by psychologists and social scientists in the US and UK suggest that contrary to mainstream media stereotypes, those labeled “conspiracy theorists” appear to be saner than those who accept the official versions of contested events.

and the piece he seems to relying upon to make this claim is the easily downloaded (and almost as easily read) “What about Building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories” by Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas.

Barrett argues that Wood and Douglas claim conspiracy theorists are saner than conventionalists (holders of official, non-conspiratorial rival theories) and that as conspiracy theorists out-number conventionalists in online discussions, conventionalist theses are on the wane. According to Barrett:

That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority.

and:

Perhaps because their supposedly mainstream views no longer represent the majority, the anti-conspiracy commenters often displayed anger and hostility: “The research… showed that people who favoured the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile when trying to persuade their rivals.”

There’s a problem with this: Barrett’s description of the central argument of “What about Building 7?” is inaccurate and misleading. Indeed, I suspect he has selectively quoted them to score points against skeptics of, say, the 9/11 Truth Movement. Here are a few choice cuts from “What about Building 7?” which call into question Barrett’s construal of their argument:

“Since 9/11 conspiracy theories are (at least in the West) an opinion held by a vocal minority attempting to effect change…” (p. 3)

According to Wood and Douglas, 9/11 conspiracy theorists (the group they were investigating) are merely a vocal minority. The claim that conventionalists are outnumbered by such Truthers, which Barrett makes much of, comes from the description of the sample: Douglas and Woods were looking at online discussions about 9/11 conspiracy theories, and it turned out that conspiracy theorists outnumbered conventionalists in these discussions. This doesn’t tell us anything about the general population of conspiracy theorists vs. conventionalists. It also doesn’t tell us anything about the rationality of either view.

Woods and Douglas define conspiracy theorists with respect to the thesis of conspiracism, which they characterise thusly:

One particularly important element of the conspiracist worldview is thought to be a generalized opposition to official or received narratives. In this view, conspiracy belief is not about believing in particular alternative theories, but in disbelieving in whatever the official story is. (p. 2)

and:

Likewise, conspiracy theory belief appears to be more of a negative belief than a positive one—it is more concerned with saying what the cause of a condition or event was not (i.e., whatever the official explanation is) than with putting forward a specific alternative account. (p. 2)

As such, any claim that conspiracy theorists are sane or rational with respect to the views of conventionalists (Barrett’s interpretation of “What about Building 7?”) needs to take into account Woods and Douglas’s less than charitable characterisation of conspiracy theorists. Indeed, with respect to 9/11 Truthers, they have this to say:

“This pattern of results [we got from our investigation into online discussions about conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11] supports the idea that conspiracy theories have their basis more in opposition to officialdom than in beliefs in specific alternative theories. For the adherents of the 9/11 Truth Movement examined here, the search for truth consists mostly of finding ways in which the official story cannot be true. There is much less of a focus on defending coherent explanations that can better account for the available evidence.” (p. 7)

Wood and Douglas are not arguing that conspiracy theorists are sane; rather, they are arguing that conspiracy theorists seem to be more interested in calling into question conventionalist narratives than they are in advancing support for their conspiracy theories. If this is a definition of sanity for Barrett, then he has a problem: calling into question rival accounts is all good and proper, but Woods and Douglas do not claim that the 9/11 conspiracy theorists are successful in calling into question such accounts. All they are claiming is that this is what conspiracy theorists (well, the conspiracy theorists that constituted their sample) do. Woods and Douglas’s thesis is perfectly congruent with, say, Karl Popper’s “conspiracy theory of society” or Richard Hofstadter’s “paranoid style”: the conspiracy theorists might well just be irrational in their suspicion of both conventionalist-qua-official theories and the evidence advanced for them.

What Wood and Douglas found interesting about their sample (and what I think Barrett is using to advance his peculiar interpretation that conspiracy theorists are sane and conventionalists are dupes) is that conventionalists ended up being more vitriolic towards the conspiracy theorists than the authors expected. Once again, this “surprising vitriol” doesn’t tell us much about the rationality of either view ((Although this finding fits in with the thesis that Skeptics tend to be cocks. Sorry, skeptics, but you often are when it comes to online discussions.)).

There is literature out there which supports the notion that conspiracy theorising is a rational response to the kind of world we live in, and that conspiracy theories are not necessarily reflective of Richard Hofstadter’s “paranoid style”. “What about Building 7?” is not one of those pieces. Barrett’s usage of it to advance his own “government dupes are crazy, yo!” thesis is, then, either a case of him failing to read the article fully or (mind now set in conspiratorial mode) Barrett (like a number of holders of radical alternative explanations) deliberately misrepresenting “What about Building 7?” in the hope no one else would bother to check his sources. Either way, Barrett has some explaining to do.