Category: General

Worst Conspiracy Theory Ever

Well, possibly not, but Poneke, who swallows all the codswallop when it comes to Conspiracy Theories concerning Anthropogenic Climate Change, has suggested that there is a Conspiracy on the part of the Science Media Centre (who run SciBlogs) to increase their site hits by attacking Anthropogenic Climate Change Skeptics like Poneke ((He points to two particular posts, one by Grant Jacobs and the other by Ken Perrott, as exemplars of the conspiratorial machinations of the SMC and its SciBlogs.)).

I draw your attention to this for two reasons.

The first is that Poneke’s post really does look like a typical example of the kind of persecution complex many Conspiracy Theorists express when they get criticised for, in many cases, presenting overwrought, bad, arguments in favour of their position. Rather than admit that their reasoning might be specious they resort to inferring the real reason for criticism is that the critics are conspiring against them.

The second reason is that if it turns out Poneke is right, then I’d like in on that SMC action; if criticising Poneke is going to get me some hits, then add me to the Conspiracy, guys. I mean, as we saw with the ‘robust’ commentary here during my ‘flirtation’ with the 9/11 Truth Movement, I’m either a dupe to the Conspiracy or a participating member of it. Now, I’m fairly sure I was neither in regards to 9/11; I was just arguing from the evidence and looking at the inferences, and one result of that, not one I intended, was a fairly good increase in site hits over the fortnight. However, those ‘fans’ ((Really must stop using air quotes.)) have gone away and the comment threads are all empty again.

So, mysterious Conspirators of Climate Change, let me in! ((Actually, maybe I am already in on it; I have been given a tentative invitation to join the SciBlog team in the ‘second wave,’ which all rather sounds like maybe I am a potential shill for the Conspiracy after all.)) Or don’t. Either way, no matter what you do, certain Conspiracy Theorists will take that as proof positive something is up.

01/20/2010

Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

I’ve been there before.

So, on the 22nd of February I will be attending a workshop entitled ‘The Political and Social Impact of Rumours’ at the Centre of Excellence for National Security at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.

I’m giving an updated version of the Rumour paper from several AAPs ago, entitled “Have You Heard? The Rumour as Reliable.” ((Abstract: We have all heard Rumours. Some of us have even suffered because of them, often because they revealed something personal that we did not want to be publicly known or disseminated. Drawing on recent work by philosophers CAJ Coady and David Coady I will develop a theory which exploits the distinction between Rumours and Rumour-mongering. Whilst it seems true to think that mere Rumour-mongering, the act of passing on a Rumour maliciously, presents what can be called a ‘pathology’ of the normally reliable transmission of beliefs (which is usually associated with Testimony) I will argue that Rumours themselves have a reliable transmission process and thus can be examples of justified beliefs.

This analysis will then feed into a discussion of Conspiracy Theories, which share many salient features with Rumours but, quite often, must be contrasted with their non-conspiratorial, rival, theories. I will argue that whilst Rumours are reliable (as a mechanism for the transmission of justified beliefs) Conspiracy Theories are prima facie unreliable because of these rival, non-conspiratorial, theories.))

Because it is an updated paper I’m weirdly non-plussed about giving it (well, more so than usual) and I should be, if not concerned, a bit excited. This is a multi-disciplinary workshop, which means I’ll have to persuade non-philosophers as to my argument that we should treat Rumours as reliable, and I’ve been invited to attend, so presumably someone thinks sufficiently of me to want to get me to Singapore for a day ((If I were a Conspiracy Theorist I’d be concerned as to what that might mean.)).

It also means I’ve got very little to say about the paper at this moment in time. Whilst it is a keystone of the thesis (well, I think it is) and it provides me with a little project to work on post the thesis, I haven’t really been over the material in any depth for about a year. I need to start looking over it again and make it a little non-philosopher friendly.

Which is very much a task for a tomorrow. This is a very boring post, isn’t it? I’m not very exciting at the moment; I’m all about the thesis rewriting and not about the frolics.

Except for tomorrow; I’m going to the beach!

01/19/2010

An Update on the Thesis

This week has been all about getting the rough draft of the thesis into some semblance of a final product.

It has been a rather productive affair.

LaTeX has some rather useful features, most of which I’ve not been using. Cross-referencing, the use of the \include command, automagical page numbering… Now, given that this is the final year, these are the kind of things that it would be useful to start inputting now so as to save me time and effort in three months time. Luckily, I’ve been somewhat aware of this need for the last two years, so I’ve been marking what needs to cross-references to what. Still, that was a lazy solution; to paraphrase Wodehouse, it would have been the work of a moment to have done it properly from the beginning.

Mostly, though, I’ve been rewriting. Last week it was chapter 2, which presents my definition of that most amorphous of things, the conspiracy theory. The original chapter. written about two years ago, turned out to be almost risibly out of touch with subsequent chapters; issues I thought would be important at the time have turned out not to be. For example, I thought I would make a lot out of the distinction between ‘narrow’ and ‘wide’ notions of the endgoal of conspiracy theories, but it turns out one of my footnotes was right; it’s just a definitional game that really ends up doing the discourse no favours.

Which brings me to this week. Chapter 2 used to be chapter 3, but the original chapters 1 and 2 seem to do almost exactly the same job. I need to unify them.

Which may well be the best thing ever. At the moment I have 94,000 words in my thesis and it’s not meant to be any more than 100,000. I’ve not written the final chapter or the conclusion, so I need to start finding things to cull. Two introductions is a good place to start, but I’m going to need more. Luckily, that chapter on the transmission of conspiracy theories has a lot of dead wood in it.

More news as it comes to hand.

01/17/2010

My name in pixels

One of his coleagues in this campaing is Matthew Dentith who runs a radio program called the Dentith Files which exists to lampoon conspiracy theories. Dentith is undertaking his PhD with Auckland University, his thesis subject being the debunking of conspiracy theory. Dentith provides Hamilton with a platform to expound his own ‘nazi conspiracy’ theory.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world of Metapedia, the Wikipedia for the Far, Occult-obsessed, Right. Whilst I don’t get an entry all to my own, I do feature in Scott Hamilton’s entry; obviously I must try harder.

My comrade and I spent a goodly portion of last night following links like two Conspiracy Theorists following the money, but our search did not produce fruit. “Dr.” Kerry Bolton, who gets a glowing write-up, seems a most distinguished fellow. Apparently he got a PhD in Historical Theology in 2006 and another PhD in Theology in 2007. As someone who is writing a PhD I’m very envious; I can’t imagine writing one in two years, let alone one a year.

But, and this is odd, no one seems to know which accrediting institution awarded these higher level qualifications.

And the peer-reviewed journal he has submitted work to… Doesn’t Patrick Boch remind you of a young H. P. Lovecraft?

01/15/2010

Conferencing

In what can only be called a piece of ecological terrorism, I am going to Singapore for a day to attend a conference on the status of Rumours. I will spend more time travelling than talking and part of me thinks this is very bad for the planet.

I’ll post details about the conference, the paper and suchlike tomorrow, when I’ve managed to convince myself that the desecration of the planet is a worthy price to pay for my paper on the epistemology of Rumours.

01/13/2010

From Plausible to Denial

The internet is rife with lists; if I had a top ten list for every top ten list I’ve seen posted about this that and the other I’d have to have a top ten of the top ten of the top ten… You can see where I might be going with this.

One of my favourite kind of lists is the ‘Everyone should know…’ variety, and Conspiracy Theorists have these in spades. This one is kind of great; it starts off with historical instances of people conspiring and slowly gets into fantasy land, hoping that the reader will not be astute enough to realise that some of the claims being made are rather speculative in nature.

I should point out, it starts off with some overstated cases, but that’s, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, peanuts to where it ends up going. Thoughts and feelings in the comments; the cupboard, if you will excuse the analogy, is looking a bit bare and needs re-stocking.

01/11/2010