TAM London is now over, and I’ll write up a longer post about it soon; I’m visiting friends now and trying to decompress after a wonderful, wonderful weekend of concentrated skepticism.
But for now, take a look at a very nice article about the JREF and TAM London over at the BBC website. It’s nice to see someone who actually gets it writing for a major media outlet; we in the critical thinking business rarely get a fair shake.
Of course, not everyone likes the article. A rebuttal, of sorts, has been posted on the Alex Jones website — a well-known haven for, um, some of the more wacky ideas and conspiracy theories out there — which takes a dim view of the BBC write-up. The author, Steve Watson, is unhappy about the idea that 9/11 "truthers" are lumped in with Moon landing deniers and other people whose grasp on reality is tenuous at best, and makes a series of logical fallacy howlers as "evidence". For example, he cherry picks from the TAM London speakers list and then uses hyperbole to make it sound like we had a bunch of lightweights, but somehow he forgot to mention we had folks like Brian Cox, Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre, Ariane Sherine — scientists (including me), journalists, and many other talented and intelligent individuals there.
And that’s just one of many others. Take a look at the article and see if you can collect ‘em all!
But that ridiculous article highlights the exact reason we need more skeptics, more critical thinkers, and more people who are able and willing to examine evidence of claims: we need to let others know when those claims fall short.
In other words, we need more meetings like TAM Vegas and TAM London. And we’ll have ‘em, because the Alex Joneses and Steve Watsons of the world are out there — sometimes, really Out There — and their words need to have the light of reason shine down on them.
October 7th, 2009 at 8:22 am
BBC article was fantastic, the article on the Alex Jones website was laughable.
Some people thrive on conspiracy, even in the face of outright logic. It must be a much more exciting world to be blinded by disinformation!
October 7th, 2009 at 8:57 am
It smacks of a lot of “I’m ok, it’s everyone elses conspiracy theories that are nuts”.
Though the funniest bit is where he accuses the “non profit JREF” of shockingly charging people money to attend its event because obviously if it is non profit everything is free!
October 7th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Gotta love the quotes around “non profit” one the Jones site. So Phil exactly how rich as JREF made you?
October 7th, 2009 at 9:25 am
I see Alex Jones is still hung up on on burning jet fuel and collapsing buildings. *sigh*
The comments are really great though. You can really judge people on how they write their comments. Most here are well worded, accurate grammar, sources are cited, etc. There, they are just rants and filled with errors both spelling and grammatical. Even incorrectly used the word ‘plain’ rather than ‘plane’ in the actual article. Nice going!
Ok, Phil, don’t let us down. Make sure you re-read your posts ten times before submitting.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:11 am
From the BBC Magazine article:
Before the days of the Internet, a conspiracy theory nutter would often be seen ranting and raving on a Sunday morning at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, London, and his only audience would be a drunken bum, two shagged-out whores (after a long night), and three or four snotty street urchins. Whereas now, with the Internet, that same goddamn nutter can get an audience of millions of like-minded nutters!
October 7th, 2009 at 10:20 am
@IVAN3MAN
What, no pigeons in the audience?
October 7th, 2009 at 10:29 am
@ Todd W.,
Even pigeons have the sense to not hang around if there’s no food about!
P.S. Well, maybe just a couple of pigeons in the tree above the speaker, waiting for the right opportunity to crap on his head.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Yes, perhaps Mr. Watson can convince the Mermaid Center in downtown London to let us use their 600 seat venue for free instead of the many tens of thousands of dollars it usually costs, and to have speakers pay their own way there, and to have the printer make us brochures at no cost.
But of course, that would take effort, and given that Steve Watson couldn’t even be bothered to click on Google to look up what “non profit” means, I’m guessing that’s well beyond what he’s willing to do. Real research? Bah!
October 7th, 2009 at 10:44 am
BAh, humbug, these nutsos do everyone who has ever lived a great disservice. Just think of all those ancestors, spinning in their graves, thinking”THIS is what I hoped would come after me???”
Keep up the work, Phil. For every voice that falls, ten more must be willing to take their place.
Peace,
GAry 7
October 7th, 2009 at 10:54 am
this is a very funny video of alex jones flipping out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhqUk28OwHs
October 7th, 2009 at 11:03 am
I read halfway through the comments on that site you linked to.
Man, I need a shower.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:13 am
That phrase just struck me as funny. Next there will be New Improved Ultra Concentrated Skepticism?
October 7th, 2009 at 11:32 am
My personal favourite is this little exchange:
“You guys are all nuts Says:
October 7th, 2009 at 12:20 am
The irony is you guys think you are the critical thinkers whilst actually blinkered into only being able to believe one thing – that there’s a conspiracy.
The worlds a mess, most people are trying their best to do the bestthey can but are frankly a bit rubbish, so bad stuff just happens. Deal with it. Don’t expect to find reasons and plans behind every corner, the worlds not like that. You are a small insignificant part of things, you haven’t unconvered something big and important, you are just wasting the little energy you have doing nothing constructive.
I don’t believe global warming because of media lies, I believe it due to logic and evidence. I don’t believe 9/11 wasn’t a conspiracy because of the media but because all alternative theories fail logically or are disproved directly by the evidence and a little rational thought. I don’t believe the moon landings happened just because of the media but also because the alternative conspiracy theories are logically flawed.
You all critisise others for ‘thinking they are so smart’ and yet seem to miss the irony.
Strum Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 1:13 am
Ad hominem attacks are not reasoned argument.
your comment has no factual content whatsoever.
Present me a link to the raw climate data that shows global i A) occuring at all and B due to CO2 content of atmosphere.
Explain the symmetry of the “collapse” of the 3 buildings.
You are obviously a shill, how much do they pay you?
Don’t you find it humiliating and draining, having to creatively defend lies day in day out,
to have to ignore the facts and continually focus on ways to distract, slander and obfuscate?
Sad loser, get a life, what will you tell your children when the truth finally becomes common knowledge?”
So “Ad hominem attacks are not reasoned argument.” but he’s allowed to call the author of the original comment a “sad loser” and tell him to “get a life”? It seems this “Strum” really doesn’t understand irony…
What a brilliant comment on the general two-faced-ness of the majority of the conspiracy nuts that required absolutely no effort to find. All I had to do was keep my eyes open, something a lot of people on that site apparently have trouble doing…
October 7th, 2009 at 11:36 am
lol their so dum!!!1!!one
October 7th, 2009 at 11:53 am
This Alex Jones fellow reminds me of the pundit from the movie V for Vendetta. His article reeks of vested interests and propaganda. The guy’s a damned idiot.
Also, kudos to the BBC for a very nice article about TAM London. I hope you guys had a great time! I’ll see the rest of you at TAM8 in Las Vegas.
One last note, the British spelling of “sceptic” still throws me off, even after reading two of Richard Dawkins’ books… this seems to be one area where Canada has opted for the American spelling. Or has it? I mean, I still spell words like colour, favourite, aluminium, etc. But I believe I was taught “skeptic” in school. I read “sceptic” and think of an underground sewer pipe or tank filled with nasty. Even if it is properly spelt “septic” …
English is confusing. Let’s all speak Esperanto.
As a final final note, this is interesting: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Septic
So a “septic” is an American? Why did my Aussie and Kiwi friends never let me in on that one? Hrmph. Okay, enough rambling.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Urgh, the comments on that website … first I was amused … then I just felt sorry for them … then I got a little scared.
Now I’m having fun watching how many different hilariously lame acronyms they can come up with for the “BBC”. Because “Surely everyone knows by now that the BBC stands for Broadcast By Communists?” is the peak of intelligence.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I’m not sure what ariane sherine was doing there given her views on conventional medicine.
I guess no-one’s told her that today’s skeptic movement requires that you subscribe to a set of dogmatic beliefs before joining the club.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
It’s always amusing when one species of kook objects to being compared with another species. The 9/11 kooks resent being lumped together with the moon kooks, and the moon kooks resent being lumped together with the 9/11 kooks.
It would be an interesting project to build up a “we’re not like them…” chart of woo-versus-woo repudiation.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
“Conspiracy theories predate the internet”.
I have to admit, this did make me laugh. What does this mean? Do they lie in wait, then pounce when the internet passes by, disemboweling it and devouring parts of it in great gulps? Oh, wait… actually maybe the lack of a hyphen was intentional
As for the Prison Planet article, my second reaction (after trying not to vomit) was to feel sorry for Glenn Hill, a very pleasant chap whose talk I thoroughly enjoyed and who was made out to be some kind of irrelevant time-filler; then I thought about it more deeply and realised that he’s doubtless the sort of stoical gent who would probably just laugh at insults from such sources. That doesn’t excuse such a blatant ad hominem attack on a single scapegoat though – talk about dirty tactics…
October 7th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
15. Mike Says: “English is confusing. Let’s all speak Esperanto.”
While I don’t speak it, I will admit to owning a copy of “Incubus.”
- Jack
October 7th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Conspiracy theories – watergate, iran contra, the gunpowder plot.
Just a load of woo if you ask me
October 7th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
@John
Sorry John, but I think you are confused. The examples you cite above are actual conspiracies that have been uncovered. They are conspiracy *facts*. As opposed to the various 9/11 conspiracy *theories*, not one of which has a single piece of verifiable evidence to support it.
Question for you: if only a handful of people were involved in those conspiracies which were actually exposed, how come in 8 years not one single whistle blower has come forward out of all the *thousands* of people who would have to have been involved in a plot to bring down the WTC with explosives? It’s not possible for so many people from so many walks of life to cover up the largest mass murder in American history.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
John, here’s an illustration of the difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy: A group of Muslim radicals trains for and implements a plan to simultaniously hijack and fly airplanes into several high profile targets.
If you’ll excuse the southparkism
*THIS IS WHAT 9/11 TRUTHERS ACTUALLY BELIEVE*
Conspiracy theory: The US Government (which is apparently a single unit) uses thousands of workers to weaken a buildings structure with thermite, in preparation to destroy it with a secret space laser that will cause a faster than freefall collapse of said buildings. It also causes 3 aircraft to magically disappear and replaces them with missiles, which were disguised either by holograms or hypnotism so that people on the ground will still see airplanes, which are fired at two large buildings and one other building containing many of the high level government officials managing this conspiracy. The missiles are fired merely to disguise the effects of the space laser. After the incident the leader of a radical muslim group claims responsibility, apparently so the US will have an excuse to attack another country unrelated to the whole incident, for no benefit to himself.
Oh, and for no reason at all they government also fakes a hijack of another plane and crashes it in the middle of nowhere.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
@steve in dublin
Good point, but unproved does not equal wrong.
If we group all conspiracy theorists together, we inevitably include some who beliefs are provable, that’s the problem.
Btw – you say thousands would have to have been involved in a plot to bring down the WTC with explosives, yet to do it with a couple of planes only took a few extremists? You serious?
October 7th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
@JT
The most convincing theory I heard was the first scenario with a certain amount of complicity and intelligence.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
How about this comment from the Jones’ site-
“Adding the word ‘theory’ after conspiracy is meant to discredit those who question the “accepted” versions of events.”
ARGH
Shows you the menality of the people we are dealing with here, and their understanding of ‘science’. As far as I know the conspiracy theorists themselves coined the term. A scientist would never have coin that term.
We have enough problems with “Evolution is just a theory”
October 7th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
@Rift
Evolution *is* a theory.
It just happens to be a very good one with the closest and bestest explanatory model of what we observe.
Lose that uncertainty and you’re no better than a religious believer.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
@John
Yes, I’m serious. In order for 9/11 to have been an ‘inside job’ in the way the conspiracy theorists conjecture that it happened, the entire Bush administration, the NYC fire department (who lost 300 brave men), the NYC police department, the FBI, the CIA, FEMA, United Airlines, American Airlines, and all those hundreds of highly trained demolitions experts who magically were able to plant the ginormous quantity of explosives required (and go completely undetected) … and hundreds more from many other organisations would all have to have been in on it. And not one has come forward to blow the whistle? Shyeah.
Oh, here we go. But there are tons and tons of verifiable evidence put forth in peer reviewed journals to back up evolution. Where is there even *one shred of peer reviewed evidence* to back up a 9/11 conspiracy theory? Hmm?
October 7th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
A few extremists, a few fully fueled planes, and a longstanding policy of “do what the hijacker says”. That last one is why a 9/11-style air attack won’t work again — it stopped working on 9/11 itself, after all, on Flight 93.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Sheesh John, I KNOW evolution is a theory, and fact. You seem to have missed the ‘just’ part and misquoted me.
You haven’t been around here dealing with the creationists or IDers much have you?
I thought I made it clear in my post I was talking about the scientific definition of the word ‘theory’ (explanation) and not the colloquial use (hunch). Evolution is a theory, a very good one, there is no ‘just’ about it. So is gravity, germ theory (don’t forget to wash your hands) and a round earth(or oblate spheroid, but we can’t make ball bearings as round as the earth is) theory.
Which goes with what Steve is saying. We have evidence for or against something. We don’t just buy what the media tells us. Or what anybody tells us. We read peer reviewed journals, look up the facts, look at ALL the evidence.
Every time somebody calls me a ‘sheeple’ i have this warm fuzzy feeling because I know i’ve done my homework 1000 times better than they have and a they have to resort to Ad Homs.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
@Steve in Dublin
Quite, it would take all of that to ensure success. But dont the conspiracy theorists believe something similar about the existing story?
Oh and im not arguing against evolution. But it could well turn out to be an emergent behaviour that gets superceded by a more encompassing theory in the same way newtonian physics did. In that respect we should keep an open mind.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
But whatever supplants evolution, if anything, will have evolution at its core, just like Newtonian physics is at the core of modern physics. And it will have to explain why evolution theory is so correct as it stands now. There’s not much in evolution that needs ‘encompassing’. Newtonian Physics still is good enough to get us to Mars.
No need to keep your mind so open your brains fall out.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
@Rift
I can’t argue with any of that.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Aww, they splashed some vitriol Jon Ronson’s way. Oh, and you have officially been outed as the organizer of Tam London Phil… so maybe we will see Mr. Jones plug you into some larger conspiracy. I can’t wait. It would be like seeing you on TV, only funnier.
October 7th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
It is a valid point that not all of the five conspiracy theories mentioned by the BBC are equally implausible. Personally, I’d rate WTC, Pentagon and Apollo 11 as utterly implausible, Princess Diana as slightly plausible but unlikely, and Kennedy as plausible but we’ll probably never know one way or another. For me, the size of the required conspiracy is an important influence on my assessment of it.
October 7th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Wow!
This is quite a concentration of people who don’t know how to research.
Go read, and try to debunk Charlie Sheen’s 20 minutes with the President. Address all 20 points.
While you’re at it look up Niels Harrit’s article titled: ‘Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe’.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
TAM Asia
October 8th, 2009 at 5:32 am
TAM Pittsburgh.
You know you want to.
October 8th, 2009 at 6:07 am
John (17) said:
Damn, you’re so right!
Fancy we sceptics reserving membership only for people who believe that reality should have the final say in any argument or theory about, y’know, reality!! What could we have been thinking???
October 8th, 2009 at 6:26 am
Is there, or will there be, a TAM Australia?
October 8th, 2009 at 6:31 am
I think it’s odd how you purport to be on the side of critical thinking when in reality you’ve done in your post exactly what you accuse Steve Watson of doing in his article. That is, you cherry pick his article selectively ignoring links that suggest members of the 9/11 commission and family members of victims all have questions about the investigation that did occur. You also ignore references to architects, engineers, and physicists who are on record as desiring a new, impartial investigation, all so that you can conclude that the “Alex Joneses and Steve Watsons of the world are out there.”
Is it really ‘out there’ for me to wonder how a 47-story, over-designed steel-frame building (WTC7) could experience (according to NIST’s final report) 2.25 seconds – or 8 stories – of free-fall collapse into the path of most resistance? Is it ‘out there’ for me to wonder why the collapse of WTC7 is not even mentioned in the commission’s official report? Is it really ‘out there’ for me to wonder how multi-ton pieces of steel and how pieces of human bodies (no bigger than a shoe) were expelled vertically and then horizontally from the Twin Towers for distances as great as 200 yards (as demonstrated by David S. Chandler)? Is it really ‘out there’ for me to wonder how there was enough mass to create a ‘natural collapse’ in the towers when the visual evidence from the day shows much of the buildings’ mass (i.e., steel, cement) being expelled and pulverized during the collapses. Is it really ‘out there’ for me to question why an explanation that says “mass hit other mass in the collapse” should not have generated a collapse (based on the principle of conservation of momentum) that occurred in an accelerated fashion as it did? Is it really ‘out there’ for me to wonder how active nano-thermite (a highly engineered explosive) wound up in samples of dust from the collapses that were collected before clean-up efforts began? Is it really ‘out there’ for me to wonder why NYC officials tried to suppress reports from first responders who heard and experienced multiple explosions in the buildings prior to the collapses, until a FOIA by the New York Times made those reports public?
Do I know for sure what happened that day? No. Do I believe that a fair and impartial investigation into the day has occurred? No. Is it ‘out there’ for me to feel this way when I know that the Bush administration named Philip D. Zelikow executive director of the 9/11 Commission, a person who previously co-authored a book with one of the people who would be brought before the committee to testify (Condoleezza Rice)? Testimony, by the way, that the White House initially refused to allow in public until receiving pressure from relatives of 9/11 victims, commission members, and politicians (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/08/rice.transcript/). Does that sound like a fair and impartial process to you?
I really think you are on to something when you suggest that critical thinking is needed; I just don’t think you understand what that actually means.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:45 am
John (24) said:
True, when taken in isolation. However, the lack of evidence where your conspiracy theory predicts evidence must be is an indication that the proposed alternative (e.g. the postulation about US govt involvement in 9/11) is wrong.
Also, the lack of consistency of any given conspiracy theory with what we know about human nature is also a strong indicator that the conspiracy theory is wrong. For example, one incarnation of the moon-hoax theory requires that we believe approximately 400,000 people have held their silence for about 45 years (they started building the Apollo hardware in about 1964 or thereabouts). Alternatively, it requires that the extremely clever people who deisgned and built the hardware thought they were doing it for real, in the which case the hardware would indeed have done what they said it would.
Conspracy theories like 9/11 “truthers”, moon-hoax believers etc. get lumped in together because they all have one thing in common – a refusal to believe the one version of events that really does fit all the available evidence.
But this is not what is done. Instead, there are conspiracies that have been uncovered and are simply a matter of historical fact. OTOH, you have the unproven conspiracy theories, all of which comfortably fit into the description I made above. IOW, not merely unproven, but unbelievably improbable and with little or no correlation to reality.
Moreover, you are ignoring the generally-accepted meaning of the term “conspiracy theorist”, which implies the element of disconnection from reality.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:51 am
John (27) said:
This betrays a woeful ignorance of the modern state of science.
There are some theories – evolution among them – that are so well-supported by evidence, that have stood up so well to every test to which they have been subjected, that they are treated by scientists as fact. This is not blind faith. This is down to logic and reason.
We know for sure that our best theories are either correct or very good approximations of the way reality is. This would be in the same way that Newtonian gravitational theory is a very good approximation to reality in most situations. The reason we can state this with confidence is that if there were situations in which these theories do not accurately describe reality, we would have spotted them, unless these situations require extreme circumstances or extremely subtle measurements to detect.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:00 am
John (31) said:
Eh?
I must have missed that memo. What do you think the 9/11 truthers feel is wrong with the hijacking airliners explanation for what happened? After all, an airliner loaded with several tens of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel does make an impressively explosive projectile. What’s their beef?
Maybe so, but you ignore the fact that Newtonian gravitation is still (even though it is “wrong”) a very good approximation in most circumstances.
We know for a fact that evolutionary theory is at the very least a good approximation to reality. Therefore, your quibbling about it still being a theory (and ignoring the point that Steve made) is irrelevant. Even if it’s “wrong” in some way, it’s a pretty good approximation. Therefore, it is only logical to proceed as if it were correct, unless we find evidence to show it is wrong or that (like Newtonian gravitation) it breaks down in certain situations.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:03 am
James (36) said:
Erm … references?
Or were you, in a fit of post-modernist irony, attempting to demonstrate that you don’t know how to cite the research that you criticise us for not having read?
October 8th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I know this really doesn’t bring anything to the table but I’ve just read every reply to this article and I wish someone would hurry up and invent a way of punching people in the face over the internet.
October 8th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Here you go.
Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM
20 minutes with the president
http://www.prisonplanet.com/20_minutes_bibliography.html
October 8th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
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