User:Striver/conspiracy theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- I found this on User:Morton devonshire/conspiracy theory, and since i found it interesting, i am copying it here. There should not be any copyvio problem since he submitted it to wikipedia. And considering he is allowed to have it in a sub page, i conclude that everyone has the same right to do so. If there is any objections, please inform me.
[edit] Classifying pseudoscience
Pseudoscience fails to meet the criteria met by science generally (including the scientific method), and can be identified by a combination of these characteristics:
- by asserting claims or theories unconnected to previous experimental results;
- by asserting claims which cannot be verified or falsified (claims that violate falsifiability);
- by asserting claims which contradict experimentally established results;
- by failing to provide an experimental possibility of reproducible results;
- by failing to submit results to peer review prior to publicizing them (called "science by press conference")
- by claiming a theory predicts something that it does not;
- by claiming a theory predicts something that it has not been shown to predict;
- by violating Occam's Razor, the heuristic principle of choosing the explanation that requires the fewest additional assumptions when multiple viable explanations are possible; or
- by a lack of progress toward additional evidence of its claims.
[edit] Features of Conspiracy Theories
Allegations exhibiting several of the following features are candidates for classification as conspiracy theories. Articles by User:Blackcats and User:Zen-master (who has since been banned from Wikipedia for one year) are good examples of articles containing these traits. Confidence in such classification improves the more such features are exhibited:
- Initiated on the basis of limited, partial or circumstantial evidence.
- Conceived in reaction to media reports and images, as opposed to, for example, thorough knowledge of the relevant forensic evidence.
- Addresses an event or process that has broad historical or emotional impact.
- Seeks to interpret a phenomenon which has near-universal interest and emotional significance, a story that may thus be of some compelling interest to a wide audience.
- Reduces morally complex social phenomena to simple, immoral actions.
- Impersonal, institutional processes, especially errors and oversights, interpreted as malign, consciously intended and designed by immoral individuals.
- Personifies complex social phenomena as powerful individual conspirators
- Related to (3) but distinct from it, deduces the existence of powerful individual conspirators from the 'impossibility' that a chain of events lacked direction by a person.
- Allots superhuman talents and/or resources to conspirators.
- May require conspirators to possess unique discipline, never to repent, to possess unknown technology, uncommon psychological insight, historical foresight, etc.
- Key steps in argument rely on inductive, not deductive reasoning.
- Inductive steps are mistaken to bear as much confidence as deductive ones.
- Appeals to 'common sense'.
- Common sense steps substitute for the more robust, academically respectable methodologies available for investigating sociological phenomena.
- Exhibits well-established logical and methodological fallacies
- Formal and informal logical fallacies are readily identifiable among the key steps of the argument.
- Is produced and circulated by 'outsiders', generally lacking peer review
- Story originates with a person who lacks any insider contact or knowledge, and enjoys popularity among persons who lack critical (especially technical) knowledge.
- Is upheld by persons with demonstrably false conceptions of relevant science
- At least some of the story's believers believe it on the basis of a mistaken grasp of elementary scientific facts.
- Enjoys zero credibility in expert communities
- Academics and professionals tend to ignore the story, treating it as too frivolous to invest their time and risk their personal authority in disproving.
- Rebuttals provided by experts are ignored or accommodated through elaborate new twists in the narrative
- When experts do respond to the story with critical new evidence, the conspiracy is elaborated (sometimes to a spectacular degree) to discount the new evidence.
[edit] Steven E. Jones, 9/11 "researcher" debunked
If you ever wonder if there's any science behind the conspiracy theorists claims, take a look at this excerpt from the Steven E. Jones talk page:
- I know you have an engineering background. Do you personally have any kind of opinion on the veracity of his 9/11 paper? I'm pretty sure you have an opinion on the whole controlled demolition theory, but I would still be interested to hear what you have to say from a technical standpoint if you care to share your thoughts on it. SkeenaR 23:30, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
- I have a degree in mechanical engineering, and I have worked with structural steel, but in bridges rather than buildings. I am in no sense qualified to hold an opinion on the structural engineering aspects of the collapse. I have significantly more experience with explosives and demolitions, and I have used linear shaped charges and thermite. I have not done any work in controlled demolition of buildings, and I'm not qualified to evaluate Jones' work, except as a layman. His work does not have the ring of truth. Jones writes like someone who has read about, but never used, explosives. "I maintain that these observations are consistent with the use of high-temperature cutter-charges such as thermite, HDX or RDX or some combination thereof, routinely used to melt/cut/demolish steel." This is technobabble. In what sense is RDX a high-temperature cutter-charge? What does that even mean? Is he suggesting that linear shaped charges of RDX melted the steel? From what I've seen the results of shaped charges on steel are more like tearing. Later he refers to pools of molten metal weeks after the event. Certainly thermite will melt steel, but how much thermite are we talking about? Truckloads? (By the way, I think some back-of-the-envelope heat-transfer calculations are in order there.) Rigging a skyscraper for controlled demolition is a massive undertaking, and a disruptive one. You would need open access to the structural members for weeks, there would be detonating cord everywhere, other members would probably need to be protected from damage so they didn't fail at the wrong time, and the workers would probably tear up the drywall and trash the carpets. And then what about priming the whole thing? Is it going to be left for weeks or months with blasting caps installed in the high explosives? I don't think so. And where is all this thermite going to be? I don't see how it would be possible to do this secretly. I don't see any basis for concluding that these puffs of smoke are from 'squibs.' He seems to just say they must be, because squibs can make puffs of smoke. "See the puffs of smoke? Those are squibs. How do I know they're squibs? Because of the puffs of smoke." I read through his paper, and read through (parts of) the NIST and FEMA reports, and the Popular Mechanics article. Jones' work sounds like junk science; The NIST and FEMA reports are less exciting, but seem solid and workman-like. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but I'm not qualified to do a point-by-point debunking of Jones' work. It doesn't really matter what I think anyway. All we can do here is write, "This is what Jones says" and "This is what others say." Everyone with an interest has to read and make up his mind. Tom Harrison Talk 20:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Just so you know, there's 500+ professionals who question 9/11. www.patriotsquestion911.com and www.ae911truth.org. Of course, what do they know over you? It's not like they all have degrees in the field or have been working with the government for most of their waking lives. But...they're with Al Quada, right?
