You could also use this to ridicule Co(s)mic Dave's claims about how a lack of photos of Sir Edmund Hilary on the summit would have been (!?!) suspicious. If you really wanted to lay it on, you could add, "It's obvious from the anomalies in this photo, plus the lack of pictures of Sir Edmund, that the 1953 conquest of Everest was a hoax."

Dang, gunna have to remember that the next time the "why aren't there any photos of Armstrong?" question comes up.

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Peter B, perhaps you can integrate part 1 into parts 2 and 3. Tie in claims with their rebuttals and tests.

I thought people might be interested in the ten tests I developed which people can apply to conspiracy theories.

= = = =

Questions to test conspiracy theories

Test 1: Is the argument factually correct?

It’s remarkable how many conspiracy theories are based on arguments which are simply factually incorrect. If you’re presented with a conspiracy theory argument, the first thing to do is to check the surrounding facts. Many incorrect arguments are repeated in ignorance. But it’s also been my unhappy experience that there are some purveyors of conspiracy theories who knowingly repeat arguments they know are incorrect.

Test 2: Is the argument relevant to the theory?

A second common problem with conspiracy theories is that they cloud the issue by attaching true, but irrelevant, arguments. Just because an argument is true doesn’t mean it’s relevant to the theory you’re testing. This is a form of guilt by association, and gives the impression that the theory is being padded.

Test 3: If the argument is true, what implications does it have in other areas?

An argument on its own may appear to be plausible. But if we apply the argument to related fields or subjects, does it continue to make sense? Or would it require the world to be very different from how we see it?

Test 4: Is the argument consistent with other arguments used to support the theory?

There’s a temptation to judge a theory simply by the number of supporting arguments, regardless of how they interact with each other. But amongst all these arguments, there’s the danger that two or more of them contradict each other. This immediately means that at least one of the arguments is wrong, but in the context of conspiracy theories, it’s perhaps worthwhile doubting both.

Test 5: What do relevant experts say about a particular argument?

Conspiracy theorists often tout their apparent expertise with a body of knowledge in order to bolster their arguments. But, perversely, they also often decry other experts in the field. This is often because the expert consensus in that field is contrary to the argument presented. Similarly, they often quote experts speaking inaccurately outside their field of expertise.

Test 6: Is there actually an argument in the argument, or is it just an opinion?

An argument which merely expresses an opinion, but which doesn’t have any supporting evidence, adds nothing to the theory, and should be ignored.

Test 7: Does the argument offer any supporting evidence?

Some arguments are presented with weasel words such as “could have” or “maybe”. Without any supporting evidence, these aren’t arguments – they’re just speculation. They too should be ignored.

Test 8: Is the explanation provided by an argument the only possible explanation for the evidence?

There are cases when an argument presents two alternative explanations for an event. One is the conspiracy explanation, while the other is said to be the official explanation. When the official explanation is debunked, the conspiracy explanation appears to be correct by default. Problems arise, though, when the apparently official explanation turns out to be a straw-man misrepresentation of the official explanation.

Test 9: How does the argument deal with positive arguments which contradict it?

Theories aren’t built out of opposition to other theories. Instead, they’re created to better explain the evidence than previous theories. Therefore, any conspiracy theory has to address evidence which contradicts it. Ignoring the evidence isn’t acceptable, and should be treated as a major weakness of the theory.

Test 10: Would an experiment of your own help shed light on an argument?

Some conspiracy arguments rely on you accepting them without question, perhaps by an appeal to common sense. Sadly, common sense can lead us astray. This is where simple experiments, or even just careful observation of the world around us, can provide useful insights into the accuracy of an argument.

Conclusion: Is the conspiracy theory a coherent theory?

A problem with many conspiracy theories is that they exist only as a challenge to the official version of events. Yet if the conspiracy theory is true, a series of events must have occurred to bring the conspiracy to fruition. However, many conspiracy theorists aren’t willing to spell out exactly how they think the conspiracy was achieved. This appears to be a tacit acceptance that their arguments don’t add up to a coherent theory. What they often have, instead, is an ad hoc collection of arguments which, if put together, create an implausible, self-contradictory and ad hoc narrative.

Any idea when? I really wanna see it.

Is YouTube the only avenue for posting videos, or just the most convenient? It's blocked by my employer's firewall/security system.

CJSF

__________________
Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

I thought people might be interested in the ten tests I developed...

I saw you posted them at Apollo Hoax too, where they have already garnered some discussion. They do indeed bear wider exposure and discussion, either here or there.

Test 1: Is the argument factually correct?

Attendant to this is a phenomenon I've called confidence creep. This is where something is initially proposed as a tentative possibility, but as it circulates it acquires greater credibility simply because it's so often repeated. It starts out as what if and ends up as That's incontrovertible historical fact. Very often we see statements repeated verbatim on web sites, indicating that the authors are clearly copying one another. But no one knows the ultimate authority for those statements; the "authority" is simply in their having been referred to by so many people.

For example, everyone "knows" the Apollo lunar module was unstable and poorly tested. They don't know how or why they can say this, but it's a commonly-repeated "fact."

David Percy is a master at this technique. At the beginning of some section he'll propose that something "may" be the case, and then by the end of that section he'll be touting it as an inescapable fact.

Test 3: If the argument is true, what implications does it have in other areas?

I've always expressed this as the maxim The degree to which a theory is plausible is in inverse proportion to how much other accepted knowledge must be written to accommodate it. That relates to parsimony, of course, but is not strictly identical to Occam's Razor.

I think the worst example I've seen of this in the Apollo hoax arena is the notion that the entire Cold War was staged.

Test 4: Is the argument consistent with other arguments used to support the theory?

This is a special case of the Limited Scope fallacy with a little frosting on top. A hypothesis commits the Limited Scope fallacy when it explains only the data pertinent to some question, not the entire data set. As ad hoc explanations pile up, each committing the Limited Scope error, chances are they'll start to imply contradictions.

Test 5: What do relevant experts say about a particular argument?

The treatment of expertise in conspiracism is a topic in and of itself. In addition to claiming expertise they don't have, conspiracists often deny that any specific expertise is needed, e.g., "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that the lunar module could never have flown." The argument implies that intuition wins out over expertise every time.

They also try to shift the argument from expertise to trustworthiness. People who don't know what they're talking about are still better witnesses if they're accepted as trustworthy.

Test 6: Is there actually an argument in the argument, or is it just an opinion?

That's very similar to my If I Ran the Zoo argument, with apologies to Dr. Seuss. Sometimes, as you say, an argument is just an expression of belief or opinion. Other times it's a conclusion drawn on the basis of an opinion, often a begged question: "I would have tested the lunar module on Earth first, or with a chimpanzee."

Test 7: Does the argument offer any supporting evidence?
Some arguments are presented with weasel words such as “could have” or “maybe”.

It's important to know where that kind of argument belongs. Very often conspiracists wrongly believe that they're required only to erode faith in some "official" story in order to establish an alternative. They believe the official story is held only by default, so any attack on it will topple it. Not true, of course -- they have to demonstrate that their proposed scenario actually happened, not merely that it isn't impossible.

But on the other hand, conspiracists often make indirect arguments of the form, "It must have happened this way because no other way was possible." When that's the argument, the conspiracist has the burden of proof to show that he considered and eliminated all possible competing scenarios. That burden is never satisfied; obviously because it's an impossibly heavy burden. When rebutting that type of argument, it's sufficient only to show that there exists at least one alternative the conspiracist didn't consider and eliminate; you don't have to prove it happened that way, only that the conspiracist didn't consider it and therefore he can't hold some other conclusion by default.

Conclusion: Is the conspiracy theory a coherent theory?

You've done an excellent job of showing why ad hoc poking of holes in the "official" story doesn't work. A viable theory is not just a laundry list of what's wrong with some other theory.

Along with this is bidirectional viability. Many conspiracy theories start with an observation -- "anomalous" or otherwise. Then they propose some process by which that observation arose, according to the premise that the process must belong to some conspiracy or hoax. Having backtracked from effect to cause, they think their job is done. But often the proposed process simply doesn't make sense, or is silly when considered as something conceived and undertaken by someone to achieve the presumed purpose.

The best example of this in Apollo is the allegation that the Apollo 1 fire was started on purpose to murder the crew. What a stupid way to eliminate a crew! And what stupidity leads to murder as the only way out?

The various theories by which the crosshairs in the photos are variously misplaced or removed are good examples of this too. The allegation says the crosshairs were made by laying a clear sheet inscribed with crosshairs over the pasted-up artwork, then photographing it. If the sheet wasn't precisely aligned, the crosshairs would be in the wrong place. A separate (and incompatible) allegation says that crosshairs were on the background plate, and foreground elements pasted over them occasionally obscured them. The only virtue in those allegations is that they seem to explain the observations. They don't represent credible or defensible ways of faking photographs.

What kind of idiot would put a "final" feature element on a background plate that he knows will be festooned with pasted-up foreground elements? And the clear sheet method is silly when you realize that the reseau plate is a standard accessory. The process camera that photographs the final image on the animation stand can be fitted easily with a standard reseau plate, eliminating all the possible errors.

Even within the context of a conspiracy or a hoax, there are clearly smart and clearly stupid ways to do things. So not only must a proposed hoax scenario be reasonably fleshed out and reasonably coherent, it must be reasonably intelligent. You can't rely for your theory's credibility on people doing stupid things for no reason.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Well Jay, if you expect people to be able to show that every part of the highly detailed appollo mission was beyond a reasonable doubt faked, how do you ever expect them to prove this was a hoax? There's way too much evidence that needs to be refuted, it just isn't possible.

Now...an inteligent person would take this to mean that there actually wasn't any hoax. But fortunately there's plenty of people willing to overlook that, and continue to "preach the 'truth'".

Ever feel like you're running on a hampsterwheel? I do.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Theory of Zombie Relativity:
1) Everyone Else is a Zombie relative to You
2) Whether or not it matters is related to the inverse square of the distance between their teeth and your brain
(Quoted from Demigrog)

As in, "The Russians were in on the hoax; we bought them off with wheat." Sheesh.

The only way anyone could think up, or buy into, this codswallop is if they weren't alive during the era in question. If you were there you knew perfectly well that the Cold War was as real as any other, complete with proxy shooting wars and very real casualties (though at a lower rate than in open warfare). To think the Soviets wouldn't have blown a very loud whistle for a very long time is preposterous.

On the other hand, for someone too young to remember those times, it might well seem plausible that the whole thing was a sham to further some imagined common agenda.


Well said! CTs often end up painting a picture of conspirators who are at once incalculably brilliant and utterly foolish. The thread on the "missing Venus" issue on ApolloHoax is a perfect example. In that case, the hoaxers had to be too stupid to put stars in the photos (because they were too dumb to figure out how they should appear from the Moon), yet so clever that they put barely-discernable images of Venus in some photos, in just the right spot!

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Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

Ever feel like you're running on a hampsterwheel? I do.

Yes, you've hit the hamster (er, um, nail) right on the head. The aim of a conspiracy theory is to perpetuate the debate over it, not to come to any resolution. If the question is resolved one way or another, the conspiracist's revenue stream and calendar of appearances dries up. As long as the debate can rage indefinitely, there's money and notoriety to be had.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

CTs often end up painting a picture of conspirators who are at once incalculably brilliant and utterly foolish.

One of my favorite exchanges occurs when a conspiracist tries to handwave past a major hole in his hoax theory by saying, "With a $30 billion budget NASA could have pretty much done anything necesssary." To which I answer, "...except go to the moon."

That exchange is very telling. The conspiracist simply isn't thinking outside the Apollo was hoaxed mindset. At all.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I think the worst example I've seen of this in the Apollo hoax arena is the notion that the entire Cold War was staged.

This leads to an interesting problem.

Apollo was hoaxed to distract people from the Veitnam War.
The Soviets didn't say anything because the Cold War was staged.
Since the Cold War was staged, all proxy wars were scripted.
Veitnam was a Proxy war, thus scripted.
Apollo was hoaxed to distract people from a scripted war????

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Thanks OddBall. Unfortunately, I don't know.

I illustrated the major points of my talk using a Word document (a poor man's Powerpoint presentation). But the text is too small to see on the video. So the guy who's preparing it is adding subtitles. As I don't know how fiddly that is, and as this is a labour of love for him, I don't know how long it will take him.

It is for me, too.

I've got someone else I can talk to, but I'll save that until I can see the quality of the video.

Thanks for that, Jay.

You've made a number of comments which I wish I'd thought of, and which I'd like to incorporate into future versions of the talk (if I get to do such things).

Excellent example. This belongs in the Moon Hoax Contradictions thread over at ApolloHoax.

Peter B, my appy-polly-loggies (I seem to be in Nadsat mode lately) for the delay in joining the general acclaim re your fine presentation.

Part of the experience of being an HB debunker is knowing (usually feeling) the right time to jam a stick in the hamster wheel and send the HBs flying in various directions.

Too soon and they claim you're not receptive to all their "evidence". Too late and the fence-sitters decide, well, if that wheel's still spinning, there must be something to it after all.

Based on your descriptions, it appears your timing was right.

Once the video is posted, it seems a link to it should become a sticky for this part of the BAUT.

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I believe you have fallen for the fallacy of absolutist thinking.

Saying the Cold War was staged is an exaggeration of the HB claim (or most of them). It's not that the Cold War was a complete fabrication. Rather, there were issues where both sides found it pragmatic to negotiate a few deals in the dark so they could maintain their public animosity without looking hypocritical. They both got something out of the deal, but they still hated each other. Therefore, there really was a lot of animosity, there really were confrontations over missiles in Cuba, and Korea, and Viet Nam. But in the midst of being worked up over each other, the U.S. sold a bunch of wheat to the USSR to aid during a famine. Ergo, that aid was negotiated with a secret requirement that the Soviets "let" the U.S. beat them to the Moon. So the Soviets agreed, but then responded by claiming to have never seriously have been in the race, anyway.

Also, Vietnam was not about the Soviets. It was a proxy war for the Chinese, who were communist and spreading communism, but were not exactly on full partnership terms with the Soviets, either. Therefore, the U.S. was concerned about and resisting the spread of communism, and the Soviets were somewhat backing the expansion of communism, but there were other factors than just animosity between those two superpowers.

So in this version, Apollo was hoaxed and the Soviets were bribed with wheat to keep quiet, and Vietnam was still a political confrontation over the best ideological and ecomonic system.