At around 14/6/06 9:39 am, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Jun 13, 2006, at 10:54 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> No! As Doug and I have both argued, you cannot rationally debate
>> conspiracists. Disprove one point and they invent another.
>
> The piece I posted from LBO about conspiracy yesterday attracted more
> hostile mail than just about anything I've written. (I also delivered
> a version on my radio show, and got the same hostile reaction.) But
> every response was along the lines: how can you say this?
> Conspiracies exist! Not one engaged the central point - that a
> consultant to the Pentagon recommended the use of selectively
> released data that would stimulate conspiracy theorists as a useful
> political distraction. Right there in the open: an admission of a
> conspiracy of sorts! But the conspiracists couldn't get their heads
> around that. They had to move on to a new conspiracy.
>
Ok, Doug, let me try to engage your central point:
Fact: a consultant to the Pentagon recommended the use of selectively
released data D to stimulate conspiracy theories.
Result (and here I am giving you a great deal of rope): theory A emerges
about incident X related to the released data D. Further, A derives its
weight extensively from the data D.
Now, please demonstrate to me, preferably using fairly atomic steps of
inference, how this shows that A is wrong. Preferably without appeal to
the motivations and psychologies of individuals: I am hoping you will
agree that such have no impact on events, especially those in the past.
I submit that any explanation you offer can be countered with an equally
plausible one. For instance, the implication that the subset D is
selective to stimulate conspiracy theories, while the withheld
complementary set might actually disprove such theory, is only as
plausible as the idea that the subset D is selective to stimulate but
not justify a conspiracy theory, while the withheld complementary set
will in fact confirm the conspiratorial interpretation.
The flip side of such "releases" is of course the classic Rovian
strategy as seen in the Dan Rather debacle: thanks to the "planted data"
the idea that Bush was AWOL (in some sense) from the Texas Air National
Guard is now a "conspiracy theory".
--ravi
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