We live in a time with more conspiracy theories than one can shake a stick at. Believe me, I know several people with graduate degrees in stick-shaking. The biggies include One World Government (into which I’ll throw the Deep State, the Illuminati, Bilderberg, Federal Reserve, World Bankers, and The International Jew, all of which are often intermingled by proponents), Anti-Vaccines, Chem-trails, Anti-Fluoridation, (all demons created by big-pharma), The Kennedy(s)Assassination(s), Moon Landing Hoax, Flat Earth, Hollow Earth, Young Earth, Phantom Time, and Mud Flood; Alien Visitation, Crashes, Encounters, Kidnapping, Medical Experiments; Government coverups of Alien Visitation, Crashes, Encounters, Kidnapping, and Medical Experiments; Global Warming Hoax, Reptilian Shape-Shifters, and many more. I keep ending this list and then remembering more. I do not intend to address these individually here except for illustration in selected cases. The goal for this paper is less a debunking, and more a sweeping up of them all at once as wasted mental energy.
So many of these have cross support between them. Some are deeply intwined and necessary for each other. For example, Ancient Aliens (shoot, left that one off my list) is completely dependent on Alien Visitation, and most of the Modern Alien claims are universally believed in the community. But other connections are made. I’ve heard the brothers Kennedy were killed to keep them silent about Aliens, and also that it was because they were going to end the Vietnam War, or shut down the Federal Reserve System, or take down the New World Order. (The shotgun blast of claims should raise red flags of any skeptic. Tossing out a bunch of motives is a way of suggesting that at least one of them must be true, even if no one motive has good evidence to support it.) And when I read about Mud Flood Theory I usually find Phantom Time Theory close at hand.
If you’re unaware of those last two here’s a briefing. Mud Flooders believe that there was a world wide flood that happened sometime in the last few centuries and that it wiped out the civilization of Tartaria. It is best evidenced by looking at old buildings with basement windows. Apparently this means that a mud flood happened and covered part of these buildings and it was hidden from us all until everyone forgot about it. Phantom Time says that some several hundred years ago the calendar was changed to add a few hundred years. This means that right now it is the 1700s, and some three hundred years of the dark ages never happened.
If you’re thinking that both of those sound like absurd nonsense and that they can only be humor-trolling or lunatic rantings you are correct. And while there are trolls teasing these and many other conspiracy claims along for the sake of humor, there are ernest devotees to them all. And here is the bad news, all of these theories have the same value. If you believe any of these you should have your head examined. No, it doesn’t mean you are actually crazy, but the cranial examination I suggest is to fix how you examine information. These theories take hold (to lesser or greater degree) because they are presented in ways that make the choice in believing them seem reasonable. This isn’t because they are, but because people are mostly not very good at recognizing flaws in logic. Flaws that when examined show that the original proposal has no good reason for us considering it.
When someone sees an unexplained light in the sky and says that he isn’t sure if it is something unexplained or an alien space craft, we are presented with a false dichotomy. Firstly, there are numerous diverse natural or artificial earthborn possibilities for why they couldn’t identify the light, and second, there has never been evidence that actual aliens exist, much less that they have been to earth. The choice between unknown or alien is absurd. The choice is only can we explain it or not. To offer as a choice something we don’t know exists or what it would look like if it did exist is unreasonable. You could rationally make the same argument and replace alien with Santa Claus, Superman, A flying Unicorn, or Russell’s Teapot. Unknown is unknown. Offering alternatives is nothing but an attempt to explain it without evidence to do so.
In this manner all of these theories break apart. That people spend months and years of their lives tearing some of these apart point by point is worthy enough, but it is only necessary because the masses fail at Thinking 101. Why is credibility placed in the claim at the outset? Well, one reason is that it is presented as if it a claim of equal merit. Many of us shake our heads when media sources attempt to show balanced news. They place in opposition tested scientific explanations with pseudoscientific claims as if they are two competing theories of equal merit. Where the first are facts we have good reason to believe are correct, and the second are unreasonable, belief driven claims that have no evidence to back them up.
TV Host: “That was a senior scientist from NOAA explaining with detailed charts and studies compiled over the years and examined by teams of experts showing human cause for global warming. For a completing claim we have a spokesman from the Flat Young Earth Society who says that hobgoblins brainwashed people into believing science is real. It is up to the viewer to decide which is true.”
Asking the question, “What makes this claim credible?” can began a path to understanding why we shouldn’t give them room, and what doing so does to our minds.
When presented with a conspiracy claim we should all begin with the question, “Is this a thing?” Often we find that there is no credible reason to think it is true, and immediate and comprehensive evidence should be presented if the claimant wishes to be heard.
A man I know was trying to sell me on Chemtrails. (Chemical trails, chemicals sprayed from commercial aircraft over the population for some nefarious purpose.) He began by defining them as vapor trails from aircraft that persisted for a longer duration than contrails. (Condensation trails, a normal byproduct of modern flight.) He amplified the definition by claiming that people noticed that these trails last much longer than did the trails from thirty or so years ago, and that contrails should disappear within a short time while chemtrails last for hours.
The argument is dead on arrival. The assertion begins by relying on memory, which we know to be faulty, and then ignores that others do remember persistent contrails. And then ignores available evidence of those persistent contrails. Films from World War Two show bombers leaving persistent contrails and military historians have written of the frustration military leaders had over the increased visibility of the planes that such persistent contrails caused. And, the meteorological model that permits contrails, that is the range of temperature and humidity conditions needed, fully explains both short and long contrails at once. All of these make clear that the original premise had no merit.
The sad thing is that he persists with the argument. He can’t see the argument was over. The initial claim had been shown faulty. Since we know that contrails existed prior to the claimants assertion, where from comes the chemtrails? If chemtrails and contrails are indistinguishable from one another, then where did the notion of chemtrails come from? In the broadest picture, the claim of chemtrails started with as a misunderstanding of how contrails form and why they persist or disappear. The claim continues because those asserting the existence of chemtrails didn’t like the answer. They claim that some contrails are still different in some nuanced way. (Special pleading fallacy.) Or they leap to a different piece of evidence that they hope the listener might not have an explanation for. Or they reference other times when our government did commit some terrible act on the people, or hid from us some information. These may be true, but are a non sequitur to the claim at hand. This conspiracy claim persists because the claimant wants to believe it. It stopped being about evidence as soon as he adopted it as a belief. That spraying chemicals from commercial jets would be impractical for various reasons, including the likelihood that they would just blow out over the ocean, or be so dispersed to become ineffective. Or that the process would require unknown thousands of people to be silently in on the conspiracy, or that investigations by numerous bodies both private and governmental have turned up zero evidence that this is being done. None of these arguments persuaded a change of mind. And when I pointed out that the people doing and ordering the spraying would have to breathe the same air, he offered that they might have been made immune to the effects. (Moving the goalpost fallacy.)
The first question should always be: Is this really a thing? As Christopher Hitchens stated, Any assertion made without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. It has also been said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Are those contrails or chemtrails? The question is a false dichotomy. There is no reason for us to think that chemtrails are real in the first place. Phrasing the question as if chemtrails is one of two choices is claiming that chemtrails are a reasonable choice, which we have zero evidence to support.
This same case can be made for many of the conspiracy claims made above. Is it really a thing? Does the assertion have plain and provable evidence to support it? Did aliens help build the pyramids? Where is the evidence that aliens actually exist? In fact, all alien claims first require evidence that intelligent alien life exists in any way besides a theoretical one. Is an elite cabal working behind the scenes to create a one-world government? First, is there really such cabal? How have you proved this?
The process of questioning the assertions will often debunk the claim at the starting gate.
The goal of securing a better future for humanity is dependent on more of us engaging in rational discourse. To do this we must start by weeding out the irrational non-starters. Before we ask what is likely to be true, we should first determine if we are being lured into an untenable position.