An epidemic of gullibility

Damian Thompson appears to be in the lucky position where as a journalist he can flap his arms about to promote a new book and play his chosen role as ‘professional sceptic’. It further appears that in Thompson’s case, position, experience and training have unfortunately served only to bias his world view. Combined with his faux scepticsm, he has an inbreed bias that has nothing to do with logic or evidence except if it plays to his rant or narrow topical focus.

Of course it wasn’t MI5. Their activities are confined to counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism in the UK, as any fule kno. It was MI6 (aided and abetted by the Duke of Edinburgh, the Grand Master of the Prieure de Sion, the Loch Ness Monster and the Deputy Vice Pomfret of the Titicacan Legation).

PS. Are you familiar with Francis Wheen’s book “How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World”? Highly recommended.

ChappyChap

I’m sure I would be totally crushed by your riposte if I could work out what the fuck you were trying to say.

It would seem that Mr. Thompson is putting an enormous amount of faith in the systematic methodology of the Enlightenment, yet the foundations of scientific theories are based on logical possibilities, not truth; and one logical possibility doesn’t preclude another. Moreover, all scientific knowledge is based on assumptions that follow the man-made law of parsimony. And the great thinker Liebnez has suggest that there is no reason to believe that the simplest explanation is the right one.

In my limited opinion, all ideas and theories should compete in the crucible of free speech, even if that speech defies reason. In open societies, it is up to each of us to decide what we should believe as truth. In my view, it is far more dangerous to allow others to dictate what we should believe, because who becomes the purveyor of truth?? Mr Thompson would suggest scientists, but even scientists disagree, and more importantly scientific theories are not static; they are constantly being revised, further indicating that testable knowledge can be wrong.

Having said that, Mr Thompson is doing a great service to soceity by pointing out how easy it is for us to be tricked into believing false truths. I hope his book at least gets some of us to start thinking about what we, prima facie, take as truth.

I agree in general. However, most accepted history in the UK and especially the USA has very anticatholic ommisions, let alone slants, so that any catholic is right to be permanently sceptical of anything official: which is NOT the same as swallowing and reugugitating ANY “inside” story. Just investigate, say persecution under the tudors, and how it comes over in the latest films, let alone fox’s book of martyrs. Equally, simplified science is ALWAYS vulnerable. Especially where human variations are added in. I have had to refuse a vaccination for my baby son who had just had meningitis with a doctor who insisted ALL vaccinations , the trple-virus one in this case, NEVER had any untoward sideeffects in ANY individuals whatever, which a reading of original papers will show is just too sweeping a point of view.

To dismiss any worries as exploded conspiracies is a standard tactic.

I bought and read this book yesterday and am very impressed. So much so I got a colleague who is inclined to believe in conspiracy theories to buy and read it. So this question/comment is asked in a spirit of friendliness. I note that the author is editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald and is presumably a practicing member of the Roman Catholic Church. I also note from his book that he doesn’t believe in all Catholic dogma (for example: on page 14 of the UK hardback edition he dismisses the physical aspects of the “Fatima” event as being unsupportable). It seems a very interesting position to be in so I am keen to hear from Damian or be pointed in the direction of any other published writings that explains his views. Thanks.

To be honest Damian the thing that I found difficult about your book – excellent as it is – is a couple of apparently offhand comments about homosexuality. The first I sort of let go as it wasnt really the point of the book I thought. But then much later you repeated the notion that gays “choose” to be gay. Really? All the scientific evidence backed up by gay people like myself is that we dont choose to be gay. Isn’t this the sort of fact you are attacking as “counterknowledge”? To be honest I accept that like a lot of gay people I tend to be a bit tetchy about things like this and so maybe you didnt mean it so happy to be put right!.

Personally interested in your opinion on transubstantiation. Not, according to protestant theories a sort of essence or and a symbolic presence but the real thing (Our Lord’s Flesh). There are no studies which substantiate this. It’s bread honey. So if A=B and B is entirely like A according to physics then, errmmm, what the…? Reminds me of homeopathy – the thing which is not there is the thing that makes it powerful etc. Sounds like your definition of “counterknowledge” mate. Am more than happy to be enlightended.

Thanks for the kind comments, Bob.

Transubstantiation – whatever you make of it as a doctrine – does not claim to involve measurable change, unlike homeopathy. Sure, the Church claims that the bread is “physically” changed, but in purely scientific terms its concept of the physical is meaningless. So it’s not making an empirical claim, and transubstantiation can’t be classified as counterknowledge. The resurrection, on the other hand, can.

As for the gay thing, I don’t remember saying that gay people choose to be homosexual, because I certainly don’t believe that. I agree with you!

Dear Mr Thompson,

I’d be very grateful if could take some time off from insulting the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks and the many pilots,air-traffic controllers,intelligence professionals,military personnel,architects, engineers and all the other experienced,intelligent people who have studied 9/11 and have legitimate questions about it, and comment on the following reports from the Washington Post and Newsweek………

“U.S. military sources have given the FBI information that suggests five of the alleged hijackers of the planes used in Tuesday’s terror attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s.”

(Newsweek Sept 15th 2001)

“As the investigation gathered strength Saturday, unusual leads began to surface, among them the possibility that some of the hijackers may have received training at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida or other U.S. military facilities.

Two of 19 suspects named by the FBI, Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi, have the same names as men listed at a housing facility for foreign military trainees at Pensacola. Two others, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami, have names similar to individuals listed in public records as using the same address inside the base.

In addition, a man named Saeed Alghamdi graduated from the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, while men with the same names as two other hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari, appear as graduates of the U.S. International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., and the Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, respectively. ”

(Washington Post Sept 16th 2001)

I look forward to your reply.

fraser

Hi Damian – thanks for your reply – it is a relief to have a discussion with people on the web that doesnt degenerate rapidly into ad hominen arguments. I am genuinely interested in how transunstantiation doesnt constitute counterknowledge but given the history of this topic doubt if you or I will spike anyone’s arguments in a line or two. I think if the point , in one or two sentences, you (or anyone else) made was convincing we (in Europe) might have saved ourselves half a millenium of, to put it mildly, “debate”. Can you give me any references to go and read arguments of a more modern kind?

Now about your comments about homosexuals allow me to quote from the hardback UK eition of your book (page 119 – last para) – “It is all very well to be given greater freedom to choose our jobs, sexual preferences, political identity, philosophy and religious beliefs….”.

I think I chose most of these things since they aren’t overly correlated with my parents’ beliefs but not my sexual preference (natch). I think (if your reply to my earlier email means something) that you mean I have a choice to express my sexual preference. I guess it would be a minor point except there is, amongst the religious, a belief that sexual preference is a choice of sorts pace Mick Huckabee.

Look I am not trying to hassle you but “counterknowledge” comes up in many areas, I think you have to be careful that if you say something you don’t alienate people through careless language. I imagine it’s quite a difficult experience writing a book like this and I will happily continue to recommend it to people of all beliefs. Thanks for taking the trouble to write it.

Loony conspiracy theories

Truthseeker

http://www.planetquo.com/Loony-9-11-Conspiracy-Theories

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/

Home

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7735

USAF Military interceptors told to stand down

http://www.prisonplanet.com/021104vonbuelow.html

Japanese Minister questions 9/11

http://www.911blogger.com/node/13340

http://www.911blogger.com/node/12215

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7802

AIDS virus can be defeated using monolaurin, which is derived from lauric acid, which is found in coconut oil .

Fraser’s claims concerning the training of selected hijackers by the US military have been comprehensively refuted. See here:

http://www.911myths.com/html/trained.html

The ’stand-down’ is a myth, propagated by the intellectually dishonest, and believed by the intellectually challenged and functionally illiterate:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB165/index.htm

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB165/faa4.pdf

http://www.911myths.com/html/stand_down.html

Benjamin Lambeth’s study of the US military response to 9/11 also makes it clear that the US air defence network had atrophied since the end of the Cold War because of successive budget cuts. Without the USSR, without the threat of a bomber attack on the USA, there was (as far as the Pentagon was concerned) no need to expend vast sums of money on NEADS. So by the time 9/11 happened the US air defence system for the North-Eastern seaboard was based on a mere four Air National Guard jets on standby at Otis and Langley AFBs:

The Japanese ‘Minister’ who ‘questions 9/11′ was Yukihisa Fujita. He is not – and never has been – a Minister in the Japanese government. He is a minor (repeat, minor) member of the upper house of the Japanese Parliament. He has made three presentations to his colleagues claiming that 9/11 was an inside job. His arguments seem to have had little impact on legislative opinion in Toyko – in fact, his fellow parliamentarians seem to have dismissed him as a crank, and none of them are echoining his opinions.

But nonetheless ‘truthers’ have to present Mr Fujita as a man of some consequence, hence the false description of him as a Minister (or even – in the headline ‘Japanese government questions 9/11′ – as something more grandiose). As distortions go, this is like stating that Cynthia McKinney was a US National Security Advisor, or Michael Meacher the Prime Minister of the UK. But then as has repeatedly been noted here, ‘truthers’ are not renowned for the honesty or accuracy with which they recount basic facts.

With reference to Mr Fujita, the original puff-piece on his performance in parliament seems to come from a John Spiri, writing in the English-language ‘Japan Times’. His output marks him out as a bit of a counter-knowledge practitioner himself:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080115zg.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080617zg.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080401zg.html

Mr Spiri has written as uncritically about religious cults and self-proclaimed UFO abductees as he has about 9/11 Denialists. That figures.

Fortunately, someone was able to take him to task over his sloppy and inadequate excuses for ‘research’, and to point out Mr Fujita was talking bollocks when (for example) he claimed that there was no aircraft wreckage at the Pentagon. He also pointed out that Mr Fujita derived his claims from an anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying crank called Akira Dojimaru:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080715a1.html

This is how counterknowledge works. A minor member of a foreign legislature makes wild claims based on open fabrications and the output of a neo-Nazi. A space-cadet masquerading as a journalist reports it online. Then practically every kook publicises the foreign parliamentarian’s outburst of nutjobbery as ‘truth-seeking’.

This shit just feeds on itself.