The YouTube video Loose Change, which promulgates well-trodden 9/11 conspiracy theories, has been without a rival since its 2005 inception. Even George Monbiot was engrossed for a time by the video’s “calm and authoritative voiceover” – a voiceover which, its filmmakers claim, has been heard …
According to the BBC, the mystery of the collapse of Tower Seven on September 11, 2001, is about to be cleared up. And the solution is discouraging news for 9/11 Liars (aka “Truthers”). America’s National Institute of Standards and Technology has spent two years constructing …
And now for something a little more light-hearted. This video is a marvellous parody of Loose Change and its ilk. I’m posting it partly because it’s a neat little explanation of how these conspiracy videos are conceived and then created, but mostly because it really made me …
I’ve only recently discovered the Butterflies and Wheels website, whose aims strike right at the heart of counterknowledge. It was founded to attack: 1. Pseudoscience that is ideologically and politically motivated. 2. Epistemic relativism in the humanities (for example, the idea that statements are only …
In a Catholic Herald investigation published today, Bishop Richard Williamson, a senior English prelate of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), is exposed as a poisonous anti-Semite and 9/11 conspiracy theorist who believes that Jews are working on behalf of Antichrist. Scandalously, the SSPX …
This weekend I found myself talking to a small group of teenagers in London, most of them from deprived backgrounds; all were from ethnic minorities. I asked: “How many of you think the US government had a hand in planning 9/11?” They all put up …
Craig Brown reviews Damian Thompson’s Counterknowledge in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday: Was Princess Diana murdered by MI5? Were the Twin Towers brought down by President Bush? Were the Apollo Moon landings actually fabricated in a studio on earth? Did Jesus marry Mary Magdalen and sire …
Today’s Daily Telegraph carries two extracts from Counterknowledge. Here is the link, and here is how the first piece starts… George Bush planned the September 11 attacks. The MMR injection triggers autism in children. The ancient Greeks stole their ideas from Africa. “Creation science” disproves …
Four hundred and two years after His Majesty’s goverment foiled the biggest ever terrorist attack on British soil, why does no one believe the authorities when they make repeated warnings about terrorist threats? Most people I meet do not believe any of the official versions …
An interesting proverb from the world of spying on Monday night’s Cult of the Suicide Bomber on Channel 4. The former head of Israel’s Shin Bet explained that the Wall forced suicide bombers to find accomplaces to help them into Israel, who tells his best …