Lies and Counterknowledge

Curiously, hot on the heels of the Peter Power episode last month, I see an article today by Damian Thompson in the Telegraph denouncing the nonsense of conspiracies and fiction dressed up as fact:

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 evolution. Homeopathy can defeat the Aids virus.

Indeed. Not only did I have a mini-invasion of such silly theories in the past month here, but I recall an erstwhile colleague last summer announcing that the “science proved” George Bush masterminded 9/11. Rather than get into a pointless argument with someone who wouldn’t recognise verifiable evidence and the difference between that and observable inconsistencies in reports and accounts, I just buried myself in my work and ignored it. Going by the general expressions on the faces of his listeners, I was not the only one who wasn’t credulous enough to fall for it.

The article goes on to explore why people fall for this stuff:

This is counterknowledge: misinformation packaged to look like fact. We are facing a pandemic of credulous thinking. Ideas that once flourished only on the fringes are now taken seriously by educated people in the West, and are wreaking havoc in the developing world.

I think Thompson may be overstating the case, somewhat. Conspiracy theorists are a small minority. People who explore the minor inconsistencies in official accounts of events and then fit them together to come up with a conclusion of conspiracy. Most of the people I come across are derisive of such ignorant thinking. Or am I not meeting enough people? Or is there someting else going on? Ah, yes, stick with it.

Most of us have friends who are susceptible to conspiracy theories.

Well, actually, no. Apart from that one colleague last year, I’ve come across very few people who harbour these theories. Mostly, they seem to lurk on the Internet. In real life, I certainly don’t come across them on a daily basis – and none of my family are daft enough to fall for it.

You may know someone who thinks the Churches are suppressing the truth that Jesus and Mary Magdalene sired a dynasty of Merovingian kings;

Nope. I’ve read the Da Vinci Code. It was a rollicking piece of fiction. And, like everyone else I know who read it, I can tell the difference between fact and fiction. If we are going to get into hard facts, there is no evidence that Christ ever lived as one unique person, let alone sired the Merovingian kings… But, that’s another matter. Most of the people I know seem to accept that he did live – I’m the odd one out there. Oh, maybe Thompson has a point here…

someone else who thinks Aids was cooked up in a CIA laboratory;

No. Try again.

someone else again who thinks MI5 killed Diana, Princess of Wales.

I’m sorry, but does anyone – apart from Mohammed Al Fayed – believe this bollocks? Anyone? I’ve certainly not met them if so.

Perhaps you know one person who believes all three.

Well, if they did, I’d be recommending the gentlemen in white coats.

Or do you half-believe one of these ideas yourself?

You have got to be fucking joking! Puhleeese!

We may assume that we are immune to conspiracy theories.

You may.

In reality, we are more vulnerable than at any time for decades.

Which goes back to my point. Where are these people? Yes, there are some obsessives trawling through the net looking for confirmation of their wacky theories. There have always been such people. The Kennedy assassination demonstrated that this is not an Internet phenomenon; but even so, most folk just get on with their lives and forget it.

I recently met a Lib Dem-voting schoolteacher who voiced his “doubts” about September 11. First, he grabbed our attention with a plausible-sounding observation: “Look at the way the towers collapsed vertically. Jet fuel wouldn’t generate enough to heat to melt steel. Only controlled explosions can do that.” The rest of the party, not being structural engineers (for whom there is nothing mysterious about the collapse of the towers) pricked up their ears. “You’re right,” they said. “It did seem strange…”

This was pretty much the conversation I overheard at work. If I had felt sufficiently motivated, I might have suggested that he look at some explanations proffered by people who are mechanical engineers.

Admittedly, no major newspaper or TV station has endorsed a September 11 conspiracy theory. But more than 100 million people have watched a 90-minute documentary, Loose Change, directed by three young New Yorkers who assembled the first cut on a laptop.

Indeed. And as it used computer generated reconstructions and extremely selective editing, it was as much a piece of fiction as Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code – at least Brown made no pretence that it was anything else. Though, again, I’ve not met anyone (apart from the one) who takes this bunk seriously.

Yet the makers of Loose Change are pushing at an open door. More than a third of Americans suspect that federal officials assisted in the September 11 attacks or took no action to stop them.

If that’s true, then more than a third of Americans are very gullible or very stupid – and that is worrying.

September 11 conspiracy theories have gained such a following in France that even a member of President Sarkozy’s government has suggested that President Bush might have planned the attacks. Christine Boutin, the housing minister, when asked in an interview whether she thought Bush might have been behind the attacks, said: “I think it is possible.”

Um, I think Sarkozy should be looking for a new housing minister pretty damn sharpish. I always thought that politicians are either stupid, unpleasant or both. Madame Boutin certainly confirms the former.

Now we get onto religion:

We do not normally think of creationism and maverick physics as conspiracy theories; but what they have in common with Loose Change is a methodology that marks them as counterknowledge. People who share a muddled, careless or deceitful attitude towards gathering evidence often find themselves drawn to each other’s fantasies. If you believe one wrong or strange thing, you are more likely to believe another.

Um… How so? There are plenty of people I know of who are religious, believe that God exists and that Jesus Christ was his son, died on the cross and came back to life. I believe none of this, yet they, like me, are not taken in by conspiracy theories. The memes may follow the same pattern, evolving over time with new layers added with each retelling, but belief in one does not necessarily mean belief in another.

Although this has been true for centuries, the invention of the internet has had a galvanising effect. A rumour about the Antichrist can leap from Goths in Sweden to Australian fascists in seconds.

Now, that is so.

In June 2007, the home page of The Truth Seeker, a conspiracy website, included claims that Aids is a “man-made Pentagon genocide”, that Pope Paul VI “was impersonated by an actor from 1975 to 1978”, that new evidence about the Loch Ness monster had emerged – plus a link to Loose Change.

The truth seeker being an oxymoron…

Yet, as we saw earlier, more than 100 million people have seen that film.

Doesn’t mean that they believed it, though, does it?

All that said, the article does pick up on some worrying trends among the so-called liberal left; misinformation and a failure to confront the truth. It cites teachers avoiding discussing the holocaust in deference to Muslim sensibilities and spreading the idea that western civilisation has its roots in black Africa. Thompson also raises the increase in popularity of quack medicine – sorry “alternative therapies” – that have no basis in medical fact; miracle diets, food supplements – and although not specifically mentioned, homeopathy would fit nicely into that list – along with health scares and so on and so on.

Ah, yes, the nub of the matter; the gullibility of the public to believe tosh. Yes, Thompson is right enough about that and like him, I do find it worrying, and it is rather more disturbing than the tinfoil hat brigade believing their obviously absurd conspiracies about 9/11 and 7/7. Perhaps because these myths are more subtle and gain greater acceptance – which is what the article is trying to get at.

Ultimately, the crux of this article is the seepage of counterknowledge into the general consciousness and its eventual acceptance as fact. Thompson makes a good overall point – I’m just not sure that he goes about it in the right way as he overstates the impact of the more obvious conspiracy theories that the majority will regard with derision, thereby undermining his underlying point – which is valid. Pity. Still, go read it and see what you think.

I wonder if Damian Thompson believes the biggest conspiracy theory of our time – anthropogenic global warming?