Top 5 nuttiest conspiracy theories of 2009 (so far)
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1. Swine flu is an overblown story meant to make vaccine and anti-viral producers rich.
The H1N1 virus has sickened millions around the world, and is on pace to kill upwards of 10-15 thousand Americans.
2. ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama.
Say what you want about ACORN, but does anybody think this group was so well organized that it tipped the balance in an election that was decided by 8 million votes?
3. The Bush Administration intentionally let Bin Laden get away so that it could justify the Iraq War.
Because killing Bin Laden would have made Bush look too good in the eyes of public? Sorry.
4. Barack Obama wants to take away your guns.
Gun sales have been booming since Obama was elected. If anything, he’s been a boon to the N.R.A. and firearms manufacturers. Haven’t seen very many restrictionson guns, either. There’s always next year, I guess.
5. “Climate-gate” e-mails prove that every scientist who believes in global warming has been lying to the public, and that there is nothing to worry about regarding climate change.
Two sentences: that’s what this conspiracy seems to boil down to. Sure, scientists should never cherry pick their stats. If we’re undergoing a period of cooling (in relation to the last 100 years of warming) so be it. But if we’re now truly interested in an open debate, there are plenty of other climatologists besides the ones at East Anglia who we should probably bring into this discussion, as well.
Oh, right, bonus conspiracy: Will Smith is still dead.
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It’s funny how each of those has a kernel of truth and you’ve simply taken it to the extreme. Climategate is a big deal, and the sooner people can face it for what it is the sooner we can get things on the right track.
kabong,
I do think that Climate-gate is something that should serve as a cautionary tale for a small percentage of scientists working on climate change. But it is also clear that a strategy has been deployed to make it seem like there is simply no credible evidence whatsoever now that supports a theory of warming temperatures, and that all scientists are suddenly suspect. I’d say that ranks with the other conspiracy theories in terms of plausibility.
Dave, the scientists involved in ClimateGate are some of the original co-authors of the infamous “hockey stick” temperature graph that the UN (IPCC) then used to drum up an entire fear mongering campaign designed to demonize CO2 (man made) as the primary reason for the global warming. Problem is, climategate demonstrates that these scions of the AGW scientific community have been cooking the numbers for years, have been using statistical “tricks” to cancel out global cooling, have shoddy software that requires bogus manipulations to get the desired results, then use their political connections to force naysayers out of editorial positions and even abuse the peer review process in order to ensure skeptics could not get their work published. And you think this is no more than a small conspiracy?
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by david knowles, Tweets Tube. Tweets Tube said: Top 5 nuttiest conspiracy theories of 2009 (so far) http://bit.ly/4FcnFI [...]
re #3, not so sure. Granted, there are lots of speculated reasons for the failure to commit to the Tora Bora encirclement that are entirely plausible: 1) it would have interfered logistically with the Iraq war build-up, 2) the CIA had control of early operations in Afganistan, & Rummy was foot-dragging on troop commital as part of his compulsive bureaucratic power maneuvering, & 3) the Bushies were a bunch of arrogant screw-ups, anyhow. But, really… can one put anything past Dick Cheney? Anything? It’s very easy to believe something as monstrous as this from the Cheney-Rummy axis.
1) Swine flue ‘is’ an overblown story. Either that, or seasonal flu doesn’t get enough attention, because H1N1 doesn’t lead to death rates in the U.S. significantly higher than ordinary flu. The only reason to single it out is because of a fear that mutation risk might be higher than with other strains. Media hype alone has probably led to the increased government response.
5) The problem with this comment is that data integrity is the real concern. Although it sounds unrealistic to think that “thousands” of scientists are colluding to promote something they know is at least partially fraudulent, what if the honest scientists are using data that has been fudged a bit, and then doing honest analysis on that fudged data? Apparently, there are only a few agencies that have even collected enough of the world’s raw temperature data to even allow for such analysis to begin with. And then when you consider that Anglia claims it “threw away” the raw data to save room (yeah, right), you have to wonder about the other couple organizations’ data sets, especially because Jones was sending incriminating emails to key individuals who have control in those other two organizations. As a matter of fact, it looks that way. In other words, although it’s unrealistic to think that thousands of scientists are knowingly promoting fraud, it is a possibility that some persons in key positions are fudging the raw data that the rest of the scientists are using. This sort of thing isn’t unprecedented. It very likely happened in medical science with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Read the controversy page on wikipedia for ECT. I’d like to close by pointing out that there’s a lot more than just a few emails here. There’s a long list of incriminating documents, not the least of which is the programmer’s log. This page has the most complete summary: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html
The problem is that the evidence is so damning. And the real question has never been, “Is there warming?” because we know that there is/was. The question was, “Did we cause it?” and that is what everyone told us was “settled science”. And unfortunately, it does make all scientist look suspect because this was such an egregious breach of our trust. We were ready to put trillions of dollars behind something that was “settled” and it was nothing of the sort.
For my own part I don’t look at it as an evil conspiracy. It was something that these people simply got caught up in. They believed the result too strongly and they had too much riding on AGW being true. They needed to make the data say what they already believed to be true and that’s not science. The most damaging thing here is not the emails, it’s the “HARRY_Read_Me” file because it puts in relatively plain english the things that were being done to “add value” to the data and again, that’s not science.
Killing Bin Laden would, of course, have made the administration look good, but looking good after a military victory has its limitation–see how much good winning Iraq War I did for the first President Bush. But I think it’s fair to say that the Bush administration needed the prospect of an active al-quada linked with the menace of Saddam and his WMDs in order to convince the American people that it needed to go to war against Iraq, which as Richard Clarke and others argue, was always in the administration’s mind. Of course, just because the pieces sit in a row doesn’t mean that they are linked.
David,
You have just scratched the surface, Fox is promoting Glenn Beck’s Calendar of Conspiracies, 365 Terrible Threats to Freedom.
Jamie,
That the Bush people used the potential link between Saddam and Al Qaeda is undeniable. But, as you say, that’s not the same as saying they let Bin Laden go away so that they could make a more compelling case for invading Iraq.
Kabong,
Agreed. But my point is that by no means are these the only climatologists who have conducted research and come to the conclusion that humans are responsible for rising temps. To overstate the importance of this episode to the point where we should discount all the evidence that has been put forth would be a silly mistake.
I just wanted to pop in and say ‘thank you’ for sending me the traffic that you did.
I do however find it a little small minded to think that anyone who doesn’t share your views on something should come under the term “nutty conspiracy theorist”.
Could it really be so ‘out there’ that the governments would lie to us? I don’t think so as there are well documented cases of them doing just that.
And then we have past history showing cases where a conspiracy was proven to be right all along! Remember, it stops being a conspiracy theory when it’s accepted by all and the facts are reported.
Let’s not forget about what the word conspiracy means …..
We’ll start by looking up the word in a dictionary – “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. 2 the action of conspiring.” – AskOxford.com
Does it REALLY sound so ‘out there’ to think that we have been conditioned to react to certain words in a negative way?
You most certainly do not have to agree with me or my point of view the same that I am free to disagree with yours (as now) but I still respect you and don’t place you under the neat little heading or label and ridicule.
I’m actually interested to see if this post is published. In democratic society are we not encouraged to engage in debate? Hearing both sides of the story gives a clear and balanced view on any given topic. Now does all this sound like someone who was placed under that heading?
Thank you in advance for reading these comments.
Emma
Emma,
Thanks for writing. Which “nutty conspiracy theory” was yours? One of the tell tale signs of conspiracy theories, by the way, is to argue the “is it really so crazy” line rather than to debate the merits of the specific claim. And I’m happy to do that and explain further why I think it is a conspiracy theory when I hear back from you.
But you are certainly right that one person’s conspiracy theory is the next’s well evidenced argument.
David,
Mine was the Swine Flu Conspiracy
I can only speak from my own personal view and almost everything that you can read on my site is based off fact (there are one or two posts that give my own personal thoughts). I’m not too sure where you got those estimates for a death rate as I have not quoted them.
Where you reply that conspiracy theorists will use the ‘is it really so crazy’ line instead of holding a debate, I have to say that I totally agree but I also think that it IS valid. After all, why give someone a label that will cause most people to think that they should smile politely and move on? I never press my own beliefs or feelings onto anyone else – anyone who is looking for the information though usually start by typing in ‘h1n1 conspiracy’, I am more than happy to give these people what they are looking for. But let’s face it – do you think that the government will tell you the truth? In the UK a freedom of information request can be refused if its not in the best interests of the public to know about it! I’m certain that it’s similar in the US too. So it’s now fact that they don’t have to tell you anything that they feel you don’t need to know about and they call it a democracy?
If you and I were sat having coffee and chatting about politics we can give our OPINION on the matters we feel passionate about. Yet, like here, if you call something a conspiracy or someone a conspiracy theorist it needs to be based off fact. We do not know each other and do not have the luxury of being able to give our opinion in a debate and walk away knowing that tomorrow we will resume our coffee once again.
I do ‘think’ that there are people out there that are never going to be swayed by fact. Perhaps they are not to be confused or connected with a conspiracy and be looked at more from the obsessional view point?
Let’s take Swine Flu. You can talk to half a dozen people and get half a dozen different responses, everyone has their own view on it. Why was is so hyped up in the media for example? Why can the people in charge not agree on what should be happening? Why are we hearing so much talk of forced vaccination?
These are all questions that I hear on a daily basis. Yes, I do hear things that make me frown and want to adopt the exact same attitude of smiling and leaving. These are extremely far fetched and based not off fact but speculation and opinion.
Apart from where I give my own thoughts on the matter, everything I have stated on my site can be backed up with fact.
Do I think that this was man made? Yes I do. Can I prove it? No, but I can look at the facts that are available to me after a little digging around and it certainly doesn’t look so clear cut now (swine flu naturally developed). Do I think it was released as a bioweapon? Now that not only scares me but I have yet to read anything apart from opinion and speculation that backs this up. I do know that in the UK we were slow and reluctant to react and our initial response was to hand out Tamiflu to anyone who had confirmed H1N1 and also anyone who they had been in contact with! I’m certain that you don’t need to be a doctor to realise how irresponsible that was. Taking unnecessary drugs that have serious side effects when you don’t need them is madness. The hardest hit by H1N1 are healthy children, they are also the most vaccinated generation ever. For me personally, my biggest questions are about Tamiflu!
I’m NOT saying that I am 100% correct I’m inviting people to ask questions and get to the bottom of it. The truth will either become clear or will quash the questions being asked. End of conspiracy. There are countless other topics that I have been researching over the years that I’ll start to introduce on the site. Each one can be linked to another and so on. After a while it most certainly does bring you to look at the bigger picture.
I stated it before – a conspiracy stops being that when it is proved as fact! News that was first thought of as nothing more than a conspiracy theory are now known as facts in history and I’m not talking from hundreds of years back either. It always amazes me how things that don’t fit in with the mainstream are just brushed aside or forgotten. Perl Harbor is taught in English schools as one of the defining acts of the 2nd world war. It doesn’t mention the fact that it has now been proven that the US knew it was going to happen and let it. Need I mention the Gulf of Tonkin? What about Iraq? To this day if you ask people WHY we went to war with Iraq they will tell you it’s because of his weapons of mass destruction. Yet it’s been proven time and time again that there were never any weapons of mass destruction and both the UK and US governments knew that.
I rest my case
emmastone,
I thank you for your case. I have to take issue with just about all of it, however. Let’s go point by point.
For AOL I wrote a number of pieces this fall on H1N1. In fact, my whole family came down with the virus before the vaccine was available here in California. So, I was speaking a lot to people at the CDC, as well as vaccine researchers and scientists about death rate predictions and stats.
You have a fundamental belief that the government will never tell you the truth, even when it comes to matters of public health. I do not. The U.S. gov. has been frantically trying to produce vaccine against H1N1 for some time. Historically, government vaccination programs have saved millions of American lives and have eradicated some of the most deadly diseases the world has faced.
Why was swine flu hyped by the media? Because a pandemic killed millions in 1914, and scientists (not the media) have been warning that the way viruses mutate, it’s only a matter of time before another pandemic comes our way. Swine flu is a pandemic, though for a variety of reasons it will not (this year) kill nearly as many people as the one in 1914. Then again, if you’re a relative of one of the more than 5,000 (old total) who have died because of H1N1, you probably don’t find this of too much comfort.
I have not heard of forced vaccination. Please provide information.
The H1N1 virus is a mutation from the 1914 flu. If it was “man made” as you say, then there must have been a secret pocket of scientists somewhere in the last century. Hunches just don’t do much for me. There are plenty of diseases and viruses in this world that have no human involvement. As for being scared that it’s a bioweapon, well, I’m scared that elephants will be trained to fire flame throwers and attack the U.S., too, but not really in any serious way.
I agree that handing out Tamiflu to everybody who had H1N1 symptoms is mistake. My own doctor said she did not advise Tamiflu as there are now resistant strains of H1N1, and Tamiflu has some nasty side effects.
The fact that H1N1 has targeted children so hard may simply be the way the virus was spread. Recent stats show it moving to other sectors of the population as well. But a vaccination for MMR or Polio won’t protect you one lick from H1N1, so I don’t really get your point. Vaccines don’t work that way.
I’m all for people asking questions. But they should ask those who actually know something about the subjects they are inquiring about.
For a hypothesis (or a conspiracy theory) to be proven as fact means that there has to be some basis, some testable aspect to the theory. It’s not enough to say, I searched the internet, and other people had a similar hunch.
Mind you, I’m not saying that the government never hides things from us. Tonkin, check. WMD in Iraq, check. So, yes, good to be skeptical. On the other hand, vaccination programs are perhaps the most sure thing that we have in science. They save an estimated 3 million lives each year, says the World Health Organization. The notion that a virus would be unleashed by a government as a weapon is kind of laughable given the way that viruses travel. Talk about a wildly inaccurate means to an end.
The defense rests.