Posted on 02/03/2016 5:41:00 AM PST by rickmichaels
If NASA really faked the moon landing in 1969, about 411,000 people would have worked together to keep that information from the public, and the whole thing would have been exposed about four years later, according to an Oxford researcher who has found a mathematical way to examine the viability of conspiracy theories.
David Robert Grimes is a physicist and cancer researcher, but he also writes science pieces for the Irish Times and the Guardian. As a science writer, he’s used to being contacted by people who adhere to science-based conspiracy theories, which generally involve accusing the scientific community at large of colluding on fake data for nefarious purposes, Oxford University said in a release about Grimes’ new paper, published in PLOS this week.
To help demonstrate the viability (or lack thereof) of several well-known conspiracy theories, Grimes wrote an equation to show just how hard it would be to keep large-scale conspiracies – if they were true – a secret.
“For a conspiracy of even a few thousand actors, intrinsic failure would arise within decades. For hundreds of thousands, such failure would be assured within less than half a decade,†Grimes concluded. In other words: bad news for a lot of the Internet’s most persistent conspiracies.
For instance, more than 440,000 people would have to be working together to fool the public if climate change deniers are correct. Grimes’ equation calculated that such a conspiracy would have been exposed — either by an internal whistleblower or, accidentally — three years and nine months after it began.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...
Strawman on two levels.
The email release a few years back shows AGW proponents ARE working together to suppress skeptics. And it doesn't take a conspiracy - a shared belief system is more than sufficient.
I have said many times that conspiracy theorists give way too much credit to our government. Keeping a faked moon landing secret would require the complicit silence of thousands of NASA employees. Our government is simply not that competent.
And how many would be involved to fake the Holocaust?
(it wasn’t faked)
Three can keep a secret, if two are dead.
Climate change has already been proven to be nothing but a scheme to transfer the wealth of first world nations to turd world kleptocracies.
JFK. Maybe jackie o tapes will tell the story
Just had to throw that one in there didn't they? But, I suspect that's what the entire article was building up to anyway.
And besides, the whole GW thing isn't a conspiracy, it's a religion. A much different animal for True Believers.
Hell, Grimes is just part of the conspiracy. :-D
My grandmother thought the moon landing was fake. She was also convinced that rasslin’ was real.
Mine thought batboy was real...
Science doesn’t say anything. Headline writers say things. An individual researcher may say something. “Science says” is a good example of the fallacious argument from authority.
**And besides, the whole GW thing isn’t a conspiracy, it’s a religion. A much different animal for True Believers.**
True.
And there are apostates out there.
Both are valid objections, but the missing factor is the needed scope, degree and manner of evidence relative to the kind of claims being made, and their motivation, and likewise the contrary evidence. The ethos of Climate Change requires not simply evidence that testifies to change of climate, but that of a novel and overall deleterious change that will continue unabated and have such radical negative effects that it warrants the radical expansive and expensive programs proposed by the alarmist of this. And which thus have a vested interest in gaining $upport for Climate Change research which supports it.
And which evidence i do not see as warranting the present extreme claims, and especially that of overall deleterious change that will continue unabated and have such radical negative effects that it warrants the proposed radical expansive and expensive programs. If the world is warming, i do not see this as unprecedented, or overall negative, while being in the NE i thank God for the warmer winter we are having!
Now how the claim against conspiracy relates to the evidence for the risen Christ is another issue i have not the energy for now.
Are Climate Change advocates also Global Warming Deniers? After all, only one of those theories finds support from frigid winter polar vortexes. Perhaps people who reason face a vast conspiracy of the indoctrinated.
Speaking of vast conspiracies, does the author consider the “science” of Hillary’s “vast right-wing conspiracy?”
Hostile witnesses. Eye witness accounts. Extra-Biblical testimony.
And yet people cannot believe.
Flight 800 comes to mind; a US Navy vessel shooting it down was one of those conspiracy theories. But could 200-300 sailors all be kept quiet, for that long a time? I think not.
But the possibility of a Muslim-manned small craft armed with a MANPAD or small SAM unit was pooh-poohed from the get go.
JFK was anti-communist. He was killed by a communist.
I don’t see the need for a vast American conspiracy here. One might reasonably wonder if Castro or Moscow were involved.
I can see how the left would like to concoct domestic conspiracy theories rather than face the fact that an American President was murdered by a communist during the height of the cold war.
Fear by using the ability to “disappear” your family and friends is a very strong motivator to keep your mouth shut. Even on your deathbed.
Combined with the ability of 24/7 modern surveillance, it is practically foolproof. No sane individual would go against such a system.
North Korea is a prime example. Say anything against the insane “dear leader” and you’ll watch your family turned into dog food. For 3 generations they have stayed in power with no assassinations...
Fixed it.
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