gpond
02-03-2006, 06:33 PM
Presenter: Joseph Thomsen
Researcher: Allison Jess
Are we seeing an increase in the amount of conspiracy theories, and how do we determine if we should believe them?
Dr Steve Clarke is from the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Professional Ethics with Charles Sturt University. He says there is an increase in conspiracy theories circulating.
"They seem to be increasing. The internet has made it faster for people to exchange ideas and contact one another. Groups of conspiracy theorists now interact in a way they couldn’t before."
"There is a whole heap of television shows that bring up conspiracy theories all the time. Famously the show ‘The X-Files’ seemed to introduce a conspiracy every week. It is definitely something that has been in the public eye for the last ten years or so."
Dr Clarke admits he enjoys deconstructing conspiracy theories "I like to question how we might go about judging whether a conspiracy theory is true or not."
"We believe a lot of conspiracy theories; it’s just that we don’t think of them as a conspiracy theory when we believe them. For example, I believe professional wrestling is fake, that there is a conspiracy going on and that is to make this form of sports entertainment look like a real sport. The thing is a lot of people also think this, so we don’t see it as a conspiracy theory."
Dr Clarke says we should be opened minded when it comes to conspiracy theories “We should give the conspiracy theory a fair hearing and try and work out whether there is some credibility to what is being said. The danger is that we will just dismiss them by saying ‘you’re just a conspiracy theorist and I’m not going to listen to you.’"
He says if the people behind the conspiracy theory are making successful predictions you should start to believe. "For example with the Watergate conspiracy, journalist’s Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward said to themselves we think it was a conspiracy by American President Richard Nixon and some of his accomplices; to bug the Watergate Hotel while a democratic convention was on in the early 1970's. They made a number of predictions about what would be true if this was the case. These predictions mostly turned out to be true so that is a good reason to believe it."
On the other hand Dr Clarke says there is no concrete evidence to support his favourite conspiracy that Elvis is still alive. “What seems to be going on here is that people keep making predictions about what Elvis might do, he might re-release a new record for example under a different name but in a noticeably Elvis voice, or their might be clear and definitive sighting of him but this doesn’t happen, the only evidence we get is reports of vague sightings of someone looking slightly like Elvis. With this theory anything you might expect to follow from it doesn’t seem to happen."
http://www.abc.net.au/goulburnmurray/stories/s1561380.htm?backyard
Researcher: Allison Jess
Are we seeing an increase in the amount of conspiracy theories, and how do we determine if we should believe them?
Dr Steve Clarke is from the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Professional Ethics with Charles Sturt University. He says there is an increase in conspiracy theories circulating.
"They seem to be increasing. The internet has made it faster for people to exchange ideas and contact one another. Groups of conspiracy theorists now interact in a way they couldn’t before."
"There is a whole heap of television shows that bring up conspiracy theories all the time. Famously the show ‘The X-Files’ seemed to introduce a conspiracy every week. It is definitely something that has been in the public eye for the last ten years or so."
Dr Clarke admits he enjoys deconstructing conspiracy theories "I like to question how we might go about judging whether a conspiracy theory is true or not."
"We believe a lot of conspiracy theories; it’s just that we don’t think of them as a conspiracy theory when we believe them. For example, I believe professional wrestling is fake, that there is a conspiracy going on and that is to make this form of sports entertainment look like a real sport. The thing is a lot of people also think this, so we don’t see it as a conspiracy theory."
Dr Clarke says we should be opened minded when it comes to conspiracy theories “We should give the conspiracy theory a fair hearing and try and work out whether there is some credibility to what is being said. The danger is that we will just dismiss them by saying ‘you’re just a conspiracy theorist and I’m not going to listen to you.’"
He says if the people behind the conspiracy theory are making successful predictions you should start to believe. "For example with the Watergate conspiracy, journalist’s Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward said to themselves we think it was a conspiracy by American President Richard Nixon and some of his accomplices; to bug the Watergate Hotel while a democratic convention was on in the early 1970's. They made a number of predictions about what would be true if this was the case. These predictions mostly turned out to be true so that is a good reason to believe it."
On the other hand Dr Clarke says there is no concrete evidence to support his favourite conspiracy that Elvis is still alive. “What seems to be going on here is that people keep making predictions about what Elvis might do, he might re-release a new record for example under a different name but in a noticeably Elvis voice, or their might be clear and definitive sighting of him but this doesn’t happen, the only evidence we get is reports of vague sightings of someone looking slightly like Elvis. With this theory anything you might expect to follow from it doesn’t seem to happen."
http://www.abc.net.au/goulburnmurray/stories/s1561380.htm?backyard