I was reading this line in the news from president obama regarding releasing a photo of osama bin laden's body:
"There's no doubt that Bin Laden is dead," Obama said. "And so we don't think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference. There are going be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again."
We've heard of plenty of denialists such as the "birthers", "9/11 truthers", "the moon landing hoax", "global warming denial", "roswell", and "creationism", (just to name a few). Conspiracy theorists often claim to be open minded, true skeptics, and 'think outside the box', and they claim people that accept the story as it's told in history books are sheep and are not thinking critically enough... But it is in fact they who are not thinking critically.. What they've done (and maybe aren't consciously aware of) is they've chosen to accept their preferred conclusion and reject any evidence which doesn't fall in line with this conclusion.
Conspiracy theorists are often impenetrable when it comes to presenting them with evidence. They don't care about it, they've already made up their mind as to what the 'truth' is and will make up any excuse to deny evidence that doesn't conform with their view. Their position is the very definition of close mindedness.
close mindedness - stubbornly unreceptive to new or different ideas.
They'll tell you that they've opened their mind to a new/different idea, and that if no one else accepts it they're just being close minded. But ask them if they're willing to consider that osama bin laden really did get killed in just the manner the media says that he did.. and they'll probably tell you slim to none.
Let's take the creationist movement as an example since it's the one I'm most familiar with..
What they do is 1) try to discredit evolution, as if by trying to find a flaw in evolution their explanation will win by default while giving no positive evidence for their position 2) however if they think they have a few facts on their side they'll use confident sounding words like "incontrovertible proof", "conclusively proven", "beyond a shadow of a doubt" and use propaganda to spread those ideas around like wildfire 3) then when those 'proofs' or assertions get disproven within a few months by professional scientists they either say "that's not good enough", find a crackpot exception in the minority besides the 95 percent of other scientists that agree with evolution and use them as the example of "the only smart person in a biased community that can see THE TRUTH". And finally 4) After their proofs have been thoroughly, embarrassingly debunked, knowingly, deceitfully continue to spread them around to people who don't know any better and hope they don't investigate for themselves..
In contrast scientific skepticism goes hand in hand with open mindedness.
open mindedness - willingness to accept new ideas
scientific knowledge - "consists in the search for truth, but it is not the search for certainty ... All human knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain"(-Karl Popper) therefore what is known scientifically could contain a degree of error, therefore all we have is higher and lower probabilities of truth. One's position on a matter will change in accordance with the evidence. And your 'belief' in a claim is an obligate position imposed upon you by the weight of evidence behind it.
In the context of Osama Bin Laden's death we have ample evidence for it's occurrence. So we accept it tentatively until we are given reason not to accept it anymore. But where is the conspiracy theorists evidence for their conjecture? Positive claims require positive evidence.. so do they have photos of Bin Laden walking around? A tape of him talking? And is their conjecture strong enough to counter the mountain of evidence in opposition?..
For example some point out that in evolutionary theory, we don't well understand why sexual selection developed.. but this in no way challenges the multitude of other ways in which we've proven evolution to be the most accurate account for the diversification of species on the planet.. there are just some things we don't quite understand perfectly in every detail yet.
So, where is the conspiracy theorists proof that osama bin laden is still alive? And would a photo of him dead really change their minds? I tend to doubt it, they'd probably just say it's fake.. I've already heard people saying that obama's birth certificate was 'photoshopped'. In a similar sense there are people who despite the multitude evidence that we've landed on the moon, doubt it.
Do I trust the government?.. not always, and not fully. Their motives are not always known and should be scrutinized. But it would be scary if we all lived in a society where everyone immediately denies anything they say, when there is good reason to believe it's true. I remain open minded about the government lying to us, but conspiracy theorists will have to do better than useless conjecture often easily disproved to sway others. We need evidence! We should question the government and be skeptical but in certain cases it's just absurd. As for now the best information we have is what we are given from multiple eye witness accounts and physical evidence, the intense 'situation room' pictures, reports that go play by play with what happened ( reports possibly orchestrated by the government?!!? ba ba bumm*) But in the instance of details that are somewhat sketchy or from a disreputable source (i.e. the government) why not just say 'you don't know what to believe'? Why not remain open minded to all possibilities? Why all the certainty? And then have to deal with all the cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias when evidence comes that challenges your position.
Lastly, I also find it strange that the very same people that doubt so much of the evidence they're presented with in present day, modern america, have no doubts about the resurrection, miracles, virgin birth and divinity of jesus christ which was THE omnipotent god's best plan to have a relationship with humans. The best way to carry out this plan was via oral traditions, of poorly translated second hand testimonials decided by committee vote that conflict, in a pre-scientific, illiterate, superstitious palestine, decades after their supposed occurrence, with varying interpretations creating divisive factions, taking hundreds of years to spread (often violently), to other nations for their 'salvation'.. This is god's master plan.. and it seems to me most tea party birthers have no problem accepting this. They should just have faith that Obama's birth certificate is real and that bin laden is dead.. they don't have trouble having faith in other written text.
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