Monday, September 10, 2007

Good point

9/11 theories as factless as those of Bush - Opinion - theage.com.au

Christopher Scanlan makes a good point in his criticism of 9-11 conspiracy theorists:
The September 11 conspiracy theories are like a left-liberal version of intelligent design. Just as the adherents of intelligent design invoke a great designer whenever they come across some part of the natural world that they personally can't explain, the September 11 conspiracy theorists invoke the White House whenever they can't account for the events of that day....

In the world inhabited by conspiracy theorists, even the absence of evidence is itself turned into evidence of how large and how successful the cover-up has been.

In the same way that supporters of intelligent design lead away from an explanation of the natural world, the September 11 conspiracy theories lead us away from any deeper understanding of the attacks, into a fantasy world in which the US has no enemies — except its own leaders.
I am not stridently against all aspects of the intelligent design argument, by the way, as I have much interest in the anthropic principle when it comes to cosmology, but I still think the comparison is quite valid.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

You might like to check out my website if you are interested in a very strong anthropic cosmological principle that has nothing to do with religion ID or god, rather, it's just thermodynamics.

http://evolutionarydesign.blogspot.com/

Skip down the page to the "Golidilocks Enigma... again"
and "A Very Strong Anthropic Principle", and then go from there.