By JAKE
MOKRIS
According to a recent poll, 36 percent of Americans believe it is “somewhat likely� that the government either allowed or carried out the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11.
I don’t know if that many people actually believe 9/11 was an “inside job.� But there are people who believe in conspiracy theories like this. It’s not a good idea to trust such theories, because they generally don’t make any sense.
To argue that the government or Bush administration conducted the 9/11 attack requires a lot of evidence. If this theory is true, the president is extremely evil, and he has enough evil-minded people to carry out his plan and keep the conspiracy secret (though I suppose he didn’t do a very good job with that). And I’m sure there are more contingencies to the theory: Why would the government do such an awful and stupid thing? If it is to be defensible at all, the theory needs evidence for each of its contingencies.
I rather like the various tools and rules of rational argument, so I’ll use one of them: Ockham’s razor, named after the 14th century English scholar William of Ockham. The American Heritage College Dictionary defines Ockham’s razor as “a rule stating that entities should not be multiplied needlessly, meaning that the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable and that the unknown should first be explained in terms of the known.�
Ockham’s razor means that, when explaining an event, stick to the evidence, and don’t create long, convoluted theories when simple ones work. Ockham’s razor weeds out the theories that aren’t very likely to be true.
For example, the geocentric theory, as stated by the Greek mathematician Ptolemy, was extremely complex: For the theory to work, the planets not only had to revolve around the earth, but also had to revolve around many points in space while going around the earth. If the planets spun around enough points, the theory would correspond to what we see in the sky. Heliocentric theory is much simpler: All the planets revolve around the sun.
Both theories attempt to explain the same phenomenon. What does Ockham’s razor say? It asks, “Which one is simpler?� By Ockham’s razor, we should prefer the heliocentric theory. And by Ockham’s razor, we should not believe in the 9/11 conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theories like that always fall to Ockham’s razor. I used Ockham’s razor in the article I wrote a while ago about the war in Iraq: I argued that it’s very unlikely that the president formulated an evil plan to get us into the war. Ockham’s razor also applies to the historical premise of “The Da Vinci Code.�
The only way to get by Ockham’s razor is with evidence. Though it tells us which theories are more likely to be true, Ockham’s razor is not a proof. If the evidence supports the complicated theory and goes against the simple one, then we should believe the complicated theory. Not only does the 9/11 conspiracy theory lack the evidence required to get past Ockham’s razor; the theory makes no sense at all.
I'm surprised no one commented on this article yet. Anyway...
I don't mean to sound dumb, but would you mind clueing me in on some of the supposed evidences that Fahrenheit 911 uses, Jake? I know you said before that you've seen it, but I haven't.
Thanks!!!
~*~ Katie ~*~
Thanks for commenting, Katie. I don't completely remember the arguments and evidences in "Fahrenheit 9/11", but I'll say what I can.
One example of speculation in the movie happens at the very beginning, where Michael Moore talks about the 2000 election. Moore says that, the night after voting ended, all the news networks were reporting that Gore won the state of Florida. Later that night, Moore says that Fox News attributed Florida to Bush, and all the news networks did the same. Moore then points out that Bush had a relative who worked at Fox News at that time.
So Moore implies that Bush cheated, that Bush's relative got Fox News to report that Florida went to Bush when it actually went to Gore. Moore doesn't give any more evidence that this happened.
By Ockham's razor, I think Moore's story is not likely to be true. But Moore was clever in starting his movie like that, by attacking the president's credibility.
I can remember only one more example. In its attempt to prove that the president cares more for business than for the American people, the movie highlights the Bush administration's relations to Saudi Arabia. Moore mentions the expensive Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, D.C., the financial transactions between Saudi Arabia and various businesses with ties to the president and vice-president, and the huge amounts of money that Saudi Arabia has invested in the U.S. There's even a minute-long scene showing various instances in which members of the Bush administration shook hands with Saudi officials or the Saudi royal family.
What does all this prove? That Saudi Arabia is a wealthy country. It doesn't show that the president views business as more important than Americans. Moore does give more evidence that I don't remember, so it may be that his argument is stronger than how I portray it here.
When I watched the movie, I got a sense that Moore was speculating most of the time. He gave pieces of what could be evidence, and then he would make conclusions that weren't too likely to be true. Ockham's razor would probably "shave off" most of Moore's theories.
If you want to learn more, you would have to watch the movie.
Thanks!
Maybe I'll get to see it sometime. I certainly don't agree with attacking someone's integrity with unsolid evidence. I thought I heard the movie was pro-liberal, and it sure sounds like it is.
~*~ Katie ~*~
Why would the government do such an awful and stupid thing?
First, the conspiracy theories are not considering the government as a whole, but the same type of rogue network / shadow government that brought us the pay of pigs, the Iran Contra, operation Northwood, etc.
I think the Occam Razor argument is one against the OFFICIAL conspiracy theory about 9/11. There's so many facts in the "official" story that need to be explained with incredible and complex theories (explaining why did the tower fell controlled demolition style, with a never seen before "pancake" theory, instead of considering the obvious, EXPLOSIVES). Also, having to blame everything else on incompetence, WITHOUT ANYONE LOOSING THEIR JOB ! the official explanations given for 9/11 are really poor and the official report is full of big holes.
It's sad that for Americans, "Evil" can only reside outside their country / government. That it's SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE for them to even consider that their gov might be behind 9/11, that 19 evil arabs were able to execute this but not 19 american rogue agents. It is pure American arrogance like usual, but understandable. The inconvenience of admitting that your own government (and not just some FOREIGN government) would be able to do so is too scary for most people.
That being said, a lot of the 9/11 truth movement and "scholars" are lacking something very important : rigourous methods. F911 and Loose change are good examples where unproven / unprovable theories are put foward without enough research. All the crazy stuff out there only weaken the stand for alternative explanation of what really happened on 9/11. But it's not because there's thousand of irrelevant alternative theories out there that the official theory becomes true.
The only thing someone doing REAL independant research on 9/11 can be sure of, is that we don't know the truth yet.
www.zeitgeist.com
The Goverment Will Do Anything To Profit From It Even If It Means Sacraficeing there own people... Prove Me Wrong
There's a problem with how you and this razor see things. You really just want to take things the government says and believe it without questioning it because it's already simple enough, there's no need for a larger, more complex explanation? That's pretty typical american ignorance right there.