On 10/18/2010 11:20 AM, Warp wrote:
> Mike Raiford<"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/2010/07/periodic-table-of-irrational-nonsense.html
>
>    I have noticed a curious pattern that, in average, people who believe in
> one kind of pseudoscience or paranormal phenomena are very likely to believe
> in a whole array of such claimed phenomena.
>
>    For example, someone who strongly believes in the afterlife, ghosts,
> psychics and divination, is also very likely to believe in a number of
> completely unrelated claims, such as UFOs, cryptozoology (bigfoot, etc)
> and homeopathy, even though there's no connection whatsoever between
> these things.
>
>    Seldom have I seen a person strongly believing in one type of pseudoscience
> or supernatural phenomena, and adamantly denying the existence of another,
> no matter how unrelated they might be.
>
>    (A similar phenomenon happens with conspiracy theories. Seldom have I seen
> a person strongly believing in one conspiracy theory and seriously doubting
> another. It seems to almost always be all-or-nothing. If you believe in
> the Moon landing hoax theory, you are very likely to also believe in the
> 9/11 and the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories as well.)
>
>    Sometimes proponents of these things try to invoke argumentum ad populum,
> as if popularity of belief would somehow give it credibility. However, the
> way I see it is that it's a phsychological phenomenon, where people who are
> likely to believe in one type of nonsense is likely to believe in all kinds
> of nonsense without much discrimination or critique.
>
Actually, you might think of this as a *necessary* pattern. Basically, 
any one conspiracy/woo contains vastly insufficient support for its own 
existence, so, by extension, can only be supported by the coexistence of 
*other* conspiracies/woo. It doesn't even, in many cases, require that 
these things not be mutually exclusive, or directly contradictory, as 
long as they support the central premise. For example, two "government 
conspiracy" types that disagree on 99.9% of all points, yet feel that 
each other's conspiracies collectively "prove" that government 
conspiracies exist.

Couple of good sites for this:

http://swallowingthecamel.blogspot.com/

has a weekly conspiracy thing they do, and a few posts on the goofy 
nature of accepting everything as real, as long as it supports the 
"reality" of what ever wooish stuff one started out with.

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/

hasn't posted as much recently, but some of the first posts on the site 
include detailed analysis of the types, nature, and arguments, made by 
people that want reality to differ from itself, so make up either 
excuses, or total gibberish, to support their positions.

Its all about confirmation. If evidence and facts won't, then maybe 
contradictory, mutually exclusive, nonsense will, even if only as 
evidence that one's idea is apposed, therefor *must* have some validity, 
or people wouldn't be apposing it.

Sadly, for more of this stuff, it takes a 15 year old (or younger for 
the whole theroputic touch craze) to disprove it:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/10/drinking_bleach_is_good_for_yo.php

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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