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Conspiracies And Probability

Posted by Hemos on from the roll-the-dice-enough-times dept.

guttentag writes "Sunday's New York Times Magazine is running a feature that looks at the rumored conspiracy that allegedly killed nearly a dozen bioterror and germ warfare researchers during a four month period following the U.S. anthrax scare. "What are the odds," people ask, despite the fact that a "one-in-a-million miracle" will statistically occur 280 times a day in the U.S. These strange things happen all the time, but we hype them because they provide the spice in literature and the comfort of comprehension."

5 of 491 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hemos... stuck in a time loop? by guttentag · · Score: 4, Informative

    No. It's the same topic, but not the same story. The May story referenced globeandmail.com, which was perpetuating the rumor. The NYTimes Magazine story debunks the rumor by pointing out the facts and explaining why everyone gets irrationally excited about these things.

  2. Enough true conspiracies to worry about by michaelmalak · · Score: 3, Informative
    As I recently wrote over at kuo5hin, I've discovered that about a third of the conspiracies out there are true. But finding out which ones takes research -- which I enjoy doing. And recently I set up a PostNuke blog, UnderReported.com to post what I find. I look for stories that can be backed up by the mainstream press and/or primary sources, such as government web sites.

    As for this particular issue of the dead scientists, there's been no good evidence either way, and so it hasn't appeared at all in my blog.

    1. Re:Enough true conspiracies to worry about by guttentag · · Score: 4, Informative
      From the K5 post you referenced:
      I'm addicted to reading and researching conspiracy theories, and discovering that about a third of them are true. It takes a lot of time to figure out which ones are true. Often conspiracy stories are half true, where "half" can apply in a number of different ways -- half the facts are correct, half the statements are substantiated, or the sources are halfway reliable.
      A story that is "half true" is still half false. Is this your basis for claiming that you've "discovered that about a third of the conspiracies out there are true?" Because you don't seem to be backing up this serious claim with any other information. You would be performing a greater service if you filtered out the things that aren't true and posted purely factual accounts to set the record straight. But I don't think you want to do that.

      From looking at your blog, I don't see evidence of conspiracies. All I see in your blog are the angry ramblings of a self-righteous individual who thinks the news media is playing up the wrong stories.

      For real evidence of real conspiracies, read through the documents at The George Washington University's National Security Archive of declassified documents, like the proposal to incite world opinion against Cuba through propaganda, staged riots, staged attacks on the U.S., mock funerals and more.

  3. Re:Did they catch the Anhtrax killer ? by theguru · · Score: 5, Informative

    >and did you see any wreckage of a plane at the >pentagon in any of the photos taken ? cockpit ? >wing ? fuselage ?

    Yep, I have. Pictures of plane wreckage at the pentagon

  4. Re:Conspiracies, nuts, and JFK by macpeep · · Score: 4, Informative

    "1) Because one bullet was supposed to have gone thru three people, all at different angles."

    Three? See, this is exactly what the parent was talking about. There was *TWO* people that the bullet passed through. Connally and JFK. And if you look at pictures shown by the "look, the single bullet theory is ridiculous"-people, sure enough, it will look like it had to make funny u-turns in the air. However, if you look at the actual pictures of how JFK and Connally sat, you'll notice that they weren't at all directly behind eachother but that JFK was much further to the outside of the car than Connally was. Thus, a bullet passing through his head would have hit Connally in the right shoulder, just as it did.

    Of course there's a million other evidence, for and against but I'm not really interested in the whole JFK conspiracy. I just don't like it when people bend the facts; say it was three people instead of two, show diagrams full of errors and clearly exaggerated with bullets making u-turns in the air and so on.

    If your case is so convincing, just stick to the facts. Ok?

    Here's just one site that reveals some of the bullshit:

    http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/sbt.htm