Obviously Occam can't be used as an exact scie...

2010-10-28T16:35:34.419+01:00

Obviously Occam can't be used as an exact science, more as a general guide, as it can get things dead wrong. It does though at least provide a useful position from which to start any general inquiry, with there needing to be a lot of extenuating circumstances before you consider the "less simple" explanation.

Your Kennedy man I think says it best:

"If the author had truly been serious about writing an overview of conspiracies, he might have left behind the large package of straw men gathered in this book. He might have instead chosen from any number of real historical events, such as the 1846 invasion of Mexico led by Zachary Taylor, the 1898 bombing of the Maine leading to the Spanish-American War, Operation Paperclip, Operation Gladio, the Manhattan Project, the coup of Salvador Allende, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Iran Contra ... there are endless examples, of which these are but a few. In doing so, he might have been to construct a model of how such things are done and thus produced some valuable work."

That wasn't however his objective in writing the book, as soon becomes clear. Anything that detracts from his peculiar and flawed thesis that conspiracies aren't powerful or very often true is left out. It's very odd for someone who does so little actual debunking to have so suddenly become this "debunker-in-chief" and to have chosen the most obvious and most ludicrous of theories to knock down. I still can't tell whether or not the book is even intended to try to convince "truthers" or anyone else of just how wrong they are, although seeing as nothing will in the first place maybe any attempt to do so is pissing in the wind.

Good points! A few initial thoughts that it gave m...

2010-10-28T13:48:36.978+01:00

Good points! A few initial thoughts that it gave me to chew...

I'd guess Aaronovitch was unwilling to consider real conspiracies as they might demand some recognition of quite how many there have been. His airy insisistence that they "aren't powerful" is simply ludicrous; if he's being sincere then he's also uninformed.

I'm sceptical of Occam's blade's "ability to cut through to the simplest explanation". Firstly as it tends to be used in a bland, blithe manner that fails to appreciate all the data and second as it forces us to a erect a measure of simplicity. Thus, in the palms of Aaro and others it tends to mean a priori implausibility, which Splintered Sunrise dealt with...

Aaro would no doubt find it inherently implausible that a Masonic lodge could take over the secret service, police, military and judicial infrastructure of a major European country, or that in the same country a secret army of state-sponsored neo-Nazi terrorists would carry out false-flag bombings which the state would then blame on the left. Yet this did happen...

Basic parsimony can help to identify the most well-evidenced of theories, but the notion that it's usually good to plump for the best-attested thesis isn't much of a law!

According to this fellow Aaronovitch screws up his chapter on the JFK shootings. As he tends to confuse the details when he writes on 9/11 - about which I'm more informed - I'm loath to dismiss his critic.

Comments on Obsolete: Book review: Voodoo Histories by David Aaronovitch.

Obviously Occam can't be used as an exact scie...

Good points! A few initial thoughts that it gave m...