A New Entry in the Outside the Concensus List

[c9]

US President Kennedy was killed by the CIA

Humans have never set foot on the moon

The September 11th attacks were coordinated by the US government

Global Warming is a Hoax

All vaccines are evil*

...and now The planet Nibiru is going to hit Earth soon and kill us all and NASA is hiding the evidence (thanks, 2012!)

* I was going to find a good vaccination myth debunking site, but decided that the Google results from the phrase "All vaccines are evil" provided far more entertainment for me.

Comments

[richie73.livejournal.com]

What you're doing here is called demolishing straw men. You're trying to discredit points of views by exaggerating or distorting them.

I think that there is a reasonable possibility that Kennedy was murdered by the CIA. That does not mean I believe that.

I don't believe that the moon landings were hoaxed, but I do believe that NASA is is not complete honest with the public concerning certain results of space exploration. I have written about this at

http://www.suppressedscience.net/mars.html

If you care to read that.

I do not believe that the 9/11 attacks were coordinated by the US government. But I do accept that evidence exists that is hard to reconcile with the idea that the 9/11 attacks were planned and carried out by a few radicals working out of a cave in Afghanistan.

I do not believe that global warmin is a hoax, but I do believe that legitimate difference of opinion may exist concerning the future of the climate.

And concerning vaccines.. I recently chose to get the tetanus vaccine. Nevertheless, I also think that the flu vaccine is worthless. Clearly, the issue is a little more complicated than the vaccine enlightened ones such as yourself versus the anti-vaccine Luddites.

[c9.livejournal.com]

If I were actually dismissing your arguments based on comical extremes, that absolutely would be demolishing straw-men. However, I was not in this case. I was listing comical extremes, which I do disagree with, and then adding a comical link related to a current movie on the end.

I have posted more serious, less exaggerated comments and posts in the past, and I know you don't believe the things I listed and I never suggested you do.

Also, thanks for the link-- I look forward to reading it.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Nice article. I didn't spot your name though, did they remove your byline? It's nice to have credit when work is published.

[richie73.livejournal.com]

It is mine, as is the entire site. I decided a few years ago when I moved back to the US to not identify myself. If you want to know why I think that to be a wise precaution for a university teacher who works on a contract basis (not tenured), then go to

http://www.suppressedscience.net/aids.html

and read the paragraphs that start with "Wainberg and John Moore, another leading AIDS researchers who is well known" (towards the bottom). Not that I fancy myself as important or well known as someone who actually published a book.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Oh, that makes sense. Smart move.

[primary-suspect.livejournal.com]

Oh great, like this is going to help things:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/20/climate-sceptics-hackers-leaked-emails

[c9.livejournal.com]

Oh god, yeah. Nice work everyone involved. Hopefully things are cleared up and any offending work immediately retracted. There is such a consensus from so many sources, independently verified, that this wouldn't necessarily have much impact, but deniers will be quoting these emails for the next decade regardless of any other facts that might come to light.