Event – Conspiracy Theory Day, 25th September, London

CFI UK and SPES present

CONSPIRACY THEORY DAY

Sunday 25th September 2011
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1R 4RL.

9/11, alien visitation, Jewish cabals and global warming – why are people drawn to conspiracy theories, and what holds them captive? What are the warning signs of a dodgy conspiracy theory? What conspiracy theories are actually credible, and why? Spend an entertaining and informative day with some if the world’s leading experts.

PROGRAMME

10.30 Registration

10.45-11.55 Chris French and Robert Brotherton “Conspiracy Minded: The Psychology of Belief in Conspiracy Theories”

12.00- 1.10 Karen Douglas “A Social Psychological Perspective On Conspiracy Theories”

2.00-3.10 David Aaronovitch “Do Conspiracy Theories Have Common Characteristics Over Time And Space?”

3.10-4.10 Jamie Bartlett and Carl Miller “Truth And The Net”

4.10 End

EVENT DETAILS

Venue: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1R 4RL.

Cost £10, £5 to students.

Booking in advance available at the BHA website. Remaining tickets will be for sale on the door.

Organized by Stephen Law, Provost CFI UK.  Media can contact Stephen on think@royalinstitutephilosophy.org.

DETAILS OF TALKS

10.45-11.55 Chris French and Robert Brotherton, “Conspiracy Minded: The Psychology of Belief in Conspiracy Theories” This talk will introduce the topic of conspiracy theories and outline the difficulties that arise when trying to formulate a universally acceptable definition of this deceptively complex concept. Conspiracy theories have come to play a prominent role in contemporary culture. It is almost inevitable that any significant event will become the subject of conspiracy theorising, and considerable numbers of people endorse such theories. Although the psychology behind belief in unsubstantiated and implausible conspiracy theories is not yet well understood, social scientists are now beginning to address this important topic. A summary of theories and empirical findings to date will be presented.

12.00-1.10 Karen Douglas, “A social psychological perspective on conspiracy theories”. Karen will give some background on the psychological correlates of conspiracy theories (e.g., personality characteristics, motivations) before going on to discuss some of her own and her students’ research. She will talk about research showing that conspiracy theories are persuasive and change people’s opinions about what happened in major world events such as the death of Princess Diana. Karen will also explain research showing that people tend to believe in conspiracy theories when they lack information and fill in the gaps by ‘projecting’ their own moral tendencies onto the alleged conspirators, and will discuss some of the features that make conspiracy theories persuasive vs. those that are less effective. Finally, she will talk about the beginning of a research programme examining some of the consequences of beliefs in conspiracy theories. For example, she has some data showing that exposure to conspiracy theories makes people feel less powerful and therefore less likely to want to vote.

2.00-3.10 David Aaronovitch, “Do conspiracy theories have common characteristics over time and space?” Details to follow.

3.10 Jamie Bartlett and Carl Miller, “Truth and the Net”. Jamie and Carl will talk about their forthcoming (August 2011) report ‘Truth and the Net’ which examines the extent that conspiracy theories and misinformation are entering the classroom; how far young people are equipped with the digital literacy required to confront them. This is based on a large national survey of teachers on the subject. They’ll sketch out the critical thinking skills, habits and knowledge young people need.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

David Aaronovitch, author of Voodoo Histories (further details to follow.

Jamie Bartlett is the head of the Violence and Extremism Programme at the think tank Demos. He researches and writes about a wide variety of extremist groups. He recently authored a major paper on al-Qaeda terrorism, which included living alongside radical Islamists. He is currently leading a research team conducting the largest ever survey of the far-right in Europe.

Robert Brotherton is a member of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is conducting a PhD, funded by the ESRC, on the psychology of belief in conspiracy theories. He also teaches as part of the anomalistic psychology undergraduate module at Goldsmiths. Robert is currently acting as assistant editor of The Skeptic and convenes the Anomalistic Psychology Interest Group, a seminar group for academic discussion of topics within anomalistic psychology.

Dr Karen Douglas is a Reader in Psychology at the University of Kent. She is Associate Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology and Social Psychology. Karen is also a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and a member of learned societies in social psychology and communication studies. She has published widely on topics such as language and communication, the psychology of the Internet, feedback, and the social psychology of conspiracy theories, and her research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Australian Research Council and the British Academy. She is the co-author of a forthcoming social psychology text to be published by Palgrave MacMillan and the first volume on feedback to be published by Peter Lang Publishers. Karen’s research on conspiracy theories focuses on the social psychological processes and consequences of beliefs in such theories, and the factors that make conspiracy theories so appealing.

Professor Chris French is the Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, as well as being a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association and a member of the Scientific and Professional Advisory Board of the British False Memory Society. He has published over 100 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics within psychology. His main current area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. He frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims, as well as writing for the Guardian’s online science pages. For more than a decade, he edited of The Skeptic and his latest book, co-edited with Wendy Grossman, is Why Statues Weep: The Best of The Skeptic (London: The Philosophy Press).

Carl Miller is an Associate at Demos and a researcher at King’s College London. He is interested in extremism, dissent, the Internet and social media. In 2010 Jamie and Carl authored The Power of Unreason, about the relationship between conspiracy theories and terrorist ideology. Following this paper, both spent months debating with 9/11 Truthers.

Antisemitic myth deja vu

Modernity has one for the aficionados.

Jeremy Corbyn’s open and shut case

Tonight’s Evening Standard reports that various officials are embarrassed by a series of errors which permitted Sheikh Raed Salah to enter the country and lecture the British public.

“I can’t see how the police missed him at the Conway Hall, he was speaking from the platform. It all sounds rather Inspector Clouseau”.

Uttered without a shred of irony by Jeremy Corbyn of Press TV and Islington North, slightly before divulging a spectacular sleuthing failure of his own:

“We checked him out and he denied completely that he was an anti-Semite so we thought it was appropriate to bring him over”

Here’s Salah being antisemitic in 2007:

“Whoever wants a more thorough explanation, let him ask what used to happen to some children in Europe, whose blood was mixed in with the dough of the [Jewish] holy bread.”

In 2003, adamant about a Jewish 9/11 tip-off

“A suitable way was found to warn the 4,000 Jews who work every day at the Twin Towers to be absent from their work on September 11, 2001, and this is really what happened! Were 4,000 Jewish clerks absent [from their jobs] by chance, or was there another reason? At the same time, no such warning reached the 2,000 Muslims who worked every day in the Twin Towers, and therefore there were hundreds of Muslim victims.”

Salah’s Islamic Movement, 2011 – mad Jews against free expression:

“Since Salah received the invitation to come to Britain, the Jewish lobby went crazy and did everything in its power to prevent the visit, so that the Zionist narrative remains the only narrative”

Addendum, on Harry’s Place, Just Journalism reviews the opinions Salah expressed in a Ha’aretz interview in 2001, on homosexuality, women and honour killing, which are even more frightening than his views about Jews. The Guardian (of what, these days?) cares little.

Conspiracy Theory at the New Statesman

Dave Rich on the CST Blog.

Twitter – a place where rumours go to die

Six-pointed star spotted on Ghaddafi munitions? A no-brainer (if you’re prejudiced).

Keep clicking ‘Load more’ on this Andy Carvin piece, which ends:

“The moral of this story? For one thing, rumors gonna spread – and Twitter can serve as an easy vector for spreading them. But as I’ve said for a long time, Twitter can also be a place where rumors go to die.

In this particular case, a rumor perpetuated by several news sources was easily debunked by a group of people on Twitter who don’t know each other and likely will never meet each other in person. “

HT: Bob

America is Israel’s Slave?

Mark Gardner on ‘The Guardian and America’s “slavish subservience to Israel”’ here on the CST Blog.

Wikileaks and the conspiracist view of history

By Bob From Brockley, this piece on Contested Terrain.

Ben Cohen on Oliver Stone and Antisemitism

At The Huffington Post.

… It was these myths which effectively licensed Oliver Stone’s remarks. If there is a lesson to be drawn from L’Affaire Stone, it is that he did not – and this is why his apology is really by the by – act alone.

Read the whole piece.

Ken Waltzer responds to John Mearsheimer

In a recent bizarre speech at the Palestine Center in Washington DC, April 29, “The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. New Afrikaners, ” political scientist John Mearsheimer went over the top.[1] He predicted the future in the otherwise unpredictable Middle East, characterizing Israelis as inevitable “Afrikaners” in charge of an apartheid state and Palestinians as inevitable secular democrats. He also characterized American Jews as either righteous Jews (if they agree with him and demonize Israel) or as “new Afrikaners” loyal to the Zionist state (if they don’t).

Regarding American Jews in general, it was somewhat unclear in his mind whether they could achieve the standard of righteousness to which he aspires for them, that is, adopt the views articulated by the likes of Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, or the crackpot Phil Weiss, or would simply when the time came turn out to be damn Jews.

This speech will stimulate new questions about Mearsheimer, co-author of the Israel Lobby, and his attitudes about Jews and his judgment. That book was sloppy and tendentious scholarship but this speech went well beyond. To Mearsheimer, Israelis are stumbling toward full-fledged apartheid in a Greater Israel; American Jewish leaders are “blindly loyal” to a foreign state. The Israel lobby (AIPAC etc) embraces racism and endorses Greater Israel. All righteous people, Mearsheimer implied, ought to be opposed to Israel on anti-racist grounds. Apparently, it is today okay once again to objectify Jews or groups of Jews as out of step with humane values.

A century ago, the social scientist Edward A. Ross stood on Union Square in New York City watching the immigrant Jews going by, commenting on their physiognomy whose features to him betrayed obvious failures of intelligence and promise. Now, another social scientist presumes to comment on all the Jews – there and also here — and on their moral promise. What happened to the cautious Mearsheimer who told the Forward in 2006 one must address these subjects carefully? “I don’t have an agenda…,” he said.

Read the rest on the SPME website here.

No s**t Sherlock

A post by Saul.

After years of the Jews for Justice for Palestinians and Independent Jewish Voices ranting on and on about the power of the “Israel Lobby” and how we need a “rational debate” about it and how influential it is in the UK and Britain, a piece containing the following appears in JfJfP’s latest newsletter, criticising Obama for a lack of pressure on Israel:

“While the “Israel lobby” thesis conveniently explains his failure to do so and absolves US policy-makers of responsibility for their ongoing support of Israeli apartheid, violence and annexation, it simply does not stand up under closer scrutiny.”

The newsletter, whilst replete with the normal misrepresentations of Israel as “apartheid” etc, claims that the “Lobby” argument does not stand up to scrutiny! No s**t Sherlock (or should that be Shylock?)!

Since the recent resurrection of this old canard, Engage has been saying exactly this, whilst simultaneously drawing attention to its formulation as a repetition of antisemitic myths.

JJfP and IJV have, from their inception, allowed themselves to be blown like a straw in the wind. Their tendency to uncritically accept any negative narrative that relates to Israel or Jews, whether it connects with antisemitic libels or not, is notorious.

Maybe now they can admit to themselves, and others, that their failure to connect with any meaningful section of their “target audience” (the so-called “Jewish community”) has nothing to do with the alleged omnipotence of the Board of Deputies, the Chief Rabbi or the Board of Deputies, but their own inability to recognise antisemitism when it stares them in the face.