Self selection in conspiracy theorists

[_DarkHelmet]

Even given the idea that some nefarious government cabal set up the kamikaze airliner attack, why would it have been necessary to also rig the buildings with explosives to bring them down? Wouldn’t two gaping, burnt holes within the two tallest buildings in America - even if left standing - along with several hundred dead civilians and emergency personnel, been enough for hawks to successfully press for retaliatory action against bin Laden?

Alternately, if a secret government cabal managed to pull off the incredible feat of completely wiring these two buildings for a successful controlled demolition - and then actually did bring the towers down from it - wouldn’t it have been a whole lot easier to rent a few trucks, plant evidence in them that pointed to al Qaeda, then park them around the buildings for discovery after the fact?

It would seem that this conspiracy has an unnecessary amount of redundancy built into it that only inspires suspicion of a conspiracy.
.. wait ...

...maybe that aim to engender suspicion of a conspiracy proves that the conspiracy is real, because it shows that the conspirators were trying to elude detection by setting up a situation that would suggest a conspiracy to some, while making most folks think that believing in that conspiracy was madness, therefore poisoning the well of investigation and protecting the actual conspiracy!?!

; )

Yout last paragraph gave me a headache , but I agree 100% that there were far easier ways for goverment conspirators to stage a terrorist attack and frame al-quaeda. As you point out, just crashing planes into buildings would have worked without the need to sneakily rig explosives throughout the buildings.

[_Res Ipsa]

And that's a good example of why one has to be careful with "Qui Bono." The fact that Bush et al used 911 as an excuse to take military action doesn't mean they caused 911.

Res Ipsa:

Motive is an important area of criminal law and civil law investigations, as you undoubtedly know. Qui bono should always be asked in my opinion because motive seems to be the driving factor behind crime and other civil wrongs. It should be one of the first areas looked at when rounding up suspects. Why do you think the highjackers crashed the planes into the buildings? Obviously they had a motive, right? Osama Bin Laden had a motive and probably that was why he was the prime suspect within hours of 9/11. Qui bono seems to have led the way on accusing Bin Laden by Bush and others. When an older man dies suddenly and under suspicious circumstances and has a $2 Mil life insurance policy and has a young wife, shouldn't she be at least questioned? However, if she has a good alibi and another person looks like a better suspect, then one can move on. But one still questions the wife. Bush was a complete moron and so if he had been involved it was merely as a stage actor giving lines. Anyway, he was too stupid to have done 9/11.

Exiled, you keep arguing with me as if I said Cui Bono is always a fallacy. Qui Bono is properly used to generate a list of potential suspects when you have evidence that a crime has been committed. It is used improperly when offered as evidence that a crime was committed or to identify members of a conspiracy absent evidence that there is an actual conspiracy in the first place.

I’ve assisted insurance companies with arson investigations. Being upside down on your mortgage is a motive to burn your house down. If I’m upside down on my mortgage and my house burns down, Cui Bono? Me.

But people whose mortgage is upside down also have accidental fires that burn down their houses. And their odds of having an accidental fire are the same as everyone else’s.

So, my house burns down. You discover I’m lots better off financially. It would be a misuse of Cui Bono to use the financial benefit to me as evidence that I burned the house down. Why? Because you have no reason to believe that the fire was intentional.

Now, assume you hire a competent fire investigator who performs a professionally competent fire investigation and concludes that the fire was intentionally set. Now Cui Bono can be appropriately used to compile a list of potential suspects. But it still would be improper to use Cui Bono as evidence that I burned my house down. Why? Because there are people who burn somebody else’s house down, and the odds of that happening to me are the same as those for anyone else.

So now you have to do two things. You have to investigate whether there was anyone else with motive. And you have to look for evidence that connects each person with motive to the setting of the fire. Where was I when the fire was set? Could I have been at the scene when the fire was set? Was I supposed to be at work but didn’t show up? Was I captured on a security camera 1000 miles away? Did I rent a storage unit the day before the fire and move a bunch of possessions from the house to the unit? Did someone see me or anyone else at the house?

You might be tempted to skip this last step by claiming I hired someone else to set the fire. But that’s always possible with every set fire, so it’s not evidence. In fact, it’s just what conspiracy theorists do — instead of inventing a conspiracy, you’d be inventing a hired arsonist without providing a scrap of evidence that I actually hired such a person.

So, you need three different types of evidence: (1) the fire was intentionally set; (2) evidence that I had a motive, after investigating who else had a motive; and (3) connecting evidence — often referred to as opportunity. Cui Bono tells you who to investigate for motive. But it is not evidence of (1) or (3). And, in my opinion, conspiracy theorists commonly screw that up.

So, when I say One has to be careful when using Cui Bono, that’s exactly what I mean. I don’t mean that Cui Bono is always a fallacy.