From Anonymous Posts: Just sharing my understanding of CT

Original Anonymous Post By: anon_93986
I am sharing my understanding of CT; this is also a project for one of my classes.

I chose to demonstrate my understanding of CT through the use of a comic. The comic consists of two scenes that appear very much alike, but both contain two completely different concepts. Or do they? The first box takes place in a classroom. A group of students are listening to a science lecture. This is obvious through the placement of the periodic table on the back wall, the lab coat worn by the instructor, and also, by the words written on the board: hypothesis, data, graphs, and conclusions. In the second box, the scene is similar in that the students are listening to a speaker about his thoughts on CT. The speaker is wearing a tie to differentiate him from the science lecturer (who was wearing the lab coat), and on the back wall, there is a poster questioning the “truth” behind the 9/11 attack. On the side, you can hear other students mumbling things they heard relating to the evidence of the CT being discussed. In the last box, I zoom in on the two students who sat through both lectures, and they are questioning, “What do we believe?”

I chose this as my setting based on one of the readings in class, “Human science as conspiracy theory” by Martin Parker. In the reading, Parker argues that both sciences and conspiracies “are attempts to provide explanatory myths for mass societies in that they claim to uncover ‘hidden’ plots or machineries which have caused a particular state of affairs or event to take place”. Although I don’t agree with this statement completely, I believe there is some truth, and maybe even a bit of conspiracy, hidden within the argument. Using Parker’s argument as a starting point, I wanted to further argue that in both scenes, the students are pursuing greater knowledge and find satisfaction in the “truth,” whatever that my be. However, for those people who easily dismiss anything coming close to a CT, I’d also like to argue that CT don’t necessarily arise from just a group of “odd” people secretly huddled over each other in hidden places, coming up with illegitimate evidence against the government. It is clearly plausible that some CT arise from the need to explain the unexplainable, searching deeper into things worth investigating. Although the arguments may be faulty, CT follow a logical process, as does science, and should not always be underestimated.

I found this to be an interesting and well thought out post in the anonymous area of the board. I miss those posts alot and felt it worth pulling into the mainstream so more will have a look!

The term conspiracy theory has such a stigma attached to it that many people's brain is already biased before even approaching the subject of such theory.