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Where Are the "Skeptics" in This "International Skeptics Forum"?

mikegriffith1 said:
From what I've seen, this forum has precious few "skeptics." The majority of the regular posters seem devoid of skepticism on a wide range of issues. They seem to accept just about every tale the government gives us, from the Warren Commission's discredited lone-gunman theory of JFK's murder to the NTSB's cockamamie tale that TWA Flight 700 blew up because of a fuel-tank spark to the now-debunked CDC/Fauci claims about the need for masking and draconian shutdowns in response to COVID, to the CDC's now-hotly disputed claims about COVID vaccine safety, etc., etc. Where is the "skepticism"? Is there a major government claim that most people in this forum do not accept?

It's curious that when it comes to the JFK assassination, most of the posters here swallow the Warren Commission's tales but reject the far more thorough findings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) because the HSCA concluded that two gunmen were involved, that at least four shots were fired, that Jack Ruby had significant Mafia ties, that Ruby lied about how he entered the police department basement to shoot Oswald, that someone was impersonating Oswald in Mexico City weeks before the assassination, etc., etc.
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Gosh, Mikey, here's the thing; we have a JFK thread. You've posted cut & paste CT claptrap, and run away without defending it. You've never read the Warren Commission, nor did you bother to read through the other JFK CT threads where each aspect has been discussed in excruciating detail.

Here's the thing, Hotrod, there's a difference between a cynic and a skeptic. Skeptic look for answers using facts, and objective sources (or objective as possible). Cynic already have their minds made up, and are immune to facts of any size, or veracity. You are a cynic. A cynic in dire need to have their world-view validated by the non-mentally ill. Get a job with the Trump Administration, they're more you speed.
 
Translation: "if you don't embrace irrational, illogical, debunked and disproven silly CTs, you ain't a real skeptic".

:ROFLMAO:
 
dirtywick said:
new skeptics rule: skepticism is only to be practiced against the government's claims, and not mike griffith's
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Pretty much, yeah, with the key word being "against." Mike seems to define "skepticism" as an entirely negative process, to be used only to knock down what a government claims (aka "the official story"). And once he's done that to his satisfaction, his story, no matter how unfocused or unfounded, becomes a default against which actual skepticism need not apply. I'm guessing there's not a bit of room in his worldview for the idea that skepticism can be applied positively too, that evaluating a claim can as well result in support of a narrative as well as a denial of it. His "skepticism" is a sort of knee-jerk reflex in place of a thought-out process.
 
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For Little Mikey, "skepticism" is a swear word, like "socialism", "communist", "liberal" and "woke". It doesn't matter what these words actually mean. They are used just as a pejorative, modifier or intensifier in any sentence where contempt in a limited cultural and intellectual context is expected. They are also trigger words acting as a call to action for those of limited brain power.
 
Dammit, mike, in the JFK thread I, yours truly right here, have confessed to the alleged crime: I was in the Book Depository, I was on the grassy knoll, I was riding in the Sec Svc caravan, I was every dang place on that day & others, and you refuse to believe me like the lowest-born mudsill make-believe skep tick ever bred.

And now that you've got me all worked up, I may as well peel off my disguise and admit -- proudly! zealously! even spitting a little! -- that my name is Mao Zedong Fauci and I am the evil mastermind behind

Well hell, every evul conspiratty you can think of. Go ahead n try to stump me. Come on, try.

Knew ya couldn't.
 
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Shouldn't something that happened in 1964 pretty much have long went by the bridge of current interests?
Even if it is discovered some other turn of events happened it won't fix anything. John will still be dead.
 
Hercules56 said:
Can't believe he brought up the JFK "lone gunmen" theory. LOL!!

Kramer? Is that you?
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Axxman300 said:
Gosh, Mikey, here's the thing; we have a JFK thread. You've posted cut & paste CT claptrap, and run away without defending it. You've never read the Warren Commission, nor did you bother to read through the other JFK CT threads where each aspect has been discussed in excruciating detail.

Here's the thing, Hotrod, there's a difference between a cynic and a skeptic. Skeptic look for answers using facts, and objective sources (or objective as possible). Cynic already have their minds made up, and are immune to facts of any size, or veracity. You are a cynic. A cynic in dire need to have their world-view validated by the non-mentally ill. Get a job with the Trump Administration, they're more you speed.
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Well said.

Makes me wonder whether Lee Harvey Oswald would be upset that relatively few people were giving him “credit” for the JFK assassination, or he’d be pleased that over half a century later conspiracy theorists continue to take his word for it that he was a “patsy.”

Had Jack Ruby not shot him…
 
8enotto said:
Shouldn't something that happened in 1964 pretty much have long went by the bridge of current interests?
Even if it is discovered some other turn of events happened it won't fix anything. John will still be dead.
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Don't go revealing secrets like that! Everyone is supposed to think JFK was shot in '63!
 
Darat said:
A comment I read on a Youtube channel comes to mind it was something like "It's far easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they've been fooled."
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It's usually attributed to Mark Twain, but that may be apocryphal.

www.snopes.com

Did Mark Twain Say 'It's Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled'?

While the quote "it's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled" is often attributed to Mark Twain, there's no evidence that the author actually wrote or spoke this phrase.
www.snopes.com www.snopes.com
 
I'm getting a lot of use out of this comment.

MarkCorrigan said:
So, to sum up:

"Waaaaaahhhh! You meanies won't accept my unevidenced claim and instead ask reasonable questions and request genuine evidence! So now I'm going to accuse you all of being pseudoskeptics because you won't accept my particular brand of unevidenced vacuous nonsense! Waaaah!

What do you mean answer questions? That's rude of you!"
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Since the OP brought it up, it's been a back burner thing I've wondered about for a while: The House Select Committee on Assassinations. My understanding is that the HSCA was comprised of congress people, tasked with investigating the assassinations of JFK and MLK. They came up with different findings than the Warren Commission, most notably that they found it likely that there was a second gunman at Delaney and conspiracy was likely.

So OK. That's actually pretty stunning, coming from our own government, and seems to warrant merit. But my understanding is that the findings were actually somewhat less than rigorously conducted, and supervised by people not well qualified in investigation or forensics.

I'm sure this has been thoroughly dissected in the rather large JFK thread, but if someone has the Cliff Notes version, I'd appreciate a brief summary.
 
Long story short: The HSCA looked at the evidence, reexamined it, carried out tests, and were preparing to write a report confirming the findings of the Warren Commission, when in the eleventh hour, a dictabelt recording was presented which, on the face of it, made it sound like there were four gunshots, and not just the three everyone agreed Oswald had fired. So they decided that was enough evidence and without further examination declared that there probably had been a second shooter.

Later examination showed that a) the recording couldn't have been made at or near JFK's car (since it came from a motorcycle known be 250 yards behind), and b) the portion supposedly containing the shots couldn't have been made at the actual time of the assassination (since it contained words known to be spoken 90 seconds after the shots were fired).

I suppose it's worth noting two things about the HSCA:
1) It happened in the post-Watergate era, where a lot of illusions about government work and practice had been shattered. The assumption that the government and its officers were automatically telling the truth, took one hell of a beating in those years.
2) It wasn't cheap. It cost $5 million to carry out the investigation, roughly $30 million in 2025 money, and I doubt people would have been impressed had they found nothing at all.
 
Thermal said:
Since the OP brought it up, it's been a back burner thing I've wondered about for a while: The House Select Committee on Assassinations. My understanding is that the HSCA was comprised of congress people, tasked with investigating the assassinations of JFK and MLK. They came up with different findings than the Warren Commission, most notably that they found it likely that there was a second gunman at Delaney and conspiracy was likely.

So OK. That's actually pretty stunning, coming from our own government, and seems to warrant merit. But my understanding is that the findings were actually somewhat less than rigorously conducted, and supervised by people not well qualified in investigation or forensics.

I'm sure this has been thoroughly dissected in the rather large JFK thread, but if someone has the Cliff Notes version, I'd appreciate a brief summary.
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To supplement KDLarsen's excellent post, I would add this Wikipedia article on the subject, which notes the germane point that the Dictabelt recording (which was the sole basis for the HSCA's conclusions about a second shooter) did not actually record any audible sounds of gunshots at all, only "impulse patterns" which, according to a later study, were "probably static." And there are plenty enough other objections (beside the ones KD noted) to the recording as any sound basis for the committee's finding, including the facts that

Sirens are not heard on the recording until over two minutes after what is supposed to be the sound of the shooting, even though McLain [the police officer whose motorcycle's microphone was supposedly the source of the recording] accompanied the motorcade to Parkland Hospital immediately after the shooting with sirens blaring the whole time. When the sirens are heard on the Dictabelt recording, they rise and recede in pitch (i.e., the Doppler effect) and volume, as if they are passing by. McLain also said that the engine sound was clearly from a three-wheeled motorcycle, not the two-wheeler that he drove. "There's no comparison to the two sounds," he said.
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