Another Conspiracy

I don't know what it is about commenters in the blogs I read but the weird ones seem to be be acting a little bit too amenable lately. First there was James Chastek in his blog talking about Science (TM) and Religion, and this guy shows up in the combox and promptly exhibits almost all of the bizarre raving new atheist tropes at which point we were treated to a rousing dismemberment of his arguments by the likes of Brandon Watson and Crude. Now, in his blog, Ed Feser has written a post on Conspiracy Theories and, right on cue, we have another commenter who appears and exhibits all of the tropes associated with that particular subculture. And we are again treated to another thorough takedown by the likes of Mr Watson and other members of the AT crowd.

Two examples in as many weeks? On the Internet, where factual accuracy and considered argument are at their apogee?

A coincidence, I don't think so... something's definitely going on here!

However, it has to be said, pace my attempt to identify the latest manifestation of the global lizard space-alien conspiracy, we do cut to the chase fairly quickly. In response to the inevitable Conspiracy Theorist challenge: "Why don't you want to conduct such an investigation now?"

Brandon Watson replies:
"Because it's a waste of time and money clearly motivated by an attempt of people to find closure, whether for 9/11 itself or its aftermath, on the basis of speculative hypotheses and just-so stories rather than actual evidence; because its founding assumptions require us to believe that a government that repeatedly bungles much less elaborate projects somehow managed to be utterly successful here, with no means or mechanism in sight for it to do so, despite the fact that we are talking about something that occurred in one of the busiest buildings in the world; because nobody is in fact risking anything, much less reputation and livelihood, on the kind of speculation involved here and the supposedly 'compelling' arguments turn out to be purely speculative frameworks very tenuously linked to evidence here and there; because anyone who has ever actually looked at disaster reports knows that the supposed inconsistencies and contradictions show no signs of being anything other than the ordinary kind of confusion any significant disaster causes; and because when you actually look at the claims of 9/11 truthers, one finds a consistent pattern of exaggeration deviating from the actual evidence in a clearly identifiable direction."

which to me seems to sum up the best response nicely.

There's also a reference to an old but good xkcd cartoon that says something similar.

The thread is ongoing and the person in question is still digging his hole deeper and deeper. I suspect he won't stop as the situation is similar to that of the first commenter on the Just Thomism blog: there is too much emotional investment in the proponent's truth claim that no amount of reasoned argument will shift his position.