Intellectual humility test for the ConspiracyTest.org critical thinking experts

As critical thinking expert, Jesse Richardson, states, the key to critical thinking isn't knowledge of logic and understanding of cognitive biases, it's intellectual humility

“People can be extremely intelligent, have taken a critical thinking course, and know logic inside and out. Yet they may just become clever debaters, not critical thinkers, because they are unwilling to look at their own biases.” — Carole Wade, cognitive psychologist

Intellectual humility aka open-mindedness

In the podcast, Add to Cart, Jesse Richardson - the founder of The School of Thought which has produced the very useful websites yourfallacy.is and yourbias.is and who is one of the collaborators on theconspiracytest.org - says:

… we are emotional and social creatures first and rational creatures very much second … it’s really the mindset we go into things in the first place that really matters because you can weaponise fallacies and use them to close down arguments and be more irrational if you’re that way inclined. It really takes intellectual humility and being honest with yourself to be able to be receptive and to progress both personally and collectively to a better place.

Jesse, you and I are in total agreement on this point. We could not agree more. However, my experience of my one-sided communication with you is that you do not exhibit the intellectual humility you espouse in that you do not respond to my communications, despite the fact that all my communications are perfectly rational and civil.

Intellectual humility test for the Conspiracy Test collaborators

This test is for the Conspiracy Test collaborators and any others who believe that the conspiracytest.org tests are a valid tool in guiding those who believe certain events are conspiracies in better critical thinking.

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The test

In order to demonstrate the most important quality of a critical thinker, intellectual humility, the collaborators of the Conspiracy Test site are invited to respond to this test that is based solely on the first part of the Conspiracy Tests common to all tests titled, “Examine viability”. As the basis of this test is purely to check for the quality of intellectual humility, critiques of the arguments put forward in the Conspiracy Tests themselves are not involved. Rather, I put forward a minimal argument to see if there will be a response … and if there is we can continue from there. If not, then the self-described critical thinking experts will show they are not who they claim to be and, sadly, that would seem to preclude any possibility of an intelligent, open-minded discussion about an important subject.

The test for the ConspiracyTest collaborators comprises a single question:

What is your response to the critique below of the first part of your test, “Examine viability”? Address all four points of the critique.

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How the test may be responded to:

1. A response to the question posed in the test.

2. A response stating that the question will not be responded to with rationale.

Given the following:

• the collaborators of the Conspiracy Test are self-described critical thinkers and their mission is to help others in improving their critical thinking skills

• an important quality of a critical thinker is intellectual humility

• the critique of the Conspiracy Test is perfectly rational and civil

there is simply no good reason for them not to respond to this test, is there?

I will let readers know if this test is responded to by any of the Conspiracy Test collaborators. If it isn’t, we know the answer to whether the collaborators possess the key quality of intellectual humility which is, unfortunately, in very short supply even among self-professed critical thinkers.

Aims, method and results of the Conspiracy Test project

The aims, methods and results of the Conspiracy Test site according to its creators (emphasis added):

Instead of making people defensive by trying to convince them they were wrong, we created a gamified experience that empowered them to conduct their own critical thinking investigation.

There were three key insights that informed the user experience design:

• First, was a probabilistic scale, to counter the binary nature of true-or-false beliefs.

• Second, was to gamify and incentivise the experience to encourage good-faith rationality.

• And third, was to replace adversarial debunking approaches by putting the user in control.

This resulted in an average 30% increase in skepticism. The campaign has reached over 60 million people worldwide.

Astounding results and reach.

Note: “skepticism” refers to skepticism of the conspiracy theory not of the official narrative thus it would seem the test creators have had a significant impact on the thinking of those inclined to disbelieve official narratives. I must say that I’m extremely skeptical of the 30% figure, however, we are not concerned with these claims here.

Conspiracy Test structure

Each test comprises three parts, the first two being identical for all tests which, as a user, I found annoying to have to click through for each test. As stated, this test will concern itself only with the first part, Examine viability.

1. Examine viability - asks us to consider the high improbability of such a large conspiracy not being leaked

2. Never trust a brain - a short whodunnit whose aim is to expose our weaknesses in observational behaviour

3. The other side - consider the alternative argument, ie, the argument for the official narrative for the specific event/phenomenon

The first part - Examine viability

For each test, we are asked to consider the viability of such a big conspiracy considering how many people would need to be in on it and keep their mouths shut. While the reason given for this probabilistic exercise is to counter the binary nature of true-or-false beliefs, ultimately it is not a sensible exercise for the reasons given below:

1. A viability exercise can work equally well for the conspiracy hypothesis

2. Ample evidence overrides seeming improbability

3. Things may seem improbable due to ignorance

4. Whistleblowers, leakers and relevant experts do, in fact, expose official narratives

1. Viability exercise works equally well for the conspiracy hypothesis

Consider the probability of:

• the multiple coincidences of

  • the first episode, “Pilot”, of the TV series, The Lone Gunmen, airing in March 2001, about a government conspiracy concerning an attempt to fly a commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center, with increased arms sales for the United States as an intended result.

  • the film, Fight Club, released on 11/11/99, ending with the two lead characters watching as a number of skyscrapers fall to the ground including what can be construed as twin towers. Note: while we are shown only three buildings coming down on 9/11 at the World Trade Centre, WTCs 1, 2 and 7, all seven WTC buildings were destroyed eventually.

  • numerous other media artefacts prior to 9/11 for which it is easy to see a connection to 9/11

  • a number of military exercises (here and here) taking place prior to and during 9/11, some of them related to hijacking
    
    Note: it is the totality of the artefacts that must be considered, not individual artefacts in isolation, although one might argue that some individual artefacts bear remarkable parallels.

• the US multi-trillion dollar military and intelligence infrastructure suffering catastrophic failure four times in one morning including penetration of Defence HQ at the hands of a bunch of terrorists armed with boxcutters

• on one day three high rise steel-frame buildings - including one not hit by a plane - being destroyed by fire when not a single one has been destroyed by fire before or since while many such buildings have suffered fire both greater and of longer duration than the buildings on 9/11.

• three major pandemic exercises (see Point 1), one of them whose details were virtually identical to the pandemic itself, occurring shortly before the pandemic started - 2018 (1), 2019 (2)

• an illness betraying symptoms no different from cold and flu requiring the world to turn itself upside down in response.

2. Ample evidence overrides seeming improbability

If there is ample evidence associated with an event/phenomenon, engaging in a probability exercise is the wrong approach and can lead to the logical fallacy, argumentum ad speculum aka Hypothesis Contrary to Fact. In the case of many of the events (if not all) under analysis there is ample evidence to make a judgement so probability exercises are irrelevant and risk misleading those who speculate.

3. Things may seem improbable due to ignorance

Very often what seems improbable only seems improbable due to ignorance, for example, if the phenomenon of the psychological operation or psyop is unfamiliar, the notion of many events not being as reported will automatically seem improbable - see item “Black Op” in article on Psychological Operations.

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I know this from personal experience: when my sister tried to tell me that the buildings came down by controlled demolition on 9/11, I shouted her down with, “They wouldn’t have had the confidence they could get away with it.”

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However, with the knowledge that there is a very long continuum of psyops - easily going as far back as the Roman emperor, Diocletian, setting fire to his palace and blaming it on the Christians, the Great Fire of London 1666 and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 - and that the Emperor’s New Clothes is not a fairy story but very much an allegory demonstrating how propaganda has what one might call “magical properties” it is not so improbable that 9/11 would be a psyop - what needs to be determined is whether the evidence shows it is or not.

An excellent guidepost from Sherlock Holmes:
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

4. Whistleblowers, leakers and relevant experts do, in fact, expose official narratives

Whistleblowers, leakers and relevant experts do indeed expose official narratives, however, they are simply ignored, sidelined, vilified, suppressed and censored … and gaslit with the label “conspiracy theorist”! Examples:

1. Where is the claim of “conspiracy” and where is the “theory” in the words of Fire Protection Engineer, Scott Grainger in:

“Steel structural frame buildings, high-rise buildings, simply do not collapse due to fire. There has never been until 9/11 an experience where there was a high-rise building that was steel frame completely collapsed.”

2. Dr Sam Bailey was a practising physician and co-presenter of the NZ television program, The Checkup, until she started speaking out against the alleged covid pandemic at which point she was fired from her presenter role and de-registered. Only once has any of her work been published by the mainstream media, and that was in the independently-owned Canberra Daily and only recently. (To my knowledge no other relevant expert making similar arguments has been published even once in the mainstream media although they are certainly not difficult to find on Substack and elsewhere.)

3. Protocols have been leaked from the Robert Koch Institute in Germany exposing the fact that rather than the science influencing political policy in the management of the alleged pandemic it was the other way around. (The problem of “the science” is another matter, however, this leak exposes a serious level of skullduggery of itself.)

The Conspiracy Test collaborators ask the “conspiracy theorists” to look at “the other side”, however, they seem to have only given “the other side” from their point of view a very cursory appraisal … which absolutely won’t cut it especially if - for no other reason - there is so much “controlled opposition” out there to lead us astray.

Recommended material to understand and get a proper look at “the other side”

• 9/11 - cut to the chase

• Dissenters of the covid narrative

• 12 logical fallacies unmasked in the use of the terms "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theorist"

The Conspiracy Test collaborators

The Conspiracy Test collaborators who will receive the intellectual humility test:

Gabriel Weinberg
CEO of DuckDuckGo

David McRaney
Vice President of School of Thought and author of How Minds Change

Prof. Sander van der Linden
University of Cambridge, Department of Psychology

Prof. Brendan Nyhan
Department of Government, Dartmouth College

Pskydin
Musician, Philosopher & Philanthropist

David Lenowitz
Executive Director of School of Thought

Prof. Deborah Brown
University of Queensland, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry

Dr. Peter Ellerton
University of Queensland, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry

Jesse Richardson
Creative Director & Founder of School of Thought

Luke Tierney
Writer