Update on Coyote's Law
Given all of the conspiracy theories bouncing around the net nowadays, I thought it would be timely to revisit Coyote's Law. Coyote's Law states:
When the same set of facts can be explained equally well by
- A massive conspiracy coordinated without a single leak between hundreds or even thousands of people -OR -
- Sustained stupidity, confusion and/or incompetence
Assume stupidity.
To some extent, Coyote's Law is a logical extension of Occam's Razor. However, it seems to have consistent and frequent application in modern politics. Here are a couple of examples, but I am sure the reader can think of more:
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There are a number of revisionist historians that make the argument that Pearl Harbor was actually an elaborate FDR plot to overcome domestic isolationism and bring the US into the war. They point to the many missed intelligence clues, the incredible unreadiness of the defenses at Pearl Harbor, and the missing US carriers as evidence of a conspiracy. However, most historians have concluded that Coyote's Law holds, that our failure at Pearl Harbor we the result of mistakes and incompetence, not conspiracy.
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The mother of all conspiracy theory subjects is, of course, the JFK shooting. Many people simply refuse to believe that a lone gunman, and a fairly unimpressive one at that, could have pulled off such a killing. He must have had help from the Cubans, or the Mafia, or the FBI, or the CIA, or the grassy knoll, or whatever. Despite all the millions of hours of research into these theories, Coyote's Law still holds - it is much more likely that JFK was killed due to poor protection and the vulnerability of any one man to a sufficiently dedicated gunman who is not committed to getting away after the assassination (which, by the way, is still true).
To some extent, in both these cases it is a bit unfair to use the word "stupidity". I am reminded of a quote by Frank Borman (as portrayed in the awesome mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon", I have not been able to find out if it was his actual words) in a committee hearing on the Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts. Under intense scrutiny for a set of conditions that in retrospect seemed ridiculously unsafe, Borman described the problem as "a failure of imagination". To some extent, that is what happened both at Pearl Harbor and with the JFK assassination, and, essentially, with the 9/11 attacks. What occurred was so new, so unprecedented, that no one could really make themselves believe in advance that it would happen. But, none-the-less, it resulted in incompetence, not conspiracy.
Which brings us to the 2004 election. Certainly, in this case, no one can claim a failure of imagination, as just about everyone half anticipated vote-tally screw-ups after Florida in 2000. However, in their review of conspiracy charges regarding election counts, this Caltech-MIT report has a fantastic restatement of Coyote's Law:
Well, I don't want to write off legitimate questions about the integrity of the voting system. But turn the question around: Which is more likely -- that an exit polling system that has been consistently wrong and troubled turned out to be wrong and troubled again, or that a vast conspiracy carried out by scores and scores of county and state election officials was successfully carried off to distort millions of American votes?
UPDATE
EEEK! Frank Borman is the astronaut. I had Martin Borman, the Nazi. Sorry. (and yes, this mistake was due to my STUPIDITY and INCOMPETENCE, and not a Boys From Brazil conspiracy.
Annette Meyer:
Don't know where to start! I'm caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place--my homes state uses, naturally, ethanol and those gasoline prices are lower. Yes, I'm aware of all the costs that create the more expensive ethanol--but my almost fixed income has to appreciate this situation--perhaps a predicament for others. As for Vioxx, my heredity has blessed me with all sorts of arthritis--removal of body parts and replacement with artificial ones has been the best result so far. But--if a medicine makes me feel better, regardless of the long term results and it's made in this country--I'll probably take it. One final thought--Iowa was named after the Ioway Indians--and I don't think "Hawkeye" is ver offensive--although I'm sure there are those who are looking for the, one, great loophole.
Thanks for the chance to sound-off--even though I'm probably more liberal than you--but I do hope Bush (W) learns how to speak properly.
Sincerely,
Your cousin once removed, or second cousin or something,
Annette Meyer
August 25, 2005, 9:14 amEric H:
Actually, this is already known as Hanlon's Razor.
August 26, 2006, 7:59 pmShooter:
http://planetaryvision.blogspot.ca/search/label/9%2F11%20Truth
September 11, 2012, 9:13 amApparently, the US used helicopters to use remote controllers to detonate the bombs in the basement...without any mention of how the basement bombs got there.
It's too bad this CT's AGW skepticism is good. But the person's a 9/11 truther.
May Xu:
What gets me are the lies. Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” – Iran’s (nonexistent) nuclear weapons program – the Vietnamese “attack” in the Gulf of Tonkin – Germans bayoneting Belgium babies – the sinking of the USS Maine: over the long and bloody history of US imperialism, these are just a few of the fabrications US policymakers have seized on to justify Washington’s aggression. It’s quite a record, isn’t it? Not only that, but there’s been little if any acknowledgment by the American political elites that they’ve ever lied about anything: it’s all been thrown down the Memory Hole, along with whatever sense of shame these people ever had.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/justin-raimondo/pearl-harbor-was-a-conspiracy/
Roosevelt had been maneuvering for more than a year to bring the United States into World War II.
However, most Americans were against joining Britain’s war against Germany, and had little interest in Asia.
Something dramatic was needed to arouse war fever in the United States – particularly so since American-Germans constituted one of the largest ethnic group in the United States.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2012/12/eric-margolis/did-fdr-lure-japan-into-attacking-pearlharbor/
Twelve days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt surprised his advisors by saying that war with Japan was about to begin. Secretary of War Stimson noted in his diary:
The question was what we should do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/03/bionic-mosquito/the-pearl-harbor-myth/
American history textbooks are as free from the truth about Roosevelt’s deliberate provocation of Japan, and his advance knowledge of Pearl Harbor, as they were in 1943.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/12/gary-north/pearl-harbor-historiography-a-lesson-in-academic-housecleaning/
April 26, 2017, 11:40 pmDennis Wilson:
Governments from Around the World Admit They Carry Out False Flag Terror
The article at the link below https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7bdb1d15ca2e1aafda1ccdc5d91e86569b3cb43ba69efd5bf356b6890fe2838c.jpg contains a long list of KNOWN AND ADMITTED False Flags by governments. Some of the comments are very informative and contain additional links.
This tactic is so common that it was given a name hundreds of years ago.
“False flag terrorism” is defined as a government attacking its own people, then blaming others in order to justify going to war against the people it blames. Or as Wikipedia defines it:
The term comes from the old days of wooden ships, when one ship would hang the flag of its enemy before attacking another ship in its own navy. Because the enemy’s flag, instead of the flag of the real country of the attacking ship, was hung, it was called a “false flag” attack.
Indeed, this concept is so well-accepted that rules of engagement for naval, air and land warfare all prohibit false flag attacks.
tinyurl(DOT)com/False-Flag-Terrorism
April 28, 2017, 12:03 pmhttp://tinyurl.com/False-Flag-Terrorism