I believe 911 was a plot led by Al Queda and not George Bush.

There I said it - I'm clearly an idiot. Well according to a sales pitch on NZ's own Trade Me website.

I saw this post on the Trade Me the other day about this thing being a great deal "and if you don't believe that you'll be one of those idiots who think that George Bush had nothing to do with 9/11". Well actually I don't believe either of them. Which puts me in 'camp naive' according to another post I saw on a blog 6 months ago.

The growth in consipiracy thinking and the rejection of science and rationality is, in my opinion, one of the great issues we face. 'How do we know what is true' is an issue which has always had considerable debate and intellectual enquiry, but it seems post-modern 'perception is reality' has overturned the enlightenment. With the enlightenment and the growth in scientific (observable and verifiable) approach there was a major leap forward in getting an agreed basis for action.

I spose the irony is while we're debating how to deal with fundamentatist views in the Islamic world where science is outright rejected, our western conspiracists are agnostics or atheists. That is when if comes to science, that is they might believe science exists but don't believe anything it says, or if atheists they've heard of science but don't believe in it.