Please elaborate. Some of my favorite conspiracies from history are the assassination of Julius Caesar, the Gunpowder Plot, the execution of Charles I, Thomas Cromwell’s execution, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the raid on Harpers Ferry, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Watergate, 9/11. Conspiracies are quite commonplace. An entire arm of most existing legal systems devote a tremendous amount of resources to their investigation and prosecution. Even someone as ultra-sceptical as Guy P. Harrison acknowledges as much:
[When] analyzing the conspiracy theory phenomenon, it is important to be clear that evil, destructive, and criminal conspiracies are very real. They happen all the time. Of course people get together to plan and execute bad deeds. We are social creatures–for better and for worse. Both history books and today’s headlines offer countless examples of mischief by committee… Because conspiracies really do happen, it is important for people, sceptics included, to avoid lumping all conspiracy theories together. Many of them deserve a hearing, not only for the sake of fairness but also to help counter claims of a cover-up (Think: Why You Should Question Everything, pp. 125-6. Prometheus: 2013.).
And that means that I also know when something is simply being presumptuously mistaken for one.
Which conspiracy would that be?
You seem to have a misunderstanding of why statistics are done the way they are done.
Could you be more specific?
I agree very much that they are used in deceptive ways, but you are not talking about one of those ways.
I’ve cited only the well documented abuses of pharmaceutical companies (and Flannel Jesus opened that door). There’s nothing secretive or conspiratorial (at least not any more–and there never was “one big conspiracy” as you put it; but there were several–and many more forthcoming–well documented small conspiracies to mislead the public) about the widespread misconduct in that industry, and their manipulation and doctoring of research, including their misuse of statistics. My point is that the flaws of the DBRCGM and the public’s unwarranted confidence in its processes make such “mischief by committee” abuses easier to execute and more likely to occur.