History Channel special “9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction.”

"I'd like to be able to say that everything we're saying is backed up by fact."

-Dylan Avery- “Loose Change.”

I just finished watching the History Channel special “9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction.” and what surprises me most is the angry vehemence of the people that are so certain that they know, “The Truth”.
I have met a variety of these people over the years. Those that believed that the “X Files” was a documentary, each one sure that they knew the truth about, (insert your favorite conspiracy here.) and if I wasn’t so blind I would see it too. But those believers were generally loners or passed their little discoveries about the truth around their tight knit little community. The internet has changed all that and has made it possible for everyone to be a historian and develop a narrative of what happened on that September morning.

What they fail to realize is they are not historians. Historians compile evidence from primary sources in its complete and original context in a logical manner to reach conclusions that are verifiable by others to build a narrative of events. The Truthers, on the other hand build a narrative and then fill it with whatever evidence best fits. Mr. Avery illustrates this when during the re-edit for Loose Change 2. “We took the good parts from “Loose Change” then we put in some other things” Avery says chuckling.

As another of the Truthers put it "There is in my opinion, substantial evidence, that suggests..." This type of logic is rampant in a philosophy that is selling opinions packaged as proof by people that are not even qualified to decifer what the evidence is telling them.

The show did an excellent job of point by point refuting each argument using experts and witnesses. It also gave good insight into how and why these beliefs are formed. Catch it on the repeats Sat and Sun.

· Video. If you don’t have two hours, you can watch Penn and Teller debunk some of the loonier loons of the Truth Movement.
· Right wing Nuthouse: 9/11 TRUTHERS GUT PUNCHED BY HISTORY CHANNEL
· Skeptic Magazine