Conspiracy Theory Rating Scale

This is just an idea of mine that's been bouncing around in my head for awhile: I've never seen any sort of objective rating system whereby a current conspiracy theory could be rated as to it's validity or possible truth. The hardest part in doing this would be setting up the criterion to apply for the rating. The actual ranking would go something like this:

5 = An event that has essentially been proven true, but initially was considered conspiracy theory (See the post "List of Proven Conspiracies" on the second page of this blog - I'd consider most of those a "5")

4 = An event that has a large body of circumstantial evidence to suggest that there is a strong liklihood that it is true, and that an "official version" of the story is probably not entirely true.

3 = An event that could go either way, something that has a lot of troubling unanswered questions, a lot of "loose ends" that haven't been adequately explained, but the "official version" could be just as valid - just a lot of unanswered questions. An event that in all liklihood needs "filling in the blanks". Many theories fall into this category - there just hasn't been enough research to tie everything together or adequately explain everything.

2 = An event that can, through use of such techniques as Occam's Razor, investigative reporting, a specialist's knowledge of science and/or engineering & physics, usually be successfully de-bunked. Usually scenarios in this category involved plots that seem a little too complicated or logically unlikely, and are sometimes based on assumptions that are false to begin with.

1 = An event or belief in something that can be very easily dismissed, even by those who have no more knowledge than the average person, using commonly held knowledge and common sense.


Using this scale, most of the conspiracies listed in the "List of Proven Conspiracies" would in my opinion be rated a "5".

An example of a "4" would be the conspiracy theory that the JFK assassination involved more than a single bullet, and possibly more than one shooter from different locations, and that it was the product of an elaborate conspiracy rather than a lone deranged nut firing a single shot from one location.

The conspiracy theory that states that the moon landings were staged and faked might get a 3 - some things have been debunked, but not others. The mysterious "disappearance" of the original videos of the landing is troubling too - they didn't disappear until lately when computerized digital video enhancement techniques became available. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. Buzz Aldrin leaving a question and answer meeting in tears when asked to describe what it felt like to walk on the moon.... What was up with that anyway?

Example of a 2 would be something like the standard tinfoil hat thing, because we are supposedly the target of mind control - things like that.....

1's?? The Flat Earth Society, etc.

Will continue working on this to develop it..... Later.........

One argument against large scale conspiracies being true

"The argument is often advanced that the non-existence of any given conspiracy is shown by the lack of leakers or whistle blowers. Given the success of the British government in getting thousands of people to keep the ULTRA secret -- and thereby ensuring that no reliable history of World War II could be published until the 1970s -- it is apparent that this is not necessarily a reliable indicator."

from Wikipedia - "conspiracy theory/real conspiracies"

Often the argument is advanced that a conspiracy on a grand scale is not possible because of a supposedly large number of people who would have to be in on the secret, and surely someone would "out" the conspiracy. It's been proven in the past that this is not necessarily true.

The best known example I can think of is the WWII "Manhattan Project", where thousands of people were working on developing the atomic bomb, but only a very small inner circle knew exactly what was being worked on. Everyone worked on their own little piece of the project, and was told only what they needed to know to complete their own task, and no more. Of course even this was kept secret as even small snippets of information could be valuable to the enemy, but it was possible to pull off a large project involving thousands of technicians without the cover being blown, at least to the general public anyway..... The Soviets found out about it because of their mole spy Klaus Fuchs, and others within our own government, but the general public was successfully kept in the dark about it.