Carol, most of the time I respect your opinions. But on this matter. . . .

Some people have a very low tolerance for uncertainty. These are the folks who generally embrace conspiracy theories. That particular inability to handle uncertain also afflicts those who become religious fundamentalists.

If I don't know, I don't know. If you don't know, you don't know.

I seem to be able to handle an agnostic position on a number of things, including what actually happened to the World Trade Center. If I get a bit impatient with people who clutch onto a bit of what might be considered circumstantial evidence and then make up a whole elaborate scenario, then try to cobble together a mess of highly questionable "scientific" evidence to support their belief—well. . . .    And then they spend an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to get other people to believe it too. I think reality, to them, means how many people they can get to agree with them.

Contrary to the beliefs of some, reality is not a matter of opinion.

I also contend (after a lifetime of observing people) that those who absolutely have to fill that gap of uncertainty with elaborated Rube Goldberg strings of unlikely events may not actually have meringue for brains, but they do have a dangerous level of gullibility. Or disingenuousness.

Don Firth