Mailer and Conspiracy, via Achenblog

Joel Achenbach at Achenblog comments on Norman Mailer's conspiracy theory on Newsweek:

"Journalists and pundits and aging novelists should try to think more like scientists, who typically favor parsimonious rather than elaborate theories. Dan Rather and Mary Mapes and many other reporters have gotten in trouble when they've tried too hard to prove a theory and ignored possible alternative explanations (like, these documents could be fraudulent). Conspiracies do exist, but so do simple mistakes. The Mailer scenario has an implausible number of moving parts. That's not to say that it couldn't be possible, only that it's exceedingly more likely that a journalist unwisely relied on a single source who didn't know what he was talking about. Happens all the time, and you don't need the White House Office of Counter-Espionage to orchestrate it."

I absolutely agree. I also comment: "Mistakes are much more common than conspiracies. A mistake has only one prerequisite: a person. A conspiracy requires two people."