Conspiracy again

I have just watched a programme on the group Common Purpose by someone who thinks they are an evil bunch up to no good. He said he is into providing evidence to back up his claims but what he said was nowhere near stringent enough to validate them. The group, which is deemed a charity, has been accused of being secretive- and this may be valid, which leads me to the point of this. They are apparently a group that trains people in leadership and supposedly the government sends people to their courses- funded by us of course. If this is correct then the worry is this: A group that trains leaders but is secretive and engenders mistrust because of it is not, perhaps, very good at its job. If we are to have leadership qualities taught to our future generations then surely we want good communication and openness to be some of the qualities they learn. We have had enough of spin, outright lies and corruption (on whatever level). I suggest that we support only transparent organisations that are under results based (and ethical) scrutiny regarding their usefulness. Whether Common Purpose is good or bad, competent or not I don't know yet. Check out their openness and see whether they are or not.

This leads me onto another point regarding the conspiracists. There are many of them that take information and draw far reaching conclusions from it. Some of their information may be accurate and some not, but they jump way beyond any evidence in their presentations. This is a worry because it can obscure the real problems we face. If you are investigating something that may be wrong and any of the information you have uncovered has been added to the extremist viewpoint you can be dismissed purely and simply as "one of them", so in one way these people might actually be helping the groups they believe are bad. We need to examine each claim on its own merits and using all the available evidence test our theories. That's the only way we can even begin to change the world for the better.

So to recap- we mustn't dismiss anything until it has been fully checked out but we must also be very careful in drawing any conclusions. This doesn't mean some issues aren't fairly simple- like do we want people in government that think it is OK to take public money for perks? Rigorous analysis and values are the best tools we have for improving our society.