Metabunk.org

The rather boring logo of Metabunk.org

Mick West

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Metabunk is a website (specifically, a discussion forum) dedicated to debunking and refuting various conspiracy theories and pseudosciences. Their stated mission statement is:

[We are] dedicated to the art and pastime of honest, polite, scientific investigating and debunking. It is primarily a discussion forum, however the focus is on providing concise useful resources, and attempting to avoid repetitive debate and arguments.

It was started in 2013 by Mick West, science writer, skeptical investigator, and retired video game programmer. Besides running Metabunk, Mick West also runs a podcast “Tales from the rabbit hole”, and his former projects have included another website “Contrail Science” specifically for debunking chemtrail conspiracy theories and a blog called “Cowboy Programming” where he demonstrated his explorations in video game programming.

A Brief History...

Mick West had been debunking various paranormal woo and Biblical scientific foreknowledge since 2003. In 2007, he came to know of a whole new pseudoscientific conspiracy theory gaining traction online known as chemtrails. For debunking this, Mick started a new blog called ContrailScience.com. Mick West’s big break came with the Mystery Missile, a plane flying from Hawaii to the mainland left a contrail on the horizon that looked a bit like a missile trail. He wrote a few articles debunking this theory and ended up being contacted by the media, who wanted to interview him. At the time he was still anonymous, but then decided that his debunking would be taken more seriously, and be more effective. So he went on TV, leading to a lot of traffic to his website. Troubled by the cumbersome off-topic discussion of other conspiracy theories unrelated to chemtrails and the limitations of the blog format, Mick West created another website called Metabunk to foster more such discussions more freely. From Mick West’s own words...

“” The name Metabunk is meant to convey the idea of thinking about debunking, and not simply doing it. Thinking about how to debunk better, and thinking about why we debunk, and what it is we are really trying to do.

Topics

The topics discussed at Metabunk are categorized into several forums, which consist of:

General Discussion

• General Discussion — Self explanatory.
• Conspiracy Theories — Discussion of general conspiracy theories that don't fit in the more specialised forums below.
• People Debunked — Bunk comes from people, and is repeated and promoted by people. Sometimes it's the people themselves that need debunking.
• Coronavirus COVID-19 — Discussion of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, but worse than those covered in our WIGO Coronavirus.^{[citation NOT needed]}
• Health and Quackery — Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Touch therapy, alternative medicine and other quackery.
• Science and Pseudoscience — Perpetual motion, Anti-Gravity, Flat Earth, Hexagonal Water, all sorts of stuff.
• Escaping The Rabbit Hole — where he uses the stories of former conspiracy/woo believers to help other people come out of their rabbit hole.
• Tales From the Rabbit Hole Podcast — where Mick West runs a weekly podcast with former/active conspiracy theorists and their skewed view of the world.

Conspiracy theories

• 5G and Other EMF Health Concerns — Woo surrounding EMF and 5G.
• 9/11 — Conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11.
• UFO Videos and Reports from the US Navy — Analysis of the three US Navy videos obtained by TTSA.
• UFOs, Aliens, Monsters, and the Paranormal — Fortean phenomena, Alien UFOs, Pyramid power, Crop circles, Ghosts, Cryptozoology. Things that are a little bit more towards the fringe.
• Contrails and Chemtrails — White lines in the sky that look like contrails, but conspiracy theorists claim are some kind of mind control illicit spraying. Mick West’s favourite pseudoscientific conspiracy theory.
• Skydentify — Discussion with a community of meteorologists, pilots, scientists and other sky-watchers who will have a bash at identifying anything you may have seen in the sky (a plane, cloud, trail, strange object or other UFO you've seen in the sky).
• Flat Earth — Investigations of claims that support a flat earth.
• Quotes debunked — Quotes can be taken out of context, or otherwise misinterpreted. This forum aims to clarify so.

Some of the less popular ones

• Wildfires — Forest fires...?
• Flight MH370 — Theories, facts, and speculations surrounding the disappearance of flight MH370.
• Flight MH17 — Discussion about what may and may not had happened to flight MH17.
• Boston Marathon Bombings — Conspiracies surrounding the Boston Marathon Bombings.
• Sandy Hook — Sandy Hook shooting conspiracies.
• HAARP — Debunking theories about HAARP, other similar facilites, and related topics such as any form of electromagnetic weather control, etc.
• Oroville Dam — Discussion of topics relating to the 2017 Oroville Dam Spillway incident.
• Election 2020 — Investigating and Debunking disinformation regarding the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

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Methodology

Mick West has made an extensive but brief post on how to get started on practical debunking, stating the rules that should not be broken during it. Here, they have been broken down and compacted for easier reading.

Audiences

Audiences to keep in mind while writing a skeptical article:

• Community of like-minded skeptics
• Familiar with the subject matter, but haven’t formed any opinions
• Never heard of the subject matter

Bunk infection levels

Those who have already fallen into the rabbit hole:

• Reasonable believers — people who believe a theory based on false or cherry-picked facts. May be open to discussion and new facts, and hence, rescuable.
• True believers — people who have lost immunity to a particular subject. Anything not supporting their belief is instantly and instinctively assumed incorrect as it contradicts with their position. Frequently they will not see reason, but they can be useful as a source of memetic material to help inoculate others. They will frequently run through the entire set of “evidence” one piece at a time, oblivious to the fact that everything they bring up is easily explained. This may be useful for getting familiar with the common arguments presented.
• Extremists — people who have gone beyond the realm of rational thinking and reasoning. Often their arguments are not even wrong, and so absurdly extreme, that they are impossible to reason with, even on topics that are completely unrelated to the conspiracy they believe.

Practical debunking resources

With respect, you say?

Tools

Mick West has developed several tools to help investigating and debunking several different conspiracy theories. Many of these can also be embedded into the forum posts of Metabunk by any user to debunk any claim.

• Contrail Pattern Simulator^(link)
• Simulating Atmospheric Refraction^(link)
• Calculator for RHi and Contrail Persistence Criteria^(link)
• Virtual model illustrating some aspects of the collapse of the WTC Towers^(link)
• Metabunk Flat Earth Route Simulator^(link)
• Convert Graph Image from Log Scale to Linear Scale^(link)
• Arbitrary Azimuthal Equidistant Projections^(link)
• Earth's Radius Calculator (from the amount a distant object is obscured)^(link)
• Earth's Curve Calculator^(link)
• Gas Universe Simulator^(link)
• Laser Dot Rendering in The Refraction Simulator^(link)
• KML Tool For Visualizing Google Earth Cameras, and More^(link)
• Converting Nikon P900 to IR/Full Spectrum^(link)

Tools from people other than Mick West

These tools were not made by Mick West, but are included in the list of tools for practical debunking by Mick West anyway.

• Earth curve calculator for obstructions^(link)
• Direction to Sun vs. Sun position above the AE map visualization^(link)
• Calculator for viewing angles^(link)
• Automated Video Tracking of Planes^(link)

Reception

Metabunk has been cited by Express Newspapers, CBS and Vice.com. MBFC has rated Metabunk as a pro-science resource with high factual reporting.

Criticism

As with all fact checking and debunking resources, Metabunk.org has also been targeted by conspiracy cranks and Mick West being the subject to character assassination several times, accusing Mick West of being paid by the government to spread disinformation.

Unsurprisingly, "It's a shill!" is a common argument. Many conspiracy theorists have tried to make stuff up to serve as evidence against its credibility. They argue that the website is so professionally written that it must be impossible for it to be run majorly by only one person, both physically and financially. This was briefly debunked by Mick at the website:

Since Metabunk quite often debunks some of the claims of evidence behind conspiracy theories, I quite often get accused of being in the pay of the government.

One thing that people claim is that the site is suspiciously professional, and it must cost a lot of money. So how much does it cost to run?

There are three costs

• Domain registration. I use Namecheap.com, for metabunk.org, .net, and .com. This is $36 per year.
  
• Server hosting. I use Linode.com, a Linode 2GB instance, at $40 per month. But this is shared with several other sites, so I'd say around $20 per month, or $240 per year
  
• Forum Software. Xenforo.com, This was $140 initially, then $40 per year for upgrades. So let's amortise that at $80 per year, assuming I'll be around for another 3-4 years.
  
• SSL Certificate. $8 per year. Comodo/Namecheap.
  

Total 36+240+80+8. $366 per year. About $30 per month, or $1 per day.

This was further supported by screenshots and links for the prices.