Dear Ruby,
An old friend friended me on Facebook recently and we emailed back and forth a few times. I was really excited to be back in touch until I realized that he believes in all kinds of crackpot 9/11 theories and now he is sending me links to videos and websites that I have no interest in. How do I get out of this relationship? I used to like him and agree with him on a lot of topics, but now I’m so turned off that I just cringe when I see new emails from him.

Sincerely, Defriend Me!

Dear Defriend,
We’ve all got our thing, don’t we? The stuff we believe for no good reason? For instance, I think the universe rewards me with dimes. I find dimes every week, especially when I’ve been good. I decided I better keep them all in a special place, so they’re in a bowl on my dresser. There are at least 50 bucks worth of dimes in there. The universe hasn’t told me what I’m saving them for yet, but somehow I think it will. Unless I get hit by a bus first.

There is no good reason to believe that the frequency with which I find dimes is outside of normal statistical probability. I even have told myself that dimes, being easily mistaken for pennies, are probably the second most common coin lost. But, still, a little happy thought bubbles up through the neurons and synapses and mounting plaque pockets in my brain, every time I find a dime.

Many, many, many people function just fine and never hurt a fly — all the while holding an astonishing number of crazy, unconfirmed, and even conflicting beliefs. You can passionately love your football team while also aware that not one of them is even from your part of the country and that they’ve never heard of you and never will. Or maybe you believe in doing laundry three times a day, but only bathe during leap years. You might be absolutely sure that God loves you, and equally sure that he hates me, even though neither of us are mentioned in scripture.

This looks like it’s leading up to a big “Live and Let Live” finale, doesn’t it?

It’s not.

A couple of years ago during a radio talk show I heard a woman call in and say that she didn’t go to college to learn ‘critical thinking.’ She went to college to get a job. I hope she’s not my kid’s orthodontist. Not long after, my friend — a lawyer — told me with a straight face that she took her dog to a pet psychic. More than once. My old man thinks that doctors are quacks, except the one who wrote this great book about how all other doctors are quacks. Oh, and that medicine is a scam. He’s 83. We’re hoping he grows out of it before he actually needs some medicine.

Here’s some other great stuff you don’t need critical thinking for:

• curing your kid’s lymphoma with prayer and huckleberries
• Creationism
• spending good money on “The Secret”
• dating Drew Peterson

In the olden days before the internet, folks in tinfoil hats had a hard time hooking up with each other. Now every dumbass with a theory has access to a million other dumbasses, and misinformation is reproducing like sea monkeys.

I don’t think you should defriend your old, new, soon-to-be-ex friend. I think you should debunk him. Here’s how to start.

For every weird conspiracy theory, especially the ones relating to 9/11 that are somehow extra hurtful and insulting to the victims and the rest of us, there are skeptical folks who live to debunk. Popular Science magazine has taken it upon itself to defend the work of the army of scientists, engineers, and investigators who worked to provide answers to families, survivors, and the American people. They even wrote a book. Another critical thinker at www.conspiracyscience.com dissembles propaganda projects about 9/11 with painstaking research and documentation. Some of the work they do in this research is repeatable. You could do it. That’s one way it stands up as good science. The technical work by civil engineers and physicists stands up to the scrutiny of peer review. This is scientific method. This is what critical thinking demands.

People need to start proving the crap they’re selling or disseminating. Jenny McCarthy, Marlee Matlin, PETA, the Mormons, are you hearing this? Brains are back. Be afraid.

Don’t be afraid to ask Ruby.

Advice for the Rest of Us appears every Friday, unless events conspire against her.

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