posted 06-28-2017 07:04 PM               

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Originally posted by p51:
The historical fact that 12 men walked on the moon isn't an issue of truth or not — it actually happened.

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Facts such as astronauts are a very small and anomalous human statistical population, and moonwalking astronauts are an even greater statistical anomaly. Facts such as billions of humans have existed and never journeyed to the moon, and that the claimed feat has not been replicated by any other nation.

We can show them all the Lunar Laser Ranging RetroReflector (LRRR) array data and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) images, but their body of facts support the narrative they espouse.

posted 06-28-2017 09:19 PM               

Others push the same points of view (flat earth etc.) simply to cause a stir, gain attention or make waves. They get satisfaction from winding up an argument or maybe they are just chasing their 15min of fame.

The advent of the internet and forums like this gives them a stage that they can stand on from the confines of their keyboard.

This is not unique to flat earthers or lunar skeptics. You can find countless topics that stir up the same divides.

In many countries this is looked at as healthy, peoples rights or a freedom. Free speech. You don't have to stand on a soap box in Hyde park or frequent a rally to find a view point that many will disagree with.

You can have science on your side and have first hand knowledge or experience. For some this is enough and for others its just fuel for the argument.

For me personally I find it frustrating when I meet someone who believes the moon landings and the Apollo project were a hoax filmed in a studio. Some of the smartest people with good education and a background in engineering or science that are convinced that it was a hoax and seem to always ask "If we really went to the moon how come we don't go now?"

This seems to be becoming more frequent and prevalent as time moves on. As the younger generation who have not lived with the threat of a cold war and who can't comprehend a government that would commit to such a huge investment in time, money and resources.

For me, engaging in and argument with a flat earther or moon hoax "non believer" just seems like a waste of energy and a wrestle with futility that will end up gaining nothing and going nowhere.

If the documented evidence of the Apollo Program, the Earthrise photo, the Apollo 17 blue marble photos, the Apollo 12 retrieved Surveyor camera, the eyewitness accounts, the science, the facts and the graves of heroes that were lost in the great adventure are not enough to convince these people, if the Hubble Deep Field or Pillars of Creation shots don't open their eyes and if standing in Florida watching a rocket blast into the sky doesn't make these people even consider for one moment that the earth is round, the sky is blue, footprints and wheel marks on the moon are real and the other things then I don't feel that it is worth giving such people any endulgment or fuel for their fire.

posted 06-29-2017 10:34 PM               

In the Los Angeles County Museum, is Magritte's La Trahison des Images: The Treachery of Images which features an image of a smoking pipe and the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe"). As the curator notes:

Magritte's word-image paintings are treatises on the impossibility of reconciling words, images, and objects. La Trahison des Images challenges the linguistic convention of identifying an image of something as the thing itself. At first, Magritte's point appears simplistic, almost to the point of provocation: A painting of a pipe is not the pipe itself. In fact, this work is highly paradoxical.

In Magritte's Le chef d'oeuvre ou les mystères de l'horizon ("The masterpiece or the mysteries of the horizon") three seemingly identical men each face different directions below a crescent moon, appearing to share the same space however existing in different realities.

The flat earth people might really be challenged by Magritte's Le Grand Style, which features a surrealist spherical earth. There is, indeed, a fine line between genius and insanity!

All this prompted me to speculate if there is a particular subset or cohort of Apollo naysayers who think that flat earth believers are truly barking mad? One can only imagine what the alien abductees think of them!

posted 06-30-2017 02:13 AM               

This was used by Gerry Spence who was defending Lee Harvey Oswald at his 1986 trial on television.

posted 06-30-2017 07:51 AM               

The clinical reality is that there seems to be a whole spectrum of naysayers from the otherwise intelligent and rational all the way over to completely coco bananas. Some haven't bothered to research anything, or have some facts but not the crucial ones, while others may be delusional, neurochemically imbalanced, or have a structural neurological disorder.

There's an adage that if you think you are arguing with an idiot, so do they! We would look at an Earthrise photograph and think great image, and anyone who says that didn't happen is living in a surreal existence. Apollo hoaxers look at the exact same image and say it is fake, and think that we are the deluded ones in our own surreal fantasy thinking it is real!

posted 06-30-2017 11:59 AM            

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Originally posted by moorouge:
The bird, like the truth, is in your hands. It is your decision to decide if you accept as true that men walked on the Moon. Equally it is the hoaxers decision, however idiotic it may seem, to accept as true that men didn't walk on the Moon.

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In the case of the shape of planet Earth, absolute certainty can easily be demonstrated, leaving absolutely no room for doubt that the Earth is an oblate spheroid. Likewise, there is absolute certainty that Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon (I will not waste time reciting the evidence) but in a few years the means should exist to transport people to the Apollo landing-sites to confirm what most of us already know to be true.

In other words, the evidence is there on the Moon and if there is anyone who doubts this today (out of ignorance, madness or badness) the evidence will still be there in a few years to provide the absolute proof that some people still deny.

posted 06-30-2017 12:15 PM               

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Originally posted by YankeeClipper:
...label them all stupid, idiots, or mad.

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One can be very intelligent and still be in a state of ignorance. For example, I readily admit that I am ignorant of most professional sports. I'd be hard pressed to cite all the rules, let alone the teams and players.

People who say the Earth is flat or that we didn't land on the moon are ignorant. That doesn't mean they are necessarily "stupid, idiots, or mad"; they could be very well versed on other subjects. It is only their state of being with regards to the subject at hand.

posted 06-30-2017 02:16 PM               

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
The truth is not what someone (whether myself or Bart Sibrel) thinks it is, or wants it to be. The truth is there to be seen. Objectively and permanently.

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You are wrong. It is about what a person thinks it is. It matters not that the truth is there objectively or permanent, if a person - you, me, Bart Sibrel or anyone else - doesn't accept it as being true, then to them it is not and that becomes their truth.

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Regardless the reason, they are ignorant of the facts.

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In the case of the Apollo hoax believers, many are not ignorant of the facts. They have an atypical interpretation of them that you, and many others, don't happen to agree with.

posted 06-30-2017 03:10 PM               

It's hard enough to convince people in this universe without having to contemplate multiple arguments in a multiverse.

The downside is that in at least one of the parallel universes, you have actually become an Apollo skeptic. In another, only the USSR landed men on the moon. In another, no one did.

Of course, the upside is that in at least one of the multiple universes NASA kept flying lunar missions indefinitely and many more of us walked on the moon!

posted 07-01-2017 10:37 AM            

However, I think you have previously provided the key to concluding this interesting philosophical debate. You have done your best to persuade others that truth is what a person thinks it is, and if someone is convinced against all the evidence that the Earth is flat, then a flat Earth is "their truth." That makes truth subjective, and by definition different for everyone who accepts a different body of evidence. I have previously quoted the dictionary definitions of "truth" and I stand by my assertion, supported by the dictionary, that truth is necessarily objective.

What you are referring to is not truth but opinion. If you would substitute "opinion" where you have previously referred to "truth" then I don't think there is anything to argue about. If Bart Sibrel believes no-one has been to the Moon, I accept that this is his opinion (misguided though it is) and that he is entitled to his own opinion (just as I am entitled to rely on the evidence to ridicule his opinion!).

posted 07-01-2017 11:29 AM            

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
Any missing evidence or unheard testimony is by now probably lost to history.

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While it is interesting and most amusing to read these modern day ghost stories there is no particularly good reason for their existence other than their entertainment value. Those who choose to accept these strange concepts as fact will not be swayed by reality as they are usually way too emotionally invested in their own beliefs to change.

posted 07-01-2017 12:27 PM               

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
Eddie, in making the dogmatic statement: "You are wrong" are you not denying me the very right which you accord to every eye-rolling fanatic who claims the Earth is flat, or nobody has been to the Moon, namely the right to "my truth" (as you would put it)?

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posted 07-01-2017 01:23 PM               

Also, Robert's use of the term "ignorant" is quite correct as he clarifies it himself. The most intelligent person in the world can be quite ignorant of many (or even most things). I'd even argue that people's ignorance far outweighs their knowledge in almost every area.

posted 07-04-2017 05:34 PM            

Watch for the torrent of lunacy - you have been warned!

posted 07-05-2017 10:58 AM               

They'll just declare that something is a conspiracy, so therefore they can't trust anything that doesn't support that theory. And the internet is a breeding ground for people like this, as they can read/watch only the content that supports their odd theory. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard, "You need to watch [so-and-so's] podcast," to which I usually reply, "Uh, YOU need to pick up a basic book on science." That never goes over well, of course. But like my Mom has always said, I have never suffered fools, even when I was a kid.

The bottom line is that most of these conspiracies are silly in their root, if you just step back and look.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cozmosis22:
Those who choose to accept these strange concepts as fact will not be swayed by reality as they are usually way too emotionally invested in their own beliefs to change.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cozmosis22:
Beyond that, arguing with fanatics is futile.

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quote:

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Originally posted by moorouge:
I believe one answer was a polar bear in a snow storm.

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posted 07-06-2017 01:57 AM               

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Originally posted by p51:
That is totally opposite of any accepted scientific method, of course.

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As far as I'm aware there is nowhere on the internet that this happens with matters involving spaceflight. Both sides are all too often so deeply entrenched in their beliefs that they refuse to even acknowledge that the other exists. It's almost as if both camps are fearful that their reasons why they accept one view or the other won't stand up to the scrutiny of others. Surely it is better to be open and be able to argue your particular viewpoint with those on the other side of the fence. Ignoring them is hardly the way to enlightenment.

posted 07-06-2017 10:32 AM               

I once had a interaction with a reviled internet troll from a non-space forum at an event years ago, and I was prepared to take this guy out back and give him an attitude adjustment he'd never forget. He'd regularly post to anyone who disagreed with him that he wished horrible things to happen to that person, their families and kids (stuff I wouldn't dream of typing here, even to describe what he meant). But when I got to him, turned out he was just a 14-year-old kid. I did tell him he better not post like that anymore, now that I know who he really is (and would encounter him in the future).

posted 07-06-2017 11:48 AM               

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Originally posted by moorouge:
The accepted scientific method is for any new research to be published and then reviewed by one's peers.

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posted 07-06-2017 08:31 PM               

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
A classic answer, but it might have cost him a seat in a Mercury capsule.

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posted 07-07-2017 06:04 PM            

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Originally posted by p51:
Pete Conrad handed the card back and said, "It's upside down."

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posted 07-26-2017 11:00 PM               

One expedition led by Maupertuis and Celsius went to Lapland, while another led by Godin, La Condamine and Bouguer travelled to Quito (Ecuador). More detail is available here.

posted 04-26-2018 09:17 AM               

Why we pretend to know things, explained by a cognitive scientist

The decisions we make, the attitudes we form, the judgments we make, depend very much on what other people are thinking.

I really do believe that our attitudes are shaped much more by our social groups than they are by facts on the ground. We are not great reasoners. Most people don't like to think at all, or like to think as little as possible. And by most, I mean roughly 70 percent of the population. Even the rest seem to devote a lot of their resources to justifying beliefs that they want to hold, as opposed to forming credible beliefs based only on fact.