Did We Go To Moon Options

[Pando]

Enjoy that one...

http://www.msnfound.com/MetaGenerator.ashx...backlot_p_h.wmv

(Doug, please move this outta here if it doesn't belong, don't know where else to put it...)

[MizarKey]

Enjoy that one...

http://www.msnfound.com/MetaGenerator.ashx...backlot_p_h.wmv

(Doug, please move this outta here if it doesn't belong, don't know where else to put it...)

Pando, I couldn't get this to play...can you post the url to the wmv file directly?

[Pando]

Actually I can't, that's the URL it plays from.

Try upgrading to MS Media Player 10 (highly recommended), but it should also play on MP9. You may also want to try to open the media player manually, and then cut and paste the URL into the File > Open URL box.

http://www.msnfound.com/MetaGenerator.ashx?movie=nasa_backlot_p_h.wmv

[ljk4-1]

The Bad Astronomer takes on the Apollo Moon Hoax:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

This does not make me laugh at all...

Even if that stuff is believed by only 6% of the population, that makes 6% who are not confident with their government, who think that their government lies, manipulate them with the help of ugly little grey aliens, or purposely created the AIDS viruse in a military lab... How could these people be good citizens, or simply be happy? 6% of american citizens, that makes 15 millions!

Fox TV is not only responsible of sowing bad astronomy hoaxes; it is also part of a huge network of medias dedicated to much more serious hoaxes such as that there would be no greenhouse effect, and calling "junk science" the serious scientists in this field!! They also messed up entire domains related to astronomy, such as the common paradigms about extraterrestrial life (which shifted from 'ET" to "X files") or the UFO domain (When we speak of UFOs today, everybody thinks to the Area 51 or to the Roswell hoaxes)

This is what happens when 1/3 of the world medias are in only one hand. I do not elaborate too much on it -politics is not the topic of this forum- but such a situation is a threat, not only to science and astronomy, but to democracy itself.

No, the hoax on Apollo being faked does not make me laugh.

[Rxke]

Anyone ever seen the Arte documentary in which it is 'revealed' that Stanley Kubrick was hired to make the sets etc...?


They even got Rumsfield admitting it was all a fake.


(spoiler: it was all taking stuff out of context, just to actually prove how extremely you could spin a story, classic stuff!)

[paxdan]

No, the hoax on Apollo being faked does not make me laugh.

I have all my arguments stacked up for whenever i meet someone who believes it was hoaxed. i am pretty persuasive, most often i find it is because they have only been exposed to a one sided hoax point of view and only trot it out because it is all they have learned or seen about the apollo missions in their lives. First question i ask people is to tell me why they believe it was hoaxed and where they got their information that it was hoaxed from, usually i find that that is enough to make them reconsider their view point. So many people spout the hoax bs because it is fashionable to do so. It is part of the anti-intellectual mantle people like to assume, one that the president of the US seems to like so much.

As for not finding it a laugh, the video of Buzz lamping that guy was the point at which i started finding it funny again. Right on the point of the chin. Kapow!

With all the issues like the moon landings vs. a hoax, the evidence for glabal warming, evolution vs. intellegent design, you have on one side a veritable mountain of evidence and on the other a small number of people going: 'that's too complicated for me to understand, my head hurts, here i have a simpler explanation'. Sadly the media always likes to present each side as having equal weight. People lead busy lives, they dont have time to seek all the facts and naturally rely on whatever 'authority' suits them best. Of course if that authority is faux news then they are never going to get a 'fair and balanced' outlook.

People who wilfully choose ignorance scare me.

[tedstryk]

One of my best experiences in teaching came when an otherwise intelligent student asked to do his argumentative research paper on the moon landing. Specifically proving it was a hoax. About a week into the assignment, he asked to change topics - It didn't take him long, once he researched the hoax claims, to realize that they are nothing but paranoid lunacy.

[djellison]

As Jim Oberg described them - Cultural Vandals. Nothing more. Hoagland is the same - just attention seeking.

It's a bit sad really.

Doug

[tedstryk]

As Jim Oberg described them - Cultural Vandals.  Nothing more.  Hoagland is the same - just attention seeking.

It's a bit sad really.

Doug

I think there are two categories. Cutural Vandals and Moronic Followers - those who are dumb enough to actually believe the crap.

[djellison]

I'd imagine the people who believe it have an "AB BUSTER 3000" in their closet - they saw it on a shopping channel and it MUST be true

Doug

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

'that's too complicated for me to understand, my head hurts, here i have a simpler explanation'. Sadly the media always likes to present each side as having equal weight.

Alas Paxdan, this is just very classical manipulation stuff: medias like to "be objective" in presenting "impartially" the "two points of view" (And this is not special to Murdoch press, nearby all do) even if one of the point of view is obvioulsly false or minoritary.

It is part of the anti-intellectual mantle people like to assume

Quite easy to be anti-intellectual, for peoples who are not clever or not cultivated. When I am deemed intellectual, this alway recalls me the cambodgian Red Khmers killing people with a showel because they were bearing glasses ans so were considered "intellectual" and "class ennemy".

People lead busy lives, they dont have time to seek all the facts and naturally rely on whatever 'authority' suits them best.

What authority? It is on the TV (the hoax) so it must be serious!!!


When we are interested in space, we have to look very far, toward our origins and toward billion years old other forms of life. So when we come back to Earth, how certain visions look petty. Astronomy should be mandatory at school.

[mike]

If someone can accept the idea of a huge conspiracy regarding the moon landing and subsequent return, then I'd be amazed if they can then accept the idea of an even huger conspiracy involving people analyzing the rocks brought back and the laser interoferometers placed on the Moon's surface, and at some point the conspiracy becomes everyone except you, and in that case, wow, you really are screwed, and who wants to be that screwed? That is extra, extra, extra, extra-screwed.

[dvandorn]

I'm not amazed at all. People have a remarkable ability to ignore or explain away facts if those facts don't fit what they've decided is the truth. The anti-intellectual mantle helps one to do that -- you simply say to yourself: "Well, these scientists were obviously in on the scam, and since I have absolutely no clue as to how they got these results from these supposed moon rocks, I can comfortably assume that the scientists are just using their scientific double-talk to try and fool me. Well, they can't fool me! I know better! It was all a scam! Hah! See? I'm smarter than they think! How dare they try and fool me with their made-up scientific double-talk, anyway!"

You see how the thing progresses? It comes from a deep-seated sense of inferiority over living in a world that's too complicated for them to understand, and a hatred of anyone who claims to understand things they don't... It's that fear and hatred that the politicians are currently using to their own advantage.

-the other Doug

[paxdan]

only appropriate response to the madness:
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?