[X] My Assistant

[Steffen]

Does anybody know what the outcome was of observing the lunar landing sites using the ESO VLTI in Chile ?
More on this here:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982142.html

[Phil Stooke]

I hardly know where to begin.

Neither the VLT nor any other telescope including Hubble could see anything that would settle this issue. And if it did, the so-called doubters (very few of whom believe what they promote) would easily explain it away. We already have images from lunar orbit showing the LMs, rover tracks and other evidence of astronaut presence on the moon, taken 35 years ago during the last three Apollo missions. If that doesn't do it, why would new images?

And finally... read my book! (this time next year). That includes all the images I mention above.

Phil

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

"People who believe the Apollo landings are fake, believe that professional wrestling isn't."
-- Mallard Fillmore

It's not about facts or logic, it's about the psychology of mass movements. Read The True Believers by the philosopher Eric Hoffer, a short and very fascinating book. True believers cling to a political, religious or pseudo-scientific dogma, because it is integral to their weak self esteem. When fear, uncertainty or doubt challenges that belief, only a flimsy counter-argument is required to restore their faith.


"Why do you laugh? Change the names, and the story is about you."
-- Horace

It's also a cautionary tale. Every person at one time or another believes something really stupid, and with great passion. It takes discipline to examine beliefs or to change your mind about something.

This is why Carl Sagan claimed that Kepler was a hero of science. Kepler believed the orbits of the planets were perfect circles related to platonic solids. He spent decades studying Tycho's data, trying to fit it to his theory, and he managed to get it to fit within a few minutes of arc. To most cranks, that is a hundred times more precision than they would need. But Kepler eventually concluded that his life-long theory was wrong, and the planets travel in ellipses. How many scientists today could actually make that mental leap?

[dvandorn]

It's not about facts or logic, it's about the psychology of mass movements. Read The True Believers by the philosopher Eric Hoffer, a short and very fascinating book. True believers cling to a political, religious or pseudo-scientific dogma, because it is integral to their weak self esteem. When fear, uncertainty or doubt challenges that belief, only a flimsy counter-argument is required to restore their faith.

I totally agree, Don. It seems to me that this is the same phenomenon we've seen throughout history -- people get overwhelmed with a world that's far too complex for them to understand, so they are attracted like moths to a flame to simplistic world-views that offer them the chance to feel like they really understand what's going on in the Universe. Hence the creation of fairy-tale religions which offer some kind of feeling of worth and self-importance by assuring people that, for example, they don't have to worry about things like Global Warming, since weather is controlled by God, used by Him to reward believers and punish sinners, and any talk from scientists about the subject is not only wrong, it's blasphemous.

Especially in the last couple of hundred years, our understanding of the Universe has grown to the point where the average person feels like a complete idiot in comparison with the vastness and complexity of what we can now see Out There (or In Here, for that matter). That seems to lead to severe self-esteem issues in a lot of people, and they seem desparate to fall in with simplistic "answers" that make them feel like they *know* what's going on. In fact, they seem to try and crow about how they "know more than them damn-fool sci-in-tists what think they know everything."

I don't see that there is any real solution to this. Idiots are just idiots, and I, for one, refuse to let their idiocy ruin a perfectly wondrous Universe...

-the other Doug