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NASA Wasting Time and Money on Moon Landing Doubters
Rob Miles writes "Yahoo! News has this article about how NASA is paying aeronautics engineer James Oberg $15,000 to write a monograph gathering up materials answering the skeptics of the 1969 Apollo Moon Landing, point by point. It's a shame that even $1 has to be spent to debunk these conspiracy theorists with too much time on their hands. And it's unfortunate that the nutters will see this as validation of their ridiculous claims ('if our charges weren't true, NASA wouldn't bother answering them' they'll snivel.)"
I rmeber reading a while back(a couple of month's) that a private comapny has gotten goverment approval to go to the moon. SO when this happens they can take pictures and disprove the naysayyer once and for all.
procrastination is a way of life aka i'll think up a sig later
Then again, since when our network executives concerned about what is good or bad TV, let alone good or bad science?
if they are only willing to risk $15k, they are obviously lying about the landing. it is all clear now... DUCK, the second shooter is back!
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
The fact that we such an abundance of blue-cheese dressing to go with our wings is enough proof for me.
This is the best option for the money. The alternative would be to send them all up there in the cargo bay of a shuttle and then crack the bay doors for a second or two and see if they'll finally believe you.
As Monty Python said:
Well let's see, look around now. Can you spot the loony?
*KAPOW!!*
Ah yes, another loony spotted...
This booklet is for educators, to help them address concerns brought up by students who might have stumbled on a True Disbeliever's website or seen that atrocious Fox program!
That's not a waste of time nor money.
Stefan Jones
Johnson, flag this message for section 721 investigation. Potential Conway incident - auth code 786C-1943.
This issue should fall far below the attention-radar of NASA. The act of giving it even a moment's notice fans the flames of the conspiracy theorists (and will be adduced by them as yet further proof that the agency has something to hide).
It was a sad day when Fox stooped to entertaining the theory on its special (the company should have lost priviledges to the monicker "journalism" that instant).
from a recent news article...
:)
The controversy recently emerged from cyberspace in the person of Bart Sibrel, who has made a film questioning the Apollo Moon missions and who confronted astronaut Buzz Aldrin at a Beverly Hills hotel on Sept. 9 and demanded that Aldrin swear on a Bible that he had in fact walked on the moon.
The 72-year-old Aldrin, the second man ever to touch the lunar surface, punched the 37-year-old Sibrel in the face. Sibrel asked that assault charges be filed, but Los Angeles County prosecutors declined. A videotape of the incident showed Sibrel following Aldrin on the street with a Bible and calling him a "thief, liar and coward," one prosecutor said.
How's that for refutation?
-fester (Good for Buzz.. I'm sure he and the others who risked their ass at the top of that Saturn V are sick of this crap)
-'fester
It is too bad one of the astronauts did not trudge a gigantic NASA WAS HERE into the moon dust so that the image could be seen from a large telescope. That should silence the idiots.
On another note it always amazes me that a significant segment of a human population will believe the unbelievable and doubt the obvious.
They're only spending $15k. They'll sell a few thousand copies as college textbooks for useless social sciences courses over the next five to ten years and turn a tidy profit.
Consider it a fund raiser.
www.badastronomy.com
or for less than $15 the printed version at Amazon, or your favorite bookseller.
Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax"
by Philip C. Plait
Paperback: 288 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.76 x 8.62 x 6.44
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471409766; 1 edition (March 1, 2002)
Maybe they could just send Buzz Aldrin out. With a bat. Or his manly fists of iron. That should "silence" the doubters!
"Slashdot is about legos and staplers." -Cmdr. Taco
God is omnipotent yet it would be impossible for him to create a rock he could not lift. Therefore, God does not exist. Right? Right? Is that a paradox?:-)
Since I moonlight in my spare time as God, let me answer this one for you. It's child's play.
I simply would create a rock exactly the size of the universe. I wouldn't be able to lift the rock, because by definition there would be no room for the rock to move.
Happy to clear that up for you.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I remember having seen a link on /. to a perfectly good debunking of the doubters' arguments, but I forgot where. It must've been either Space.com or Badastronomy.com or something.
But it doesn't surprise me that people ``choose to believe what they were programmed to believe''...
I'm sorry I don't have the time to find the article I'm referring to. Someone else might post it, or you could ask Google if you're interested enough.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
They should just pay this guy to go around to each of these doubters' houses and personally punch them in the face a la Jay and Silent Bob meets Buzz Aldron.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
I just read this week's copy of Aviation Week, and it said somewhere that NASA's overall budget is like somewhere like 15 billion bucks. Who cares about 15k? It's spit in a bucket!
BOSTON SUCKS!
I have no problem understanding that they actually did land on -- and take off from the moon, and return to earth. My compassion for the conspiricy theorists only extends to the fact that if we did so much with so little (technology) why have we done so little (in comparisson) since.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I would think that given that the moon landings happened during the height of the cold war, the Soviets would have been watching them very closely and would've been all over them like a bad stink if they could've even come close to demonstrating that the moon landings were faked. By the same token, if you were NASA, would you put your and your country's "face" on the line by staging such a stunt and risking discovery?
You're using her as bait, Master!
You mean "Faux", doncha?
If you aren't doing anything illegal, why do you insist on privacy. What are you hiding?
I would expect, however, that the document will be rather redundant. It's not like one cannot find several very well documented debunkings out there (and on NASA's web site as well).
I could see the point if the document is ultimately meant to be printed to dead trees, but then who will get it? Teachers would make sense, and perhaps FOX programming executives. :-)
I don't think a great deal of money should be spent on wider distribution though, the only people likely to pick it up are those who didn't already buy into the cranks' insanity.
-- MG
(Ha! You can't mod it down 'cause it's actually relevant!)
.. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
You don't understand how telescopes work.
Hubble is limited by its diffraction resolution, which is a little less than 0.05 arcseconds; this works out to about 90 meters at the distance of the moon. Groundbased telescopes are even worse.
This means that while magnification may be extensive, one cannot resolve details smaller than 90 meters. Clearly, the LM descent stage and other debris would be significantly smaller.
IIRC, the LM descent stage area is about 10 meters across. To image that with any visual accuity, you would need resolution at the order of two or three meters.
Unfortunately, with the current administration, we're a lot more likely to see our tax dollars going to religious schools that teach the reverse
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
...and rather well, I thought, by the guy who runs BadAstronomy.Com.
Here is a direct link to the article where he does so, where he tears apart the horrible Fox TV special that was on in 2001.
St. Petersburg Times" has more info on the incident, if you must.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Buzz Aldrin Punches Moon-landing Conspiracy Theorist
btw...The video is pretty funny!
Money spent educating people is never a waste.
Can we not prove it in a less expensive manor? When we landed on the moon we left behind many thing; roller, flag, foots prints, and other junk. Our telescopes are powerfull, can we not zoom in on these objects and take pictures of them? Maybe even allow the public, at certain planeturiums to look at them? Just a thought. By viewign the flag alone should be proof enough.
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
It is a sad statement for science in this country that NASA has to spend money debunking the absurd. I watched the Fox special and I kept shaking my head in bewilderment by the conspiracy theorist's "evidence". A modicum of science education ought to have been enough to have the nation laughing at these poodle buggering ninnys. Instead everyone shakes their head and says "sounds 'bout right to me..." Blech.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Come on folks, it's not hard to understand why some people might he skeptical is it?
;-)
We're talking about 1969 -- when the cold war was at its peak and US pride was at stake.
Kennedy had promised to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade and time was rapidly running out. If it couldn't actually be done then (knowing the way governments work) it had to appear to have been done.
Yes, it would be a deception of the highest magnitude but also an extremely safe one. After all, who was going to be there waiting to prove you a liar?
I firmly believe that the USA *has* landed men on the moon -- but I'm perhaps not quite so sure it happened on the Apollo 11 mission (or even the Apollo 12, 13 missions).
The Fox documentary was pure tabloid TV but I don't think it unreasonable to suspect the government of the day of faking the Apollo 11 landing, just so that Kennedy's promise was (seemingly) kept and US superiority over the Russians was seemingly proven.
One issue that lends weight to the consipiracy theory is the sorry state of computing back in the 1960's. Hell, this was well before the invention of the microprocessor and many of the few "realtime" computers that were around in those days were analog devices with limited precision and badly affected by environmental factors.
The power consumption of even the smallest digital flight-computer of the 1960's would have been horrific -- and remember that power-cell, battery and solar-cell technology was also pretty crude in those days. This meant that hi-drain devices were a risky option.
Or I could be wrong -- it happens all the time
I don't believe these nutcases. However, I recently realized that one of my arguments against them is not as strong as I thought.
Here's the argument: Tens of thousands of people were involved in the Apollo program. There were thousands of them who would unavoidably know if the moon landings were faked. Several thousand people can't keep a secret for over 30 years.
What is wrong with this argument? Bletchley Park. For about 30 years, several thousand people kept the secret that the allies hand broken most of the axis codes during World War II.
(It is still a valid argument, however - there are differences between Bletchley Park and a hypothetically faked Apollo 11.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
And for what? They would simply claim that the images were faked, even if the Hubble could see the landers (which it can't).
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Basically...
q:Can god create a rock he can't lift?
if he can create a rock he can't lift, then he can't lift that rock... Or he can't create that rock...therefore he can't do something.
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Given the number of people who I consider reasonably intelligent who when on and on about the "facts" that Fox's moon landing special presented, I'd say having a big, well compiled body of information debunking those claims would be highly useful.
The masses are easily swayed by one-sided propoganda and shoddy science; as lame as it is, it's probably worth the $15k to breathe some common sense into the "debate."
This is just another attempt to hoodwink the public. I'd publish my point-by-point rebuttal but no one would understand the scientific terms that I'd need to use.
The government can already read our minds. Last year we saw that scientists have been able to have machines controlled by nothing other than thought by scanning brain waves. It's obvious that this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Moving machines with thought is only the part that the government allows these scientists to reveal to the public. Just as civilians aren't privy to top-secret military aircraft designs until years after they become completely outdated, so is the thought-reading apparatus hidden while it still is useful.
You think I'm mad? Even private corporations are not allowed to release technology without government approval. Remember the Hoverboards in Back to the Future? They're real. But they still have military applications so cannot be released to the public. We know that it can work because the Japanese have maglev trains that work on identical priciples.
You still think I'm mad? Turn your Television to a 'staticky' station. Watch the chaotic series of dots and blips. Do this for about six hours until your brain becomes attuned to the frequency. Soon you'll be able to decipher the 8,192 bit encoded datastream that the government is using to communicate with the L'kelialia from Pluto. You'll hear their voices. You'll see their devilish grins peering back at you.
People ask, why would the government want to fake the moon landing? It's easy. Staking a claim. In 2053 the Global Congress will debate the issue of ownership of mineral rights on Luna. The government is only making sure that it has the most prior claim. The actual technology for a moon shot won't be available for another 16 years (I think, this is 2002, right?) but time travel has been well understood since Einstein. It's very complicated and scientific (I'd have to use terms like Schwartzchild radius and eigenvalues to really explain it) but suffice it to say that it's true. I read it on Slashdot earlier this year.
Anyway, I hope my detailed, logical, and coherent analysis and convinces you that this upcoming paper is total fabrication.
Why doesn't NASA simply point the Hubble at one of the landing spots and settle this for good? I think that'd cost a tad less than $15,000...
What's the best argument people can think of as proof that we actually went there in '69?
The Australian satellite dish T.V. broadacst fiasco comes to mind..
I hate Grammar Nazi's
Creationism is based on FAITH, so evidence is not going to change people's opinions. That being said, just because somebody believes something different than you doesn't make them wrong, especially since evolution is still just as much a theory as creationism.
No sig for you.
There's an optical corner reflector on the moon already. If you know where to look, you can see yourself (more or less) (okay, less rather than more) (but you know what I mean).
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
That would be because I *don't* blindly believe man has landed on the moon. The evidence of the moon landings is clear and apparent to anyone who examines it honestly.
Not only do we have some degree of physical evidence (moon rocks, etc.), there is the matter of all of the personnel at the various launch and monitoring facilities, the many hundreds of people serving on the navy ships that performed pickup on the astronauts, and so on. As far as I know, none of these people have contributed any comments to the contrary.
And, of course, there is the multitude of sources and sites that thoroughly debunk any contention that the landing did not occur (and do so with *MUCH* more evidence and credibility than any of the sources used by the conspiracy nuts.
As a final note, although not unimpeachable, I personally watched the landing (on tv, of course) on my 9th birthday.
To address your other points, it is okay for MS to be a monopoly, it's just not okay for them to abuse it.
Blind disbelief is no better than blind faith. In either case, you suborn your responsibility for intelligent consideration of the facts to a blind acceptance (or denial) of authority. Both paths are equally wrong.
Nunc Tutus Exitus Computarus.
Beautiful, beautiful....mod this up!
Of course he has claimed to be objective, truthful, etc. And when caught in a fabrication, he falls back on the entertainer defence. He's a weasel. Something of a fraud, and a coward.
I acknowledge as fact that the moon landings occurred, but I'm not at all surprised that some people don't. After all, what have we done since then? Apollo, while inspiring, exemplified "pyramid building" in its most extreme form.
We spent billions of dollars pursuing this grand enterprise and for what? To NEVER return? Where are the research stations? The power plants? The mines? Where's the grand plan for the future?
The saddest thing of all is that if NASA had the money and motivation to return to the moon, I doubt we'd be able to do it before 2015, since most of the engineers that worked on the Apollo missions have long since retired or died. I'm pretty young myself (24), and I don't mind saying that without the requisite experience base, all the technology we throw at the problem is utterly USELESS.
Sorry for the rant, guys and gals. I went to school, studied, and became an engineer because of Apollo. The fact that NASA's become little more than a budget problem is about the saddest thing I've ever heard.
-boredman
The moon landings gave us much more than material gain.
It literally changed the way a large part of the people here saw the Earth. Imagine, if you can, the feelings of the people here at home the first time they saw the video of the earth from the moon: a warm, beautiful, but FINITE blue ball in the blackness of space. Our home, seen not from within, but seen from outside for the first time.
Imagine, if you can, the feelings of the people all over the world as Niel Armstrong stepped onto the moon for the first time: knowing that a human being had actually trod upon another world for the very first time.
Those of use alive at the time will never forget it.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Typical right wing conservative bunk.
You obviously havn't talked to many right wing conservatives. I've met more than a few that swear everything Rush says is accurate and objective.
Casca
This is EXACTLY RIGHT. Anyone who believes that the moon landings were fake to "win" the space race clearly believes that the Soviets, in spite of launching the first artificial satellite and first man into space, were too stupid to notice that:
No conspiracy theory concerning the lunar landing stands up to even five minutes of skeptical thought.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
In fact, I've come to grips with a new theory- it's one that we are all really part of a gigantic battery that powers some robots. Therefore everything about getting to the moon was nothing more than a computer simulation plugged directly into our collective concious....
;P
-thats humour for you
According to anonymous sources, Christoforo Columbo, an Italian adventurer employed by the Spanish court, never landed in America. He forged his ships' logs, and hired actors to play the parts of his "Indian" captives.
A spokesman for King Ferdinand of Spain declined to comment.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That stupid special from FOX did more to give the US a bad name than anything Ashcroft has ever done. When we went to New Zealand last summer people from all over the coutry asked me about that stupid special.
The problem is that in the US only morons watch that documentary crap. Then FOX ships it all over the world and kind of tells the world that the space program is made up of people who are extremely crooked. They don't ship it with anything resembling a balanced opinion. And then the rest of the world (In this case New Zealand) watches it.
There aught to be a Treason in Television act that puts TV Producers in jail for broadcasting bad fiction and calling it a documentary.
Barring that they aught to give Alan Shepard a medal for smacking the producer of that particular special.
Beware the wood elf!!!
therefore he can't do something
That's like asking "can God add 1 and 1 and get 3". The answer is no, but the problem isn't with God, it's with the question. The nature of omnipotence isn't being able to "do" things that are logical fallacies.
The answer to whether God can make a rock so big that he couldn't lift it is Yes, as I described. The "out" is creating a scenerio such that lifting is a logical fallacy.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Please sir, AC, put yourself in the mindset of the joke and realize that the entire post was not meant to be taken seriously.
No, we can't. There is not telescope in the world that can "zoom in" close enough to see anythung that we have left behind on the moon. Even the mighty Hubble can only see things no smaller than 90 metres across on the moon.
And it wouldn't matter if we could. The doubters wouls simply claim that the images in the telescopes were fakes, or that unmanned rockets dropped all that junk on the moon.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Creationists (including the "intelligent design" crowd) belong in exactly the same camp as the "moon landing was a hoax" people, Holocaust-deniers, flat-Earthers, etc.
Umm, I wouldn't put the holocaust-deniers in that list. Creationists and flat-earthers are merely idiots, but the holocaust-deniers are a pack of nazis who are trying to get another chance at genocide. Treat the nuts with derision, but if you get a crack at a holocaust-denier, kick his ass, but good.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I don't think you'd want to point Hubble at the Moon to "prove" to some bozo that there's space junk there. I'm no Hubble expert, but I do know a few things:
* The Hubble doesn't just sit there unused. Every minute -- every second -- of its time is reserved months in advance for research purposes.
* Even if the project were deemed worthy, it would probably cost more than $15k to make the project happen.
* The Hubble is designed to look at very, very, very faint objects. Close yourself in a dark room, look at the light bulbs, then flip the switch to turn them on. Ouch! Now, imagine if your pupils couldn't contract... and your retina was worth several hundred million bucks. Double ouch!
* If you believe in the Hubble telescope's images, there's a very, very strong chance that you believe that man has landed on the Moon already. Conversely, if you don't believe in the moon landing, why would you believe in the Hubble?
And as for aerial images... it was big news when spy satellites could spot an object as large as a car from orbit. Compare these numbers:
* Distance to Space Shuttle (Low Earth Orbit): 400 km
* Distance to Geosynchronous (med-high) Orbit: 27,000 km
* Distance to Moon: 384,000 km!
If the CIA/KGB can barely make out an object the size of a car from Earth orbit, how likely is it to see an even smaller object from 10 times as far?
*whew* A great intellectual exercise... too bad the target of NASA's informative pamphlet don't work that muscle.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
NASA spends $15,000 to convince people that it's worth spending $15,000 to convince people that the moon landings weren't faked.
Cmon, get off their backs, $15,000 is a drop in the bucket for something this important. It would be worth a news item if the sum were 15 million, but this tiny sum isn't worth worrying about.
From a social point of view, having a science institution educate the regular citizen about this sort of conspiracy theories is again worth much more money than what they are spending.
And last but not least, the nutters will always have a case. If you answer, they'll say "See, they know we are right, so they had to answer". And if you don't answer, they'll say: "They don't answer to our charges because they can't, they know we are right". So really, I don't see where the problem is.
BTW, this article is about US scientific policies/issues, and as such it should probably go in "US", not in "Space" as a topic.
Worth a look!
They tried this one. Chairface Chippendale once tried to write his name on the moon, but he only got the first 3 letters before running out of room.
And then The Tick kicked his ass...
And then the Man Eating Cow showed up... but that was after the Ninjas....
Or something...
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Aaah, but why haven't they? I think the answer is pretty clear... :)
Invisible Agent
This post is a mirror; when a monkey stares in, no hacker gazes out.
Why is Earth's Luna the only satellite that does not reveal its dark side to the planet?
It's tidally locked to the earth (grossly oversimplyfying - slightly heavier bit on one side of moon is drawn to awlays face earth, eventually rotation of moon is locked to orbital period.)
Why is the apparent size of the sun and the moon nearly exactly the same? They're not exactly the same, only good enough for a few lucky people in the direct path of the umbra, only about 150km wide. I'd have to call it chance, seeing the enormity of "someone" engineering it, only to terrorise a few people in a very specific area every 15-20 years or so. Anyway, not too many planets that we know about have a moon the size of earth's (relatively speaking), so it's pretty hard to judge.
Why is the synodic period of the moon exactly the length of the menstrual cycle? Mammals are strange creatures. Lots of animals are synchronised to lunar cycles, a biologist could tell you some more.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
When I was 4 yeras old I watched on TV as Neil armstrong uttered those famous words. This even more than any other changed my life. I have since been obsessed with all things space, and have never doubted for a second that we went to the Moon with Apollo.
HOWEVER, I have seen the evidence that the moon landing skeptics have provided and some of it is damn compelling and yet to be answered by NASA. Some of the evidence is so compelling even I doubted it for a bit.
$15,000 is a small price to pay if thet actually answer convincingly the questions and compelling "wholes" presented by the moon hoax crowd.
www.enthea.org
The issue isn't science. We could get to the moon in less than five years. If we had the money. We know how to build teh rockets to get there. What we lack is the cold, hard, cash.
We were willing to spend those billions and billions of dollars in the 1960's because we were in a race with the Soviets. A race that set the Soviet Union on a one-way trip to bankruptcy. After we won the race we simply couldn't afford to keep up the pace.
We didn't go for science. We didn't go for commerce. We didn't go for any reason other than to beat the Soviets. Once we did, there was no reason to go back.
We will get back to the moon, if we don't let George W. start WWIII. But we won't go back until it can be done at a cost worth paying.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
It says the videos have a money back guarantee. If he'll pay me back when I still think he's a crack baby, maybe I'll take a look.
C U/ ref=ase_afunnythinghap0a/002-3611987-4471248z on has some interesting reviews. Apparently the grand finale of the movie is slo-mo replays of the Kennedy assasination.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000059M
Ama
creationism is not testable. by its very definition creationism cannot be tested or verified.
creationism is not applicable. you cannot apply creationism to solve any problem.
creationism does not make any verifiable predictions.
therefore, creationism is not a theory.
the theorem (theory) of pythagoras is a theory. the theory of evolution is a theory.
creationism is NOT a theory. to claim it is otherwise is either ignorant or fraudulent.
The trip to the moon was totally faked... in 1902! This French dude did it! George Méliès was his name, and he ripped off Jules Verne in the process!
;-P
Here is proof!
Some might remember the Smashing Pumpkins bravely revealed the moon landing hoax in 1995 with the video for their song "Tonight, Tonight" from their album "Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness."
Shocking lack of imagination for NASA to rip these artists off. Call the DMCA! Call the RIAA! These conspiracy theorists are on to something here... a lack of imagination!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One difference between the NASA report and the Warren Report is that while the evidence supports NASA's moon landing claims, it tends to contradict the Warren Report's claims.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
"And it's unfortunate that the nutters will see this as validation of their ridiculous claims ('if our charges weren't true, NASA wouldn't bother answering them' they'll snivel.)"
They're doing it because those "nutters" have a nasty habit of voting and are probably demanding their congresscritters to investigate. They may not listen to reason, they may not have two braincells to rub together, but they have a habit of making a whole lot of noise.
including steven hawkings? in his book he pointed out that no one can guess what happened before the big bang, and he put it down to God,
Er, no he didn't. In fact, he thinks the universe may be self-contained, without a beginning or end; which would eliminate the "need" for a creator.
So if we claimed that we'd also returned a vehicle from Mars, that would validate the claim of a Moon return?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I mean these people just don't want to listen to scientific evidence, it doesn't help because no amout of evidence will be sufficent. It's like the story with the paranoid.
You can not prove to a paranoid person that nobody is actually out to get him, because he will assume that it's all an elaborate trick to make him believe that. If people appear to be ignoring him it's just a trick while observing him in secret, and if they're not doing anything suspicious at the moment they're just waiting for the right opportunity.
Weather a theory is scientific is not a matter of how much evidence speaks for it, but rather under which conditions it is false. Formulated by Popper, it is not a method to separate true from false, but to separate scientific from non-scientific statements.
And on an off-topic note, just a pet peeve of mine:
Evolution would be false if completely new species kept suddenly appearing with no relations to other species.
Creationism would be false if...? If all species had no evolution, no connection? No, that would be God having made them exactly as they are. If completely new species appeared? No, that would be a miracle, and that would have to be Gods work.
I have no problem with Creation as faith. Be it by God creating big bang, or God creating the world in 4004 BC exactly by the words of the bible, or yesterday, giving me the memory of the life I believe to have lived. But it is not, and will never be, scientific. And I truly hate people trying to sell it as such.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'd much rather have the money spent on getting evolution out of the school systems
...
You don't want our kids taught good science then? Pity.
and if neither theory (evolution or creation)
Evolution is a theory. Creationism is not. For something to be a theory it has to be supported by objective evidence, make testable predictions, and be falsifiable. Creationism is none of these.
And since we've *seen* evolution (change in allele frequencies) happen, we're not arguing about *if* it happens. The only real debate these days is the *mechanism* by which it happens.
I think evolutionists like yourself are bigoted, faithless, hopeless souls who have no idea what's in store for them when they finally figure out they were wrong.
How dare you call me black, Mr. Pot!
Evolution is too stupid to figure out how to make a complex human being from scratch and keep the human growing effortlessly throughout its lifetime.
Evolution doesn't have to do that. Evolution only has to make humans from a species that's sort of like humans. And make *that* species from one a little less like humans. And make *THAT* species from
including steven hawkings? in his book he pointed out that no one can guess what happened before the big bang, and he put it down to God, god created the universe before the big bang. since god is infalable he set the big bang up *exactlly* how he wanted it and we are here reading slashdot, by his design.
personally i'm not a christian, but i liked his reasoning.
Well I am, and Creationists piss me off. Why? Because Stephen Hawking's explanation isn't good enough for them. Because they think that they know exactly how God created the universe, and that it had to be some 7-periods-of-24-hours affair. They don't think it's possible that God could have used the Big Bang, evolution, and the forces of nature to perform His will. In effect, they are placing limits on the God that they'll spend as long as you care to listen telling you is omnipotent!
As a result they want to teach kids a literal interpretation of a book absolutely laden with symbolic language, parable, and metaphor -- with the reason explicitly stated that the truth is more complex -- that these fools decided must be the only way it could have been.
And the part that pisses me off -- because they're such morons, smart non-religious types end up thinking all religous types must be morons as well, and I have to deal with it. Thanks, guys.
The enemies of Democracy are
"Creationists ... belong in exactly the same camp as the ... Holocaust-deniers.".
You seem to be more Nazi than the Nazi, putting people into places without any explanation needed. Why should everyone that believes life on earth is not 100% coincidence in all aspects have to be aligned with Holocaust-deniers?
Holocaust-non-deniers are also having their little Holocaust at palestitians, which they also deny.
Now, I do not know if the first moon landing was true. I have 90% confidence it was true, though I cannot completely rule out that it was a fake. I will act as if it's true because there's not enough evidence to not believe it.
Whatever you or I believe or think we have proven will not change facts. What happened was and no amount of "your proving" is change that.
You actually start believing in cospiracy tales only after you have access to certain sources in the grand scheme of things. I know this myself, though I would admit 90% of the conspiracy theories are complete BS, there is significat amount of them that are not.
unfinished: (adj.)
If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Too bad the evidence for evolution as we know it isn't enough to bring it out of the 'theory' stage. Never mind the fact that a growing majority of schools teach the concept as fact.
Grumble. Nothing in science ever gets beyond the 'theory' stage. We still have the Germ Theory of disease and the General Theory of relativity don't we?
Theories are science's attempt to explain facts.
Fact: Things are attracted to other things.
Theory: Mass distorts spacetime and objects follow the shortest path in curved space.
Fact: Species change over time.
Theory: Traits are inherited from parents with occasional mutations. Environmental pressures cause certain traits to be more successful than others.
one of the reasons I prefer creationism (and the beliefs one can have with faith in God) is that evolution doesn't offer me much comfort in the face of depression, loss, hurt, uncertainty, death, etc.
What does evolution have to do with any of that? The truth of evolution doesn't preclude the existence of God.
Look people... there is a parabolic mirror array that observatories use to measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon... if this isn't proof that we went to the moon, I don't know what is (and yes it would be beyond the capabilites of current technology to deliver such a mirror to the surface of the moon with robotics). Joe
First, if NASA has previously spent time and energy answering doubters individually, then putting together a set of material to address the issue may represent a good savings. Now they'll have a resource and a procedure for disposing of inquiries quickly.
Second, how humiliating is it to get your clock cleaned in public by a 72 year old man? That's fantastic! Reminds me of when a rookie Robin Ventura rushed the mound on Nolan Ryan, and Nolan, twice the rookie's age, beat him like a cheap rug. Let's hear it for old guys who still crack heads! Hooray for Buzz Aldrin!
It is correct that Hubbles resolution on the moon is on the order of 100's of meters. Obviously it can not resolve an American flag. However, the Clementine probe captured some imagesof what appear to be a the launch crater from a lunar module. Of course, this brings the United States Navy into the conspiracy if you choose not to believe it...
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Remember that relativity is "just" a theory. Our understanding of gravity is just a "theory". By your reasoning, my "theory" that gravity is caused by invisible bungee cords has just as much validity as the current Theory of Gravity. Which is, of course, bull. Isn't that basically what string theory boils down to?...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
There have already been tens of thousands of dollars spent on adjudicating the argument between religious dogma and scientific theory.
The Scopes "Monkey Trial" happened in the early 1920s, with John Scopes fighting to teach evolution in the state of Tennessee. Scopes's lawyer, Darrow, lost.
Refusing to admit crucial evidence, the presiding judge, John T. Raulston, gloried in frustrating the defense and upholding Christian orthodoxy.
These are the kind of people you're up against. Evidence and proof mean nothing. Reality? What's that? You can spend all the money you want, but you'll never convince superstitious zealots that what they believe is wrong.
blog
What's 15K for NASA, really? For that matter,
what's 15K for such a gov't agency? Another
bathroom stall?
Considered harmful.
NASA provides valuable services. Knowledge, they drive a lot of advanced aerospace research, several technologies from the space program have made there way back to earth. And if the population doesn't level off and level off soon, the research of the US, Russia, and other nations space programs will be critical to getting the excess population a new home.
Also, ask a mountain climber why he or she climbs. Very likely you will get the answer "Because it is there". That alone is reason to struggle for a goal.
NASA to survive must fight back against claims like the moon hoax. If they don't, more people may buy the claims and the resultant drop in public support will decrease their funding to dangerously low levels.
I don't want to be the President whos told by his NASA head that "Sir, if you had signed that bill giving us more money two years ago, we would have noticed that planet killer asteroid in time to stop it. Unfortunately, our only hope now is Bruce Willis."
Fact: Species change over time.
Theory: Traits are inherited from parents with occasional mutations. Environmental pressures cause certain traits to be more successful than others.
Traits are inherited from parents? That's a theory? And that's your excuse for creationism? Okay...
Synergy is your friend
That's like asking "can God add 1 and 1 and get 3".
What is wrong with that?... 1+1 can equal 3 for sufficiently high values of 1. That is a fundamental cornerstone of groveling for partial credit..
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
No. I think they usually took off from Flordia ;-)
-twb
I'd rather see the tax dollars go to explaining the difference between a theory and a philosophical doctrine, and examining the evidence without assumption or prejudice.
Would it confirm evolution? Or would it confirm creationism? Probably neither.
Would it disprove one or both? Possibly.
But don't make the mistake for a minute of calling the doctrines of creation/evolution a science.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
One has to wonder if they are willfully or unconciously lying to themselves and others about this. It certainly doesn't say much for their faith or their thought processes that they'd rather live in a woo-woo land of lies and self-denial than confront reality.
it. It is a fact, deal with it.On the other hand, evolution has a 150 year mountain of evidence to prove
If you believe otherwise, read TalkOrigins.org and explain why they're wrong.
I've always felt that these "mini medias" like Art Bell, Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, etc., are more harmful than people acknowledge. I like the idea that there can be alternative news sources, but so few seem to question the credibility of these sources. It's sad when I see my suspicions about this come to fruition. Love the mainstream media or not, they have one thing above all these "alternatives." They have credibility by virtue of their work and philosophy--not by numbers or the volume of their message.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I recall it being well over a decade ago when Weekly World News published the moon hoax theory to the public. I still didn't believe that scientists were going to blow up the moon,
but I believed the moon landing was fake for awhile, too, as their article was actually very well written and raised some good points.
This was back when I was obsessed with shows like Sightings and read everything about the unexplained, the paranormal, and conspiracies as I could, even before the X-Files were around to make it cool.
When I first got an email address, I emailed NASA, and a Dr. Edwin Bell actually sent back a well-written reply to my questions. Thanks to Fox, they're probably flooded nowadays.
Eat at Subway.
Please, first, excuse my ignorance, which is huge regarding telemetry and rocket science. Now that we have that out of the way . . .
A movie (based on true events) which came out in 2000 titled The Dish is about the satellite dish that the US requisitioned (not the right word, but you get the idea) to track Apollo 11 while the Eastern Hemisphere faced the moon. In 1969, that dish was one of the few powerful enough to use as a relay for Apollo 11. But apparently the size of Apollo 11 also meant it wasn't easy to track if you didn't have its recent co-ordinates and velocity.
So, my question comes down to whether it would have been so easy to track Apollo 11 if you were the Soviets. (Did they have information about Apollo's progress?)
blog
Traits are inherited from parents? That's a theory?
:)
You cut the rest of my sentence, but in any case...
No, that traits are inherited from parent is a _fact_. The _theory_ in this particular case is that the traits are encoded in the organism's DNA.
But that's only one part of the various theories of evolution.
And that's your excuse for creationism?
No, there's no excuse for creationism.
Fortunately science works from evidence. In the absence of any evidence to support the notion of a god and no way to observe or detect a god (or giant incorporeal space hippos), there is no need to require or suppose one.
oh well I guess no one will believe that either. The sad thing is I didn't know it because we barely studied the 60's/70's in any of my history classes throughout high school and college. I guess since the teachers/professors felt since they knew it we knew it, there was no reason to teach about Vietnam, Moon Landings, Presidential Scandal's, Terrorist Hijackings/Acts (yes they happened in the past too).
Oh well I guess learning is really up to the student more than the teacher.
It is too bad one of the astronauts did not trudge a gigantic NASA WAS HERE into the moon dust so that the image could be seen from a large telescope. That should silence the idiots.
They put plates with reflective material in place. Scientists on Earth shoot lasers on the plates, and get reflections back. The measurements have been used to establish the distance to the moon with extraordinary precision, also that the moon is moving away a couple of inches per year (or was it moving closer... I forgot).
Tor
Good non-answer.
You said you preferred creationism because evolution doesn't offer much "comfort".
The theories of evolution (there are several) aren't *supposed* to offer comfort. They are scientific theories, not religion. Do you reject General Relativity because it doesn't provide comfort? Do you reject the germ theory of disease because it doesn't provide hope? How about the heliocentric theory of the solar system?
Why do you single out evolution from all of science? If you reject evolution because you feel it conflicts with your faith, you don't have to worry. You can accept evolution and still believe in God. Maybe God is guiding the forces of natural selection? Maybe She's running a big experiment to see what She can make? Such questions are outside the realm of science, so feel free to put God in charge if you want.
Read what he writes, he's just "some guy" like you and me.
g
:)
And for all his talk, he still doesn't explain 2 very obvious things about this picture:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/as11-40-5874.jp
1) I understand why the flag appears to be waving, but he has no explanation as to why neither the flag nor the flagpole cast any sort of shadow whatsoever.
I could buy that because the flagpole is so thin that its shadow gets lost, but as you can see- the flag itself is BRIGHTLY illuminated.
This means that you should very easily see a shadow for it.
2) The non-parallel shadows- he explains this in another picture as a low camera angle combined with the perspective of the camera- and you can plainly see that in the other pic it's a valid explanation.
There's a lot of distance between the 2 objects.
But in this pic, the 3 visible shadows (the lander, the rock, and the astronaut) are *very* close together, and the shadow angles vary *greatly*.
You can imagine that the light source would have to be *very* close to make that much of an angle difference between those 3 things.
I dunno- I consider myself fairly sane and rational, and I know the government has done things *far* beyond covering up moon landings- but like someone else said- whether or not the US landed on the moon doesn't change any desicions *I* am going to make- so fuck it
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
But I think healthy scepticism is good, too. If you think about it: how do you actually know what you know? What sources of information do you have? How can you verify their accuracy? Is a bunch of television pictures enough? Is reading papers on moon rocks in Nature and Science good enough?
So, again, I think for the moon landing, on balance, I believe it. But I think it's not unreasonable to ask, and it's not unreasonable for a big public institution with a big budget to explain themselves in terms that the public can understand.
"What does evolution have to do with any of that? The truth of evolution doesn't preclude the existence of God."
Yeah, but if you're a Christian and believe in the Old Testament it does. Of course you have the middle ground where people say "Oh, God created the universe and then just let it go" but to me that's just someone who can't come to grips with the fact that they only have X more years and then they're done for good.
No sig for you.
The moon mission was a political one, not a scientific one. When the americans realised they'd never beat the Russians, they faked it to save face. I saw a documentary on it a while ago. Very interesting. It included facts like:
- The americans didn't realise that there was so much radiation in space that if they had actually attempted to get to the moon they would have been fried a million times over. They still haven't been able to deal fully with the radiation problem.
- The guy in charge of analysing the moon rocks went on a holiday to the south pole to collect meteors just prior to the moon mission's completion.
- The Russians were FAR ahead of the americans and many Russian scientists have stated that they never understood where the incredible jump in technology came from that allowed them to overtake Russian space technology so much.
There were a lot of other attacks on the US moon mission hoax. I can't remember all of them now, but it was an impressive list - in its size and accuracy.
Cute. They're quoting David Irving as some kind of authoritative source.
Didn't that little NAZI puke just get his ass handed to him by a British court a little while ago?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
...aren't cheap, and i'm pretty sure the vast majority of americans believe in the lunar landings - would any congressman in his right mind want to have to stand up next campaign cycle and publically admit to spearheading a congressional investigation of valididity of the moon landings? ...i know i sure wouldn't.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
There certainly have been moon landings, but not before 1982, when NASA finally invented the technologies to get past the radiation belt. The world was fooled over a decade before into believing that Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon. All the images and whatnot from the various Apollo missions were fakes. I have bulletproof evidence to support this claim: Two different people, who do not know each other, have separately told me that they doubt the moon landings took place.
On the US side, we now know that the Explorer satellite series was a cover story for the Corona spy satellites. And there was a fair amount of disinformation about the SR-71. Covering up a large supersonic aircraft making sonic booms over the US was a tough bit of spin control. On at least two occasions, there were low-altitude engine failure restarts over populated areas. One toppled a factory chimney, and the other was over downtown Salt Lake City.
Other cool stuff we know now:
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Should we just accept everything the news media feeds us? So naive...
Whether or not the landings were faked, the point is that when news of the landing spread in 1969, most of the world blindly accepted what they were seeing on telly without a moments hesitation.
At least these articles that cast doubt over the plausibility of the moon landings (never mind the nutters who say "It definitely was a hoax) encourage people to think for themselves before believing everything they read.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Using the infinite power of God to illustrate the infinite weakness of God isn't exactly a solid foundation for any argument, especially when diving into concepts you don't understand in the first place.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
...fact about that entire saga is not a technical but a psychological one.
Remember, it was a "race into space" with the Russians leading some time along the way. They had the first device in orbit (Sputnik) and they certainly can be credited for having a high-tech state of the art space control center back then.
If something was faked along the way to the moon landing (i.e. no rocket leaving earth, the radio waves of transmission not really originating from the moon, etc.) do you think they would have kept their traps shut about this hoax? If someone had the tech and the expertise to really establish if something moved from earth to moon and transmitted a load of radio waves from there, it was them. They have not spoken up, and that in an era where almost every mistake from either side was used as ammunition to discredit the other. They didn't. Proof enough. QED.
+++ath0
For a detailed explanation of all this, my fellow Mad Scientist William Wheaton has a page with the technical data about the doses received by the astronauts. Another excellent page about this, that also gives a history of NASA radiation testing, is from the Biomedical Results of Apollo site. An interesting read!
Of course, Wil Wheaton can attest to the moon program being real.. He's been to the neutral zone and back!
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
The moon landings were real. The Mars Face told me personally.
Table-ized A.I.
And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered
Don't be sloppy. That isn't a fact. The facts -- the data, as you say -- are that we have found fossils that resemble to varying degrees apes and humans, with older ones more closely resembling apes than more recent ones. It's pretty obvious that what those fossils mean is that we evolved from apes, but that isn't a "fact".
Of course then a Creationist then uses that to put their literal interpretation of Genesis on equal footing as evolution... But that's no reason to call something a fact that isn't.
The enemies of Democracy are
As we all know from writing code, comments such as "Wet Paint" or "This needs to be fixed" cease to be true long before they are removed from the code. I was just hacking some code today, and reading my commented precondition, and finding out in a painful way that the documentation no longer reflected the true precondition.
In a phrase, "Comments lie." This works both in code and in the Real World.
I'd bet my life on nasa [sic] never have [sic] landing [sic...ah, hell, the whole sentence is a cock-up grammatically anyway] on the moon.
Y'know, if you call up Buzz Aldrin, I'm sure he'll be more than happy to take you up on that wager.
They that would sacrifice their
They mentioned the US moon landings about a decade after they occured whilst trumpeting about the landers that sent back a couple of grams of moon rock. US astronauts were bringing the stuff back by the kilogram. The Soviets were ashamed to admit that their space program had been totally eclipsed (ahem). Now, Western media had no trouble with reporting on Gagarin's flight. Which in fact some people doubt ever occured, not because the world is flat and the angels fly around at 80 km, but because there were a series of inconsistencies and occurances that raise doubts whether he was the actual pilot of the first manned flight (and not some nameless other cosmonaut who was supposedly killed in an accident).
As for being passionate about biology, I'm not that either. But I am passionate when I hear creationist groups trying to pressure schools to accept their unscientific twaddle. I am passionate when some fundamentalist group tries to force its world view on my children. If someone wants their own kids to believe in God, then fine take them to church each sunday. But religion should stay out of school and biology class until such time as there is a scientific evidence to justify it. Evolution has such evidence in spades.
Ancient Hebrews believed that the world was a hemisphere carved out of the surrounding chaos, or turbulent waters. When God wanted it to rain, he literally opened the windows in the sky and the waters of the universe poured through. That's pretty wacky, but I don't blame them for thinking so. It's not true, of course, but that doesn't have any bearing on the human spiritual condition.
Same thing with creationism. It's a nice story, sure, and I don't grudge the Ancient Hebrews for believing it was fact. It is, however, just a story, and that has absolutely nothing to do with humankind's very special need for meaning, comfort, guidance, and a belief in universal justice.
"Chariots for Apollo" by Charles Pellegrino - you can't make this stuff up.
"How To Think About Weird Things" by Lewis Vaughn - see how most goofy thinking goes wrong. This book comes highly recommended by James Randi.
Fox could put on a special that would have half the population believing they have no nose.
And if it were faked, there'd be no where near the number of excruciating details available. The bigger the lie, the fewer details you can afford to let out.
Sounds like they need some sense knocked into them. Where's a vagabond Saturn V third stage when you need one?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The problem with this is that you are trying to argue against the nuts. That is backwards. Is it plausible that NASA could have faked the landings, and kept it a secret. Sure, there is a very very remote chance that it is possible. But that doesn't mean that they did! That is the problem with nuts, they don't listen. They make statements that cannot be disproved. Prove to me there have never been aliens on this planet. What about this bigfoot photo? It looks real, it must be real. See that shimmering light in the sky? If you don't know what it is, it MUST be an alien spacecraft. Goddamn loonies, all of them.
One thing I haven't seen people mention is the Space Shuttle program. Is that faked? Is it that much harder to land someone on the moon as it is to send them into space and have them return on the same craft, and re-use that craft over and over? What, is it all based on smoke and mirrors? I would suspect that the arguement would be "sure, that is now, but back then we didn't have the technology". Well what technology is the Space Shuttle based on then? Think it just came out of a moment of clarity?
The space program used to be a thing of wonder for the whole world, now it is just another thing. Doesn't anyone else read the news about the Space Shuttle and think "Wow! That is amazing! I still can't really grasp how incredible that is". They have provided so much footage on their website, it really is something of wonder. And what about Hubble, and some of the probes that have been out there for years sending back data. All faked. F*ck off, all you loonies.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
PLEASE HELP ME! I'm trying to find a hilarious site that I think I saw on Slashdot within the past few months. It was a standard set of "moon hoax" photos, but as you progressed through the site they turned increasingly bogus, with picnic tables and obvious stuff like that. Anybody know where it is?
Evil is the money of root.
Go ahead and add me. I suppose I fall into the "intelligent design" camp (and don't believe that the "days" in Genesis refer to 24-hour periods - how could they, before light existed?), and I have no spiritual, moral, or scientific problems with evolution. Still, if you're determined to ignore the comments of everyone who believes in Creationism in any form, then you'll not be hearing from me again.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The answer to the first question (radiation belt) is that they developed shielding for the spacecraft that was capable of blocking the radiation. (Van Allen Belt, iirc). The answer to the second question is that the US government lost the political will to keep dumping (they thought) billions into the space program when it was more convenient to fight wars on poverty, disease, and other countries.
What is your Slash Rating?
Operation Lune (Google cache), a french documentary with interviews with Christiane Kubrick (Stanley Kubricks' widow), Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld and many more. See it if you can - which is somewhat unlikely in the US.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Yeah, but if you're a Christian and believe in the Old Testament it does.
No, it doesn't. Genesis only says "God created...". It doesn't say HOW He created. He could have used (and still be using) evolution to do the creating.
Scholasticus, the church I know plainly states religion is about faith. It can't be proved wrong or right. Some folks may think they have proved god exist or not, but it's 100% clear it's an act of will to believe.
But athists are very happy thinking that because it can't be proved, and since they won't believe anything not to have been proved right, then they are wrong.
God exists or does not. It doesn't what we believe so it's perfectly feasible for atheists to be blatantly wrong, and ignoring what God mandates.
So why do you blame people that don't believe the apollo mission was faked? They haven't PROVED it, and they refuse to believe in that.
SO I'd say you are in the same boat that creationists are. You just believe it, and nobody has proved you wrong (and even that is irrelevant if you don't agree with the "evidence").
unfinished: (adj.)
Scientific AmericanE C-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588EEDF&catID=2
July 2002 issue
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D4F
Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up.
Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy.
Dude, I think your tinfoil helmet isnt strapped on tightly enough...
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
"Creationists (including the "intelligent design" crowd) belong in exactly the same camp as the "moon landing was a hoax" people, Holocaust-deniers, flat-Earthers, etc."
We can demonstrate people have landed on the moon. There are footprints and LEMs and laser experiments and flags and all that good stuff. And, while people where there, we had radio communications coming to us from the moon.
We can demonstrate that the Holocaust happened. We have all sorts of corpses and the instruments that would seem to have made those people dead.
We can demonstrate the Earth is not flat. Try line-of-sight communications with someone over the horizon. Try walking in one direction and seeing if you end up in the same place.
But you simply cannot disprove (or prove) the "intelligent design" hypothesis. The only way you can prove intelligent design is to find something that is not of intelligent design and comparing the two (like "We know this rock was made into a tool because it's so different from what the rock looks like naturally.")
However, if you can't find anything that fits into the "other" category, you're left with two conclusions:
1.) There is no intelligent design
2.) Everything is of intelligent design.
Anybody who believes in one more than the other is exercising a leap of faith and nothing more. This is true whether you call yourself a creationist or an atheist.
A true scientist would say that both conclusions are true until an outside observer resolves one of them away (Schroedinger's Cat and all). And that will never happen because an observer cannot be external to the universe by definition.
But creationism says the world (and universe) began at, I think, 4004 B.C. Evolution says the universe began a few years earlier IIRC.
No sig for you.
What I meant was evolution is supposed to take MILLIONS- not thousands- of years. So it would be impossible to believe in a strict interpretation of the Old Testament and in an unaltered theory of evolution.
No sig for you.
"My understanding of evolution, is that it is simply a change in the frequency of particular traits within a species (or subset of the species), carried of course in the dna of the creature."
That ignores the big changes, like moving from single cell organisms to complex organisms (like us). While small changes can occur in the form of an organism there are no major changes that occur on a timescale as short as a few thousand years. (And when I say major changes I mean MAJOR, not just the enhancement of a feature or something, I mean moving from the ocean to land, or single celled organism to multicelled organism etc.)
No sig for you.
) According to my Bible, animals were created in a day.
What is a "day" to God? That's where your argument falls apart. For all we know 'day' in Genesis might mean a billion years.
For the record, I do reject any teaching of man that doesn't line-up with the Bible.
So we should teach that rabbits chew the cud, bats are birds, and grasshoppers have four legs? (Leviticus)
We should not teach that the Earth is round, becuase the Bible implies that it is flat? (four corners of the world)
Genesis 1 says the the order of creation was birds and fish, then land animals, then man. Genesis 2 says man, then animals and birds. Which one should we teach? Either way we have a contradiction.
I would rather place my beliefs on a set of stable principals, rather than shifting ideologies that have yet to offer me what my Father can already provide.
This is too far off topic, and it's getting old, so this is my last post. But what you are saying is that you would essentially live in a fantasy world that reality. You don't KNOW that your Father can provide anything because you don't KNOW that He even exists. Is that a stable principal? It sounds more like building your dream house on quicksand. Those "shifting ideologies" gave you the computer you are posting your messages with, and yet you reject it. Those shifting ideologies gave us vaccines and cars and electricity and radio, and yet you reject it. That's a shame.