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Conspiracy Theorists, Meet The Moon
Spock the Baptist writes "You can read about an article entitled: "Telescope to challenge moon doubters" in the online edition of Sydney Morning Herald. The SMH reports that, "European scientists are to use the world's newest and largest telescope to see whether the spacecraft are still on the lunar surface." Does anyone really think that this will change the alleged minds of doubters?"
Does anyone really think that this will change the alleged minds of doubters?
No, these people just want attention, they don't care if they're wrong or not.
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Will see these photographs and say "Wow, those are excellent fakes."
Then there will be tons of websites that crop up showing how the images were doctored, photoshopped, impossible, etc.
Some people just can't be convinced, and I'm not sure how much tax money should be spent on such a pursuit.
I think the majority of "moon-landing-doubters" are naive people that watched that socially irresponsible Fox TV show, and a few pictures of the landing site may be enough to sway them. There is, however, no use even talking to the true "conspiracy theorist".
Why do people care so much about what lunar denial folk think?
Lunar deniers are an extreme minority (in both senses), they do no harm to anyone; the way astronmers obsess about proving that man went to the moon is just as insane as saying that man never went.
Honestly, people who believe man never went to the moon will change nothing. Progress will continue. New projects will be financed, launched and will return spectacular results. The manned space station is in orbit right now, if you needed any proof of this.
There will always be people like the lunar deniers.
Get over it, and ignore them.
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"The images from the telescope are actually made with subliminal images of the Coca Cola logo. If you turn the image upsides down, draw a square around the ship and read the horizon as a waveform you get the sound of John Lennon saying "JFK is not dead" backwards 3 times.
The "telescope" was actually a UFO that crashed on the moon and was hidden by the FBI and CIA for all these years. We have leaked documents to prove it!"
There is NO point trying to disprove conspiracy theories, that merely validates them, and gives the impression that these theories were taken seriously. Anyone can come up with a conspiracy theory about anything.
What makes a man want to be a mouse? (Python's Flying Circus)
You show them the moon through the telescope, they'll say the telescope has been tampered with.
You show them pictures, they say they've been doctored and are fakes.
You show them footage, they say it was staged and point out supposed inconsistancies.
You take them to the moon and show them the lander, they say it was planted there.
There is no end to it, just dont even bother.
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Consider the following: the telescope can see a human hair from 16km away. A human hair is about .1mm. The moon is 384400km away from earth.
(384400km/16km)*.0001m = 2.4025m, which is to say that the telescope can see objects as small as 2.4 meters on the surface of the moon. That means the lander wouldn't be bigger than 2 pixels square.
"What's that little black dot?"
"That's the lander, duh."
"Still don't believe you"
You can never absolutely positively convince a person of the existance of a historical event. For all I know, the United States didn't even exist in 1950. Hell, I don't even believe in France, since I've never been there. I mean come on, you want me to believe that that silly French accent comes from a real language?!! Proposterous!
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
If it is seriously intended to change anyone's mind, there needs to be a "chain of evidence" that involves the participation of the doubters.
Otherwise, it's just like a UFO photo. Someone pops up and says "Here's photographic proof! This picture of [a UFO][spacecraft on the surface of the Moon] was taken by [a Boy Scout leader][European scientists] on [precise time and date] and [experts] say it's authentic." To which I'd say "how do I really know where and how it was taken? Why couldn't this be a picture of [a garbage can lid tossed in the air and deliberately taken out of focus][a cleverly Photoshopped fake?]"
It all depends on whether you believe the [Boy Scout leader][European scientists].
No, it goes further than that. Unless you personally have INTERVIEWED the [Boy Scout leader][European scientists] it depends on whether you believe the REPORTERS...
There are things you know because you've seen them yourself, and there are things you know because you are told them by people you trust. There has to be a chain of trust. If the don't invite representatives of the doubters to eyewitness the procedures used, the final photograph doesn't mean a thing.
One of the aspects of scientific research that deserves to be taught better in the schools involves, not the use of the scientific method, but of the role played by citation and attribution and, in general, scholarship. That's the big difference between a journal article and an article in the popular press.
EVERY statement in the scientific literature can, in principle, be traced back to a specific person with a name and institutional affiliation (which constitutes a usable address), who says "This is what I did and this is what I saw." And you can ask them about it if you doubt it.
It will be very cool to see the pictures when they get them. But unless the doubters are closely involved in the process, there's no reason why it should change their minds.
(Actually, it will be even cooler if they CAN'T get them--which I think is quite possible, the Moon is a big place and the spacecraft are awfully small. Let's say it turns out that they can't. What do you think they will do?)
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
No, we're not.
By majority of comments posted here are merely to malign or otherwise insult the people who think the event was faked.
That's because you have to be a bloody fool to believe they were faked. Thousands of people were involved in the Apollo landings. You simply cannot maintain a conspiracy with that many peoiple involved. You can stop the debate right there.
I begin to wonder if anyone here even HAS an open mind anymore, or if they've all turned to mindless sheep (obligatory Dilbert reference).
What's the old saying? Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out?
Why would you accept something as rote simply because your self-biased government said so?
This is a strawman fallacy. You assume we haven't analyzed the claims of the hoaxpushers. You assume we have not visited places like www.clavius.org and gotten informed. You should not make such foolish assumptions.
I personally think a healthy dose of skepticism is needed today.
You used the key word yourself: HEALTHY. Believing that the moon landings were some sort of vast and impossible conspiracy is not healthy- it's mental degeneration, and quite often bred from extreme anti-governmental ideology.
It always strikes me as funny how so many people subscribe fully to the moon landing, then turn around and refuse to believe that the Bible is God's Word (or something else that is based wholly on belief).
Good gravy! Where to even begin deconstructing THIS logical fallacy! For one thing, you are assuming the hoax debunkers are in the same set as the Bible thumpers. In my experience these are close to being mutally exclusive sets.
I think it goes hand-in-hand with university level education today. Today's system teaches vocational trades. It no longer teaches people how to think for themselves.
And now were in the Standard Diatribe Against Society zone so common to ideological rants. Wake me when it's over.
Did you know that all doctorates used to be in Philosophy or the art of thinking clearly? It is still called a PhD to this day. Hence, very few people know how to think logically.
Zzzzzzzz...
I am not saying that I know how to think properly either, but at least I know the problem is there.
No, the problem is that people like hoaxfollowers cannot think in terms of discrete events. To them, the government is not to be trusted. Period. They cannot see that the moon landings happened AND still distrust the government on other things. Ideologues like them can rarely even perceive the passage of time. The government is doing dishonest things now, so all government actions throughout history must be the same. It's like Muslims hating modern day Christians for the Crusades. There's no perception of distictness between different points in time. It's all one hazy amorphous mass.
Do you think it's beyond our government to deceive you? Do you think the goverment has nothing to hide?
Another strawman. No, of course not, but claiming the the moon landings happened is not the same as giving the government a pass on all things. It's called analyzing an event based on the relevant evidence, and avoiding the generalized ideological appraoch such as "the gummint done lies sometimes, so they done lied about the moon landings."
The point of this post, this discussion, this conspiracy theory, is to get you to logically and scientifically deduce the truth from the chaff.
Yes, and eventually you reach a point where the truth lies revealed. *You* have to accept that many of us have reached that point.
It is an exercise in skepticism.
So exercise some skepticism in the other direction and admit the hoaxpushers are just trying to sell books and videos, and their foloowers are ignorant. Occam's Razor alone gets you this one.
Don't get angry that someone debates your postion and resort to name-calling, defend it.
It's not anger- it's frustration that people could believe such nonsense, especially people on Slashdot who have access to all the information on the Internet at their fingertips.
Debate is a wonderfull tool for being able to see an issue from all sides, sharpening your mind, and learning something you didn't fully understand before.
You miss the crucial point, though. Many of us have already learned the facts, and arrived at the conclusion that the landings happened. The facts are there, and the claims of the hoaxpushers lie in tattered ruins.
I am merely asking that you accept the possibilities, and not damn them because they are not what you believe.
We damn them because they refuse to accept readily available facts. It's not about belief. This isn't religion. There is no faith in the government. There is, however, solid and endless evidence and epirically proven aspects about how humanity works that makes the vast conspiracy theory (and vast conspiracies in genral) completely unworkable.
--- Ban humanity.