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Post by Ginnie on Mar 23, 2008 19:36:56 GMT -4
However, the fact that even after forty years no single coherent alternative scenario exists is rather telling, I think. The moon-landing hoax theory is nothing but a bunch on ignorant people making up excuses for not believing the reality of something. I think there is more to it than that. A lot of people just don't want to bother doing further research into the topic - the Apollo moon landings just aren't that important to them. That doesn't excuse the die hards however. Since all NASA supplied information is tainted to them, that great source is too suspect to matter. And since most of our resources come from NASA, it eliminates pretty much everything that we use to prove the landings. I recently met someone who along with her husband watched the 'Loose Change' video. Now they have serious doubts on the 'official' cause of the 9./11 events. I gave her other sources on the web to look at that contradicts Loose Change. A few months later I ran into her and asked if she had looked them up. She said no, she hadn't gotten around to it. I suspect she never will. It just wasn't worth the effort to her. So she'll be forever stuck in a '9/11 was caused be the U.S. govt ' mode until sometime she accidentally comes across some information that disputes that. It just isn't that important to her.
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Post by turbonium on Mar 23, 2008 23:20:16 GMT -4
You do make it awfully hard to be polite to you sometimes. Coming from someone who writes... "..the only way you can believe in a moon hoax, a 9/11 hoax, or any of the other prominent CTs is to be either deluded or ignorant." ...that's a rather hypocritical statement. They ask who took the footage of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon, surely one of the easiest pieces of information to find. No, they didn't mention that. If you'd read my post, however, you would see a few specific things that they did bring up, such as the inconsistent speed of astronauts' movements from mission to mission. Would you care to address that issue?
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Post by JayUtah on Mar 23, 2008 23:29:29 GMT -4
How does the argument, "inconsistent speed of astronauts' movements," avoid begging the question?
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Post by Data Cable on Mar 23, 2008 23:30:16 GMT -4
...the inconsistent speed of astronauts' movements from mission to mission. Would you care to address that issue? I would. Different astronauts on different missions move at different speeds. In fact, the same astronaut will move at different speeds during the same mission. What's so mysterious about that?
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Post by wdmundt on Mar 23, 2008 23:30:25 GMT -4
What, specifically, can you tell us about the different speeds of the astronaut motions on the different missions? Can you give us anything more than a claim that it doesn't look right to you? Can you back it up with any analysis, or are you just saying it looks funny to you?
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Post by LunarOrbit on Mar 23, 2008 23:30:33 GMT -4
One problem was the inconsistent speed of the astronauts' movements from one mission to the next. Do all humans move at one consistent speed here on Earth? I would find it strange if all of the astronauts moved the same way. Maybe the first people to walk on the moon, where one mistake could be deadly, were a little more cautious than the people who followed them on later missions. I've heard Buzz Aldrin say that one of their tasks was to test different methods of traveling to see which would be the most effective.
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Post by JayUtah on Mar 23, 2008 23:40:16 GMT -4
Keep in mind that ILC heavily modified the suits between the H- and J-type missions to add flexibility based on practical experience from earlier missions. Specifically they added waist flexion, which was not in the earlier suit.
Keep in mind that Apollo 11 astronauts were not even allowed to kneel down because the abrasive nature of lunar material and its effect on the suits was not yet known. The mission rules regarding allowable movement were relaxed as practical experience was gained and the actual effects could be studied.
All of that aside, the argument lacks substance. How is it not just a subjective opinion based on scant evidence likely to have been cherry-picked? Where's the exposition of the method used to analyze movement, and its validation? Where's the quantitative data that proves the "conclusion" of faster movement? And if the data should show such a difference, where is the comparative analysis of all possible explanations?
"Gee, I think they look like they're moving faster on Apollo 16," does not create an obligation in any who may not immediately agree.
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Post by gillianren on Mar 23, 2008 23:58:02 GMT -4
Coming from someone who writes... "..the only way you can believe in a moon hoax, a 9/11 hoax, or any of the other prominent CTs is to be either deluded or ignorant." ...that's a rather hypocritical statement. It's a statement of fact. Those are your choices. Which are you? Your friends may not. Many, many people who come here or BAUT or whatnot do. Do you acknowledge, at least, that people who claim that are ignorant of a basic fact? You first. How did they fake soil samples? How did they fake the lengthier film segments? Pick a detail and tell me how they faked it.
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Post by pzkpfw on Mar 24, 2008 0:41:08 GMT -4
If you'd read my post, however, you would see a few specific things that they did bring up, such as the inconsistent speed of astronauts' movements from mission to mission. In regards to the films/videos being compared: 1. What devices did the recording? 2. What were the frame rates of these devices? 3. What modifications (due to format conversion) have been made to the recordings that have been viewed?
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Post by PeterB on Mar 24, 2008 9:05:18 GMT -4
I asked:
Turbonium replied:
Well, others have addressed the significance of the astronauts' movements on different missions. It'd be interesting to hear what other reasons they have for suspicion. And seriously, you should invite them here.
I asked:
Turbonium replied:
Then presumably they can explain:
- what exactly was problematic about going to the Moon; and
- how 380-odd kilograms of material was returned from the Moon, when the Soviets managed to retrieve 0.1% of that?
I'm assuming they're smart enough to know they can't say, "Well they must have worked out something, seeing as the Moon landings were faked."
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Mar 24, 2008 11:20:54 GMT -4
It's not very tactful, but is essentially a correct statement. In my experience the vast majority of people who don't believe in the moon landings don't know what they're talking about, though I have never met such a person face-to-face.
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Post by JayUtah on Mar 24, 2008 11:34:37 GMT -4
The ones I have met face-to-face freely admit they aren't very well informed, especially when they find out that I am.
My mother runs the public speaking program at the University of Idaho. She says every so often a student will propose doing a persuasive speech on the Apollo hoax. When she tells them about me and Clavius, they inevitably back out. I don't mean that intimidation is an appropriate means of argumentation. I mean that people do seem to recognize when they don't perhaps know what they're taking about if the context of the conversation allows it and requires it. On web forums it's just to easy to try to bluff.
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Post by sts60 on Mar 24, 2008 13:57:06 GMT -4
Hi, turbonium. Welcome back.
But I'm not so sure about your theory as to why it is so quiet at the AH forum. (For one thing, I'm not a so-called "gullible sucker", who rides along on Bart Sibrel's coattails to support my argument.)
We just haven't had any persistent HBs around lately. Just a few flat-out trolls and a few seagulls.
The vast majority of the people I know personally believe the moon landings were hoaxed. And, like myself, they don't hold that view because of your theory (that they haven't been properly "educated" on the subject.)
Interesting. The vast majority of people I know don't believe they were hoaxed. Of course, most of these people are in aerospace and thus actually are educated on the subject.
I've asked many of them why they don't join AH, or other forums, to discuss the hoax. And they all gave me the same basic answer.
Any guess on what they all said? You may not believe me, but here goes..
Essentially, they told me it would be a complete waste of time, because of the general mindset of Apollo supporters.
Oh, come on. We're reasonably friendly. And if they think it's too woolly here, then why not invite them to BAUT? That's an even more polite environment, and many of the regulars here are regulars there as well...
Various points were elaborated...
- Most of the people who believe the moon landings were genuine also have a significant emotional attachment to this belief. Apollo astronauts are virtually deified, as if they were living Gods.
I've actually worked with (and for) Apollo-era astronauts. I have enormous respect for their abilities and accomplishments. The same goes for Apollo engineers I have worked with. None of which can be legitimately confused with the straw man you described.
- Some devotees of Apollo simply thrash out at any "disbelievers" with pure rage. To believe in a hoax is to "defile the Gods" (Armstrong et al.). It's pure blasphemy to even consider a hoax, because it implies that their "Gods" are liars.
Straw man again, and certainly misrepresentative of the great majority of posters here.
- Some take on the position of "educator", operating under the assumption that the hoax believers simply lack the knowledge to understand why Apollo was genuine. These "educators" believe they possess knowledge which will enlighten the uneducated / poorly misinformed hoax believers.
In many cases, that assumption is fully justified. A number of the regulars here have considerable training and experience relevant to Apollo hoax claims - aerospace engineering, physics, stagecraft, photography, etc. And a large percentage of the HBs who show up here keep insisting that "six feet of lead was necessary to shield Apollo", or "photographs should have been filled with stars", etc. - not just elementary mistakes, but ones that show simple regurgitation of claims glimpsed on HB sites.
But if our collective knowledge of Apollo is a hollow fraud, they should be able to come in here and run rings around us (AH debunkers). What have they got to lose?
Basically, trying to convince an Apollo believer that it was a hoax, is like trying to convince a devout Muslim to convert to Judaism.
Projection duly noted. Sorry, turbonium, I don't buy it. While these acquaintances you mention are under no obligation to spend any time here, I think these reasons you mentioned are simply excuses to avoid critical examination of their beliefs.
Speaking of beliefs - can you refresh us on what your precise position is regarding Apollo? Do you believe all of the missions were faked (i.e., no crews landing/walking on the Moon and returning)? Or some of them? Or what? I've seen lots of variation of Apollo hoax claims... where are you on that spectrum?
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Post by JayUtah on Mar 24, 2008 15:28:44 GMT -4
It's not necessarily the best thing to bring up Moon rocks as a rebuttal to allegedly inconsistent movement in the video record. It depends on the conspiracist's intent. How many times have we asked for detals instead of the broad, sweeping generalizations? So when we get details, we have to be careful about zooming out to the big picture. We have to know whether it's just someone's chosen starting place, or instead whether it's the bellwether fallacy.
The latter occurs when one small point is wrongly taken to represent the entire question and all its evidence. Often we see conspiracists trying to simplify the question of authenticity down to supposed show-stoppers like radiation, or one particular photograph. Not every "anomaly" is a smoking gun. But more importantly, framing the discussion that way sets up a sidestep of a lot of evidence that has to be explained. Thus if the argument goes, "The Apollo 11 video movement is slower, and that proves right there that Apollo was fake," then that falls into the bellwether pitfall and it's right to bring up other forms of evidence that a working theory would have to explain. But if one's argument is instead that the video is one of several bits of evidence that cause suspicion, then bringing up those other bits would be changing the subject.
It's difficult to know where Turbonium's personal beliefs and advocations stop and where instead he is just repeating the claims of others by way of example and information. So the rest of this post really just takes the ideas as they stand.
I really don't see a lot of astronaut deification here. If there are any examples, I'd like to see them. In our arguments I see no hurt-feelings appeals to the astronauts' purported greatness, such as "who would dare question or criticize them?" None at all. It's all straightforward addresses of claims on their merits. As has STS-60, I have also worked with a number of accomplished people in various industries. I do admire them, and they deserve the admiration. Do I deify them? Of course not. But naturally I think that those who accuse others of impropriety ought to be accountable to provide evidence of it, especially when the object of the accusation is otherwise competent.
I've been actively reading and responding to conspiracy theorists online for about eight years now on the subject of Apollo. I have yet to see any hoax believer who is as informed as I am on the subject, and indeed the vast majority of them seem to lack even minimal understanding. In almost all cases their beliefs are founded upon poor factual understanding of Apollo claims and incorrect understanding of the physical environment in which those claims operate. If you can identify a well-informed hoax believer, I'd like to meet him. Since that seems to be the case, I venture that the didactic approach is often best.
In that same time, however, I believe about half of the opponents I have debated come to the table with an undeserved sense of their own accomplishment and knowledge, having naively believed that the hoax books, web sites, and videos would prepare them to discuss the subject intelligently. They tend to take a long time to realize that they don't know as much as they thought, during which time there's a lot of bluffing and Googling. It's just a fact of life that some people know more about a topic than others. Where knowledge of the topic is important, the relatively ignorant ones will be at a disadvantage. Their choices are either to remedy their ignorance or to trust the judgment of those know better. The former would include accepting their role in a didactic experience. But persisting in insistent ignorance is not a rational way.
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Post by gillianren on Mar 24, 2008 19:45:39 GMT -4
I do understand what you're saying, Jay; my frustration comes in no small part from a demand that we explain everything combined with Turbonium's failure to explain anything.
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