Re: [asa] Moonwalk

Thanks so much for the reminder. Our family "watched" the moon landing
on an old radio in a remote Vermont cabin.One of the few times in
history (12/7/41 and JFK's assassination I can remember where I was.
Oh yeah -- the day FDR died.

jb

On 7/14/09, Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net> wrote:
> Today's Science Times section of the NYTimes is devoted to the 40th
> anniversary of humans walking on the moon. Many of us, no doubt, recall
> exactly where we were when we watched it live. I was in a bowling alley in
> Kimball, Nebraska, part of a team of itenerant farm workers following the
> wheat harvest. It was an exhilerating experience to watch it.
>
> I was struck by one of the articles in the Times which claims that as many
> as 6% of Americans think that the moon landing was faked. Below is the main
> portion of the article. I can't help but think of the parallels that are
> often discussed on this list--the geocentrism, the age of the earth, and
> other topics where the scientific mainstream is rejected. Lots of aspects in
> common.
>
> Randy
>
> Vocal Minority Insists It Was All Smoke and Mirrors
> By JOHN SCHWARTZ
> Published: July 13, 2009
> They walk among us, seemingly little different from you or me. Most of the
> time, you would never know of their true nature - except that occasionally,
> they feel compelled to speak up.
>
> Take an example from Lens, this newspaper's photography blog. A recent
> feature," Dateline: Space," displayed stunning NASA photographs, including
> the iconic photo of Buzz Aldrin standing on the lunar surface.
> The second comment on the feature stated flatly, "Man never got to the
> moon."
>
> The author of the post, Nicolas Marino, went on to say, "I think media
> should stop publicizing something that was a complete sham once and for all
> and start documenting how they lied blatantly to the whole world."
>
> Forty years after men first touched the lifeless dirt of the Moon - and they
> did. Really. Honest. - polling consistently suggests that some 6 percent of
> Americans believe the landings were faked and could not have happened. The
> series of landings, one of the greatest gambles of the human race, was an
> elaborate hoax developed to raise national pride, many among them insist.
>
> They examine photos from the missions for signs of studio fakery, and claim
> to be able to tell that the American flag was waving in what was supposed to
> be the vacuum of space. They overstate the health risks of traveling through
> the radiation belts that girdle our planet; they understate the
> technological prowess of the American space program; and they cry murder
> behind every death in the program, linking them to an overall conspiracy.
>
> And while there is no credible evidence to support such views, and the sheer
> unlikelihood of being able to pull off such an immense plot and keep it
> secret for four decades staggers the imagination, the deniers continue to
> amass accusations to this day. They are bolstered by films like a
> documentary shown on Fox television in 2001 and "A Funny Thing Happened on
> the Way to the Moon" by Bart Sibrel, a filmmaker in Nashville.
>
> "There are smart, normal people who buy into these conspiracy theories,"
> said Philip Plait, an astronomer and author who counters the conspiracy
> theorists point by point and at excruciating length at his "Bad Astronomy"
> Web site. He is one of many people who have joined the fight to affirm that
> It Happened. A group effort, at www.clavius.org, debunks with gusto; its
> main author, Jay Windley, named the site for the Moon base in Arthur C.
> Clarke's classic science fiction novel, "2001: A Space Odyssey."
>
> Even though the so-called evidence from the conspiracists can clearly be
> proved wrong, Mr. Plait said, understanding the proof can require a working
> knowledge of history and photography and of science and its methodology.
> "You've got to do the work; you've got to put the elbow grease to it," he
> said, "and most people don't do the work. So these things get traction."
>
> Mr. Marino, the author of the post on the Lens blog, is a 31-year-old
> architect born in Argentina. In an e-mail interview, he said that the
> political corruption during the years of dictatorship in his country shaped
> his thinking: "I started to realize how political corruption operates and
> how it is the interests of a few in power that really governs our world."
>
> As he traveled the world - he now lives and works in China - he picked up
> books contending that the landings were faked and saw documentaries
> including Mr. Sibrel's, he said, which paints a dark portrait of political
> manipulation during the Nixon administration and somehow ties in the Vietnam
> War, the Titanic and the Tower of Babel before even getting to the supposed
> photographic evidence of lunar deception.
>
> Mr. Sibrel, who sells his films online, has hounded Apollo astronauts with a
> Bible, insisting that they swear on camera they had walked on the Moon. He
> so annoyed Buzz Aldrin in 2002 - ambushing him with his Bible and calling
> him "a coward, and a liar, and a thief" - that Mr. Aldrin punched Mr. Sibrel
> in the face. Law enforcement officials refused to file charges against Mr.
> Aldrin, the second man on the Moon.
>
> In an interview, Mr. Sibrel said that his efforts to prove that men never
> walked on the Moon has cost him dearly. "I have suffered only persecution
> and financial loss," he said. "I've lost visitation with my son. I've been
> expelled from churches. All because I believe the Moon landings are
> fraudulent."
>
> Ted Goertzel, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University who has studied
> conspiracy theorists, said "there's a similar kind of logic behind all of
> these groups, I think." For the most part, he explained, "They don't
> undertake to prove that their view is true" so much as to "find flaws in
> what the other side is saying." And so, he said, argument is a matter of
> accumulation instead of persuasion. "They feel if they've got more facts
> than the other side, that proves they're right."
>
> Mark Fenster, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law
> who has written extensively on conspiracy theories, said he sees
> similarities between people who argue that the Moon landings never happened
> and those who insist that the 9/11 attacks were planned by the government
> and that President Obama's birth certificate is fake: at the core, he said,
> is a polarization so profound that people end up with an unshakable belief
> that those in power "simply can't be trusted."
>
> The emergence of the Internet as a communications medium, he noted, makes it
> possible for once-scattered believers to find one another. "It allows the
> theory to continue to exist, to continue to be available - it's not just
> some old dusty books on the half-price shelf."
>
> Adam Savage, the co-star of the television show "MythBusters," spent an
> episode last year taking apart Moon hoax theories bit by bit, entertainingly
> and convincingly. The theorists, he noted, never give up. "They'll say you
> have to keep an open mind," he said, "but they reject every single piece of
> evidence that doesn't adhere to their thesis."
>
> For those who actually went - and have I mentioned that we did land
> astronauts on the Moon? Six times? - the conspiracy theories are simply
> galling.
>
> Harrison Schmitt, the pilot of the lunar lander during the last Apollo
> mission and later a United States senator, said in an interview that the
> poor state of the nation's schools has had predictable results. "If people
> decide they're going to deny the facts of history and the facts of science
> and technology, there's not much you can do with them," he said.
>
> "For most of them, I just feel sorry that we failed in their education."
>

-- 
Burgy
www.burgy.50megs.com
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