Both points are probably valid. The conspiracists categorically reject anything coming from a government source, or from anything receiving government funding, and in extreme cases anyone with professional or academic credentials that qualifies them to comment intelligently on the hoax theory. This pretty much eliminates any potential source of contrary evidence.

If the conspiracists are true to form they'll respond to the eventual discovery of Apollo remnants in one or both of two ways: categorical dismissal of the discovery based on alleged bias, or extension of the hypothesis to account for the discovery.

The former is easy to accomplish because it is hard to examine the lunar surface in sufficient detail without the intervention of agencies likely to arouse the conspiracist's suspicion.

The latter is easy to accomplish because the entire hoax theory case is based on nothing but conjecture. If someone discovers Apollo remnants on the lunar surface, they can simply claim that NASA used unmanned rockets to place the debris there shortly before the "discovery". They've already postulated a series of highly improbable occurrences. Why stop there?

The contention that the conspiracists always find some way to get around contrary evidence without dealing with it is still quite valid. The categorical rejection of government sources is just a common technique to accomplish that. If the conspiracists remain true to form, I'd expect them to do whatever it takes to justify their conclusion in their own minds.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2002-01-10 11:22 ]</font>