Talkin' to Penn, Schoolin' Joe Rogan

Well done, Dr. Plait.

When Joe brought up the old, "How come we aren't going to the Moon anymore?" argument, I groaned out loud. "Hey, you only did this enormously difficult task six times. Maybe you never did it at all!"

Well, just because we aren't nuking cities in Iraq today doesn't mean we never nuked any cities in Japan over sixty years ago.

After all, if NASA wanted to convince the world they went to the moon, why keep launching mission after mission? They could have done Apollo 11 on this magical sound stage, declare that the mission was so dangerous that it was too risky to try again, and end the whole business. Instead, according the hoaxers, NASA kept launching over and over, using the sound stage six times, each time inviting more opportunity for someone to blow the whistle. Seven times, actually, if you include Apollo 13; if the other Apollo missions were 'hoaxes that succeeded' then I suppose Apollo 13 was a 'hoax that failed to succeed.' Or maybe it's a 'hoax that succeeded to fail.'

Funny how nobody thought the missions were faked while they were going on.

Good points, jamesabrown.

I've been listening to Penn's show "religiously" for a couple of months, and they're all usually great, but I was extra happy to hear Phil on there. He did really well to keep his cool.

I listened to the second episode of Phil -v- Joe Rogan yesterday, and made a few notes to discuss here.

1. Joe Rogan said that all the thousands of people working on each part of the program were 'compartmentalised' - that they didn't have to know about the 'hoax' because they were just doing a small part of the job, and they didn't have to keep any secrets that might have been blabbed later.

Well, weren't these people literally and proverbially Rocket Scientists^TM?

Wouldn't they be suspicous that the part they were working on either had no use whatsoever?

And if the part actually had some use, isn't Joe Rogan being completely stupid to suggest that rocket scientists made a fully functioning space program that was somehow not used?


2. Joe Rogan asked why they are only going back to the moon in 2020, and why haven't they been back since 1972?

Weren't there a lot of complaints about the expense of the program at the time? But also, didn't they do all the tests they had thought of, and concluded there was no need to explore further at that time? Didn't they then need to study the test results and work out if there was any use in further exploration?

And wouldn't the technology have been superceded long ago? To save further accidents, don't they need to plan for safer future exploration now they've decided on further tests/a base?


3. Later in the show, Joe Rogan said something acknowledging the Russians landing and using robots or exploratory vehicles(?).

So what does he believe? That the Russians and Americans could have landed robots, but not people? Why???


It seems most of his arguments are based on either ignorance, incredulity, or obsessive mistrust of the US government. Most of his questions cancel out each other, a point made excellently by Phil.

I'm really looking forward to another instalment of the debate. Go Phil!!

This topic is also being discussed in Conspiracy Theories Forum.

A lot of the issues discussed include the Nazi stance, the Antarctica trip and Why havent we gone back.
Rogan is not making any real new claims here.
Rogan was praised by the shows host as being calm and humble and knowledgable. Does the show host not nderstand the concept of "strawman argument"?
Im dissappointed in the hosts misplaced compliments and enthusiasm

Rogan was extremely aggressive and crude- constantly interupting. He brought MANY issues to the table at one time- allowing None to be answered at any time.

He used strawman tactics to "Cast Doubt" rather than prove.

He was said by Penn to be "humble" and he himself claimed to have no scientific knowledge. Then WHY on Earth is he taking part in the debate UNEDUCATED? He obviously is aware of BadAstronomy.com but has not actually taken part in any real personal research to understand the anomalies he speaks of. He LOUDLY proclaims it is WEIRD but takes no effort to find out why. He only makes a lot of noise.

Rogan provided no proof whatsoever and was sure to not allow the BA to provide any either by constantly running his mouth and walking over Phil as well as changing the subject every time Phil began answering. Phil was trying to behave well and think before he spoke - provide clear answers that even the layman could understand- and against the Bulldog Rogan- he was getting trampled by a lot of SlickTalk.

Penn needs to seriously re-evaluate his impression of Rogan. Unless Penn is putting on an act- Penn seems to have bought Rogans personality facade as a sincere and humble person hook, line and sTinker.

Disclaimer - I'm a Penn Jillette fan, and also a big fan of astronomy and I discovered BA through pennradio.com.

That having been said, as a noted skeptic, Penn really should be able to spot blatant fallacies. Penn clearly stated after the first Plait v. Rogan show that Rogan is completely wrong. Penn was certainly going for the entertainment value of Joe Rogan being an agressive nut-job.

Thanks for clarity- I have no experience with Penn at all until this show.
I stand by my statement, however, its just as bad to go for the entertainment value as it is to openly support Hoax Claims. Thats what FOX did.

One thing I've noticed about Penn is that on his radio show he tends to maintain a powerfully unbiased presence no matter what the subject(except when it's about monkeys). I think when he interviews people for his radio show it's much more about an open forum than editorializing. One look at the Conspiracy Theories episode of Bull****! however will give you a clear picture of how he really feels about moan-hoax believers.

{Derail on}I've always felt a twinge of pain when I think of the poor guys who were next in line for a Moon landing when the project was cut. {derail off}

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I am the stone that the builder refused
I am the visual,
the inspiration,
that made lady sing the blues
Judo flip, chop chop chop

Not to mention the science left undone. But yeah, that's got to have been a bummer.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Dick Gordon, Vance Brand, and Joe Engle. Particularly ironic since this was the crew with the geologist (Jack Schmitt), and there was a decision to be made whether to switch entire crews or to just switch lunar module pilots. The eventual decision was the latter, which bumped Joe Engle onto the list of near-misses. Gordon left the astronaut crew about a year after the decision and never flew again, Brand flew on Apollo-Soyuz and shuttle, and Engle flew the shuttle for both approach and landing tests as well as actual missions.

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