Interesting article on MSNBC that references this site and quotes Phil himself

http://www.msnbc.com/news/830883.asp?0bl=-0

There are other sites, including "Bad Astronomy,” that take aim at the substance of the doubters’ claims. The site’s creator, astronomer Phil Plait, was blunt in his condemnation of the doubters, whom he calls conspiracy theorists.
“The craziness involves people who think that the NASA Apollo moon missions were faked,” Plait said on the site. ”There are lots of rumors spreading around about this, and rest assured they are all completely false. The claims made by these conspiracy theorists are actually all wrong, sometimes laughably so.”

Way to go Phil!

-AJ

I still insist that you are going to alienate yourself from many people talking like that.

There are many, many people whose faith in government has been severely dented over the years, and it is this demographic who have quite legitimately grown weary and who may probe this issue somewhat defiantly that will react badly to being labelled a "conspiracy theorist".

If you fail to address government wrongdoing and the skepticism it breeds, and instead adopt a wholly "Get away from me you complete wacko!" type attitude, then you are doing yourself a great disservice.

If you at least acknowledge this particular and important source of skepticism, it will not in any way reduce the effectiveness of your rebuttal. On the contrary, it will strengthen it.

There are many, many people whose faith in government has been severely dented over the years, an

Red herring. You can distrust government and still believe Apollo succeeded. The question of Apollo's authenticity has very little to do with trust in government and much more to do with certainties of the physical world, of which the conspiracy theorists are either largely ignorant or else choose to ignore.

...that will react badly to being labelled a "conspiracy theorist".

Avoiding the label "conspiracy theorist" is easy. You simply make a reasoned argument backed up with facts that are true, complete, and correct. Then you respond meaningfully to your critics.

If you fail to address government wrongdoing and the skepticism it breeds...

More red herring. Apollo hoax theorists want to elevate their theory to the level of serious, responsible government oversight. That it most certainly is not. If you're going to accuse someone of wrongdoing, it's best if your accusation is accompanied by sound reasoning, genuine expertise, and credible evidence. If you do as the conspiracy theorists do and couple selective or fabricated evidence with absurdly fallacious reasoning, you do more harm than good. Ever hear of the boy who cried wolf?

Those who believe that these half-baked theories that are authored by inexperienced and uneducated people and sold for profit have anything to do with responsible civil oversight of government are even more deluded than the authors.

If you at least acknowledge this particular and important source of skepticism ...

You're talking about civil oversight of government. We're talking about a moon landing hoax theory. The two are not equivalent.

I think most of us here would agree that vigorous vigilance from the populace is an essential element of western democracy. But moon landing hoax theories are not responsible oversight. They represent the hijacking of a noble and necessary pursuit for the ideological, social, and financial benefit of the authors.

This really hits the nail on the head. Some, if not most hoax believers do not base their belief on the facts, but on their (justified or not) distrust of the government. In other words, to them it's an emotional argument. Even if they are correct in their distrust of government (a debatable topic), this still doesn't make them right in this case.

What the BA is doing here is calling a spade a spade. The conspiracy theories are wrong, and they are laughably wrong in many cases. This to my mind is much better than hedging and hawing about it. In fact, I think it helps his case because it shows confidence in his position. Confidence that can be backed up by facts, not by emotional reasoning and selective evidence.

Addressing the paranoid leanings of a few anti-government types is a different matter entirely, and should be dealt with as a seperate topic. All we are concerned with is fighting the disinformation spread by these people, knowingly or unknowingly.

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

I'll note that I was talking about the Moon Hoax propogators as twinkies, not those who buy into the theory. It's easy to believe the hoax theory if it's packaged well; it's harder (though not much) to think about why it's wrong.

However, I will also classify as twinkies those who have seen both sides of the argument and still say the landings were faked. They have been shown the reasons why Mr. Sibrel and his ilk are wrong, but still choose to not see why.

go phil

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SaturnV on 2002-11-06 22:25 ]</font>

Hold on, old chaps. I think you may have over dissected my post, and in doing so missed the intended meaning of the message.

I am simply trying to highlight where some people are coming from. I do not doubt that people can be disillusioned and distrustful of government and still believe Project Apollo succeeded. But I do doubt that by tarring every skeptic with the same brush -- smearing everyone as a conspiracy theorist, hoax believer or crackpot -- is the best way to approach such folk.

Sure, you can take the attitude that "they should know better". The thing is, many people do not know better. Now, you can alienate many in the aforementioned demographic and then try to educate them, or you can be more understanding and sympathetic towards, and then try to educate them.

Seeing as you are the ones expending much of your time and energy the decision is yours. I just thought I would try and shed some light on something I found unhelpful -- to the point it made me a tad defiant.

We have to be careful about that sort of thing, it's true.
I don't think the BA smears everyone--just the hoax believers. Rightly so.
Some of us, BA included, go to great and patient lengths to educate on this subject. I don't think BA's the one who is missing the message.
Have a twinkie, it'll make you feel better. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Karamoon has a point here. It may be a difference between UK and US posters here. I didn't think that Karamoon's post sounded at all like the 'defending the nut' post it could look like.

It's the difference between asking 'How come they managed to get through the VA Belts safely?' and wanting an answer, and stating 'The VA Belt radiation is lethal, it was faked'.

I've noticed over time that Karamoon has gone from staunch HB to unsure to pretty sure Apollo was a success.

It may be wise for all of us to try to get a feel for what posters want. If they are unsure because they've been confused by Fox or Kaysing or Percy, reassure them that's OK and point them gently in the right direction. If we get the feeling they are just yanking our chains, as Sat V did most successfully, just ignore them.

At the moment, I'd hate to be an unsure newbie here, with legitimate questions, because I'd see the replies to SatV and run a mile, maybe to a HB site to get my answers.

Maybe a good way to get those who are unsure (for whatever reason) about the hoax to be on our side, is to be nice to them. Not too difficult?

JU, you forgot verifiable. Which is the biggest problem with HBers and conspiracy theorists of any ilk. Remember to them their information is true, complete, and correct. Asserted opinions, hearsay, and misapplications of common principals of science are taken as factual information.

The key is that these "facts" are never verifiable through experiment, or any primary source materials and individuals. Thus far all damning primary source documents have been verifiable frauds. Primary source individuals are either assiduously anonymous to "protect them from reprisals" or easily demonstrated to: a) have not been present to witness events or things they claim to have materially witnessed, b) vastly overstate their qualifications, expertise, and former positions to "know something", or c) completely misunderstand things they did actually see or hear. Those in catoegory c seem to be the easiest to debunk since their claims are based on things witnessed or known by many others with commonly accepted and (oh my!) verifiable alternate explanations.

And I'll refute the position that the folks here are generally hostile to other points of view as well. I've lurked here far longer than I posted and have witnessed in virtual realtime the patient and, usually, non-condescending attempts to explain mistaken HB beliefs. Almost without exception it was the HBer or conspiracy theorist who lost patience and became hostile first.

Again, I'm not saying that the debunkers here never lose their patience or cool... just that in every instance I have seen the conspiracy theorist started the name calling and ad hominems, and BA typically reigns things in before they get out of hand.

Keep up the goodwork all. I learn something new here everyday.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rich on 2002-11-14 16:03 ]</font>

I will admit to having seen occasions where a person comes in and asks a question and gets a few responses along the lines of "You HB." However, this is often prompted by the tone of the poster, who doesn't so much post a clear question, but an accusation. While we need to be on guard about overgeneralizations and jumping to conclusions, I will point out that going up to any group and posting an accusation against their stated position is not a way to win friends.

It is possible that a genuinely mislead person could come here for information, see the attitudes presented against the HB crowd (constant referral to them as "twinkies", for instance), and be a bit hesitant to ask questions for fear of getting lumped in with the Sibrels. *shrug* I try my best to take each person as a unique entity, and give them the benefit of the doubt.

Bear in mind that I do not nor have I ever called all HBs twinkies. In that quotation I was refering to the Big Four Twinkies: Percy, Sibrel, Kaysing and Rene. A lot of people buy into the hoax for a lot of reasons, but most of them, when presented with all the evidence, see that it is wrong (I see this a lot on bulletin boards).

It's the purveyors of this hoax idea with whom I have a problem. They should know better, but still pound the pulpit about it.