To go off on a tangent...

I have a pet peeve. It's the claim that people who say that we didn't go to the Moon have the "burden of proof". They don't since it is impossible to prove a negative. The side arguing the affirmative (we did go to the Moon) has the burden of proof. Thankfully, the affirmative side had provided substancial proof for it's case. Take the Moon Rocks as an example.

Now then, those who argue the negative have the "burden of rebuttal". It is their responsability to refute the proof. And no, you can't just hand-wave it away. You have to offer substantial evidence that the proof is flawed. It is here that the negative side fails (they are unable to offer a substancial response to why geologists the world over agree that the collected specimens came from the Moon).

I realize I'm splitting hairs, but... well it just bugs me, that's all.

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Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

And why would guilt by association make the point invalid?

Because guilt by association is not guilt.

If a person employed by NASA is morally questionable, People could find NASA morally questionable.

Whether NASA's claims are true is a matter of objectively testable fact, not a matter of NASA's moral character. Joe's gossipping distracts from the real issues.

So to him your sides claim is the extraordinary and you have the burden of proof.

Extraordinary in this context is not subjective. The ordinary belief is that Apollo was real. His doubts constitute the extraordinary claim.

Sufficient proof has been given of Apollo's authenticity. His counter claim that it is irrelevant or fraudulent or outweighed by other evidence he has yet to produce, is considerably more extraordinary. His frantic and conjectural attempts to explain it away (e.g., moon rocks from Antarctica) are laughable.

Because of the nature of falsfiability in historical research, any claim of fakery or fraudulence always carries the burden of proof. If Joe believes Apollo was fake, he must prove it, and with something far more substantial than innuendo.

So if you can't prove Joe wrong then you have to respect his opinion.

If he can't prove himself right, I have no obligation to respect his opinion. The burden of proof is squarely on him. If he is unable to provide a coherent theory that better explains the evidence than the commonly-accepted one, then it literally does not matter how much doubt he can throw.

There was no "handwaving". Joe never said that they must be lying about apollo. He said that that he thinks they are lying about apollo.

Splitting hairs. If Joe cannot support his proposition with evidence and sound argument then no one is obligated to respect it no matter how he phrases it.

He was using the "evil nazi Von Braun" in a chain of reasoning to explain why he had doubts.

Then it was a premise of his argument. The premise fails, so the argument fails. The inference also is invalid (guilt by association), so the argument fails.

He never claimed to be a scientist. like all people, it is possible that Joe have made mistake in his presumptions, but you never pointed any of em out to me.

If his presumptions allude to scientific principles and he knows he's not a scientist, then to formulate arguments based on such an ignorant presumption is knowingly dishonest. Shooting one's mouth off in public on a topic one doesn't understand is irresponsible.

Joe never claimed to bring anything new to the hoax argument.

Then why should his opinion matter any more than those of the other hoax believers who have been debunked at length?

Joe never said "Werner Von Braun was a Nazi, so we didn't land on the Moon".

It sounds like he's arguing that von Braun's Nazi affiliation casts doubt on NASA's moral fiber, which in turn casts doubt on their claims to have landed on the moon. It's the same argument. Or rather, the same innuendo.

Joe never claimed to be smarter than all the worlds scientist in relevant fields.

All the world's scientists in relevant fields, including myself, believe differently than Joe. If disagrees with them, that means his disagreement comes either from a superior command of the facts, or is given in patent ignorance. Which is it?

If you want to prove him a fool, prove it with arguments.

If Joe wants to prove he is not one, let him prove it with arguments and not ignorant innuendo.

You want Joe to have his cake and eat it too. You disavow that he made any actual claims, and that he just "thinks" Apollo might have been faked. Yet in the next breath you demand we take him at face value and strenuously debunk him in order to dispute him rationally. It doesn't work that way.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Just my comment.

Why would he say that the Werner Von Braun collected Moon rocks in Antarctica is "documented"?


If its all by "opinion", why would Joe go On Air to ask his opinion to Phil.
Were in fact in the beginning of the discussion , he clearly said that "he is disturbed ". Does that mean that he dont want to know the truth and he would just want to tell his opinion to Phil?

just a sidenote on the missing tape, they *have* checked the private archives of the people working at for example Honeysuckle Creek, right? I have witnessed a small sample of things kept in private archives, and it's amazing! (that's where I retrieved the only known photo of a Marantz 9120 amplifier in the world, via Mr Lindsay)

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Why would he say that the Werner Von Braun collected Moon rocks in Antarctica is "documented"?

This is crucial. NASA alleges that the Apollo samples were brought back from the moon by the astronauts. If Joe Rogan asserts instead that they were obtained from Antarctica instead, he has the burden of proof for that claim. That is called an affirmative rebuttal.

If a plaintiff in court says, "I allege that the defendant's negligent parking behavior dented my car," then the defendant may choose to respond, "I propose instead that the plaintiff's own drunken driving dented his car." If he chooses that kind of defense, he has the burden to prove the drunken-driving assertion. That burden exists even if the plaintiff has the overall burden of proof.

There is indeed documentation that Wernher von Braun went to Antarctica prior to Apollo 11. NASA gladly provides it. However neither Joe nor anyone else has supplied any documentation that the reason for von Braun's visit was to collect lunites to pass off as moon rocks. Nor is there any documentation that von Braun did so. Since Joe is attempting an affirmative rebuttal to the claim that the Apollo samples were brought back from the moon, he has the responsibility to provide the documentation he says exists.

If its all by "opinion", why would Joe go On Air to ask his opinion to Phil.

Exactly. If Joe simply has an opinion, why does there need to be anyone else there to hear him express it? If, on the other hand, Joe asserts that his opinion is reasonable according to the facts, then he must state and defend an allegation of fact. I have very little patience for such rhetorical games. So many hoax believers level all manner of accusation and spread all manner of innuendo. Then when asked to defend themselves, they back away and say, "Hey, it's just what I believe," or "I'm only asking questions."

If Joe wants respect he needs to grow a spine. And perhaps also a brain.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

The point talked about was: Joe said that he thinks Wernher von Braun was a evil nazi and that this could be used to cast doubt on the moral backbone of the government and the moral integrity of Wernher von Braun.
The concept of guilt by association does not even come up here. It is a talk about opinion.

Sure, if you want to prove or disprove it.

All belief are subjective. You have to look at his belief subjectively to fairly judge if he is stupid for believing them.

He does not claim to have proof of fakery and fraudulence, he is claiming he has doubts.

Sure, you can do what you want. I meant it only as a recommendation.

You never proved that the premise was false.
He never claimed the inference that i think you are thinking about. He was justifying his doubts.

How again was he knowingly dishonest? Can you prove it?
Talking with people about subjects that worry you, seems to me like a responsible thing to do.

I am not sure that it should, but if his doubts is justified, other people might be persuaded, which i don't think you want? So just for that, you might want to consider trying to refute his arguments.

Not really.
One version permit him to believe that it's theoretically possible that people didn't go to the moon.
The other is a claim that imply that he can prove it.

I am not sure what you are talking about here but your appeal to authority does not prove anything.

He said that he was not afraid of looking like a fool, so it seem he doesn't want to.

I don't demand anything.
How does it work then?
Just believe what the majority says no matter what?
No independent thinking?


I guess he believe it is.

Maybe he was hoping that phill would put his worry about the subject to rest, so he didn't have to believe it anymore.

It is a talk totally unrelated to anything proving or disproving Apollo. Assume Von Braun killed 60 million people himself, while whistling a happy tune. Derive evidence pro or contra Apollo. Evidence, not conjecture.

So Joe isn't here to prove or disprove anything? Just to bash poeple's achievements by casting doubt in a wild, unverified way? Well what a rotten character is that. There's laws that protect people against that sort of behaviour you know.

Doubts as in ruining characters and unwillling to listen to counterarguments.

No he did not. If that were the case, he would have listened to Phil instead of yelling over him, interupting his arguments.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

He never proved that the premise was right either.

But the point is, it doesn't matter if Von Braun was Evil. The reality of the moon landings is not pressupposed by Von Braun's moral character. There is ample evidence that NASA landed men on the moon. All the innuendo about Von Braun does not change the facts of the engineering and photographic records. Since it cannot have any impact on the argument, it is a red herring.

What other arguments does Joe rest his doubts on? We may never know because all he can do is talk about how evil Von Braun is.

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hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

The sad thing is, Joe Rogan is an intelligent person who has shown that he can put forth the effort to do some research on a topic. It is disappointing that he chooses instead to latch onto the emotional side of the argument and stop listening from that point on. Joe is a man with a large ego (deserved or not), and I think that is getting in the way of his intellect in this case. He thinks he is right, so he doesn't even really care what the other side has to say. You will notice this every time Phil brings up a point which rebuts Joe's stance. Joe will interrupt. You will also notice this whenever Phil is honest about not know all the fine details (for example in the Von Braun case). Joe acts incredulous that Phil doesn't know.

It would be quite strange for someone who, as you put it "was hoping that phill would put his worry about the subject to rest, so he didn't have to believe it anymore", to keep interrupting Phil, wouldn't it?

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þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

It was what Joe had said so assumed it was the case. I looked for it as well and could not find it.

I have found this thread where Von Braun's war record was discussed

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Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

There is nothing sad about being intelligent.
That he is emotional does not lower my opinion of him.
I don't believe that he stopped listening.
I feel that his ego is besides the point.

If he didn't care what the other side has to say, as you say, why would he get so emotional?
I am not sure if i understand you right, but if joe think the argument was rebutted, I can understand why he would want to move the discussion to one of the other reasons he has doubts. Even if it was not rebutted i can understand why he would want to talk about other reasons. I seems to me that Joe doesn't want to prove every point he makes, he want to talk about different point.
I don't find anything strange about joe being incredulous when phil didn't know something. This only indicate that joe believed phil to be an expert on the subject and was amazed when phil seemed to admit he was not.

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

I think this illustrates the biggest problem with CTs. They focus on minutiae, leaving the real points somewhere back there in the dust.

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þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Than he isn't making points, he's just saying things, as this is in the end a discussion about did or did we not go to the moon. This discussion needs proof, not just random whatifs. We're not discussing possible hair colours of God here.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

To go off on a tangent...

I don't consider it a tangent. It's very important to know who must prove what, especially since hoax believers rely almost exclusively on creative ways of avoiding or shifting burdens of proof. I discussed affirmative rebuttals a little bit above, and alluded to the historical presumption of authenticity even farther above. It's time to bring those full circle.

It's the claim that people who say that we didn't go to the Moon have the "burden of proof". They don't since it is impossible to prove a negative.

You're right in saying we can't prove a negative. But the negative in this case is not the Apollo hoax proposition just because it's often phrased as a negative proposition -- i.e., we didn't go to the Moon.

The proposition is that NASA faked the Apollo missions. That's equivalent to the affirmative proposition that all the evidence for Apollo was faked. As you note, we do have substantial evidence was real. The hoax theory attempts to explain all that evidence in terms of some other scenario. Therefore a burden of proof is created for that alternate scenario.

The side arguing the affirmative (we did go to the Moon) has the burden of proof.

It's proper to say that those who assert that Apollo was authentic have a burden of proof, but it's not proper to say they have the only burden of proof.

We claim Apollo succeeded in landing on the Moon. We provide a great deal of evidence to support that proposition. Some hoax believers claim we do not satisfy a burden of proof because our proposition is not the only one that is possible. That's hogwash; in inductive reasoning a valid proposition does not have to be exclusive.

Other hoax believers suggest alternate explanations for that evidence, but can't generally prove that any of them actually happened. That abrogates the burden of proof in an affirmative rebuttal.

In historical research, questions of authenticity presume authenticity and put the burden of proof on claims of fraud. If a document, for example, plausibly purports to be a bill of lading for the Titanic then it is accepted as such until shown to be fraudulent. This presumption is important because it follows from the same epistemological principles as the inability to prove a negative.

To prove that something is authentic, one must show that it withstands scrutiny not only by every test we can devise, but also by every test that could ever be devised. That's an open-ended proposition, and it's logically conjunctive, meaning that all the tests have to pass before we can conclude. Since it's not possible to evaluate the conjuction of an infinite number of tests, it's not possible to prove authenticity. The best we can ever hope is to satisfy all the tests we know about and conclude provisionally that the thing is authentic.

To prove that something is fake, one must show only that it fails scrutiny by one test (within the bounds of certainty, of course). That question is disjunctive. It does not matter that the set of possible tests is unbounded; the first one that fails allows us to draw a strong conclusion regardless of how many other tests could be performed. If we discover that our Titanic document was written in modern Bic ballpoint ink, then it doesn't matter whether we are able to test the paper for the proper age -- it's fake for that reason.

Hoax believers attempt these demonstrations all the time. They say, for example, that a certain photograph includes shadows that cannot appear that way in real photography, therefore the photo is fake. But in that case, and in many others like it, the test itself is bogus. The claimant also has the burden to show that his proposed test is a suitable and accurate test of authenticity. Since the test I gave as an example is also failed by real photographs, the test itself is not valid.

Hoax believers also tend to ignore severability. If, for example, a photo is shown to be fake, it does not prove that all photos are fake. Nor does