Anyone else notice the nature of flasehoods? Lies have a certain "look and feel" to them.

Either we went to the moon or we did not go to the moon. Only one is the truth and only one is a lie.

By their nature, Truths have a certain characteristic. That characteristic, of course, is the fact it is unchanging. Every report about a truth tells the same basic story. Every version of man's voyage to the moon is a copy of the other as far as the facts go.

On the other hand, every version of a scenerio where we did NOT go to the moon presents a different scenerio from one to the next. Each book has a different theory about what was real and what was fake. The WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHEN and even the HOW differs wildly from one hoax theory to the next.

Truths NEVER contradict each other.

Lies ALWAYS contradict each other.

Anyone else notice this, or am I digging up an old issue here?

(I edited this because of a mispelling -- I did not alter any basic information because it is the Truth)

The conspiracy theory fails on the most basic principle of the scientific method. Burden of Proof. They speculate as to what can be done, badly, but they never provide any evidence to show that it did in fact happen. They therefore cannot defensibly assert what they are asserting. All they are doing is speculating.

Of course, we must be careful. While it is true that the truth will in theory be consistent. In practicality, it is impossible for every facet of the historical record to be perfectly consistent. There will always be some minor discrepancies here and there.

Truths NEVER contradict each other.

I think I know what you're getting at here, but I have to agree with Glom. While in the philosophical sense the truth cannot contradict itself, the historical record sometimes legitimately does.

Lies ALWAYS contradict each other.

Eventually, sure. But in the short term a talented charlatan can fool a lot of people.

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

Excellent post, Glom, but don't you mean "perfectly consistent?" :-?

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--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

However, in support of Bill, the Truth does not ever contradict itself. However, our understanding of the truth will contratdict itself due to human nature and error.... Filtered through our perceptions and memories, things do get distorted, but as long as the intent is there, Truth iwll eventually win out...

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"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." — Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

441!!!! :)

That would indeed be the case. ops:

I agree: if there were some way to know the truth other than through the "filter" of personal observation, it could not be contradictory. However, in practice that doesn't happen very often.

Specifically, think about how we know about Apollo. We know about it through personal recollection, through photographs (which aren't as objective as you might think), through sound recordings, through telemetry, and through massive amounts of printed information. These are not perfectly transparent means of conveying fact.

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

I think this goes to show how unreliable human perceptions can be. And I think this should be factored into the equation when evaluating the validity of consparacy theories.

What I am getting at is simply this. What is true and what is not can be revealed by taking a bird's eye view of the two camps.

One camp (group of individuals or thoughts supporting one side of a two-sided issue) is in harmony and in fundamental agreement within itself.

The other camp is in turmoil within its own boarders.

Clearly the group of individuals who think we did NOT go to the moon is in fundamental disagreement within itself.

Clearly, the other camp is not. I see no arguing amongst individuals that think we went to the moon.

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If -- in some alternate universe -- "we" did not go to the moon, then I imagine there would be some unified theory or opinion of how it was faked and a compelling scenario of how it was faked. And the people who wanted to believe that the lunar landings did happen would be falling over each other stumbling and stammering to refute the evidence the other side brought up.

This makes me uneasy.

On several occasions I've had need to record eye-witness accounts of incidents (mostly accidents of varying sorts). There is always a degree of variance between the accounts, sometimes inconsequential, sometimes dramatic. In all the cases, the accounts were coming from people who were mature, trustworthy and doing their best to be helpful. They just had a significant degree of variance. I talked this over with a LEO friend of mine and he suggested that the police use absolute agreement on a story as a sign of prior collusion and discounted sets of eyewitness reports unless they showed a degree of variance.

I've also had eyewitness accounts that quite simply could not be true even though the authors were quite dogmatic about what they'd seen (usually any attempt to find out what actually happened ended up in an "I was there and you weren't type of discussion). Another friend of mine who works on air crash investigation once told me that the best eye witness accounts come from children because they tell you what they saw not what they think they saw (an adult will say there was an explosion in an engine, a child that they saw a big puff of smoke from an engine). The problem there is that children don't speak the same language as adults so the person taking the statement had to listen carefully to understand what thechild is saying. Its also very, very important not to "lead" the child into making statements they didn't mean to say. My ACI friend says that interviewing children is a very specialized art that should only be undertaken by experts.

I agree that true stories have a high degree of informational congruence but they are still often contradictory. I'm dealing with a case now where we have two incidents very close together in space and time watched by hundreds of skilled witnesses and we still don't know what happened.

Excellent points, Stuart.

Bill, unfortunately, it's just not that simple to determine the "truth", if there is such a thing as absolute truth. All we can really do is examine the evidence and try to judge its quality and consistency. But even those aren't necessarily definitive. As Stuart points out, the police have learned to be suspicious of too much consistency.

In this particular case, though, one thing that helps the case is the sheer volume of evidence in favor of the reality of Apollo. Too much to list, really - all the designs and drawings for the hardware, which can be examined to determine whether they would work as advertised. The experience of thousands of engineers and factory workers who built the stuff. The people at the Cape who prepped and launched the missions. The eyewitnesses to the launches and splashdowns. The radio and radar tracking done in many different countries. Thousands of photographs, miles of motion picture film. The lunar surface samples, examined by hundreds of geologists in dozens of countries. The remaining pieces of hardware on display for any and all to see.

And what do the conspiricists offer in rebuttal? A few poorly thought-out arguments that are almost pathetically easy to counter, if you have even the most basic understanding of Physics and engineering.

There's no real difficulty in disproving the hoax theory. The real problem is reaching the people who need to hear those rebuttals. Fox reaches into nearly every household in America -- but they only allow their side to be told. At least we have the BABB to try to balance the scales.

I talked this over with a LEO friend of mine and he suggested that the police use absolute agreement on a story as a sign of prior collusion and discounted sets of eyewitness reports unless they showed a degree of variance.

Historians use the same standard. Two people who give identical accounts of the same events are not necessarily considered independent witnesses, and two people who give minorly differing accounts are not assumed -- one or both -- to be lying. Further, two accounts of the same event given by the same person separated by a long period of time are not necessarily considered false if there is minor disagreement.

Its also very, very important not to "lead" the child into making statements they didn't mean to say. My ACI friend says that interviewing children is a very specialized art that should only be undertaken by experts.

I believe that. I read about the hysteria a few years back associated with some child sexual abuse case in which a large number of people were convicted on the testimony of children and were later set free when the case was re-examined. It seemed people were operating under the delusion that "children never lie." As I recall, the investigators had asked leading questions and had proposed scenarios which the children "confirmed".

This is exactly why conspiracism is bad and why there is a compelling social value in combatting it and the uncritical mindset that engenders it. Hysteria in this case obviously led to the imprisonment of innocent people, but it goes beyond that. Child abuse is an actual phenomenon. Raising a hue and cry over it on an unfounded basis taints our ability to identify and punish it by diluting the strength of legitimate claims. Similarly, we know that the U.S. government requires constant vigilance in order to keep its officers and agents honest. Vigilance based on poorly formulated arguments and selectively chosen data, and arguably deriving from malicious motives, taints the idea of vigilance itself. Conspiracy theorists are not helping by "keeping the government honest". They're making the problem worse.

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

I wish I'd said that.... I agree absolutely; if ever there was a definitive statement as to why the conspiracy theorists do immense harm that is it. It also highlights the importance of sites like this, the one run by The Amazing Randi and the others. Not only do the conspiracy theorists make things worse, the noise they generate make it much harder to pick out the things that really do need attention. We had that problem back on an aircraft called the A-12.

I'm afraid I don't have time right now to link any sources but studies in cognitive and criminal psychology have demonstrated that eyewitness testimony can be easily influenced - a person can be made to believe that they saw something that actually wasn't there. IIRC there was a case study where they showed a group of parents scenes from an amusement park (Disney I think) but had spliced the film with scenes of children meeting Bugs Bunny - who is not a Disney character. Afterward the parents were asked questions about their trip to Disneyland, one of which was if they recall meeting Bugs Bunny there. Many of them said that they did recall meeting Bugs, yet that could not have happened.

Here is a description of the study. It was not quite as I described but the basic premise is the same. Looks like I misremembered the details, ironic? :wink:

What is it that makes witness testimony evidence, or is it evidence at all?

As far as I can tell, moon hoax theories tend not to be based on extensive witness testimony. Most issues seem to relate to engineering, photography, physics, etc. The Kennedy assassination, just to use the example of which I am most familiar, was witnessed by hundreds of people and witness statements can be all over the place on many issues. Conspiracists take advantage this variance and often like to "mine" the witness testimony for discrepancies as direct evidence of a coverup, etc.

As measurements or recordings of an event, I consider witness statements as being more general measurements than the witness makes them out to be. As an analogy, it is like the witness is stating a measurement in inches, but in reality his "ruler" is marked only in feet. It doesn't mean the statement is wrong. Rather, we shouldn't take it so specifically. Thus, two accounts which differ on some details aren't necessarily at odds. At a more general level, they may be consistent.

What makes a witness statement true? Is it agreement with other witness statements? We have a fairly good grasp of how the image points on a photograph came to be, from the action of the light source on the objects, through lens, to the film, and through the development and reproduction process. But what is the corresponding mechanism with witnesses? Is there an equivalent linkage from the event to the statement describing it?

What is it that makes witness testimony evidence, or is it evidence at all?

It eliminates the inductive leap.

"Circumstantial" evidence is generally dismissed as "flimsy" evidence, but in fact -- so long as the induction is not thin -- it is more reliable than eyewitness testimony.

Postulate, say, a large gothic mansion. A scream is heard from the next room. The listeners run into the room to see a dead man, stabbed, and another man holding a bloody knife and standing over the corpse.

What happened? Well, all you have is circumstantial evidence. You can certainly propose the hypothesis that the man holding the knife murdered the victim with it. But nobody knows if this is what happened. Investigation is the science (and frequently the art) of explaining observations. A successful hypothesis explains all the observations without relying on assuming things that can't be observed (or worse, observed to be different).

A good example over on sci.space.history, where I've just wrapped up a line of questioning with Scott Grissom. In brief, his theory is that a piece of metal was fastened to the control panel in a particular way. Unfortunately the photographs of the control panel don't show any marks, abrasions, or other signs that such a metal piece was fastened there. That alone won't sink the ship. In terms of parsimony it's a point of worry: you expect to see it, but you don't. But that's an argument from silence. Or is it? In fact, in the photographs you can see marks from some other component -- the flange of the switch that was supposed to be there. So not only does the evidence fail to support his hypothesis, it actually supports a different hypothesis: that the switch was fastened there in the normal manner.

The gothic murder would seem to be a clear-cut case. But what if the "murder" entered the room from a different door, saw the body, screamed himself, and withdrew the knife preparing to offer aid, and was thus discovered? In each of these scenarios there is an inductive leap. We may conclude that the most likely explanation for the observations is murder by stabbing, but absent a way to falsify it or any other hypothesis we are left with the inductive skepticism.

An eyewitness to the process suggested by the hypothesis is essential. Some way to falsify one or the other hypothesis reduces the breadth of the inductive leap. To be sure, that leap can be narrowed by additional circumstantial evidence. But until there is evidence that the knife penetrated the victim's flesh propelled by the accused, there will be inductive skepticism.

Obviously a case made solely on the basis of witnesses is hampered by the possibility that the witness is lying or mistaken. Many independent witnesses will mitigate this. But the best case is still to be made by a combination of eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence. Neither alone is conclusive, but both together can be.

Conspiracists take advantage this variance and often like to "mine" the witness testimony for discrepancies as direct evidence of a coverup, etc.

This is simply an abrogation of the historical method. Inconsistency in and of itself does not prove impropriety. The opposite, in fact, is true. But neither conspiracists nor their readers understand this. "Common sense" tells them that if something is true, everything said about it must be consistent and complete.

Now in legal circles there is some disagreement about this. One impeaches a witness by showing his testimony is inconsistent, or that he has lied in the past (thus making him untrustworthy). The rules of evidence that apply in law are not necessarily the best rules to apply in an investigation that may legitimately fail to draw a conclusion.

We have a fairly good grasp of how the image points on a photograph came to be, from the action of the light source on the objects, through lens, to the film, and through the development and reproduction process. But what is the corresponding mechanism with witnesses?

Exactly that. Something is philosophically true or not. It either happened a certain way, or it didn't. The fact that a photograph reproduces without passion the image of an event does not make it that event. The lack of passion in the recollection does not ensure that every detail of that recollection will be clear, unmistakable, and correctly interpreted. Thus an eyewitness' testimony is considered true if it is generally self-consistent, generally consistent with toerh recollections, generally rooted in known good facts and principles, and generally free from interpretational bias or extrapolation.

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

But the best case is still to be made by a combination of eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence. Neither alone is conclusive, but both together can be.

An example of this may be, if I may borrow from the Kennedy assassination again, the 3 young men watching the motorcade from the windows directly and 1 floor below the "sniper's nest" window. They said they heard very loud gunshots above them; they said plaster from the ceiling fell into one fellow's hair; and the person directly below the sniper's nest window said he heard shells hit the floor and the action of a bolt-action rifle between the shots.

By itself, I suppose, one might wonder if these men are just making up a story to garner media attention. (The recent DC sniper shootings come to mind. Somebody falsely claimed to see the gunman and gave a made-up description to the police.) However, coupled with the finding of shells on the floor directly above them and the finding of a bolt-action rifle nearby combines to make a convincing argument shots were fired from that location. They physical evidence is strongest, but the witness testimony helps interpret that physical evidence.

Even truths are only perceptions. But they are closest as one can be to reality.

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Don't search. Be found.

Note that this is a six year old thread . . .

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

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This is the longest necromancy I've ever seen! Well done !!!

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

The biggest truth I see in EVERY ONE of the hoax/conspiracy theory believers is the consistent way they make statements that they cannot possibly prove.

One of those being that NASA killed the Apollo 1 astronauts on purpose because he was going to "spill the beans" about the whole matter. They also list several other people who were "silenced" by NASA because they were going to again, "spill the beans".

They use video taken of training and say that it proves that we never went to the moon. One thing anyone should know is that training is necessary for any kind of thing that someone might do. In the military, for instance, basic training is just that. No one would ever say that military exercises are hoaxes because there is video taken that proves that they never had real missions.

Bill Kaysings, in one of the videos "proved" that the astronauts would not be able to grasp things with their fingers in the vacuum of space, yet, much of the construction of the ISS has been done via space walks, duh! in a vacuum.

He also used a leaf blower on dirt and gravel to "prove" how the surface of the moon would be disturbed by the 10,000 lb thrust of the descent stage rocket. Guess he forgot that 1, the engine had a throttle and it did not touch down full throtle AND that rocks and dirt/dust would react differently in a vacuum and 1/6 gravity.

I know that all here probably know these examples and more. The point I am making by adding to this thread is one that we all know full well.

The hoax theory people make statements as "truth" that they cannot possibly prove. This alone is enough to make some people fall for what they tell them because they don't research enough to see how much bull the hoax theory people are pushing.

[Getting OFF soapbox]

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Al Schmitt addressed this one indirectly in his article in the latest number of SciAm. He pointed out that the gloves were pressurized to 3.7 psi. Billy's test was at full atmospheric. AND he used an ordinary rubber glove, not a spacesuit gauntlet.

The math to show the difference in total pressure on the gloves is beyond me, but my guess is 3.7 psi would need significantly less force to overcome. Even so, Schmitt stated it was tiring and asks that better gauntlets be designed.

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

Uh, there are variations about what astronauts found on the Moon. Some people believe we (America, I'm not a US-citizen) never went on the Moon. Some people say that they went on the Moon and the NASA story is true. Some say that they indeed went on the Moon, but had a strange meeting with flying saucer, other civilizations i.e.

And which of these "versions" would be credible and which fantasies?

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

One thing anyone should know is that training is necessary for any kind of thing that someone might do.

Quite true; and the more faithful the training, the better. I have friends working just up the hill from my house who design and build horribly complicated, horribly expensive hydraulically-powered motion-based flight simulators, solely for the purpose of training people to fly passenger airliners. In that context, where the stakes are high, no one balks at the notion that immersive training for crews is appropriate. But try to immersively train Apollo astronauts...

Bill Kaysings, in one of the videos...

Actually it was the late Ralph Rene, in a program produced for Channel 4 television in the U.K. and Discovery Canada.

He also used a leaf blower on dirt and gravel...

Rene also neglected the orders-of-magnitude difference in mass density between a leaf-blower exhaust and a highly dispersed rocket plume.

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

Rene put the nozzle of the blower a few inches from the gravel, and only managed to move a few rocks less than a foot.

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

In response to Bill's original post, I have a thought that's been percolating lately. Us "debunkers" get accused quite frequently on conspiracy forums of changing our stories or giving inconsistent/incompatible answers.

So it isn't as clear to the hoax believers, or the audience, which story has the internal consistency of truth, and which doesn't. (The hoax theory, as much as it fails to have any physical consistency, at least has an emotional consistency. Thus it can be more convincing to those who aren't used to working with the physical world.)

The problem lies in two places; that the subject is complex, and that science can be counter-intuitive.

In the former, when two posters, or the same poster across two posts, simplifies a complex system in different ways, the simplifications risk looking as if they are in disagreement.

In the latter, there is no more typical case than a hoax believer who asks "What temperature is it on the Moon?" No matter what information or answer is provided to him, he will continue to try to fit it into this incorrect box; so, to him, a statement about the camera overheating, and a statement about (Al Bean, was it, who tried the highest setting on the water valve?) an astronaut being chilly, are obviously incompatible; people are giving different answers or changing the answers, so they must be lying.

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In many cases it is literally "rocket science", and simply beyond most people. Me for example. I'm a historian, not a astrophysicist.

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

The difference of course is that a space suit glove is designed to be flexible in a vacuum.

This is a good video to compare with Ralph's poor demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNDEo6Tur3c
(turn down the audio though)