Does it howl at the moon, drink the blood of other cells, fail to cast a reflection in a mirror, or anything like that?

No. The link above did link to the "It's alive!" clip in Frankenstein though.

A more humourous take on it is here at scientist create first ever synthetic bacterium that looks like Craig Venter.

I was watching the Mythbusters episode on the Moon Landing Hoaxes last night. The debunked most of the conspiracy theorist arguments satisfactorily, but the closing demonstration made me curious about something. They bounced a laser off of one of the reflectors left on the moon, got a reflection, and said that this proved there was man-made equipment on the moon. And so it does, but wait a moment. Do the conspiracy theorists deny the existence of unmanned moon shots as well? I hadn't heard that before, and of course, if they don't, the existence of man-made equipment on the moon doesn't mean much.

Good point. I have read that they (some at least) don't deny there were unmanned landings on the moon. Those landings would have had to deploy a robotic lander and have it set itself up in the exact spot the astronauts claimed to have set up a reflector dish aimed at the earth.

That would just be another chunk of stuff to keep secret--you build a lander capable of self-deployment and navigation in a time when the technology wasn't as reliable as now (and considering how many glitches we've had in modern robotic missions, that's a "relatively reliable" usage), and then make sure no-one on the project talks about this cool lander that doesn't even need astronauts to control it.

And if they sent it up recently, then there's another generation of people you have to bribe or coerce into keeping quiet.

But they're conspiracy theorists and there is absolutely no evidence that will persuade them they are wrong...not even pictures of landing sites and footpaths taken by the lunar reconnaissance orbiter.

Let's approach from the other direction. What do they accept? They accept that powered flight is possible, of course. Anyone can see that for themselves.

How about orbital flight? Do they accept that the shuttle missions have gone into orbit? Or do they think they've buzzed around in the stratosphere for a while, watched a few in-flight movies, then landed again?

The answer here might vary, depending on the motivation for the denial. Offhand, I can think of four motivations for Moon Landing Denial:

• Flat Earthism: The problem with the moon landing is that the astronauts reported seeing a round earth. They must have lied about this, therefore nothing else they say is trustworthy either. This motivation would apply equally to most manned missions, not just moon missions.
• Anti-Americanism: The problem with the moon landing is the fact that the US is the country that accomplished it. This would have no effect on orbital missions, which other nations have accomplished also (and in fact, it was the Soviets who were first on that score). As far as I can tell, this is the motivation of our friend Akselborg.
• Secret Knowledge: In politics as in religion, there's a great love of "secret knowledge" (re: the discussions with your Gnostic friend in World Religions), and the feeling that one is party to the "inside track", with knowledge that most people don't have.
• General Distrust of Government: Various lies, scandals and breaches of faith over the years have simply eroded the government's credibility to the point where some people won't believe any incredible claim if they're the source.

Of the four, only the Flat Earth motivation would necessarily lead one to deny orbital flights as well. The other three should have no problem with that.

The Anti-American motivation should probably have no problem with unmanned moon landings. More than one country has done that, and nobody really knows or cares who was first. Just like nobody really remembers the first powered heavier-than-air flight. (Somebody in Germany in the 1890's, I think, but I don't know without looking it up either). They do remember the Wright Brothers, because they did it manned.


The "Inside Track" motivation is interesting because I've seen that a lot in fandom as well. Somewhere in the 80's in sci-fi fandom, they developed the concept of the BNF (or Big Name Fan); club organizers and the like who somehow got the idea that they were stars in themselves, and would book themselves into panel discussions and things at their conventions. I've met several people who ran clubs, newsletters and things, who had no detectable interest in whatever their club was supposed to be about, they simply liked being important go-to people. One woman I know (I won't mention the show or the name) runs a newsletter about an old show, that tracks what the stars are up to, where they're appearing, and the like. But she brags that she never watches the show, and hasn't got any of it on tape or DVD (she seems to think herself too good for that now). But she likes being an "important" person that people go to for answers. For this kind of person, the whole appeal of Moon Landing Conspiracies would be based on the fact that most people don't accept them. If it ever became the case that most people doubted the moon landings, the fun would be out of it.





Yeah, but you're getting a lot more technical than the average denier does. Back to Akselborg again. Remember that he went from no opinion at all to a firm Denial in the space of 45 minutes. He certainly didn't have time to look up the exact coordinates of reflectors the Apollo astronauts claimed to drop, and then compare them with known reflectors that exist today. A minimum of thought and research goes into this stuff.

Even if one did a lot of research, would it or would it not be possible now to send an unmanned probe to a designated spot? Playing Dummy's Devil's Advocate here, the Mythbusters demonstrated that these reflectors existed, but they said nothing about how long they'd been in those positions.

Another question. When these reflectors were dropped, did we have the technology at the time to use them? Or did we put them there feeling that the technology would be forthcoming, so let's have them ready when it arrives. Did people start bouncing lasers off these things back in 1969?

And the big question; is it definitely impossible for an unmanned probe to deploy one? They kind of glossed over that question, and implied it without talking about it much. If it can't be done, then that pretty much settles the question of whether people have been there.




I'm sure not everybody who denies the moon landing is irrational. Education is just not very good any more. We teach people what to think but not how to. Almost everyone knows the world is round, but how many people would be able to demonstrate the fact? Getting a right answer that you don't understand but believe just because somebody told you to is only slightly better than getting the wrong answer. I can even imagine cases where I might have more respect for someone who got the wrong answer. Aritosthenes measured the world with strings and weights, and got an answer that was 99% accurate. A student today could get a better answer just by opening a book, but I'm more impressed by his.

New Scientist had an article addressing this called Living in Denial: Why Sensible People Reject the Truth.


The last paragraph lists 5 points on how to be a denialist. Common threads there.

Well, it is now believed that this massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has now **surpassed the Exxon Valdez oil spill to now be the worst oil spill in United States history!**


Chess Fan

It still doesn't do enough to differentiate between reasonable and unreasonable doubt. I mean, the article is entitled "Why Sensible People Reject the Truth" (my italics), but it gives things like



A person who does this isn't a particularly sensible person in my book. (It does say "DELIBERATELY misrepresent", after all. How sensible is that?) So, let's hear more about the sensible ones. I'm afraid this is pushing us the other way into an ad verecundiam fallacy where people believe things they don't understand just because an authority told them so.

The article is ostensibly about sensible people, but it seems almost entirely devoted to the other kind. Not until paragraph 11 does it make any nod to sensible people and even then it defines "sensible" as "not malicious".


Another point that seems to get blurred a bit: the difference between denial and doubt. A person who questioned the moon landings would seem a lot less irrational to me than someone firmly convinced that they didn't happen, because the second one is a positive claim, for which evidence is required, but simply isn't there. But you don't need evidence simply to doubt something.

Hmm, I see what you mean. It does speak a bit to what I'd refer to as non-sensible people.


Comparatively speaking, I'd agree. But, from my own point of view here, even questioning the moon landings seems rather irrational and nonsensible. To question the moon landings you have to embrace a massive and long-lasting conspiracy theory of not just all the scientists involved, but all the tech people and ground crews, as well as film crews who supposedly filmed the fake landing.

And that is just the common sense approach without any specialized knowledge needed. When you learn more, you realize that the conspiracy has to expand to include ham radio operators, geologists, earth scientists and radiometric dating folks, cold war Russians and communist Chinese who would have loved to expose the U.S. moon landings as a hoax....

That is just the sort of mental weakness they're talking about. Inability to accurately review and filter information so you end up going along with an authority figure simply because s/he said there's a conspiracy and that all the experts are wrong.

In other cases though I can see where questioning something isn't as irrational simply because the person doing the questioning doesn't have the background knowledge to know they're making a silly statement (which means it is more of a Dunning-Kruger thing where you grossly overestimate your own competence and underestimate the competence of others).

E.g. HIV causes AIDS denialism, or AGW denialism. With those you might not know you have to embrace a conspiracy theory--you might actually think there is some scientific debate. But once you start learning the background it becomes very apparent there is no scientific debate. Instead there is a consensus. All science moves towards consensus sooner or later. Plate tectonics, heliocentricity, theory of gravity, atomic theory, cell theory, theory of evolution, germ theory etc.

Once you learn there is a worldwide consensus among the experts with over 98% of them backing it, then you either change your mind, or you decide to stick with your own point of view regardless of the evidence. Then you're well on your way to nonsensible again.

However, even then some issues are deliberately misrepresented. The experts say one thing, but journalists, news folks, think tanks, say the exact opposite. They lie. Over and over again. Even when it is shown to be a lie, it is still repeated by the echo chamber and never ever retracted. Smoking doesn't cause cancer, 2nd hand tobacco smoke doesn't cause cancer, acid rain comes from volcanoes, not humans, AGW is not happening, CFCs do not destroy the ozone, asbestos doesn't cause lung disease. All of these have several things in common.

1. They're all dead wrong.

2. The disinformation about each of them often comes from the same think tanks--George C. Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute, Fraser Institute; the same public relation firms--Hill and Knowlton; and some of the same people (Frederick Seitz, S. Fred Singer), and

3. Each of them received and is receiving huge funds of money directly from the industries that produce or are responsible for these products.

What is the average person to do when there is such a large public relation campaign that distributes misinformation, and when there are professional denial organizations and people?
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An amusing but sad thing I just read. One of the "denialist experts" testified many times in court that asbestos didn't cause the plantiff's lung cancer, but his lifelong habit of smoking did. Turns out this same expert, when testifying in the tobacco cases, said smoking didn't cause the plantiff's cancer, but something else (like industry pollutants). Those organizations mentioned above have a Rolodex (database now) of pseudoexperts who will testify against whatever it is you want them to testify against, which is why you will see some of the same names and organizations in each of the 'debates'.