Should NASA Try To Refute Crackpots? 507
angkor writes "CNN has an interesting article on the dilemma faced by NASA: what is the proper way to deal with far-out theories given exposure (and legitimacy) by the media--ignore the crackpots or refute them?"
spin it in your favor (Score:2, Insightful)
Nasa needs to get more public support, the more chances to remind people how magical walking on the moon was the more likely we will be doing it again.
If you ask me the best way to refute it isn't to right a book, but to do it again. Would it really be that hard now that we have a space station to launch from.
Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what everyone else is for (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA's core business is delivering science and engineering, not education.
There are plenty of educated, credible and vocal people who don't work for NASA who can and will provide necessary refutations (word??) for pseudoscientific nonsense.
NASA could probably achieve the same goal (convincing swinging skeptics) to the same level of efficiency through a PR department staffed with a couple of researchers and the occasional "read this or ask them" press release.
And another thing.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe it's just the the two groups are lumped together as crackpots. Either that, or it was the aliens who prevented the Apollo missions from succeeding.
Belief (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:4, Insightful)
I could draw parallels with creationism.
dave
Re:That's what everyone else is for (Score:2, Insightful)
As I said on a previous post.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You show them documents, they say they are fake.
Show them footage, they say it was done in a studio.
Show them the moon lander through a telescope, they say the telescope has been tampered with.
Take them to the moon and show them the lander in person, and they say it was planted.
Last time i posted this reply i got some replies suggesting that the crackpots be left on the moon.
It is NASA's business (Score:5, Insightful)
One of Nasa's three stated mission objectives [nasa.gov] is "to inspire the next generation of explorers". Exactly how could the next generation be inspired if they think NASA was lying up-front about its most inspiring accomplishment?
Re:Bring me to the moon. (Score:4, Insightful)
Does it really matter? (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe its called an "International Space Station" or a "Space Shuttle" both of which have given dismal returns on investment. NASA started going downhill in 1970.
It hasn't hit bottom yet.
That aside, prehaps the biggest piece of evidence for us actually going to the moon is the Soviet Union. Does anyone believe for an instant that the Russians wouldn't have done everything in their power to show that the US had not actually been to the moon if they could? You have to remember that this was during the Cold War and the Russians would have loved to do anything to give the US a black eye.
Prehaps space flight will really take off once we find some other source of power then solid/liquid fueled rockets.
Ignore them (Score:3, Insightful)
Fox special effect on people (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of this isn't the minority of crackpots, and hopefully it never will be. I've been around several schools as an astronomer since that ridiculous Fox special aired locally, and personally I think that's where it hurts most. For example, the children in one school had had a "debate" about the moon landings the day before we arrived, and the side claiming it was a hoax had won hands down.
This wasn't because the arguments in the show were actually good, it was because the teachers and parents of the children didn't have a clue how to contradict the arguments that'd been presented. The only information they had access to was the extremely crack-pot Fox special.
This shouldn't be a case of "think about the children", though. It's at least as much a case of "think about the adults". They don't need to be crack-pots, only ignorant.
Most people simply don't know how to critically evaluate information presented to them. I was taught the difference between fact and opinion in school, but I wasn't taught to use it implicitly with the world around me. I figured that out myself. Personally I think that most people never learn. They just take information presented to them on a plate, and believe whatever seems most convenient or to their liking at the time.
If people were taught to pro-actively think for themselves then it might be different, but most of the time they're not. Instead they're taught to rely on someone else for the answers to any remotely hard questions... which is why there's so much reliance on psychics, daytime talk shows, astrology, mainstream media and sensationalist television. That's my theory, anyway.
If people actually cared, we wouldn't have to put up with trashy media like this in the first place. They don't care about correct information, they just want any information to believe is correct.
wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA got itself into this problem by presenting itself as a frontier organization, a group of heroic explorers. And to maintain that image, they are wasting lots of money on useless projects like the space shuttle and the space station.
What should NASA do? They should present themselves as a scientific organization and forego the wild-west mentality. They should stop presenting astronauts as "heroes", reduce manned space travel to next-to-nothing, and instead go mostly with comparatively low-cost, unmanned probes. As you may have noticed, people don't generally ask whether unmanned probes are fake or not, and even if they did, nobody would really care very much.
And, of course, the other problem is that the US population isn't exactly up to speed on science, on average. Refuting a single crackpot is too little too late, but NASA should take its educational role in the sciences more seriously and they should get the funding to do it--they are trying, but they aren't making a dent.
If we had a scientifically literate population, and NASA stuck to doing science and didn't create a heroic mysticism around manned exploration, crackpots wouldn't stand a chance. The way it is, NASA is merely reaping what they sowed.
Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
FOX is still a major network, and while they should be ashamed of themselves for spreading such blatant misinformation, it seems to me that NASA should have some response to this. Yes, I've heard the claim that responding to it only gives the crackpots more credibility, but when a major network (even the lowley FOX) suggests the moon landings were faked, the crackpots already have far too much credibility than they deserve.
Now, you can argue about WHAT NASA should say or do, I'm not sure funding a book was the proper thing. It would seem too late to make a big stink about FOX being so irresponsible to air trash like this, being that it's been almost 2 years since it was first shown. Personally I think this argument should be about what NASA should do about this sort of thing, not if.
If Carl Sagan were still alive... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if there's a faction who'd like a populace which doesn't understand the word it lives in and reverts to superstition and prayer when a little thought would do. Then they can blame events on lack of faith, rather than a rational analysis.
dave
In a personal argument... (Score:4, Insightful)
Even with very intense religious or political discussions, it is usually possible to reach this goal.
And, for the most part, this goal is usually about as far as it is possible to go, at least in a single argument. After you get that far, you need to give it a rest for six months or so and not keep harping on it.
It is very unusual for anyone to say "By gosh! you're right! I just changed my mind." But if you can get a mutual understanding of each others' point of view, the chances of productive progress sometime in the future are much increased.
At work, say, with discussions with colleagues or supervisors, what typically happens (when I'm right and have presented it well) is that nobody agrees at the time, and nobody says that they've changed their mind, yet three or six months down the line I will see some partial or incremental progress in the directions I've advocated.
I believe that the same goal should be applied to the "moon-landing-hoax" debate. NASA should try to present clearly and publicly, the reasons why people believe the moon landing occurred, AND should try to address the opponents' arguments intelligently and respectfully.
NASA should not expect to convince the "it's-a-hoax" crowd nor to settle the debate, but NASA needs to acknowledge that the government has lied to us on occasion, and that saying, in effect, "it's true because we say so, and your opinions don't count because you're crackpots" is arrogant and inappropriate.
The Amazing Randi has not "settled" any debates about psychic phenomena, but he's done a lot of good.
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:2, Insightful)
It is not about the crackpots (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not about the crackpots. It is not even about moon landings. It is about teaching reasonable folks about critical thinking and evaluating evidence.
There are many people who believe what they see on Fox, because there are no easily accessible sources that give them the other side. These people also vote at elections, and one of their votes count as much as your vote (at least theoretically... :-) ). They shape policy as much as you do, and really, democracy can't work unless you have a well-educated public who can tell when they are being lied to.
That's why NASA, and every well-educated person has to spend time teaching everyone about evaluating evidence, not because of the moon landings, but because you can't have a working democracy without.
It Won't Matter (Score:3, Insightful)
The "Moon Landing is a Hoax" crackpots are the same: if NASA doesn't refute them, then they can continue with their silliness. If NASA does refute them, then the crackpots either say "See, if NASA is refuting us, we are important" feeding into their delusions, regardless of the information NASA releases. It's a Catch-22.
Plus, any information that NASA does release would be used against them in some way: any little deviation, correction, etc, automatically triggers the "conspiracy sense" these idiots have.
It is a lot like the John Edwards stuff: you can explain exactly how he does his tricks, exactly how he gathers his information, but none of that will actually convince a person who believes.
Re:It is NASA's business (Score:2, Insightful)
The number of people who are running around screaming that NASA fooled everyone is, I imagine, pretty small. Even if it is as high as 20%, that means 4/5 of the next generation are open in some degree to the idea of space travel, and they have succeeded, all without wasting money on the minority of yahoos.
Keep in mind that there is a percentage of people who think that there is no such thing as atoms, that science was created by God as an ultimate test of their religious faith and that the earth is flat, or that it is supported on the back of a turtle in an infinite ocean, or something like that.
Credulous People... (Score:3, Insightful)
One of my co-workers was talking to his brother who mentioned that he had watched one of these no-moon-landings programs and now believes that there never was a moon landing. My co-worker responded, "The only people who believe that there was no moon-landing are the morons who believe the CIA killed Kennedy." A long silence ensued.
The mass media panders to people like this and most rebuttals would only reach those who were clueful anyway. My advice is to laugh at anyone who says that a moon landing never occured. And roll on the floor when you meet a flat-earther.
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:3, Insightful)
They're trying to undermine the faith that society has in science.
That is a bizarre point of view for someone who appears to embrace science for its own sake. That comment, along with your creationism cut, appears to betray a regard for science that borders on religion.
My understanding of science is that faith is irrelevant. You ask a question, test the question, and analyze the results. I fail to understand how its purpose or value can be affected by public belief in it. Indeed, given DDT, PCBs, thalidomide, agent orange, phlogiston, the Hanford site, etc., etc., etc., I should rather hope that public policy toward science be critical enough to question it effectively. In fact, I am horrified by the thought of the public having "faith" in science.
Re:Why Blindly trust your government? (Score:4, Insightful)
As for proof, that's easy. The Apollo program has left laser reflectors on the moon [nasa.gov]. These reflectors have been 'pinged' by many organizations independent from NASA and the U.S. government, including schools and government programs in the U.K., France, Japan, and even the former Soviet Union (what reason would they possibly have to back up false U.S. claims?), Canada and others.
Anyone with the money to rent a properly equipped telescope and the necessary laser equipment can verify this. Including the skeptics.
As for the point about the abductees, I've never heard anyone assert (even Whitley Striber) that they're talking about numbers in the millions. You and I both know that it's technologically possible. That's (I think) not what's in dispute here. But there is, in my opinion, as much reason to believe that man went to the moon as there is to believe that we've gone to Antarctica. I've never been there. And unlike the moon, I've never met anyone who's claimed to have been there! That doesn't mean I don't believe we've gone. It's not an absurd claim. Alien abduction... well, I think of it like an afterlife or lots of religious concepts. I'd *love* to believe in it. I've love to believe that not only are there aliens (which I believe do exist. We probably aren't the only intelligent life in the universe), but they are here visiting us. But I don't. I see no evidence, nor do I see any reason to believe it's more likely than not. Just like I'd love to think that after I did, that's not it. But I see no reason to believe that that is anything more than wishful thinking.
It's Our Own Damn Fault! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:spin it in your favor (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, at times NASA has lost vision and suffered from featherbedding and beaurcratic gamesmanship, but IMHO the payback from what we put into the space program has been the BEST use of taxpayer dollars, EVER.
Re:NASA would call them crackpots wouldn't they? (Score:3, Insightful)
Education (Score:3, Insightful)
Paul
Re:Why should there be a policy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember, most of these people won't be convinced until you bring each and every one of them to the moon, and even then some will insist it was a drug induced hallucination.
Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
I for one wish more people would start to doubt things they saw on television / the big screen. Things like the "Blair Witch Project", for example, show just how easy it is to convince people that fantasy is reality.
n.b. I'm not saying the moon landing didn't happen, I'm just saying it's entirely possible that it was faked. Personally, I remain skeptical, but I don't fret about it. Did we land on the moon? Does it matter? Who cares! Of course the billions of dollars the American citizens are spending on NASA funding quite probably sticks in their craw some, but hey, it's their choice whether they want to spend money for the research NASA provides. Is the moon landing the only tangible thing for which they can plead for funding? If they have other reasons to request funding, so be it.
As for people who are "CONVINCED" that it was a hoax, well, they're just as closed-minded as the people who are "CONVINCED" that it did happen. It's like anything else you haven't personally experienced; you have to take someone elses word for it. I'm sure we could spend weeks coming up with counter-arguments for every existing argument, and even counter-arguments for the counter-arguments. The problem is, however, all of this relies on the words of people who are making the original claims. That amounts to a lot of circular logic being employed by both sides. As for the people who were there, well, they have a vested interest in maintaining a unified front.
Meanwhile, there are more important things down on Earth to concern ourselves with, so I'll now attend to them and forget the whole thing. {smile}
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:3, Insightful)
Those who refuse to provide proof are the "anti-science crackpots". Society's faith will in science will be undermined if science as treated as something that must be believed based merely on a statement from a self-proclaimed authority.
Re:Why should NASA even care? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're painting with a pretty wide brush there, I must say. Some (many, I'd wager) people who doubt things like the moon landing are merely skeptical; it doesn't mean they're somehow opposed to science as a whole. Problem is, generally the only ones who get substantial airtime are the extremists. {sigh}
The world is a much bigger, more diverse place than Fox portrays. ;)
Re:Why Blindly trust your government? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because people who get "abducted" are all fruits. They have stupid stories about anal probing. The aliens always confirm these people's opinions (that conveniently are always ignored because of a conspiracy) about whatever ridiculous thing they're going on about. These people don't understand the difference between causality and correlation, they say things like "It didn't look like a plane [to me], I couldn't find out that it was a weather balloon, so it *must* have been a UFO" and they don't even understand why they're ridiculous.
That's why they don't get believed. They're not mentally all there and they make assumptions from too-few facts.
What does this mean? Because no other country tried (why, most of them were allies with one of the two countries that were trying), it must be false? No other country has made a plane like the SR-71, or nuclear submarines as capable as the US, but most people believe in those.
The space-race was a massive attempt by both sides to demoralize the other side by proving them to be less capable. Don't you think the Russians would have pointed out the US's lies if they could have? They've sent probes around the moon before. It'd be a simple matter to have sent out close enough to the landing site to photograph the empty site for proof that there never was anything there.
If you were in a contest with someone and suspected they won a big prize by cheating, and all you had to do to check was send someone to review tapes of part of the contest, wouldn't you do so? Wouldn't you blow the whistle? How about if the other person was your sworn enemy and you could humiliate them completely by this?
What is really so suspicious about the moon landings? The rocketry technology is there, I prove it every time I use a signal broadcast by a geo-synchronous satellite. The life-support equipment is there, this is actually easier than building a suit that'll work at great depths.
On one side of the UFO vs Moon Landing you have a bunch of trained scientists willing to show you the inbetween steps and the documentation, as well as explaining why certain things don't match your explanations and show how you can test these assumptions in an unbiased experiemnt. On the other hand, you'd got a bunch of crystal-power using, accupuncture practising, new-age weenies who make claims like UFO abduction or perpetual motion and yet get violent and abusive when you ask for a demonstration, let alone proof.
Who do you really think is more believable?
Re:Better ignore the ignorants... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, I hadn't heard anyone use that one before... Um, how much force does the light from the sun exert on a flag that small? Is the force relatively constant? Why isn't the dust on the moon blowing under this "sun wind"?
The light from the sun does have a measurable force, but it is very very small relative to everything else affecting things on the moon (isn't even strong enough to blow the moon dust around). The flag was waving in the breeze because the the vibration caused by sticking it in the ground had very little damping in the flag fabric without the presence of air. Only the miniscule friction cause within the material itself damped the flags movement so it "fluttered" at its resonant frequency.
You can tie them up in knots (Score:3, Insightful)
- The Americans had to show a success in getting to the moon, because they were locked in competition with the Russians.
- It is impossible to send men to the moon, because they would be killed by the radiation.
From this, two conclusions are inescapable:- The competition with the Russians was pointless, because the Russians could not have sent men to the moon either.
- The Russians were too stupid to know this, because they kept building the N-1 booster despite the knowledge that they could not put men on the moon. Yet they did.
Making such a conspiracy theorist look like a complete idiot in front of their friends and family is a good way to get them to shut up, and if they are afraid to talk about such nonsense for fear of a severe beating about the concepts with logic, the meme will stop spreading. The real problem is that most people are so ignorant that they have nothing to use as a template for calibration of their bullshit filter.