I suggest walk on the railroad tracks until you catch the converged end on the horizon. If you hear a loud whistling noise, this is normal just ignore it.

Obviously I didn’t hear your radio segment, but good work, Phil. Love your work and your website. I aspire to be more like you.

Bart religiously pulls out the thoroughly debunked parallel shaadows argument time and time again. I am a professional videographer, transmission controller and recording engineer who has work in the USA, UK, Germany, Poland and Australia, and I can categorically state that convergence is apparent in every day photos. Much to the chagrin of BS who really ought to know better.

Unfortunatly many people are swayed by the display,
if you are a little weak on thinking or being educated then
The person who is more aggressive is the side to be on right or wrong if you want to be on the side that apears to be winning.
On that level you were not rude enough, but is that really a battle you want to win?

I would argue against accepting venues that tolerate
showmanship over content because the medium is the message
and when you argue with fools it can get hard to tell who is who.

And I’m sorry, but I just cannot get past how many years it took NASA to explain the waving flag. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps the first moon landing was staged, perhaps not – but one thing I do know from a lifetime of experience – when someone takes that long to answer a simple question – THEY ARE HIDING SOMETHING.

Consider all the grand lies, the propaganda, and the elaborately staged events that (thanks to the internet) we now know for a FACT that our gov’t has carried out over the years (and as a matter of routine).

Consider that we were in a “cold war” and in a race to claim the first moon landing from our declared bitter enemies.

I also don’t like the over-used “tin-foil” hat conspiracy defense. If you dispute someone’s position then make you case without bringing their sanity into question. This “ad hominem” attack needs to stop. Can we all agree on that?

Consider all this and you realize that it very well could have been faked.

BTW: I have a 180IQ, I am perfectly sane, I am a die hard James Randi Fan and a stone cold atheist AND I am not convinced by your argument.

It’s a tough life, what with all these scientists and physicists proving his arguments to be utter bilge. I think everyone should start a Bart Drive(TM), and raise some money for the poor man. Perhaps then he will start distributing his video(s) for free, because obviously, letting people in on the ‘real’ truth is more important than turning a profit, right? Right?….
I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

If these falacies “prove” the moon landing is a hoax, then this would “prove” the real world doesn’t exist either.

If I had a nickel for each time I have heard some ignoramus spout off about the “Moon Hoax” I could fly to your town and buy you dinner. Probably would too, just to prove that there are people out here who care.

All the people I have ever heard propound the moon hoax were uneducated or undereducated, usually at least partially intoxicated and invariably thought “Daddy’s tree-stump philosophy” was the best education anyone could ever have. These are the people who believe going to college makes the student stupid.

They usually start out screaming about it and get louder and shriller as they carry on. Some of them will actually try to grab their listener physically to make intimidation easier. I have been backed into corners by raging drunks and literally had to fight my way out.

Of course, these are the very people who would do well to listen to you and the others who have a clue but never will. They are the portion of the audience who will hear only what they want to hear and totally disregard the rational.

More than applaud your efforts however, I wanted to wish you a happy and sane holiday season. Beware the loonies behind the wheel and at parties.

Best regards,

Randy Holley

I suppose that Bart is hoping to convince the gullible that astronauts who are too offended by him to play his game are admitting a hoax. With evidence like this, he is shamelessly harming society for his personal gain.

Thanks Phil for defending science and history from this evil.

jbs

You see this all the time in the political arena. We just had a local referendum that would require a small increase in local tax to unlock a large pool of state money. Arguments against: big lawn signs that say “Say NO to higher taxes!” Argument for: “We’re already being drained by the state tax and we can get that money back into the community with just a little more local tax.” Doesn’t fit as well on a lawn sign. Involves balancing a pro against a con.

An environment of rational, skeptical discourse involves giving people the evidence and guiding them through an argument to illustrate a conclusion. An environment of baloney-peddling involves beating people over the head with a conclusion. Guess which takes more time? Guess which one grabs the psyche?

You know, a second listen was even more infuriating than the first. Bart is allowed to deflect a direct question and make his opponents answer it instead, promising to answer when they’re done. He forces them to give some reasonable circumstances under which they might change their views–then when it’s his turn he says the only thing that would change his mind would be if he went there and saw it himself.

WTH? That’s (effectively) the same as not answering it. And he has the nerve to call Phil untrustworthy for initially giving the same kind of answer he himself eventually gives. I’m not saying this just out of a desire to insult him, but as a reaction to these specific actions: this man is intellectually dishonest.

And I have to add: it was rich, him whining that Mike & Phil had an answer for everything. If that complaint wasn’t self-descriptive, I don’t know what is.

But I’m afraid that “Sticker” and others are right – the loonies and theor ideas are getting more and more popular.

I missed the show

You could always join the BAUT forum and post a discussion topic.
http://www.bautforum.com/

There is a time and place for jargon. Certainly written accounts are a better format for including the technical terms, and (most importantly) explaining them. But radio and especially TV spots just don’t have the time to allow one to say it technically accurate but dense. You have to think in soundbytes – unfortunate, but true. Soundbytes work best when the audience can understand them. With juries, it may be appropriate to state it technically and then reiterate it non-technically. Court testimony isn’t time constrained (that I’m aware of). The technical content proves the technical merit for later technical commentary and review, but the layspeak interpretation ensures that the jury understands so they can evaluate the testimony appropriately.

Leon Said:
>As I understand it, Apollo went straight through the Van Allen Belt, rather than plowing through it on multiple orbits… So if you’re in & out of the belt in an hour, you’re much less exposed than if you’re going through it on orbit after orbit–hence a bigger deal for the Space Shuttle than for a lunar mission. Am I about right here?

You are partially correct. Yes, the Space Shuttle and the Space Station do have some limited exposure to the Van Allen Belts every orbit. That cummulative effect is stronger than what the Apollo astronauts faced in their straight through shots.

The other piece of the puzzle is that the Apollo astronauts did not go straight through the densest part of the Van Allen Belts. The Van Allen Belts are a donut shape around the Earth near the magnetic equator. They get thinner the further away from the equator you go, out to about 20 degrees. The trajectories for Apollo missions were not directly out the equatorial plane, but rather at an inclination to the Earth, about 30 degrees. This sent them through the thinner regions on the ends rather than the thick zone in the middle. That also minimized the astronaut’s exposure to the radiation.
http://www.clavius.org/envrad.html

Here is a diagram showing the belts. This is from a Nature article on a recent variance in the belt behavior, but you can see the general shape and location.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v432/n7019/fig_tab/nature03116_F3.html