Rogan, by the way, is no philosopher. He’s just very well versed in BSing. He has put himself on this all-knowing pedestal because of his few times doing DMT (and who knows what else) with Doug Stanhope. Doug described it as feeling like you suddenly know everything (paraphrasing), well I guess Mr. Rogan never let go of that belief. Look at some other DMT heads like Terence McKenna.. that guy was a magnificent talker and could at times make you feel like history really will end in 2012, with a giant UFO in the sky brought on by the Gaian mind.

IMO Rogan should just go back to commenting on greased baboons slapping each other around the caged hexagon and leave science to rational people.

But then I do forget the “facts:” They were all in on it, even the nations we were trying to “fool,” and there really was no craft since it was all filmed at a studio in Huston or area 51. lol

You are right that the moon rocks are fundamentally different.
The short answer is all terrestrial rocks contain water. The moon rocks contain none.
Over at the original Badass-Tronomy site in the “Moon Hoax” section you’ll find a fuller explanation as well as links to all the details of why the moon rocks just ain’t from around here.

My initial reaction was, ‘So? If they want to pay over $43 750 000 (mark-up for profit!) for a pound of moon rocks, let them.’

But then I realised a better reason not to: the US doesn’t have mining rights to the Moon. We can take bits and pieces for scientific purposes, but to start auctioning off parts of the Moon is very wrong, and opens up the entire Moon for auction by foreign powers.

And I think you presented yourself well. “Debating” conspiracy theorists is only any fun, and potentially successful, if your intention is to demolish their arguments, while simultaneously demoralizing and humiliating them personally. This is a fiendishly difficult thing to do, if you are trying to be polite. (It can be done though, I refer you to James Randi, who has a long string of outstandingly polite victories to his credit.)

Somewhat like each generation tacitly thinking that they invented casual sex, mistrust of “The Establishment”, etc.

The same thing that made those of us who were around during the time of Apollo believe that it was real. After all, I never saw an Apollo mission launch. I never saw any of the hardware until years afterward, yet I never for a microsecond thought it was fake.

Even the HB’s (most of them, anyway)believe that space travel is real for unmanned craft. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of subliminal social cues that verify that what they hear and see through the various media is real. The announcements of unmanned missions are fed at very low levels over very long times. It passes the test of verisimilitude (look it up). They have no reason to believe they don’t exist.

However, at a distance of some four decades, none of that exists. All you see is the historical record that compresses the decade of Apollo into all the same flat sheet. It’s easy to dismiss anything that you don’t want to see or hear, and concentrate only on those things that support your preconceptions.

Short version, “it was impossible then, but not impossible now because my generation is doing it.”

- Jack

Oh yes. I’d forgotten that one. Good call.

Incorrect assessment. There are some proponents of the Moon Landing Hoax that are seriously deluded into thinking they know better than the rest of the world. There are also a number who are dishonest about their beliefs to serve a purpose. Categorizing which is which takes a lot of insight and information. However, the vast majority of people who express doubt about the moon landings are not outright proponents, they are everyday people mislead by some inaccurate presentations of technical topics, combined with some psychology of outsmarting the experts. You don’t reach them by berating them, you explain what they misunderstand and why.

As for Rogan, he appears to me to be rabid anti-big government conspiracist hack. The Moon Landing Hoax is just a subset of his true beef, the Evil Government is out to lie and mislead and control us little people.

If one didn’t know his expressed views on other topics, one might argue that he is just denying the Moon Landings as part of an attention-getting ploy, part of his routine. If so, one would be accusing him of being a hack comedian ripping off Andy Kauffman.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

I listened to both of the Penn Radio moon hoax debates via podcast last year. IIRC, Rogan was on the phone for the first debate and was in the studio with Penn for the second. I *do* take issue with how Penn handled that second debate.

I’ve always wondered if Penn let himself get intimidated by Rogan’s presence. Penn definitely loves show business and celebrities, and doesn’t strike me as an overly aggressive guy. Rogan is extremely outgoing and seems like he’s always on the prowl for the next barfight.

Admittedly this is all conjecture on my part. Still, as moderator he should have called Rogan out on some of the crazier stuff.

Also, if you say “I don’t know”, he scores that as a hit for his side. He’s not interested in finding the truth. He’s just interested in racking up points.

Umm… We already photographed the landing sites — while we were there.

What makes you think that someone who believes we spent billions of dollars to fake the whole thing (including all of the photos) would believe new photos?

I’ve been reading you for a bunch of years now and every day it’s still good! I preach your blog to anyone who will listen! I just rolled into work and read your comments about “wind storm” and then the video of that talk show and listened pretty much thru the whole excerpt. Listen bud, you did well. You were logical, clear, and those who were genuinely listening with the frontal lobe would have heard that. Rest easy. Advice: you can’t out-bazoo a bazoo, for they will shout, impugn, imply, roll over, snipe, foul-mouth, lie etc. etc. the best brains on this blue ball. For their motive is greed, moola, money, profit, dough. I think the best thing to do is exactly what you did: state the case, be clear, do the best you can and let the discerning listener do the rest. Discerning listeners can… discern! After all, you’ll also never convince the doofusses in the world because…they are doofusses! Phil, I am proud of you because you didn’t try to to out bazzo that guy. Keep on doing what you do best, which is what you do. I am sure all your readers and any intelligent discerning person is proud of you as well.
Kind regards,
Michael

Rogan had a bit part playing an a$$h0le on an otherwise good show. No surprise that he was most often paired off against Andy Dick, a similarly talentless hack. He took a tongue-in-cheek Man Show and turned it into a very unfunny misogynist disaster.

And, the final nail in the “Joe Rogan is a moron” coffin is his “thoughts” on the moon landing hoax. What a tool.

“There are now a couple of satellites on orbit with the Moon (from China & Japan), and there have been others within the last few years (from Japan & the U.S.).”

…and Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart-1

Michael Lonergan on 31 Jan 2008 at 6:15 pm

“Just tried a post but it got flagged. ”

All mine seem to get flagged, even when there aren’t any links. Don’t know why. .uk email address?

Neither of the lunar probes now working has anywhere near the resolving power for the Apollo hardware; in fact, the Japanese satellite’s camera isn’t even one of the scientific instruments. It’s a camera with fewer megapixels than many consumer-grade cameras, and its role is mainly to garner public interest. All the real research is being done with various other kinds of instruments.

It should also be stressed that NO lunar probes are for the purpose of verifying (once and for all) the Apollo landing sites. They are for serious research into the the physical nature of the Moon.

And: Why would anyone with the real capability to deliver payloads to the Moon think that Apollo was faked? Putting their own probes near the Moon tells them that it’s possible to do so.

grrr….

While that statement is strictly true, Joe Rogan is indeed, crazy. Or perhaps more properly, is just not very smart.

The whole thing was sort of a lesson in how easy it is to appear to be winning a debate by being loud and throwing out so many inaccuracies and bizarre statements that your opponent can’t get to them all.