[clackers]

Any comments from Australia?

Yes, if you remember the story earlier in the year, this is a fake place too, it's a WB sound stage and we're all NASA actors.

[gaweidert]

Yes, if you remember the story earlier in the year, this is a fake place too, it's a WB sound stage and we're all NASA actors.

Hence the question. I figured all the Aussies would jump to NASA's defense as part of the ongoing script.

[savoche]

[szs]

Think about how stupid people are on average. Now think about the fact that roughly half of them is more stupid than that....

[rod_grant]

Any comments from Australia?

"We are not prepared to say".

[Rondec]

I think the big thing is that there is a lot of basic distrust of various institutions, scientific and otherwise. This, unfortunately, has been earned by unethical behavior on the part of those who should know better. Of course, the issue isn't science itself or, the scientific method, but certain individuals who are more focused on their own results, prestige or money than on producing true science.

When trust is displaced, it doesn't go away it just gets transferred to something else. In this case, it is conspiracy theories and groups. I suppose the internet helps, what is a fairly small group of individuals, to come together and enjoy their distrust of NASA.


The interwebs are great at helping you to realize that you are not alone in your beliefs. That can be good and it can be very scary.

[Liney]

At times like this I take solace in the Dunning-Kruger effect:

"...the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence."

In short, the lower my ability the more confident I am that I am right. At the other end, people with high ability are constantly questioning their understanding.

[Jonathan Mac]

If you think those comments are funny you should try reading some from anti-vaxers.

[k1man]

hmm, interesting a good read, micromacro sums it up pretty well, we all have been lied to and been told to believe some idiot who went to uni. as rondec said they mostly do it for the kudos and get there name in some weird magazine that only the initiated read or look at, i only believe in what i see and feel a true sceptic, the list of these liars goes on and on, you just have to have your eyes open and read a lot to put 2 and 2 together, ian

[PDL]

I have stopped commenting on a DPR thread about the Chinese Lander on the far side of the moon. The "anti-moon landing" people started out by bluntly saying it was all faked and the far side moon images shown in the article (taken by the Lunar Orbiter 5 mission in 1967) show "airbrushed out" alien lunar structures. I countered with a few questions and facts about the Orbiter (which used film, processed, scanned and transmitted to earth from Lunar orbit) and was called an idiot for suggesting that the images were on film.

The discussion degraded quickly with others chiming in asking what did I think of 9/11 and how the CIA had used the Moon Landings as a psy-op to fool the American public into a government controlled quiescent group thought. The CIA was doing this in order to hide what it knows about the Kennedy assignation. Really? government control of the public mind in the 60's? Most of these guys were not alive in the sixties and the sixties were not quiescent.

So CIA started "mind control" operations on the fool the population that NASA had found evidence of alien "structures" on the far side of the moon.

The CIA used this "mind control" to cover up the Kennedy assassination, Moon Landings, 9/11 etc. ad nauseum.

I asked if the CIA was controlling the Chinese too, since they set this lander down. All I got back was, CIA, 9/11, Assassination, Building 7, Van Allen Radiation belts, the use of Russian Rocket engines (now), no humans in space other than low earth orbit (but in truth the ISS is all done on "vomit comets" and is fake too - with the Russians help) and the earth is flat.

So, I am somewhat in a state of concern. Facts and science just do not matter anymore, it is just getting depressing. Add into this, these people are getting elected to run school boards, cities, counties, state and federal offices. Now we all are doomed - not just Pentax.

Post edit addendum:
Liney I copied your statement over to the DPR thread - I am sure it will raise the hackles of the "deniers".

[photoptimist]

I think the big thing is that there is a lot of basic distrust of various institutions, scientific and otherwise. This, unfortunately, has been earned by unethical behavior on the part of those who should know better. Of course, the issue isn't science itself or, the scientific method, but certain individuals who are more focused on their own results, prestige or money than on producing true science.

When trust is displaced, it doesn't go away it just gets transferred to something else. In this case, it is conspiracy theories and groups. I suppose the internet helps, what is a fairly small group of individuals, to come together and enjoy their distrust of NASA.


The interwebs are great at helping you to realize that you are not alone in your beliefs. That can be good and it can be very scary.

Quite true! And the sad history of unethical behavior applies to all human institutions that purport to speak the truth: scientific, religious, governmental, corporate, and even those entities touting conspiracy theories. Every human institution has a vested interest in promoting its version of the truth and temptations toward corruption.

What's interesting is that that only science publishes a how-to manual by which anyone test something for truth versus falsehood. Everyone one else says "beleive me!" Only science says "test me."

[clackers]

I have stopped commenting on a DPR thread about the Chinese Lander on the far side of the moon.

Oh, that's now known as "The Peking Duck Side Of The Moon".

[Liney]

Post edit addendum:
Liney I copied your statement over to the DPR thread - I am sure it will raise the hackles of the "deniers".

Oh gee thanks, another howling mob with pitchforks and torches after me.

Thanks mate, I must nip over to this DPR thread of which you speak and see what's going on.

[PDL]

Oh gee thanks, another howling mob with pitchforks and torches after me.

Thanks mate, I must nip over to this DPR thread of which you speak and see what's going on.

I live to swerve.

[Gimbal]

Everyone who has seen the documentary “Iron sky” know what’s on the far side of the moon.