Man set foot on the moon

At least that is what the New York Times wants you to believe. 😉 I love it when there is a Florida tie.

Mark Fenster, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law who has written extensively on conspiracy theories, said he sees similarities between people who argue that the Moon landings never happened and those who insist that the 9/11 attacks were planned by the government and that President Obama’s birth certificate is fake: at the core, he said, is a polarization so profound that people end up with an unshakable belief that those in power “simply can’t be trusted.”

And here is why groups like Florida Citizens for Science exist:

Harrison Schmitt, the pilot of the lunar lander during the last Apollo mission and later a United States senator, said in an interview that the poor state of the nation’s schools has had predictable results. “If people decide they’re going to deny the facts of history and the facts of science and technology, there’s not much you can do with them,” he said.

“For most of them, I just feel sorry that we failed in their education.”

About Brandon Haught

Communications Director for Florida Citizens for Science.
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8 Responses to Man set foot on the moon

  1. Jonathan Smith says:

    The Moon landings are fake!!! and professional wrestling is real 🙂

  2. PatrickHenry says:

    Jonathan Smith Says:

    The Moon landings are fake!!! and professional wrestling is real!

    In the words of Mark Sanford, I’ve found my soul-mate.

  3. James F says:

    Then there’s the Buzz Aldrin method of responding to such claims.

  4. PatrickHenry says:

    Great video! Aldrin didn’t get any assault charges from the police.

  5. Dave C says:

    Any teacher will tell you that the hardest job in the classroom (other than getting students to turn their cell phones off) is changing an existing misconception. No amount of logic or reasoning is 100% effective. They simply tune you out. As one wag put it, “It ain’t what people don’t know that’s so dangerous. It’s what they know that ain’t so.” Psychologically, some people stubbornly refuse to accept/acknowledge hard data that contradicts a deeply held belief. There are NO transitional fossils. There ARE major flaws in the evolution by natural selection model. Man did NOT evolve from a chimpanzee. OK, so that one is true but you get the idea. Visit the nearest grocery store parking lot, at least in my neighborhood in rural Clay County, and take a random poll. Ask about evolution, transitional fossils, man and apes, Obama’s religious beliefs, the presence of WMD in Iraq. If ignorance is bliss then a lot of people around here are very very happy and the talking heads want to keep them that way.

    For those who may not be familiar with it, here is a link to Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy website. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/

    Oh, and direct from one of my neighbors, Michael Jackson is not dead. The Weekly World News is reporting that he was seen in in a diner in New Mexico dining with Elvis.

    Yep, some folks are real happy

  6. Timothy says:

    Why is it that people who aren’t so well along in education often end up so polarized? Why would people rather rather fill their gap in knowledge with anti-science, anti-intellectual, conspiracy theories, than admit their own ignorance on these subjects? It seems we have a growing population of people who would rather fill the area of “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure” with conspiracy ideas, and a growing hub of incredulous attitudes.

    This, to me signifies not only a lack of factual education, but a severe lack of critical thinking itself, and basic exercising of the brain’s exploration-oriented, inquisitive capacities. The public is appearing to be become accustomed to thinking in a false sense of dualism, which apparently arises in the lack of critical thinking / differential capacities.

    It’s all very concerning.

  7. Timothy says:

    Peggy that’s great, but to some extent you only illustrate what I just said.

    The problem is that our current methods of upholding our expanding technological culture are wasteful and often tend to strip/pollute the air, water, and earth. Furthermore, many of our technologies are presently not sustainable long-term as they rely on non-renewable resources.

    Now, regardless of whether climate change is natural/manmade or not, even if human activity is not directly responsible for initiating it, there is little question that it is happening and that our actions can only exacerbate it.

    Saying “it’s not us doing it” is no excuse to continue down the path we are on and let the central issue fall to the wayside. It’s a peripheral argument that seems ultimately like a rationalization for inaction.

    Climate Zone temperature shift:
    http://www.arborday.org/media/mapchanges.cfm

    Climate Change, Scientific Debate, Objections, Anatomy of the Myth (4 Videos)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo&feature=PlayList&p=A4F0994AFB057BB8&index=0&playnext=1

    (copy & paste the web pages)

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