Conspiracy Theorists and Creationsts
The Apollo moon landing missions represents the pinnacle of human achievement. It embodies all the traits that we like to think makes us human. Things like vision and inspirational leadership (“We choose to go to the moon“), individual brilliance (Wernher von Braun), purposeful administration (NASA), practical creativity (the more than 4,000 engineers and designers who worked on the project), great enterprise (Boeing, North American, Douglas, and Rocketdyne) and enormous personal courage (the Astronauts). As President Kennedy called it, “The most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which Man has ever embarked.”
It was a triumph for humanity. It showed us what we are capable of. Humans had broken the bounds from which we had evolved and were exploring the Moon. For hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors had gazed at the moon in the night sky, trying to make sense of it. Now we had stepped on the surface of this mysterious place and left out imprint.
But, I suppose predictably, the conspiracy theory kooks have slithered out of their holes and are once again defaming this magnificent, inspiring achievement with their nasty inane Moon Landing Hoax. This is not a small little fringe group of hopeless eccentrics – for instance, 25% of Britons believe it was a hoax. Hardly any popular article or TV news item about the Moon landing is complete without some reference to the CTists. I suppose they are best ignored but this really does irk me. Of course this is being driven by a smaller hard-core group of tinfoil hatters, but their anti-science delusions are having a bad influence on a generation that should rather have been inspired by the Apollo mission.
I won’t waste my time debunking their nonsense. It’s been done over and over again. Phil Plait, as usual, does a good job of that. But I have been pondering on what drives these nutters to besmirch this enormous achievement. You can read a few opinions on the psychological make-up of conspiraloons here, here and here. One thing that is beyond doubt is that CTists’ belief in their particular hoax is unshakeable. Hard, irrefutable evidence will not sway them from their beliefs. As Cumbrian Sky notes:
The HBs are never, repeat, NEVER going to be convinced that NASA went to the Moon. It doesn’t matter how many times they read, or you explain, that there were no stars in the Moon’s sky because the photos were exposed for the bright surface and foreground, so obviously teeny tiny faint starse wouldn’t be picked up by the camera. You can tell them a million times that the flags left by the astronauts aren’t “blowing in the breeze”, they’re actually flapping about because they’ve got supporting wire frames to stop them hanging there all limp and embarrassing for the photographs. They slap their hands over their ears and sing out “lalalalalala!” when you try to explain that the shadows cast by objects on the Moon look different to shadows cast by objects here on Earth because LIGHTING CONDITIONS ON THE MOON ARE NOTHING LIKE THEY ARE HERE ON EARTH!!
Does this sound familiar? Isn’t this exactly how Young Earth Creationists behave? No scientific evidence – no matter how slam-dunk conclusive – will sway them from the central idea that a supernatural deity created the universe – with the Earth at its centre, and of course man at the centre of that – about 6,000 years ago. And all living things were created by this imaginary dictator and we remain at the mercy of this space monster. So there! If there is any scientific work to be done it’s within this absolute framework. As Ken Ham would say: “Any so-called fact that appears to contradict the bible is not a fact and needs to be re-interpreted in terms of the bible”. No arguments. Don’t bring the evidence.
Like the religious types, CTists like to gather with like-minded believers and believe that they will “find the truth” and spread it to the heathen out there and foster social change. They believe they have “secret” knowledge which they impart to their inner circle of true believers. This sounds remarkably like the Pagans and Gnostics – and even Jesus himself: “The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables, so that ‘they may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.’” (Mark 4:10-12 NAB)
Charles Darwin gave us the priceless gift of knowing that we can actually explain the world around us – including our own origins. Creationists with their deep fear of reality would rather have us believe that we are merely pawns in the hands of an all-powerful, all-knowing celestial ruler and that their is no value in pursuing knowledge since the question of the universe and our origins is settled.
The Apollo mission gave us the priceless gift of knowing our capacity for achieving amazing feats – that humans are capable of understanding the Universe and all its wonders. Conspiracy theorists with their deep fear of anything that is beyond their control would rather have us believe that we are mere powerless pawns in the hands of secret, pervasively evil forces that conspire against us for their own nefarious ends.
These fearful little people should not be entertained and their paranoid ravings should be given no further oxygen.
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