If there's one word I would use to describe most hoax-believers, it's that one: Ignorant.
I agree, but to be accurate we have to qualify that as "willfully ignorant." Ignorance
per se is sufferable. I know as little about embroidery as you do, and although we wallow in ignorance we are smart enough not to profess expertise -- especially among those who are highly skilled at it, such as my sister. I don't go to museums, look at the elaborate tapestries, and proclaim them fakes just because I lack the skill and patience to execute them.
There were a few people who taught me, and the best was JayUtah.
Thank you for that. I continue to be humbled and pleased that my efforts actually matter. At the risk of blowing my own horn, this thread
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=235690 was originally posted in the JREF Conspiracy Theory section but has since been moved to a members-only section. For those who aren't JREF members, it's a list of nominations for outstanding posters, which mentions me among several others. I am always flattered and humbled to read things like this from people.
Then when I heard Marcus Allen of the British edition speaking, saying he was a photographer and rubbishing the Apollo photos, I was astonished at how ignorant he was of photographic principles that were quite basic to me, and probably part of many of the beginners' and advanced courses I taught. He didn't seem to be much more knowledgeable than Rene, who was not a photographer.
These days anyone can be a "photographer" in the sense that nearly everyone these days owns at least one camera. The explosion of camera ownership and digital publication via Flickr, etc. gives the impression that a lot of people are photographers. But as say, there is much to be learned about good photography, from both the artistic perspective and the technical side. So many of these self-proclaimed photographers know almost nothing about the principles of photography that apply to their claims.
I guess it is in the monetary interests of the Nexus publishers to keep the conspiracy and "alien spacecraft" and mystery stuff going, and to occasionally publish only the mildest dissent in the letters column to keep up appearances of being balanced.
Well, you never know. Richard Hoagland and the Enterprise Mission do a fairly good job of appealing to the standard woo-woo crowd but at the same time adamantly supporting the claim that the Moon landings were real.
