Now THAT'S Funny!

[Chew]

Neil deGrasse Tyson was on Rogan's show and Rogan says he believes we went to the Moon but some of the photographic record was faked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DhcxffIENBU

Where does he say this....that's a really long interview to wade through...and Rogan pushes my irritation button very quickly.

Within the first 10 minutes, iirc. Tyson brought it up actually and Rogan explains his conversion.

[Count Zero]

I'm a big fan of Tyson, and as a few people in the comments say, he has finally filled Carl Sagan's empty shoes as a popularizer of science. If anything, I think Tyson does a better job. (And I say that as a Cornell graduate who saw a lot of Sagan in his prime.)

[Glom]

Rogan says he believes we went to the Moon but some of the photographic record was faked.

That's not a widespread view, but it's increasingly common. And it baffles me. It's the worst of both worlds; you go to all the trouble of actually going to the moon, yet by faking photos you give your adversaries (like the Russians) potential ammunition against you that could largely negate the entire achievement in the eyes of the world. Why?

My theory is that this is an intermediate, face-saving position for the (relatively) more rational HBs. Adherents to this view used to think that the landings were faked, but have since learned of the overwhelming evidence of their reality. Insisting that (some of) the photos were faked is a way to rationalize their former beliefs, to claim that they had at least some justification for them.

It's probably a variation of when wannabe HBs go all solipsistic, eg "well you can never know for sure".

It is a kind of having their cake and eating it too. It allows them to indulge their prejudices while not being overtly that stupid.

[raven]

Perhaps, but it also can be common among the ones who think they found aliens on the moon. Some of these have provided some excellent defenses for Apollo as a whole and for most of the pictures been true against other conspiracy theorists who think we didn't go at all.
Oh well, everyone has their blind spots.

[Peter B]

What, Tyson has two fathers?

Or Billy Dee Williams is actually a woman? ;-)

[LunarOrbit]

Where is Heiwa when I need him? This was the perfect opportunity for him to chastise people for being truly off topic and he missed it.

I have split the topic and moved the posts about Richard Dawkins/religion/atheism to a new thread in the Beyond Belief section.

Tyson, Dawkins, and religion

I don't mind people discussing religion in this forum, but please try to keep it from becoming too heated.