Jay, I am trying not to allow myself to be drawn back in for a while.
Yes, you have the response from Jason to address. He was kind enough to provide the comprehensive rebuttal you demanded. I'm not so kind. I'll be doing mine in installments, and the first one drops later today. See, it occurred to me as I was trying to block out time in my week that a comprehensive, thorough response is what you asked for but expected probably not to actually happen. You expected it to be such an onerous task (and, truly according to my calendar, it will be) that few if any would take you up on it. And then you could say, "None of the skeptics I consulted could give me a well-built answer to the challenges I raise in my article." Your inattention to Jason's response suggests it actually wasn't as important to you as you let on earlier.
In order to earn such devotion and dedication from your critics, you need to prove you're worthy of it. That includes promptly addressing the comprehensive response you already got, especially after being so "uppity" about it not being immediately forthcoming upon your arrival. But it also includes convincing your critics that you're serious about getting the facts right. That's what it takes if your book or article is intended to be a serious contribution to the history of science and exploration. If all you're doing is writing the typical poorly-researched, poorly-argued hit piece that caters to a sympathetic audience, then a detailed rebuttal isn't worth anyone's time. You'll just ignore it or pooh-pooh it away on a pretext.
You're being auditioned.
I was referring to the people you mentioned.
I mentioned them because you did. In talking about who might be interested in your book, you called out 52% of Britons who doubt Apollo was real. Based on their other expressed opinions, we propose that the sample in that poll are actually probably significantly more gullible as a group than the average Briton. Those people seem to be your target audience. You didn't answer my question whether you expected your book to fare well among professional scientists, journalists, historians, engineers, and people who -- by virtue of their previous work -- might be quite familiar with the source material and not quite as eager to take your claims at face value. Do you plan for your book to survive the critical scrutiny you could expect from them? Do you think your article does?
In a similar vein, I do not believe in God, but I have no trouble with people being paid for preaching to people who do believe in God.
Sure, I have time for that tangent. I personally know the clergy of the large Episcopalian church across the street from me. They often call me to fix and tune their organ, and they invite me to delightful garden parties in the church courtyard. They don't care that I'm an atheist, and I don't care that they get paid to preach God, because what they preach mostly is pseudo-ethical platitudes with vague, handwaving allusions to the Bible. They admit happily they aren't sure what God is, or exists in the forms they worship. Or at all. Everyone involved in that exercise knows there aren't any verifiable facts about God. I don't really see any deception there.
But I grew up in America's Bible Belt. There you see more of the charismatic preachers, the "prosperity gospel" hucksters, and televangelists. They follow a much different strategy and, as such, attract a much different congregation. It's more about hype, and the people who participate are the type to be more invigorated by hype. None of these preachers know much about theology or comparative religion, or feel the need to. It's not hard to see the ulterior motives and the fleecing of the flock, so to speak. Yes, for them it's often about the money. But sometimes it's just about having an adoring congregation who looks up to them. If you want the preacher analogy to work in your favor, you need to prove you're a real science history minister, not just a pseudo-science televangelist.
And of course the history of Apollo is not theology, not an improvised compromise from ancient superstition or cultural and social patterns. Unlike preaching God for money, preaching science (or the history of science) for money is connected to actual, verifiable facts. That changes the moral calculus a fair bit. It's one thing to preach and write for money about things everyone knows can't be known for sure. It's another thing to preach and write for money about things that
can be known, but which the author chooses to ignore or misinterpret because they don't fit the story he wants to tell. We
can know things about Apollo, and about the sciences and technology that apply to it. The moral foundation of your argument will depend in large measure on your mastery of it, such that you can represent it accurately and fairly to an audience you've asked to trust you.
So yes, I know only too well about editors, fact-checkers, and "sensitivity" readers.
Oh, really? So then carefully parse out why you just got done laughing about the notion of fact-checking your Apollo book.
Fiction isn't routinely fact-checked, for the obvious reason that it's fiction. Fiction is allowed to play fast and loose with facts, even historical ones.
Amadeus, for example, gets almost everything factually wrong about Mozart and Salieri, but still makes for a smashing play. Why would anyone try to fact-check a collection of fictional short stories? What would be the point? Was
Ocean of Storms fact-checked? I read some reviews on Goodreads. Your book got mixed reviews there, but that's not my point. Among the bad reviews, there was a common thread: the criticism that you didn't do your homework, and therefore got the science and technology wrong. Apparently your errors were egregious enough to be a distraction. So I have a hard time believing
Ocean of Storms was competently fact-checked, and in the larger sense, that you have any meaningful experience with professional fact-checking.
Also, if prominent criticism of your novel focuses on your ignorance of the technical issues involved in exploring the Moon, then why should any reader trust that you are competent to investigate a real-life mission and to defensibly arrive at a provocative conclusion about it? As Gillianren notes, isn't it more parsimonious to conclude that you're just wrong?
Writing "Faking Apollo" was not part of any strategy, and certainly not the one you hypothesize.
I don't believe you. Prove it.
My intention always was to self-publish.
So let's summarize. This is to be your first published non-fiction book. As a published author, you know how publishers work, and ostensibly why. Your near-future science fiction is -- according to other purported authors in the field -- riddled with technical errors and inaccuracies. But you don't seem to be planning to employ editors and fact-checkers that reputable publishers would use. In fact, you dismiss the the prospect as somehow ludicrous. You seem to be aiming your book at people who are already predisposed to believe what it claims. How does the most parsimonious interpretation of those facts point to you being a serious author on the subject? How does it not point more rationally to you trying to paste a pseudo-scientific veneer on a well-known conspiracy theory?
This is why I don't believe you. I require you to prove that you're a serious author before I commit hours of my time to trying to correct your errors.
I decided I didn't want to derive any profit from what I am doing because there is a complex moral issue involved.
But you're waffling. One the one hand you're saying there's no moral issue with selling people something you know they want to hear, regardless of its truthfulness. But then on the other hand you tell us you plan to give your profit to charity because personal enrichment from such a book is morally fraught. Well, is it fraught or not? You've given me arguments on both sides of the issue, and I'm not going to agree to be your fact-checker until I have a better idea of what you see as your moral obligations here.
Here's a less complex moral question. Do you have a moral obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Private authors such as Kluger, Burroughs, Chaikin, Murray, and Cox (to name some illustrious few) have all expended many years of effort researching the details of Apollo 12 and other missions from primary sources. Their preparation is evident in their writing. Yet they seem to have missed a fair amount of what you deem suspicious about Apollo 12. Is your suspicion based on a
more whole truth than theirs? An honest truth, without embellishment, insinuation, or speculation masquerading as fact?
The basic thrust of what I have been told is that the early missions had to be "faked" to ensure the later missions could take place.
And you're not the first to suggest this. To people well acquainted with the source material -- which you evidently are not -- that claim fails for a fairly obvious reason. Can you guess what it is? Further, you already dismissed Apollo 17 as fake, and accept the other J-missions only because you say you haven't yet found anything you can point to as fake. The facts of your behavior and statements don't mesh with what you're telling us your data are.
On that basis, I do not consider anyone who was involved to be a "bad person".
Well, for starters you're calling Al Bean a liar. I single him out because I've met him. Have you? Since you seem to like tap-dancing through complex moral issues, explain how you can publicly accuse him of a prominent lie and not realize that equates to a value judgment of him and his character. If your claim is true, several people still living today would be guilty of some fairly serious Federal felonies. Can you explain how you can accuse people of felonies without saying they fit the definition of a felon?
