Blunder® takes on a Flerf

[onebigmonkey]

Naturally it's being hailed a victory for the blunder.

I've seen a couple of his sycophants dismiss the "too many people would have had to be involved in the conspiracy" argument by citing other well known and allegedly 'proven' conspiracies (eg the Gulf of Tomkin, JFK's assassination, Iraqi WMDs etc etc), which is an ironic and hilarious combination of trying to use dubious claims based on inaccurate and false information to justify a dubious apollo hoax claim based on inaccurate and false information, or using things that people actually attempted to keep secret but which were uncovered pretty easily to try and prove that something could be hidden: "They can keep secrets, look how this secret thing stopped being secret!".

Jarrah knows which cherries to pick and which quotes to mine. He knows the Apollo topic and how to dance around it. Mullane knows his stuff, but not the Apollo topic.

[beedarko]

Naturally it's being hailed a victory for the blunder.

I've seen a couple of his sycophants dismiss the "too many people would have had to be involved in the conspiracy" argument by citing other well known and allegedly 'proven' conspiracies (eg the Gulf of Tomkin, JFK's assassination, Iraqi WMDs etc etc), which is an ironic and hilarious combination of trying to use dubious claims based on inaccurate and false information to justify a dubious apollo hoax claim based on inaccurate and false information, or using things that people actually attempted to keep secret but which were uncovered pretty easily to try and prove that something could be hidden: "They can keep secrets, look how this secret thing stopped being secret!".

Jarrah knows which cherries to pick and which quotes to mine. He knows the Apollo topic and how to dance around it. Mullane knows his stuff, but not the Apollo topic.

I thought Mike was smart not to take Blunder's bait by tit-for-tatting with him on the minutiae of his claims.  Jarrah has weaponized his Asperger's to some degree by using it to recall obscure factoids from 15 years ago that he then uses as foundations for his ludicrous arguments.  Trying to counter each of them piecemeal would result in a 4-hour debate that'd be largely unwatchable. 

I especially liked Mike's point about Nixon taking advantage of the gift of democrat corruption had he discovered in '69 that he was inheriting a hoax from the previous admin.  It was a great point that I'd not heard before.

[TimberWolfAu]

I especially liked Mike's point about Nixon taking advantage of the gift of democrat corruption had he discovered in '69 that he was inheriting a hoax from the previous admin.  It was a great point that I'd not heard before.

It was one of those "huh" moments, where you hear something and it's just so obvious that you missed it because of how obvious it was. It's hard to imagine politicians not using everything they can to hold onto power, and the thought that even if Nixon held onto the 'hoax' because he could use it later, he just doesn't seem the sort of person to not 'burn it all down' and let it out when he got the boot. Always seemed like a M.A.D. sort of person to me.

There was one little point hat came up that I almost missed in Jarrah's gish galloping; he claimed the Apollo CSM as having enough shielding to stop up to 8 MeV, where previously I think he has claimed around 6.1. Turns out the Apollo shielding just keeps getting better and better. Unless, of course, I miss heard, it was in the middle of a runaway train.

[JayUtah]

This is why I don't care for that style of debate. It takes far less time and effort to spread B.S. than it does to clean it up. A conspiracy theorist can Gish-gallop through a series of claims, all of which have reasonable answers. But the answers take too long and are too sciency, so the audience would get bored and the debate would turn into a college lecture: unwatchable. Yes, you can always respond by focusing on the forest instead of a few miscreant leaves, but the audience will more often than not still go away thinking, "One guy brought up a lot of stuff the other guy couldn't answer." That doesn't mean that guy is right. It just means the theatrics favor B.S.

[beedarko]

This is why I don't care for that style of debate. It takes far less time and effort to spread B.S. than it does to clean it up. A conspiracy theorist can Gish-gallop through a series of claims, all of which have reasonable answers. But the answers take too long and are too sciency, so the audience would get bored and the debate would turn into a college lecture: unwatchable. Yes, you can always respond by focusing on the forest instead of a few miscreant leaves, but the audience will more often than not still go away thinking, "One guy brought up a lot of stuff the other guy couldn't answer." That doesn't mean that guy is right. It just means the theatrics favor B.S.

That's exactly right.

Substance always takes a back seat to presentation when the core audience isn't well-read on the topic.  If their guy talks longer, louder or more confidently, that qualifies as a win to them.  Facts & established history are almost never part of the equation with landing deniers.  The Rogan v Phil Plaitt "debate" is a great example.

[Obviousman]

I laughed heartily when Blunder wanted to correct Ms Roosa, saying he was a 'doubter' not a denier. OK, he's 'reality challenged' not a $#@%ing idiot.

[TimberWolfAu]

@JayUtah Yeah, I prefer the more structured debates, especially where it's say a few preprepared questions/items that will be discussed (preferably where both sides have shared the questions with each other ahead of time too)

[Mag40]

Jarrah White will never enter an arena like this forum. He knows his every step will be debunked and his education level trumped by people who have actual real world experience. He is not the least bit interested in a real discussion, he knows Apollo wasn't faked, he's just too emotionally invested and afraid of the humiliation of being openly wrong.

[beedarko]

I laughed heartily when Blunder wanted to correct Ms Roosa, saying he was a 'doubter' not a denier. OK, he's 'reality challenged' not a $#@%ing idiot.

I kept wondering when BFDU was going to address the turd in the punchbowl, i.e. that the moderator's granddad was a despicable liar according to him. 

I guess he wasn't brave enough.

[Dalhousie]

Ended up being more of a discussion than a debate and only went for an hour. Was an amusing point where Jarrah was just about to go into his qualifications (as a geologist and astrophysicist) but he got cut off. Would have been interesting to see if Mike considers a BSc sufficient to class someone as either a geologist or astrophysicist (especially when they don't do any work in either field).

It is possible to get a job as a geologist in Australia with just a BSc, although it is more usual to have a BSc(hons) degree (as I did initially). Certainly a BSc degree would get you a job as a geological assistant in industry which might lead with time to a promotion to mine or exploration geologist.

[Ranb]

Is there link to the debate I can watch online?

[TimberWolfAu]

Is there link to the debate I can watch online?

This should work;

[Ranb]

I have replied to several of the comments on the debate and they remain on the page.  But I made two of my own original posts about my feelings of the debate and they disappeared.  Are new comments disabled for this video?

I felt that Mullane could have done much better than merely sticking to the "it was too big of a lie to keep a secret".  White did a poor job of supporting his arguments.  His claim about radiation was poorly supported by his Aulis post which used outdated data from the 1950's.