Najak's Posts

[ApolloEnthusiast]

If a doctor can prove that it's not possible to "cut a woman in half, then just push her back together and she lives" -- this should be evidence enough that the magic was just an illusion, not real.  EVEN if this doctor has NO IDEA how the magician pulled off this illusion.

I forgot to include this earlier. You really need to stop with this analogy, as it's biased on its basic premise and doesn't accurately reflect the situation.

A more accurate example might be someone seeing a video of a 4 hour heart transplant surgery and saying it's fake because humans wouldn't be able to survive having their heart removed. They might claim that the fakery is obvious using minutiae that doesn't appear right to them, like you can see one lung has three lobes and the other has only two. The people in the props department clearly didn't coordinate on what lungs were supposed to look like. The skeptic in this scenario would ignore the fact that there is a living patient with a new heart, a surgeon who performed the surgery, all of the medical staff and patient family members who can corroborate their experience with the process from start to finish, and an insurance company that paid a great deal of money for the service. This skeptic is ignorant of advanced surgical procedures and even simple things like basic human anatomy and is unwilling to consider that their ignorance is the issue with their expectations, not the reality of the surgery.

[najak]

I forgot to include this earlier. You really need to stop with this analogy, as it's biased on its basic premise and doesn't accurately reflect the situation.
A more accurate example might be someone seeing a video of a 4 hour heart transplant surgery and saying it's fake because....

In this case, we're watching it ON TV, not in person, and for hours all looks real.  But then the doctor asks for the new heart, and it floats to him like he's a Jedi with the Force.  He's Breaking Simple Physics here.  We just entered into a Fake Reality.  Suddenly, you should start to wonder about the authenticity of the whole operation.

Then he Breaks Physics another few times.  When he hands the heart to the nurse, she fumbles it, and instead of falling, it floats.... but just for 1 second.  And a few more times, stuff like this happens...

If the mistakes I'm pointing out were of complex nature -- then your analogy might hold.  But these mess ups were SIMPLISTIC.  UNBREAKABLE.  UNEXPLAINABLE.

Now add the rest of NASA's context:
1. It's tied to Dishonest Politics, Cold War, and Fear of Communism and National Security. 
2. Failure is not an option.  To admit failure would be a huge hit against Citizen trust of our government, as they wasted so many billions.   All future budgets cancelled; NASA shut down; Mission Failed.
3. Headed up by Military men in nearly all leadership positions, astronauts, Control Room leadership, project management.
4. Thomas Baron, Whistleblower, killed 6 days after testifying to the truth about NASA's Quality/procedures - "what is ACTUALLY happening at ground floor"- -- names a dozen others who can also testify.  Gives them a 500 page report... which goes MISSING after his "tragic accident" and no more witnesses come forth... hmmm....
5. 50 years pass, and we NEVER do anything like this again...
6. They destroy much of the evidence, and data.  (Source Tapes and telemetry data -- all gone.   LM design/test docs - mostly all gone.)

And I'm just supposed to "believe this surgery was real", and will be ridiculed for concluding "nope, I don't think this was real -- they BROKE PHYSICS many times!"

So my only onus here is to demonstrate the "Breaking of Simple Physics".  My biggest hindrance is that MOST Americans don't have a great understanding of physics or even the simple Newtonian equations that demonstrate the fakery.

[bknight]

I forgot to include this earlier. You really need to stop with this analogy, as it's biased on its basic premise and doesn't accurately reflect the situation.
A more accurate example might be someone seeing a video of a 4 hour heart transplant surgery and saying it's fake because....

In this case, we're watching it ON TV, not in person, and for hours all looks real.  But then the doctor asks for the new heart, and it floats to him like he's a Jedi with the Force.  He's Breaking Simple Physics here.  We just entered into a Fake Reality.  Suddenly, you should start to wonder about the authenticity of the whole operation.

Then he Breaks Physics another few times.  When he hands the heart to the nurse, she fumbles it, and instead of falling, it floats.... but just for 1 second.  And a few more times, stuff like this happens...

If the mistakes I'm pointing out were of complex nature -- then your analogy might hold.  But these mess ups were SIMPLISTIC.  UNBREAKABLE.  UNEXPLAINABLE.

Now add the rest of NASA's context:
1. It's tied to Dishonest Politics, Cold War, and Fear of Communism and National Security. 
2. Failure is not an option.  To admit failure would be a huge hit against Citizen trust of our government, as they wasted so many billions.   All future budgets cancelled; NASA shut down; Mission Failed.
3. Headed up by Military men in nearly all leadership positions, astronauts, Control Room leadership, project management.
4. Thomas Baron, Whistleblower, killed 6 days after testifying to the truth about NASA's Quality/procedures - "what is ACTUALLY happening at ground floor"- -- names a dozen others who can also testify.  Gives them a 500 page report... which goes MISSING after his "tragic accident" and no more witnesses come forth... hmmm....
5. 50 years pass, and we NEVER do anything like this again...
6. They destroy much of the evidence, and data.  (Source Tapes and telemetry data -- all gone.   LM design/test docs - mostly all gone.)

And I'm just supposed to "believe this surgery was real", and will be ridiculed for concluding "nope, I don't think this was real -- they BROKE PHYSICS many times!"

So my only onus here is to demonstrate the "Breaking of Simple Physics".  My biggest hindrance is that MOST Americans don't have a great understanding of physics or even the simple Newtonian equations that demonstrate the fakery.

You haven't proved anything.

[ApolloEnthusiast]

So my only onus here is to demonstrate the "Breaking of Simple Physics".  My biggest hindrance is that MOST Americans don't have a great understanding of physics or even the simple Newtonian equations that demonstrate the fakery.

Physics wasn't broken. The problem is your understanding is flawed and you're too arrogant to even accept the possibility that you're wrong.

You don't even recognize the sheer amount of hubris it takes for someone like you, with absolutely no relevant training or education, to conclude that you are part of a tiny group of people with the intellect and insight to discern what millions of more educated people than you have failed to do, despite having familiarity with much more content than you.

The obvious answer for anyone with actual intellectual honesty and integrity, especially with the bits of minutiae that you're floating as evidence, is that if something doesn't look right then they must be missing something.

For people like you, who obviously believe that you know everything you need to know and are absolutely infallible, if something doesn't look right to you, then it is evidence of the largest, most expensive hoax ever perpetrated and no amount of actual evidence can convince you that it doesn't look right because your expectation is wrong.

[LunarOrbit]

That is way off topic and irrelevant. Stick to the topic, answer the questions directed at you, stop brushing off responses from the other members...or leave.

This is argument by analogy.

It is an attempt to distract and evade by sending people down a different path that is off topic.

[Jason Thompson]

Thought I'd poke my head in here and saw that there is some activity. Thought it might be fun. But frankly my tolerance for this has hit rock bottom lately so I'll just say how tedious it is to see the same hoary old s**t brought up again by someone who thinks that in all this time they're the ones with the insight to uncover the hoax.

For the love of Christ, it's been 55 f***ing years since Apollo 11, and over 20 even since I started looking at this stuff. The material being 'analysed' has been seen by literally millions of people at all levels of age, education and experience, and these tired old arguments based on it looking a bit off to someone with no actual expertise in the field are now so boring I can't even be bothered to debunk them for the umpteenth time.

[ApolloEnthusiast]

Just as @ApolloEnthusiast shared his "skepticism story" - he questioned, and then researched - and what did Google lead him to??  All of the bad/debunked MLH arguments -- which at first might sound compelling, but once you dig into them a bit - they fall apart.... and you end up with another Apollogist, for the wrong reasons...   Based on the Strawman technique, only there's no one around telling them the good arguments.   THIS is the mechanism by which Apollo maintains "the faith" for the vast majority.  It is dishonest, and skewed.

This is from a different thread, but I put it here so as not to interrupt Jay's attempt at educating you.

Please refrain from misrepresenting my lived experience. My research was not limited to Google, and nowhere did I indicate that it was. You also seem to believe that my conclusion that Apollo was real is based on faults in the hoax argument and not in the overwhelming affirmative evidence for all of the Moon landings. Once again, you project your desired result onto reality and ignore any possibility that the world doesn't work the way you think it works. But it is offensive to me that the months I spent doing actual research on this is reduced by you to "Google", and the conclusions I reached based on rigorous scrutiny of all the material I consumed is reduced by you to some awkward faith analogy based on disproving strawmen. You are really very insufferable.

[JayUtah]

For people like you, ... if something doesn't look right to you, then it is evidence of the largest, most expensive hoax ever perpetrated and no amount of actual evidence can convince you that it doesn't look right because your expectation is wrong.

On a related note, the argument that all someone has to do is find one "impossible" thing and the whole house of cards falls to the ground is nonsensical. Yes, obviously we can often point to specific ways in which a claim of impossibility is flawed. And yes, most often that reason is that the claimant's expectations are poorly informed or simplistic. But we don't need to accept the burden to determine conclusively why the claim of impossibility is wrong because the argument is flawed at a more fundamental level.

I once received a lot of mockery because I went on record saying that even if Neil Armstrong himself claimed it was a hoax, I wouldn't necessary accept that. From one perspective that sounds like I am ideologically entrenched. But that's not the basis for my conclusion. The authenticity of the Apollo missions does not rest principally on Armstrong's testimony and cannot be entirely undone by it. The question of authenticity rests on a vast trove of testable evidence that Armstrong has nothing to do with and still must be explained. At best, a confession from some highly placed figure merely shifts the investigation. It doesn't terminate it. If credible explanations can't be provided for all the rest of the evidence, it becomes more tenable then to question the confession.

Back in the day, I thought a good name for the mistaken notion that where one point goes, there must also go the whole question would be the "Bellwether Fallacy." Turns out someone already called it that. https://macdonaldcasefacts.com/html/bellwether.html The key element is that we are most rational when we respect the preponderance of evidence with the simplest explanation. In any complex question of history involving many evidentiary moving parts, there simply is not any one thing that by itself determines the whole matter. The attempt to make one so is the ploy of someone who wants to make his proof easier to obtain by ignoring inconvenient complexity.

So when a conspiracy theorist demands that the one thing he has proved to be impossible must somehow decide the whole question, and that all the other evidence must just somehow work itself out in the wash, we are not compelled to accept a higher standard of proof to affirmatively, specifically, and incontrovertibly refute that claim. If the structure of the argument accepts a premise that unexplained observations simply vanish in a puff of logic with no further consideration, then parsimony demands that such a blind dismissal apply to the least amount of evidence—namely, the one outlier.

So, "I've proven by basic physics that Apollo can't have happened, and it doesn't matter that I can't show alternative evidence for how we got the Moon rocks or how private citizens picked up the radio signals," can be validly reversed to say, "It doesn't matter that we can't determine why your one alleged bellwether event seems anomalous, when we have an unrefuted preponderance of evidence in favor." Any study of history deals with a messy body of evidence. When we stoop to speculation to explain any part of it, the theory resting on that speculation stands best when the speculation is least.

Again, none of this undercuts that we sometimes can determine that the bellwether was poorly supported. And where possible we should endeavor to do so, since reducing the overall amount of speculation in a theory of history is desirable. But the notion that an unrefuted bellwether allows you to conclude an extraordinary default hypothesis against a preponderance of evidence is simply irrational.

[LunarOrbit]

Jay, I wish I had your knowledge, experience, energy, and patience to deal with people like Najak. I had the patience and energy years ago, but it is definitely waning. Just know that I appreciate what you do, and the other members too, of course.

[najak]

There are two primary issues with this line of thought. First, you haven't proven anything to be impossible. You have stated without evidence that certain bits of minutiae don't appear as you would expect them...

Correct, sorta.  When I'm watching that "heart transplant surgery on TV" being told it's real, and it looks real enough, until the Dr. uses Jedi-like forces to make the scalpel float into his hand -- I am calling this proof of fakery.

The things I'm saying are IMPOSSIBLE -- are IMPOSSIBLE, without the introduction of supernatural forces - per the people telling this is "all real".   There is no VIABLE COMPLETE hypothesis which explains the issues I am finding, no even a "guess"...    The types of physics that are being broken are on the level of "Jedi Force"... magic forces operating in a vacuum.   I'm going to call these Impossible on the premise that "Jedi Magic Forces" don't really exist in our scientific physical world.

Please show me one VIABLE COMPLETE hypothesis that I am ignoring, and I'll change my personal conclusion.

[najak]

@LunarOrbit, your account of what happened here isn't accurate, IMO.  Not even close.

I'd like to see some "neutral eyes" examine the debates, and see if they agree with your assessments of me.

This is being run much like the "Salem Witch Trials", where many of them were just Quakers are on Trial because they lead some of the Puritans astray.   No matter the reality - they are given an "F" and condemned/dismissed.

Even smart minds behave in this fashion when their worldviews are being threatened.  Both the Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims - have their fair share of very smart people...  and both will respond to challenges against their Holy Book, in this same fashion.   It's human wiring.

I was hoping for better, and still hold out that hope.  So far, this is just proving to be an Echo Chamber, like the room full of Puritans condemning the Quaker as a witch.

[Mag40]

@LunarOrbit, your account of what happened here isn't accurate, IMO.  Not even close.

It's entirely accurate. Your poor physics knowledge has been exposed. Your repetition of ridiculous claims is being foisted upon the forum.

Your immediate modus operandi is to find ways to obfuscate and divert. There is no honest debate, just you conjuring up anything at all no matter how illogical and absurd.

[LunarOrbit]

@LunarOrbit, your account of what happened here isn't accurate, IMO.  Not even close.

I'd like to see some "neutral eyes" examine the debates, and see if they agree with your assessments of me.

So you're saying that you don't like it when someone self-declares victory?

[najak]

So you're saying that you don't like it when someone self-declares victory?

I don't like it when a forum claiming to be "truth-loving and unbiased" has overseers who use their administrative powers against the opposition.

You can declare self-victory all you want -- but THIS forum is supposed to be "Neutral", right?  Instead, it's operating more like the Salem Witch Trials.

I don't mind Apollogists expressing their convictions - and don't even blame them for it - no matter how wrong I may think their conclusions are.

[ApolloEnthusiast]

The things I'm saying are IMPOSSIBLE -- are IMPOSSIBLE, without the introduction of supernatural forces

No. This is the fundamental issue you're having. You don't seem to see the difference between "XYZ is impossible" and "I don't understand how XYZ could happen". The difference between those two statements is enormous, and your conflation of them as being equivalent is why all of your threads are failures. Repeat this statement until you comprehend, "Something is not impossible just because I don't see the way it could happen."

It is not impossible that something outside your knowledge moved the flag on Apollo 14, no matter how many times you insist on it, just as one example. All of your threads suffer from this ridiculous habit you have of concluding something is impossible based on the fact that you don't see a viable answer.

If you were actually here for debate and discourse, and if you actually had even a tiny shred of integrity, you would ask for help understanding what to you are apparent anomalies. Instead, you've attempted to present them as absolute proof of a hoax unless someone can present to you an explanation that you will accept, the catch being of course, that you will not accept any explanation that contradicts your conclusion.

The types of physics that are being broken are on the level of "Jedi Force"... magic forces operating in a vacuum.   

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because you don't know what is acting on the flag exactly doesn't mean that there is nothing there, and that you can conclude that is therefore fraudulent. Again, there are hours and hours of footage that demonstrate in dozens of different ways that these videos were shot on the Moon. If you claim that this flag anomaly can only be explained by being on Earth, you are then obligated to provide evidence that all of the other many hours were also faked.

This is a bit absurd, but it should demonstrate who ridiculous your claim is in context. If I hypothesized that an unobserved extraterrestrial moved the flag off camera, it would be more likely than your hypothesis that it was filmed on Earth, because my hypothesis, as stupid as it may be, is at least consistent with the rest of the evidence. To be clear, I am not suggesting that aliens moved the flag, but just trying to make you understand that if your hypothesis is less likely than aliens, you are almost certainly doing something wrong.

Please show me one VIABLE COMPLETE hypothesis that I am ignoring, and I'll change my personal conclusion.

You're ignoring mountains upon mountains of affirmative evidence that 12 men worked on the Moon. I won't hold my breath for you to change your mind.

Correct, sorta.  When I'm watching that "heart transplant surgery on TV" being told it's real, and it looks real enough, until the Dr. uses Jedi-like forces to make the scalpel float into his hand -- I am calling this proof of fakery.

You should probably avoid analogies altogether as you're not very good at them. The analogy I presented didn't have anything floating or other Jedi forces. This was intentional to reflect reality. I did include an apparent anomaly that is small enough to reflect the types of anomalies you've focused on in your Apollo threads, and like  those, one that is explained by a more thorough understanding of the subject matter. You obviously missed that, and that's okay, but again, just don't bother with the analogies if you can't handle them.