Jarrah White

[Chief]

You guys are spoiling me. I should do some research on my own.

Grandson of the Apollo hoax indeed. He's not even the mentally impaired younger cousin of the Bigfoot hoax.

I wonder if he has ever been offered a forum on TV against some well informed experts. Well informed of his tactics that is.

I think that's the problem, experts know their material and have absolute confidence in the facts. I have watched Kent Hovind debate a group of biologists once. He was a very, very fast talker and the biologists were not prepared for his tirade. He actually made them look uncomfortable. Who ever enters into such debates need to know their opponent not just the material.

[ka9q]

Absolutely. They especially need to be aware of the Gish Gallop, named for the late creationist Duane Gish who used it often. Basically you just flood your opponent with a long list of bogus statements and half-truths without giving him any time to properly answer any of them.

It exploits a saying well known in Congress: if you have to explain, you've already lost.

[gillianren]

I can’t help it, it’s a failing I know. I was the child who always corrected others and it alienated me. Why were they not interested in getting it right or seeking knowledge? I just couldn’t understand it.

There's someone I know who I'm never going to get along with, because she thinks I'm trying to show off how smart I am when I do that, and I assume everyone would want to know.

If we don’t fight this level of ignorance, it will spread. People will doubt because they did not live through it. Anti - vaccination is a clear example of this. How many people in first world countries do you see with the effects of polio these days? I had three children in my primary school who did.
These days the younger generations have been spared and most of them wouldn’t know what polio is. Due to immunisation.

I was talking about immunization on Facebook a while ago (this was while my son was still too young to get the MMR, too), and I noticed that one of my aunts had commented on one of my posts.  I was slightly nervous about it, because said aunt spent her vacation this summer on a faith-healing trip through Eastern Europe, so I wasn't sure I wanted to read what she had to say.  However, my aunt is in her sixties.  She remembers when polio was still a scourge in the US.  She likes vaccination.

It is an insult to all the people who strived, who died, who selflessly sacrificed for one reason or another, and it is not something to brush off or ignore. History needs to be preserved.

I actually consider betrayal of history to be a sin.  "They" literally could not pay me enough to argue for a hoax of which I could not see the evidence.  Actually, I make kind of an intellectual game of conspiracies--I take the known evidence and try to build a conspiracy that works within it.  Just to see if it's possible.  With Apollo, it isn't possible.

[Chief]

I'm not to sure how to quote you gillianren, but I'll work it out.

What I don't understand is why certain people don't have a thirst for knowledge. They seriously only care about their immediate lives. I'm not judging them for wanting to be like that, I just don't understand them.

I don't feel smart. I had the opportunity to apply for Mensa but declined due to my own insecurity. You can only take their test once. If you fail to achieve the required level that's the end of it. At the moment I still have an invitation.

 I constantly crave knowledge, I remember the most obscure things sometimes without even knowing where I got it from.

What does infuriate me is when someone wants to learn or  has the ability to learn and can't or won't. I truly believe that education is the key to everything and possibly the only thing to drag the world out of the mess it's in.

I see the current trend of conspiracies and suspicion of everything scientific, medicinal, and governmental, to a lesser degree, a world wide dumming down.

[Zakalwe]

He is good at creating, fast talking videos with the appearance of deep research. And I would say he is probably the most dangerous conspiracy theorist out there at the moment for that reason. Obviously they are a total pile of the proverbial and my hope is as long as he stays on Youtube he will eventually burn out or give up. He may even change his profession from movie maker to Astrophysicist in four or five decades.

Some time ago, I guy called S G Collins (a film-maker) posted a video explaining that it was technologically impossible to have created a faked video record of Apollo by filming it here on Earth. If you haven't seen it, it is well worth the 13 minutes or so to watch...

The Blunder was not happy when he saw this. Not happy at all!

And Collins also posted an excellent rebuttal to The Blunder's response

[JayUtah]

I'm not to sure how to quote you gillianren, but I'll work it out.

You click on the Quote link at the upper right of each post and then work your way through the HTML-but-not-quite tags that get dumped into the text area.

What I don't understand is why certain people don't have a thirst for knowledge.

Often they do, but they lack the time, the means, or the ability to obtain it.  Conspiracy theories then become a sort of shortcut to the illusion of erudition for some people.  They make the claimant seem well-informed if for some reason the real information comes hard to him.

Paradoxically, many conspiracy theorists use their theories for ego-reinforcement by tearing away at the Establishment that rejected them.  Rather than work hard and try to acquire the knowledge they lack, which just makes them one face among thousands, they lash out in resentment with accusatory ignorance, which makes them stand out as noisy celebrities.  It's not scholarship.  It's an egotistical, arrogant ploy for constant attention and validation.

I don't feel smart. I had the opportunity to apply for Mensa but declined due to my own insecurity.

You're not missing much.  I was a member for a few years, but then realized they are largely the kind of people who can talk your ear off about hyperspatial manifolds, then go out to the car and pour the oil in their radiators instead of the crankcase.  In the subsequent years I've learned that thinking critically is a more valuable skill than the kind of stuff Mensa tests you on.  I worked as a contract engineer on the Boeing 777 and the Boeing 787 projects (oddly enough in very different roles), but I've probably learned more about jet engines from watching Agent JZ on YouTube than I ever did from my actual professional training.

Your insecurity is unfounded.  From what you've written so far here, you come across quite intelligent and witty.

I see the current trend of conspiracies and suspicion of everything scientific, medicinal, and governmental, to a lesser degree, a world wide dumming down.

Indeed.  There's the idea of a healthy degree of suspicion that keeps unscrupulous people from doing bad things.  But there's a growing anti-science movement that I have a hard time figuring out.

[gillianren]

What does infuriate me is when someone wants to learn or  has the ability to learn and can't or won't. I truly believe that education is the key to everything and possibly the only thing to drag the world out of the mess it's in.

I've said for many years now that there is no shame in ignorance.  Everyone is ignorant in something.  It used to be a game to figure out new things that we could with confidence say Jay was ignorant in, for example, and the list of things I myself am ignorant in is a rather long one.  The shame is willful ignorance, in refusing to learn even after you've been given the opportunity.  Like, getting back to the vaccine thing, a friend of a friend who was told exactly how mercury worked in Thimerosal, then continued to rant about the dangers of mercury in vaccines.

[JayUtah]

I should do some research on my own.

No one here will stop you.  In fact, they'll likely point you to more material than you could possibly hope to read in a single lifetime.

I wonder if he has ever been offered a forum on TV against some well informed experts.

Now that you mention it, he was invited to present his "findings" on space radiation and Apollo to qualified university faculty in his city.  All he had to do was show up.  He refused even to acknowledge that the invitation had been tendered.  That to me speaks volumes not only for his competence, but for his recognition of how badly his claims would fare outside his selected walled gardens.  He went back and tried to delete the evidence of his public failures.  This to me indicates a deliberate attempt to deceive.

Who ever enters into such debates need to know their opponent not just the material.

Indeed, each of these various hoax claimants has a unique style and m.o.  I generally ignore Jarrah White, first for the obvious reason that he has a reputation for being uncivil and foul-mouthed.  Second (as has been noted), he seems to spend more time on vilifying his critics than on historical and technical scholarship.  I and Phil Plait seem to have been his chosen subjects, and I won't validate that sort of sick obsession.

[Bob B.]

I and Phil Plait seem to have been his chosen subjects...

I may have moved up a spot or two on his enemies list since I had the audacity to challenge him on his radiation nonsense.  Of course it's entirely alright with me if I remain only a minor player.

[Luke Pemberton]

Of course it's entirely alright with me if I remain only a minor player.

Hardly, your calculations were thorough and stand as a repository that has gravitas beyond the 'back of a cigarette packet' calculations and handwaving.

[Dr.Acula]

I think, Astrobrant is one of the top on the enemylist. I watched several of Brants brilliant clips which debunk Whites claims.

By the way: Great job, Brant 

[Bob B.]

I'm just curious, does anybody know what Jarrah does for a living?

[Abaddon]

I'm just curious, does anybody know what Jarrah does for a living?

No idea. Last I heard, full time student.

However, that raises the question. As we all know, employers will check out one's online presence as a matter of course in order to assess the suitability of a job applicant. Our antipodean is in the position that he cannot delete his online presence no matter how hard he tries and is thus rendered unemployable in any meaningful role. As an employer, and having interviewed many individuals, I can say definitively that not even an interview would be offered. And thus the problem. Our antipodean has no choice anymore but to stick to his hoaxie guns, because nobody who checked would contemplate even offering a broom. 

ETA: Of course should our protagonist object, he has only to log in and say, LOL.

[Bob B.]

Our antipodean is in the position that he cannot delete his online presence no matter how hard he tries and is thus rendered unemployable in any meaningful role. As an employer, and having interviewed many individuals, I can say definitively that not even an interview would be offered.

That was my reason for asking.  I know that I'd chuck his resume into the trash the instant I saw his online presence.  He's not a kid anymore, I believe he's in his mid-30s.  He ought to be out earning a living and building a career.  As much as I dislike the guy for what he's doing and for his poor behavior, it is a sad waste of a life if he has ruined his future with all this hoax nonsense.

[Allan F]

The obvious solution is that he changes his name.