Comments on: 35%?????

By: chrislintott

chrislintott — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:14:37 +0000

I’d taken this:

Interesting that neither you nor your contributors put forward any scientific evidence for the validity of the moon landings.

as indicating you didn’t believe we’d landed on the Moon (we, of course, standing for mankind – or should that be personkind?). I’m delighted that isn’t the case. I think the reasons Apollo succeeded are many and varied. They include hard work and intellect, but also the vast amount of money spent on it. I don’t think political correctness has anything to do with the debate, but each to his own.

By: John Goodman

John Goodman — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:18:42 +0000

Touche.

Did I say I doubted the landings?

I doubt we could get there now, but I don’t doubt we could do it when folk worked hard and intellect was respected, before the PC brigade had achieved their deserved Utopia.

By: chrislintott

chrislintott — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:10:13 +0000

I notice you didn’t comment on the moon landings.

By: John Goodman

John Goodman — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:18:20 +0000

I attributed those activities to the BBC, Chris.
If you feel besmirched by the association, then I understand.
(How did you like being patronised? Rather good, I thought).

By: zofia magrian

zofia magrian — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:06:43 +0000

Your e-mail to the PR company is like my email
to a guy who published a book saying the world will end in 2012 because mankind was only meant to exist 6000 years and it’s over, we’re doomed hehe. I used all the common sense and scientific arguments to say he should be ashamed to even mention it in public and I never got an answer. Nobody should believe that but still the damn book sells and there will always be people who believe stuff like that. I wonder who they asked by the way. People over and under what age. But yeah I think the number is overestimated in favour of the X-files box office too…

By: Alice Sheppard

Alice Sheppard — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:07:36 +0000

Has anyone done a survey to find out the percentage of people who see Chris as a BBC agent, or the percentage of people who see the BBC as an agent of the Nanny State etc etc? Even this survey didn’t generalise.

By: chrislintott

chrislintott — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:05:42 +0000

Here you go

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

That should deal with most of the objections; please let me know if you’d prefer peer-reviewed papers.

I’ll leave your comments about the BBC alone, but ‘preaching and spinning and patronising’ as a description of what I do? Preaching, perhaps, in favour of astronomy and science, but ’spinning and patronising’? Please.

By: John Goodman

John Goodman — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:31:54 +0000

Interesting that neither you nor your contributors put forward any scientific evidence for the validity of the moon landings.

Like it or not, you’re seen as a BBC journalist, and the BBC is seen as an agent of the Nanny State, preaching and spinning and patronising until no-one wants to believe in anything.

By: Alice Sheppard

Alice Sheppard — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:38:34 +0000

“The fact that a belief is widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd” – Bertrand Russell.

http://www.bracil.net/edward/library/Russell.html

By: sysboy

sysboy — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 13:51:06 +0000

“We are skeptical by nature but some folks just think that means EVERYTHING we are told is baloney.”

I think it’s actually the other way around, people will believe almost anything so conspiracy theorists, fraudsters and crackpots have it easy. Just look at astrology, religion, alien landings, bigfoot, nessie, homeopathy, fairies, santa, wmds, spirits, life after death, martians, egyptian mummy curses, witchcraft, telepathy and that carrots make you see better in the dark.

If anything the default response is to believe. That or people want some excitement in their lives

The only way you can combat it is through education and ridicule.