I came upon a post about Petra Liverani and the moon landings at Fakeologist. Petra and I have gone round and round on the subject until I decided just to let it be. I cannot change her mind. I won’t try. In the meantime, Petra came out with a post called 12 logical fallacies unmasked in the use of the terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist“. I like the post. Petra started out by naming 12 logical fallacies.
- The authorities decide which events are conspiracies – the Appeal to Authority fallacy
- Only the majority expert voice counts, the minority expert voice is to be derided and ignored – the Appeal to Common Belief fallacy
- Professionals do not make claims of conspiracy nor do they theorise – the Strawman fallacy
- Refuters use the more specific and appropriate term, “psychological operation” or psyop – the Definist fallacy
- Selecting the obviously invalid argument – the Cherry-picking fallacy
- OMG! You’re one of those tinfoil-hatted people! – Argument from Intimidation fallacy
- Your reasoning is based on bias, mine is rational – The Bias Blind Spot
- Is the fact of conspiracy the main concern? – no, it’s the Big Lie fallacy technique used for millennia to control our minds
- The sophisticated Big Lie – the addition of the False Dilemma fallacy
- If those in power had done it they would have … – Hypothesis contrary to fact
- That’s insane, that cannot be true – Argument from incredulity
- When the rule is that they must “tell” us the truth underneath the propaganda how is the rejection of the narrative in the realm of “theory”? – The Loaded Question fallacy
She expounds on each of them. For myself, I tend to shy away from naming such things as fallacies except for the big guns that are all around us, as ad hominem, post hoc ergo propter hoc, appeal to the galleries and a few more. Logical fallacies are usually deeply embedded in our argumentation and are not easy to expose, nor is there much use in exposing them. After all, the large majority of the population is simply too Dunning-Kruger shallow to form meaningful arguments about anything, so why bother labeling their mistakes?
I am going to reiterate a fallacy to the mix here, cherry picking, that is, to ignore the body of work of a person and settle on one or two items that cause others to squirm. Ab chose in his post at Fakeologist, FAK 1030: Petra Liverani believes in the moon hoax, to single her out for special chastisement for deviation from the fold. I don’t like that. I wrote a comment to defend her at that post, and so far have a “-3” rating. Intolerance, they name be truther.
Petra is devoted to the moon landings being real. I don’t know why, but it could be mere stubbornness. Hell, she could be right, though I cannot fathom it. For myself, I know that in real life complicated projects never go right the first time. I am steeped in all the hoax literature, but that’s all I need to know. In 1969 it all went right on the first try.
But beyond that, humans are not black/white creatures, and so long ago I decided to take Petra at face, and take what is good, leaving the rest. She should also do so with me, as the post above on logical fallacies is very long and very good. She’s capable of that kind of work. Welcome her aboard, and when the subject of moon landings comes up, leave her be. Critical thinkers are a rarity in life. Don’t let the desire for perfect purge the good. (I don’t like that phrase, as generally it has been used to encourage people to accept some badass stupid people as good enough, like Al Gore. But for Petra, the good far outweighs anything I might consider less than perfect.
Piece of Mindful 
I often wonder about the endlessly ridiculous videos released from the “International Space Station”. They certainly couldn’t be clueless enough to not see the errors and impossibilities, so is it reverse psychology? Are they so advanced that they want us to believe it is all fake? Same could hold true for the moon landings, I suppose.
LikeLike
The moon landings are one of the few (the only) psyop that were done to make us feel good about ourselves. I suppose ISS the same? One very overlooked good thing to come out of it is that our best and brightest are also of all races and genders, and I suppose, though I could be behind the curve on it all, that a transgender will soon be aboard …
… ah hell, I can’t carry on that way! Every single ad and web page I see now has a mix and and intermixture) of races in it … I find it irritating, but that is how we operate these days. Jerry Seinfeld was being interviewed and the someone suggested to him that the cast of his TV show was all white. He started off responding, and you can imagine the rest, “That really pisses me off!” If by today’s formula Seinfeld had in it a black person, a gay person, a tranny and women holding high-profile very talented positions in law and business, it would have bombed. Real life ain’t like that.
I was watching a movie starring Schwarzenegger not too long ago in which he came upon a boxer who had a powerful jab to the stomach, and he commented on it only to be told that that powerful jabber, also attractive, was a woman. Yeah, right. It is routine these days for attractive woman, actually fashion model quality, to play characters that can fight and bruise it up like Reacher … fake fake fake.
LikeLike
It’s all about distraction and division. Always has been and likely always will be. We are each responsible for how we spend our time and energy. Those that choose to be defined by their “cult”ure are doomed to a life of minimal growth and experience. This is a tough school!
LikeLike
Ab’s title slightly rankled me too, with its possible suggestion that Petra was an apostate from the true faith.. but, I can also read it as being a little tongue in cheek, and I know Ab has a sense of humor, so..
I will say that I’m never as sure as most “fakeologists” about anything.. There’s often a kind of certainty about topics, from people who admit they were once dupes of the system, that may be a bit of a logical fallacy itself. I’m more like an agnostic than an atheist, by analogy – I may lean 90 or 99% toward thinking something is fake – but I’m rarely going to say, “absolutely, certainly, 100% fake! There’s no way I’m overlooking anything, or being duped by some 11-dimensional chess, this time..”
Just as I would not say I “know” the mainstream version to be definitively true, when I have only mediated secondhand accounts – I’m not going to make absolute claims something is impossible, usually.
LikeLike
I was just thinking how easy it is to fall into the trap of thinking: well everything is fake, so QED I know everything.
In science, there is a huge amount of research into neuroscience these days. Frankly, that gives me the major creeps. What is so wrong with our brains that we need to understand how they work to the point of putting in implants and neural links? My point being I believe “they” know way more about human psychology and individual psychiatry than the public understands. Therefore I wouldn’t get too cocky in thinking you can know everything, and the controllers are idiots.
LikeLike
I agree, with one minor objection: To the degree that “controllers” are psychopaths, they did not have the wherewithal to sit down and study hard in their youth, and so are unable to perform on such a high level as would be required with, say, the WTC event, or even in 1967 to come up with the “conspiracy theory” mind control meme. That had to be done by true experts. Where do they come from? The peerage? If Charles and Sons are any example, no, not there.
Beyond that, I got nuthin’.
LikeLike
I would expect Charlie and his crew are pretending to be stupid just like Bush did. It’s a show. I’m not suggesting they are genius but…
I have no doubt there are filthy rich people out there desperate to gain knowledge, understand life and explore the universe. There is no good reason for these people to be public.They are going to keep it mostly secret as long as they can from as many people as possible because that is how you gain and maintain power. Loose your power and you can’t do your research.
LikeLike
The Apollo program was about the scientific world view. Implanting all of it deep into the subconsciousness. The moon made from cheese, you know. It came with the rockets, which happen to be a threat too, ICBMs, alleged nukes. It pushed technology, especially computer technology was introduced with the program.
LikeLike
Yes, it adds to the glory of “science!” and the scientific priesthood.. IPS in a recent podcast compares walking on the moon and floating in the ISS to equivalent miracles in Christianity.
LikeLike
I am agnostic about Apollo. Petra’s arguments have shaken my faith in the fakery narrative, although it still seems to me more likely than not that the whole thing was faked.
I used to think that getting at the truth was a bit like peeling an onion, but these days it seems more like navigating a hall of mirrors. Deceit and deception are lurking everywhere, along with delusion, which is a form of self-deception.
The claim that the Saturn-5 rockets didn’t reach orbit because they took too long to pass the high cirrus clouds is something with the potential to prove the whole thing was faked. But can it be verified or debunked one way or the other? In the end, it comes down to whether this video footage and the claim related to it are genuine.
https://www.aulis.com/apollo11saturn_v.htm
LikeLike
That is close to the crux of the matter. No matter that the official photos show different light sources, as they were most likely taken later. No matter the Van Allen Belts, as NASA said that part was simple, just whoosh! right through them. No matter the extreme unlikelihood of landing a rocket in reverse, with its gyrations and unreliable thrusts … Space X does it all the time now, right?
NASA merely says that the only existing film showing the launch of Apollo 11, from start until it is but a distant tiny fleck, was put in slomo when it approached cirrostratus clouds. That’s utterly absurd, but that’s all NASA has to do when people have such blind faith in scientists. They can lie with impunity.
Lies like the moon landings only unravel slowly over time, and all the while the unraveling is going on there is no public hint about it. True public opinion is a state secret. Trump’s recent flurry of EOs is evidence that public opinion is coming around on many matters. He’s not trustworthy, some other game is afoot, but I take it as a sign that behind the green curtain, they know. They’re playing us again, however.
LikeLike
In America the moon landings are also used as a litmus test as to whether you “believe” in science. I heard a colleague the other day mention a really hard project was like a “moon shot”. Another one brought up the movie Apollo 13 as an example of a great McGuyer like real time fix. Kinda sad IMO. It really is hard to get around the idea of the “best” scientists, engineers, and brains at institutions like MIT spending their efforts on faking the public. However I have also had a scientist many years ago at Scripps institute tell me the idea of a Mars trip was a fantasy, as there is no way to get around space radiation. Without an atmosphere, or several feet of water shielding, or lead, it would be a suicide mission to spend any time outside the earth cocoon.
LikeLike
Recently you pointed out some areas in genetics that you take issue with, based on your direct experience in the lab – how do your colleagues react there? Are they more skeptical about weak spots in their own field, and more credulous about other fields?
LikeLike
This is a little obtuse and difficult to explain in short sentences, but I will try. Back in the early 70s my older brother was a newly ordained priest, and I even remember where I stood as he talked about the Search program Catholics run. He said the idea is to get the kids into a state of sleep deprivation. Then they will believe anything you tell them.
Many years later after I learned that med students are kept in that state as they complete their education did I realize that this is how our bright young men and women who become doctors and PAs and nurses are indoctrinated. They do not question germ theory, a drug for every bug, chemo and radiation and vaccines etc. I finally learned how all these scientists are controlled … sleep deprivation.
How can they not know that people become better able to think for themselves when education is a series of challenges without known outcomes, a challenge for well rested people to think for themselves and avoid orthodoxy? Their whole careers go on like that. That is how groupthink becomes the norm.
LikeLike
So true! Has there ever been a medical show that didn’t portray overworked and exhausted interns who barely have time for a family or social activity? Not in my memory.
LikeLike
Generally speaking, TV interns are usually very good looking, but there was an episode of House where he sat Dr. Cameron, a young and beautiful intern, down, and told her she had psyche issues. His reasoning was that she was drop-dead gorgeous, and therefore did not need to subject herself to the rigors of medical training. She would have success without it. He thought that she had other issues, which elude me. Of course, all of Dr. House’s team save perhaps one man were beautiful people.
LikeLike