German TV claims secret NASA Mars mission in 1962

For those who know me, I'm sure you can understand why I feel this a bit amusing

Ha, did I hear someone on that tape say, “Hooston?�

Looks like the Great Sandy Desert to me...

When I was in Dublin some guy (after hearing I was American) chewed my ear off about how the USA had never actually gone to the moon. I listened intently for about 15 minutes before telling him I worked for NASA, know several Apollo astronauts, and proceeded to refute his claims based on a crazy thing called science. Think that worked? No. "But... but... but the shadows aren't parallel!" Please.

These conspiracy theorists make me laugh at times, but on the whole I think they're doing humanity a huge disservice. They take to believing fanciful things for several reasons, all of which are talked about in this outstanding book.

I love how the video banks left and right like a wandering airplane and not like a descending pod with retro fired rockets.

doo too doo... just roaming the planet for a nice crevasse to land it.

Wouldn't there be some dust kick up when they landed? Looks like a 12 yr. old made it!

DW,

I dont personally know you but I know exactly what you mean. The thing that is most frightening is that more and more people want to beleive that the lunar missions were a hoax.Its incredible really that such a great triumph has to dissed by people that have nothing better to do in their life than make up similar bullshit.
I think Buzz was absoulitly right when he punched that guy for pestering him for the exact same reason a couple of years ago.
Another great book thats also a great read and that also explains why and how people are lead to belive such crap is this one
by one of the people I most admirred in my life.
cheers

max

Looks like too many people were taken away by that film Capricorn One.

"For years Alabama has required that a disclaimer be pasted inside science textbooks, stating that evolution is "a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things. ...No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact."

"Indeed, Gallup polls reflect that nearly 44% of Americans share this view, that "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years."

(dunno quite where that leaves dinosaurs, fossils, coal, diamonds, mountains etc).

This is from YOUR country Drivin West! I reckon it is considerably more rational to believe that you guys faked a moon landing (heck - it would have been a damn site cheaper and easier), than that man was whipped together on a Sunday afternoon by an invisible omni-present being a few thousand years ago.

p.s. 25% of your country-folk agree with the paddy, which is pretty scary as they are normally a pretty loyal bunch to all things American.

Just for the record I believe:

1. Americans landed on the moon
2. JFK was shot by a lone gunman
3. There is no Loch Ness Monster
4. There are no aliens on earth (even Roswell)
5. Lady Di was an accident
6. There is no Bigfoot
7. TWA Flight 800 was an accident
8. There are no ghosts

http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/nasamoon.htm

"No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact"

As we're talking about rational and irrational; the above statement seems perfectly rational to me.

Personaly I think people are expected to simply accept-without-thinking a lot of facts. It's only natural then that the opposite exteme is now also common, ie reject-without-thinking. But there's nothing wrong with asking "did we really put a man on the moon?" especially when you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand the, erm... rocket science http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/News/2001/News-MoonLanding.asp

@ maddul

Sagan was (is) simply amazing. I've read Demon Haunted World and think it should be required reading in schools!

@Johnny English

I'm really not sure what your point is.


Try 6%. Your 25% probably comes from a website run by a tin-foil hat wearing loonie.

Strictly the statement is true, the question is, what is the motivation is printing seomthing like that in a school science book. The motivation of course is an attempt to create the illusion of Creationism as a 'theory' of equal standing as the 'theory' of evolution. The fact is that all of what we teach under the umbrella of science can be considered theory, but some theories are so consistent with observation that they are as close as humanely possible to being fact. Evolution and genetics are one such branch of science.

@MM, I was going to say the same thing, except that he said the "origin" of life, not it's development. I still reckon this is a bit harder to explain. Evolution only kicks off once you have genetic information, and getting from a chemical soup to that is non trivial.

Actually, there are lots of ideas about this, like RNA world, or my favourite theory that clays built organic molecules as tools to reproduce and then the organic stuff took over, like the freakin' machines will one day.

Here's a link, sorry it's Powerpoint.

Drivin West my reference to YOUR country was 'cos you started with:

"When I was in Dublin some guy (after hearing I was American)"

when I was trying to point out that you are just as likely to bump into a bible-bashing-god-bothering-conspiracy-theorist in the good old US of A as you are on the streets of Dublin.

heck I know the score - if it wasn't for you guys I wouldn't be spending every morning trying to learn this language

"the question is, what is the motivation is printing seomthing like that in a school science book. The motivation of course is an attempt to create the illusion of Creationism as a 'theory' of equal standing as the 'theory' of evolution."

That is the most likely explanation. Perhaps it's just wishful thinking, but an alternative motivation would be to encourage people to think for themselves...

"all of what we teach under the umbrella of science can be considered theory"

I'm not sure I agree with that. Surely I can prove that gravity exists by droping an apple? Or that buoyancy exists by dropping the apple into a tub of water?

heading off-topic now...


"some theories [such as evolution] are so consistent with observation that they are as close as humanely possible to being fact."

FACT
A close examination of different species will reveal strong similarities between even very different species

EVOLUTION THEORY
The similarity is explained by each species being descended from another

What I've here labeled fact can be backed up, or proved, with hard evidence. But how can the theory be backed up? Or proved?

I think evolution as an area of science would probably be considered to cover evolution from chemical soup, I know some of the books I have read (Dawkins etc.) have covered this territory. I have read (but not completely retained) quite a bit of stuff that explained this satisfactorily with reference to specific laboratory experiments, where duplicating conditions similar to what would have existed in 'chemical soup' times (i.e. chemical mix, agitation, temperature etc.) have spontaneously given rise to complex proteins. Complex proteins have also been fabricated (or at least posited) that have shown self-replicating behaviour. Add a couple a years and bob's your uncle. The steps seem pretty clear to me

Firing off a few thoughts: By manipulating genes. Cloning. By experimentally introducing mutation etc.


Ummmmm, no. Gravity is a theory that explains what we observe. The fact that it explains it so perfectly that it is considered fact is exactly what I was talking about.

Just setting the stage for the story, not saying that all Irish are conspiracy theorists. Just most

The theory of evolution has been proved in several different studies, the most famous being the monitoring of the evolution in "Darwin Finches" on the Galapagos islands, and the evolution of the wallaby population of Cannock Chase, UK.
Both are studies of how small, isolated, populations of animals can evolve within the space of a few generations to be significantly different from the population they originally came from.

As experiments go they're not as simple as dropping an apple, but the level of proof is the same.

Creationism is one of those pseudo-sciences where they're quite happy to move the goal posts whatever new piece of evidence appears. Real science works like this:

Theory: I think humans were created on Earth sometime in the last 10,000 years.

Test: How old are the oldest human bones?

Result: At least 160,000 years old.

Conclusion: Theory disproved, please test another.

To keep saying the test is wrong as it doesn't fit your theory isn't real science, you either have to prove the test is wrong (highly unlikely in this case) or come up with a new theory.

Not sure I follow you MM. Do mean manipulate one species genes and thereby turn it into a completely different species? Even if that were possible (it seems totaly incedible to me), that still wouldn't prove that such a phenomenon was a natural process. Forcing a square peg into a round hole wouldn't prove that the square was once a circle.

getting further and further off-topic now

@astroboy
there is no questioning the fact that within a single species there can be great diversity and adatption to the environment
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994682
but that is something else

and I thought observation came before theory?

Define species. Actually very difficult, almost impossible to come up with a single definition, even at the genetic level. Most people stick with the observational features of animals looking and/or behaving differently, a criteria the Cannock Chase wallabies may already fulfil, depends on who you ask.


Depends on whether you're talking about an empirical theory or not. Einstein didn't have to experiment on a black hole to come up with General Relativity.

Observation.
Human races and the differences between them can be viewed in the same way we look at different breeds of dogs.

A pure breed is one that is bred from two parents of the same breed that each come from the same breed, etc. Let's say all dobermans live together on this continent called Doberman and have lived there for centuries. The features on a doberman are very different than a poodle and very different than all the poodles living on the continent of Poodle. However, they are related and can breed a mutt between them. Therefore, they have come from the same doggie town once upon a time centuries ago but due to seperatism have developed their own traits that make them unique.

Humans were separated for eons by large bodies of water and the fact that travelling over long distances of land in strange countries might get you killed/not very common/hard to do, etc. Their 'breeds' or 'races' are born of that seperatism. Certain traits are weeded out and others are encouraged for what ever reason. Therfore you get the Chinese bone structure and genetic dispositions as opposed to the Mexican/African/Scandanavian/(et al) bone structure/genetic dispositions and each is entirely unique.

What happened? Did everyone 'evolve'? We wouldn't call it that. Different breeds/races can still get together and make even more races of people that we haven't even seen yet (IMHO). Call it evolution but I say the many changes we see in people and animals are just the many possibilities of one species rather than an irreversable change due to environment or sexual choices. And I believe that the possibilities 'might' be endless. Stick a race in a cave and see if their eyes faze out in a couple of eons. It happens. So if that is evolution, so be it.

Who knows what we all really did look like a while ago? Every human could have had green skin??. This thing we call life changes and moves in strange ways and we can only know what we can see. Everything else is faith.
InMyHumbleOpinion
btw, there are more species of cats than dogs in the world but the traits of dogs are more 'severe' and clearly seen.

To see a long list of the different definitions of species look here. BTW all the different breeds of dogs are actually one species (Canis Vulgaris, I think), the idea of "breeds" is an entirely manmade concept that results from selective breeding programmes, something that very few human societies believe in (thankfully).

The point I've been (failing) to explain is the philosophical difference between science and religion, and where creationism fits in. To over simplify a complicated argument:

Religion: Certain sacred truths are known, either passed on from previous generations, or given to us by a higher a being. We attempt interpret the world around us with reference to these truths.

Science: There are no sacred truths. We look at the world around us and attempt to understand it without any previous knowledge (i.e. everything can be proven from first principles or tested by experimentation). Any idea that doesn't match the world we see is assumed to be false.

For me creationism is part of religion rather than science, creationist believe it a set of sacred ideas which are always true, whatever the experimental results. I think its a very bad idea to try to teach religion as science, and an equally bad idea to try to teach science as religion.

P.S. Don't get me wrong on religious education. Given the profound effect that religion has on our world I think its very important everyone has some religious classes, whatever their own beliefs (or lack thereof).

Profundo, what you describe in your amicable pseudoscientificbabble has very little to do with evolution, but with genetic variations within a species.


Like said in the preceding posts, defining a species is difficult. Species generally have various barriers to interbreeding which vary from behavioural (mating times, mating rituals) to chemical (in the womb) to incompatability of mating mechanisms (in plants for example) to plain incompatability of gametes and various others. So in theory the genetic mutation comes first, the factors that lead this factor to become dominant second and then with time the behavioural and environmental factors that make 2 closely related species reproductively incompatible later. It is often only species that are well separated that are actually unhybridisable for example. Thus it is possible to create a mule by breeding a donkey and a horse (but which are sterile). So yes, to demonstrate radical changes in an organisms form, which can be demonstrated to have huge natural advantage over an unmodified version of the same organism has often been (and is being) accomplished in the lab. That is exactly what genetically modified foods are, as an example. (Further breeding, time and geographical separation could indeed lead one of these modifications to being a species)

EDIT; Sorry about punctuation and the like (the more evolved of you will understand it anyway )

Science is ok, but cant provide any answers here because it ignores the cultural components of being a human. Religion is less ok, because it ignores the truth. But thankfully there is a much nobler subject to assist us here. The subject of history, which considers humans to be much more than just bags of chemicals. We have cultures, and special beliefs that connect us with our ancestors, that scientists totally disregard. The Polynesians for example believe in a sky mother and a father earth who were torn apart. The gods of wind and rain etc were descended from the sky mother, and plants animals and people were descended from the earth father. These are pretty damn reasonable analogies to what is presently regarded as scientific truth, in fact its basically the same, its just using a different language from a time when people didnt know what hydrogen was, didnt know what dna was. Theres no conflict between the 2 points of view, unless you do a silly thing like ignore our heritage and the wisdom of our ancestors.

Fair enough, but isn't that clearly a load of superstitous bollocks, or does I owe the Polynesians a apology?


Like the sky mother and earth father. Got it.

That was my point exactly. Can you see evolution? No, because we haven't been around long enough to take note. We can only see these varitations. Label them what you will.
It seems we are agreeing to agree.

I've never agreed with anyone on here before... It feels nice

And it was one of my points that we can see evolution happening, when we do the right experiments:

Rock Wallabies (my bad, they were in Oz, not Staffs)

Darwin Finches

OK. So you can't sit and watch a bees nest (for example) and expect it to evolve before your eyes, but that doesn't mean to say there's no species evolving rapidly anywhere on Earth.