ApolloHoax.net

Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: Noldi400 on April 07, 2013, 11:03:39 AM

Title: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 07, 2013, 11:03:39 AM
Can anyone identify the device indicated by the arrow?  It looks sort of like a camera, but not one I'm familiar with.

(http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt353/jarvisn/Apolloish01_zps59e41415.jpg)

This is pursuant by some foolishness by hunchbacked, who can't tell a Saturn V from a Saturn IB and continues his talent for not recognizing a shadow when he sees one.

Also, does anyone recognize the location here? It's a frame from a b/w video that I didn't recognize, although part of it appears to be shot in what Pete Conrad designated the 'fantail' - the area between the seats and the rear bulkhead.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: onebigmonkey on April 07, 2013, 01:13:41 PM
Dear God what a lunatic!

I searched for the video in question and found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1y70pL9VxU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1y70pL9VxU) - I'm assuming it's the one you refer to.

There is so much wrong with that video it's difficult to know where to start! How can he not see that the 'impossible' LM and CSM footage is not from Apollo 16 at all?

Anyway, I believe the camera in question is actually the Automatic spot meter at the bottom of this page:

http://history.nasa.gov/ap16fj/02photoequip.htm (http://history.nasa.gov/ap16fj/02photoequip.htm)

And here

(http://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/attm/atmimages/99-15191-4.f.jpg)

So it isn't actually a camera.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: nomuse on April 07, 2013, 04:16:48 PM
Anyone want to summarize for those of us who don't have the patience for YouToob?
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 07, 2013, 04:42:56 PM
Anyone want to summarize for those of us who don't have the patience for YouToob?
I will, but let me get back to you in a few. It's sort of a 10-minute video Gish Gallop and is remarkable only in that pretty much each and every sentence is incorrect in some way.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: AtomicDog on April 07, 2013, 04:51:26 PM
What is Hunchbacked saying?  That there was another type of camera aboard the CM besides the Hasselblad and the video camera,  and that is proof of a hoax?
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: onebigmonkey on April 07, 2013, 05:04:46 PM
What is Hunchbacked saying?  That there was another type of camera aboard the CM besides the Hasselblad and the video camera,  and that is proof of a hoax?

Apart from mistaking Apollo 9 for Apollo 16, and a whole load of nonsense about the contact probes, he mistakes the spot meter for a camera. Because the camera is not connected to anything like a recording device, they are only pretending to film something, therefore it is all faked.

It's gibberish.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: AtomicDog on April 07, 2013, 05:42:54 PM
No Apollo video camera was connected to a recording device;  all video was directly transmitted to earth.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: dwight on April 07, 2013, 06:15:34 PM
That settles it. Between Jarrah reinventing TV history and hunchbacked not knowing  a spot meter from a TV camera, I have decided to cancel my studies at clown college. I dont stand a chance against these truly talented pros.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 07, 2013, 07:18:59 PM
Anyone want to summarize for those of us who don't have the patience for YouToob?

Along with what's already been said, there's:

A speeded up video of an astronaut getting into a spacesuit; he thinks there's something "abnormal" about the way the suit moves.

A clip where a loose headset (or something) moves in a way that he thinks indicates gravity.

A video out a CM window showing a side view of the lower half of a LM, in LEO. He claims such a view would be impossible during the 'claimed' T&D maneuver.  Of course, it's a video from Apollo 9.

A video out a LM window of the receding CSM in LEO. He claims its impossible because the CSM should be moving toward, not away from, the LM.

A shot of the inside of an open CM side hatch, wondering what all "this stuff" is for, since it "certainly does not help to open the door".

Other clips he calls "illogical" or "impossible" because he doesn't know what he's looking at.

And a long "If-I-Ran-The-Zoo" section at the end criticizing the way the LM moved during the moments before touchdown.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: dwight on April 07, 2013, 07:22:09 PM
Noldi, ask him, as I cant access the video due to use of copyright music, what caused a genius engineer to become a gibberish babbling moron. I seriously am losing patience dealing with nut farm rejects.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: AtomicDog on April 07, 2013, 07:34:15 PM
Also,  if they WERE going to fake video, why wouldn't they fake a complete video setup?
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 07, 2013, 07:50:14 PM
Noldi, ask him, as I cant access the video due to use of copyright music, what caused a genius engineer to become a gibberish babbling moron. I seriously am losing patience dealing with nut farm rejects.
I'll ask, but I'm predicting he'll go to his fallback position of "Galileo was reviled in his time, too."

Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Count Zero on April 07, 2013, 09:08:22 PM
Ummm...  What's a spot meter?
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: AtomicDog on April 07, 2013, 09:21:26 PM
http://www.all-things-photography.com/spot-metering.html

Many cameras have built in spot meters. They are also available separately.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Glom on April 08, 2013, 12:04:07 AM
It's always the same. NASA can do anything... except error check.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 08, 2013, 02:37:04 AM
It's always the same. NASA can do anything... except error check.
Or land on the moon.

I used to have fun demolishing Hunchbacked's various technical objections to Apollo systems, as many were in my own field. He seemed like a know-it-all kid exhibiting the classic danger of just a little knowledge. He'd obviously had some exposure to physics, electronics and software engineering, but his understanding is cursory and naive. He often objects to things done differently than he's used to, and he has a hard time accepting that there just might have been some perfectly good reasons. In other words, he's an absolutely classic example of Dunning-Kruger.

Still, after a lot of pounding, on a very few occasions I actually got him to retract a few claims. This made me think I just might be able to reason with him. If he could just have an epiphany that there are many things he does not know, and that many of them are actually worth learning...

Two videos then made me give up. The first was about a picture of the Apollo 17 CSM America taken through the overhead rendezvous window of the LM Challenger just before docking. It doesn't take a genius at spatial reasoning to see that we were seeing exactly what we should see from a point very close to the CSM's docking probe, but he complained that we couldn't see the sides of the SM. So I began to openly wonder if hunchbacked was blind in one eye, suffered from "lazy eye" as a kid, or had some other condition that made him unable to judge visual perspectives that would be easy for an average sighted 5-year-old kid.

But what really cemented things was his famous "Underwater Buzz Aldrin imposter breathing through microphone tubes" video. I realized at that moment that Hunchbacked is just totally batshit insane, and nothing will ever reach this poor soul.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 08, 2013, 04:14:34 PM
So I began to openly wonder if hunchbacked was blind in one eye, suffered from "lazy eye" as a kid, or had some other condition that made him unable to judge visual perspectives that would be easy for an average sighted 5-year-old kid.

But what really cemented things was his famous "Underwater Buzz Aldrin imposter breathing through microphone tubes" video. I realized at that moment that Hunchbacked is just totally batshit insane, and nothing will ever reach this poor soul.

"Batshit insane"; is that a technical term?  One of my instructors (a professor of psychiatry at Bowman Grey, he was) taught us that the correct terminology was "barnyard crazy".  ;D

Assuming that he's serious, I don't think there's any question that there's a vision issue there of some kind. Whether it's an eye problem or some kind of processing problem I don't know, but any time he tries to deal with perspective or angles in a photograph his conclusions are utter chaos.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he's a graduate of the Jack White School of Photogrammetry.

I almost always learn something new from these little jaunts, though. In this case I learned about the spot meter (designated attack dog Chev4206 is still fighting the hook - he complains that it "looks suspiciously like a hassleblad camera"). I had always wondered a little about the red helmets seen on AS-9 but assumed they were just a transition version; until I actually researched a bit I didn't know that ALL the LEVAs were red under the white beta cloth covers. How about that?

Still, wouldn't you love to talk to Hunchbacked face-to-face once, just to get a feel for what's going on in his head?
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 08, 2013, 07:14:35 PM
Assuming that he's serious, I don't think there's any question that there's a vision issue there of some kind. Whether it's an eye problem or some kind of processing problem I don't know
I'm tempted to say the problem is in the processing. A second eye isn't an advantage in judging perspective in a non-3D painting or photograph, but we can still do it a lot better than he can.

This is why I find the guy so fascinating. I understand that brain researchers learned most of what we know about its structure by examining people with various pathological conditions.
Quote
In this case I learned about the spot meter
Funny this should come up. The other week I had an argument with one of hunchbacked's groupies, Pascal Votan, who thought it incredibly suspicious that no lightmeter was carried to the surface on Apollo 11, forcing Buzz Aldrin to -- gosh -- call all the way to earth to get the exposure settings for shadow photography by the 16mm camera during the EVA. I explained that there wasn't a whole lot of unpredicability here even if it was the first manned lunar landing. I guess a spotmeter was carried in the CSM for interior photography where the lighting was much less predictable.
Quote
I had always wondered a little about the red helmets seen on AS-9 but assumed they were just a transition version; until I actually researched a bit I didn't know that ALL the LEVAs were red under the white beta cloth covers. How about that?
I had noticed that red helmet in Apollo 9 but no, I didn't know that...
Quote
Still, wouldn't you love to talk to Hunchbacked face-to-face once, just to get a feel for what's going on in his head?
It would certainly be an .... interesting .... experience, though I'm already far too familiar with what's going on in his head.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: raven on April 08, 2013, 08:21:14 PM
 I heard, 2nd hand, hunchbacked corrected a fellow conspiracy theorist on some technical bit, and was right, so there obviously is something he has some expertise or at least knowledge on.
*sigh* At least he's better than NASACrooks, Jay Blue, UTubeNWO, nasafakedit, etcetera, etcetera.
The guy even took offence when I wished him a Merry Christmas, for Pete's sake!
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 09, 2013, 03:53:45 AM
Quote
In this case I learned about the spot meter
Funny this should come up. The other week I had an argument with one of hunchbacked's groupies, Pascal Votan, who thought it incredibly suspicious that no lightmeter was carried to the surface on Apollo 11, forcing Buzz Aldrin to -- gosh -- call all the way to earth to get the exposure settings for shadow photography by the 16mm camera during the EVA. I explained that there wasn't a whole lot of unpredicability here even if it was the first manned lunar landing. I guess a spotmeter was carried in the CSM for interior photography where the lighting was much less predictable.

Yeah, I remember - I had a piece of that argument too, I think.  Usually having both hands full, most of the moonwalkers tended to use Houston as a quick reference on various things. I guess that concept is just outside the grasp of the typical HB.

I heard, 2nd hand, hunchbacked corrected a fellow conspiracy theorist on some technical bit, and was right, so there obviously is something he has some expertise or at least knowledge on.
*sigh* At least he's better than NASACrooks, Jay Blue, UTubeNWO, nasafakedit, etcetera, etcetera.
The guy even took offence when I wished him a Merry Christmas, for Pete's sake!

That's one of the things that I find fascinating about the guy. I think he's absolutely sincere about the nonsense he puts out there and believes that if we would just look at the "evidence" with open minds, the 'hoax' would be obvious. He's definitely better than his groupies like Chev4206; when someone commented that he lacked any form of critical thinking skills, he replied:

Critical thinking skills? I don't know what that is, nor do I care, as I form my own thinking skills. Those based on truth.

Well, no shit, Sherlock. All the physical evidence is faked, all the witnesses are lying. Not an argument it takes much thinking to make.









Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 09, 2013, 07:36:43 AM
Critical thinking skills? I don't know what that is, nor do I care, as I form my own thinking skills. Those based on truth.
Yup, that sounds like him alright.

Are you following the 3-way row with CNN911Fakes over whether rockets work by mass reaction?
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 09, 2013, 11:12:54 AM
Critical thinking skills? I don't know what that is, nor do I care, as I form my own thinking skills. Those based on truth.
Yup, that sounds like him alright.

Are you following the 3-way row with CNN911Fakes over whether rockets work by mass reaction?

No, I've been doing a little gishing of my on to hunchy about all the things wrong with the so-called "Apollo 16" video. I'll have to look in on that one.

===================================================
Later Edit:
If it's the one that centers around the Saturn V's thrust, I looked in on it.  That's one conversation I want no part of.  Back in school, I did quite well in geometry and elementary algebra, but somewhere along about quadratics I began to bog down, and when we hit trig and calculus my brain simply refused to accept the data.

I could follow the main trend, though. It sounds like CNNetc is trying to use something like Zeno's Arrow Paradox to prove that the S-V couldn't lift off.  Good luck with that. Another self-designated genius who can't be bothered to learn a few things before inflicting his opinions on the world.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 09, 2013, 07:28:05 PM
The math is really quite simple: thrust = mass flow rate * ejection velocity. That comes from Newton's second law just as F=ma does. In fact, Newton didn't originally say "F=ma"; he said F = dp/dt = d(mv)/dt, which says that force is proportional to the rate of change of momentum, with momentum being mass times velocity. From this you can get

F = d(mv)/dt = m dv/dt = ma.

You can also get

F = d(mv)/dt = v dm/dt = v r (velocity times mass rate)

It's this latter one that he totally rejects. And yes, he's using Zeno's paradox though I don't know if he's actually aware of it. Basically, he's taking a number X, multiplying it by zero, pointing out that the result is zero, and exclaiming this proves X must be zero!
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 10, 2013, 02:31:37 PM
But what really cemented things was his famous "Underwater Buzz Aldrin imposter breathing through microphone tubes" video. I realized at that moment that Hunchbacked is just totally batshit insane, and nothing will ever reach this poor soul.

That was definitely the point of no return, I think. I already knew that he was terrible with perspective and changing angle in photos; when he started in on the theory that the lunar astronauts sincerely believe that they went to the moon because they were drugged and hypnotized and had false memories implanted, that was when I began to suspect that his reality was somewhat distorted - "The Manchurian Astronauts"?.
Title: Re: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Glom on April 10, 2013, 03:11:23 PM
The math is really quite simple: thrust = mass flow rate * ejection velocity. That comes from Newton's second law just as F=ma does. In fact, Newton didn't originally say "F=ma"; he said F = dp/dt = d(mv)/dt, which says that force is proportional to the rate of change of momentum, with momentum being mass times velocity. From this you can get

F = d(mv)/dt = m dv/dt = ma.

You can also get

F = d(mv)/dt = v dm/dt = v r (velocity times mass rate)

It's this latter one that he totally rejects. And yes, he's using Zeno's paradox though I don't know if he's actually aware of it. Basically, he's taking a number X, multiplying it by zero, pointing out that the result is zero, and exclaiming this proves X must be zero!

It's quite a sight to see things like this. Conspiracists reject some of the most fundamental laws of physics in order to maintain their world view. Hoax belief must be quite the obsession for then to venture that far down the rabbit hole.
Title: Re: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Glom on April 10, 2013, 03:11:44 PM
The math is really quite simple: thrust = mass flow rate * ejection velocity. That comes from Newton's second law just as F=ma does. In fact, Newton didn't originally say "F=ma"; he said F = dp/dt = d(mv)/dt, which says that force is proportional to the rate of change of momentum, with momentum being mass times velocity. From this you can get

F = d(mv)/dt = m dv/dt = ma.

You can also get

F = d(mv)/dt = v dm/dt = v r (velocity times mass rate)

It's this latter one that he totally rejects. And yes, he's using Zeno's paradox though I don't know if he's actually aware of it. Basically, he's taking a number X, multiplying it by zero, pointing out that the result is zero, and exclaiming this proves X must be zero!

It's quite a sight to see things like this. Conspiracists reject some of the most fundamental laws of physics in order to maintain their world view. Hoax belief must be quite the obsession for then to venture that far down the rabbit hole.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: raven on April 10, 2013, 08:51:38 PM
Well, I wouldn't go that far. Most of them likely do not have the depth of knowledge to know they are actually doing so.
Title: Re: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Glom on April 11, 2013, 12:13:41 AM
Well, I wouldn't go that far. Most of them likely do not have the depth of knowledge to know they are actually doing so.

But you explain it to them and they dismiss it.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 11, 2013, 06:13:04 AM
Well, I wouldn't go that far. Most of them likely do not have the depth of knowledge to know they are actually doing so.
I'm not sure. Some of them are very clever in their idiocy, if you know what I mean.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Echnaton on April 11, 2013, 07:45:56 AM
Well, I wouldn't go that far. Most of them likely do not have the depth of knowledge to know they are actually doing so.
I'm not sure. Some of them are very clever in their idiocy, if you know what I mean.

But does a method to the madness negate the madness?
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 11, 2013, 08:49:04 AM
But does a method to the madness negate the madness?
What I meant was that they could easily be trolling. They are only pretending to be stupid, and doing it in a clever way. For example, they simply ignore any line of questioning designed to trap them in a clear contradiction.

Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 11, 2013, 10:28:00 AM
Some of them, too, will seemingly become wedded to one formula that they think they understand and (because they actually don't understand it or its correct application) that they think proves or disproves something and cling to it no matter how many times their mistake is explained.

Heiwa, with his kinetic energy obsession, comes to mind. Or CNNetc, with his current obsession with f=ma and his insistence that it somehow calls into question the capabilities of the Saturn V.

My understanding of physics is rudimentary at best, especially in the company I'm keeping on this board, but I generally have the intelligence to know what I do and don't understand.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: twik on April 11, 2013, 11:20:09 AM
I already knew that he was terrible with perspective and changing angle in photos; when he started in on the theory that the lunar astronauts sincerely believe that they went to the moon because they were drugged and hypnotized and had false memories implanted, that was when I began to suspect that his reality was somewhat distorted - "The Manchurian Astronauts"?.

I think there's always a tipping point with conspiracists. Many people like throwing around conspiracy theories, because, as one writer put it, "they have an engaging air of plausibility on their surface, and would make things interesting if true." However, when the theorist gets to the point of believing that the entire world (other than him or her) is collaborating on a sham of reality, s/he's gone beyond being able to judge something as "plausible".
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Andromeda on April 11, 2013, 11:21:57 AM
That's the nub.

I am a pretty good physicist, but don't undstand a lot of the engineering nitty gritty.

It may well be that I am committing a logical fallacy (accepting an argument from authority?) but when someone who I know has a lot of knowledge and experience in engineering tells me something is so, whether I understand it or not, I believe them.  I assume any failure to understand is my problem, not that the rest of the world is wrong.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 11, 2013, 11:49:11 AM
That's the nub.

I am a pretty good physicist, but don't undstand a lot of the engineering nitty gritty.

It may well be that I am committing a logical fallacy (accepting an argument from authority?) but when someone who I know has a lot of knowledge and experience in engineering tells me something is so, whether I understand it or not, I believe them.  I assume any failure to understand is my problem, not that the rest of the world is wrong.
Well, as I said in an earlier post, accepting an argument from authority isn't necessarily a fallacy; the factors are (1) is the authority a legitimate expert in the field, and (2) is there a consensus among legitimate experts that agrees with his/her statement?

So, for example, if JayUtah makes a statement about astrodynamics that agrees with the current consensus among other astronautical engineers, you're on safe ground in treating the statement as presumptively true.

Which reflects my view about a large part of the Apollo program.  I have a working understanding of most of it, even if I can't do the math when it comes to the fine points. Unlike the HB mindset, I (like you) presume that anything I don't understand is a lack on my part, not a failure of the real world to bend to my expectations.

Hell, even experts get surprised. Both Armstrong and Conrad commented on the lack of a blast crater under the LM, so it sounds as if they were expecting to see one. Sometimes the real world just surprises us.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Andromeda on April 11, 2013, 12:02:49 PM
Hell, even experts get surprised. Both Armstrong and Conrad commented on the lack of a blast crater under the LM, so it sounds as if they were expecting to see one. Sometimes the real world just surprises us.

Very true.  "Common sense" is sometimes (or even often) distorted - I can think of a few experiments that have been run where the results had me scratching my head and saying, "Wait... what?!"
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Noldi400 on April 11, 2013, 02:37:56 PM
Hell, even experts get surprised. Both Armstrong and Conrad commented on the lack of a blast crater under the LM, so it sounds as if they were expecting to see one. Sometimes the real world just surprises us.

Very true.  "Common sense" is sometimes (or even often) distorted - I can think of a few experiments that have been run where the results had me scratching my head and saying, "Wait... what?!"

Like the second quote in your sig - it's the surprises that open new doors.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: gillianren on April 11, 2013, 05:46:48 PM
It may well be that I am committing a logical fallacy (accepting an argument from authority?) but when someone who I know has a lot of knowledge and experience in engineering tells me something is so, whether I understand it or not, I believe them.  I assume any failure to understand is my problem, not that the rest of the world is wrong.

Provided you're limiting it to "this person knows engineering in X capacity, and this thing is in X capacity," I think you and I are good when we do that.  Goodness knows I'd be in trouble if I were required to do all the math myself; I don't even know where to start, in a lot of places.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Jason Thompson on April 11, 2013, 06:44:07 PM
"Common sense" is sometimes (or even often) distorted - I can think of a few experiments that have been run where the results had me scratching my head and saying, "Wait... what?!"

My favourite one of those that got me during my A-level physics class was the magnet down a copper tube. I remember the teacher dropping a plain metal slug down a copper tube into a box of sand. It fell with the acceleration and final velocity you'd expect of an object in freefall. She then dropped another one down the tube. Same size, same mass, same shape. The only difference was it was magnetic. Of course none of us expected anythign different to happen since copper is not magnetic. It fell more slowly. A LOT more slowly. We were all quite stunned. Then she explained about the movement of the magnet causing eddy currents in the electrons in the copper, setting up an opposing magentic field in the tube that slowed its fall. Not something any one of us would ever have thought of given our 'common sense' knowledge of metals and magnets, but there it was.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 12, 2013, 05:30:15 AM
I am a pretty good physicist, but don't undstand a lot of the engineering nitty gritty.

It may well be that I am committing a logical fallacy (accepting an argument from authority?)
If you're a physicist, then you're a scientist. That means you understand the scientific method common to all fields of science (and with significant application in engineering and medicine). So even if you don't personally know the field in question, you can at least check that the experts are following the scientific method in theirs.

I've had to think about this recently while debating some global-warming deniers. I have enough personal expertise in physics, engineering and other fields relevant to space flight to not have to take anybody else's word that Apollo was real, but I most definitely don't in climate research. Besides, we don't have any major life decisions to base on Apollo's reality. For climate change, we do.

Oh, I understand the basic physics of radiative heat transfer and the general mechanism of global warming from greenhouse gas emissions, but that's far from being able to independently evaluate the claims that the earth's average temperature will rise X degrees in 10, 50 or 100 years and what that will mean. I really have to trust the judgment of those who do work in that field.

But I can still walk around and "kick the tires". I can see that many researchers are active in the field. I can look at their credentials and see that they have what seem like the relevant skills and experience. I can see that their raw data and computer models are open to inspection and verification. I can see that they publish formal papers in open journals, present them at conferences and answer questions. I can see that they review each others' work before it is formally presented. I can see that dissenting views are encouraged and accepted or rejected after a proper evaluation.

To a limited extent I can also look at their track record: have their short-term predictions been accurate?

So when this process produced a strong consensus, I thought it reasonable to accept the experts' conclusions, to base decisions on them and advocate that others do the same. But that acceptance is always tentative.

Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 12, 2013, 05:46:04 AM
Not something any one of us would ever have thought of given our 'common sense' knowledge of metals and magnets, but there it was.
When I first heard of this experiment it seemed 'common sense' to me that the magnet would fall slowly. But I was already well on my way to becoming an electrical engineer.

I don't remember seeing it before I got interested in electricity and electronics, but if I had I probably would have had the same reaction as you. Maybe I did and I've simply forgotten.

My point is that 'common sense' is neither common nor innate nor fixed, even if it seems like 'common sense' that it should be. It's really a product of all your education and experience, and that's why it's so different from person to person.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 12, 2013, 06:23:21 AM
When many people can't independently verify an expert's conclusions, they often look not only at his education, experience and method but also his motives. Lawyers, regulators and politicians seem to do this almost to the exclusion of everything else, as do many ordinary people.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I find it highly disturbing because the truth or falsity of a fact does not depend on who says it (unless it applies to that person, of course) or their motives. A factual claim should be judged on its own merits.

On the other hand, I can't deny that there are many examples of the scientific process being corrupted by ulterior motives like money and power. In fact I'm seriously worried about the survival of the traditional scientific method.

So far, it's been marvelously effective at ferreting out honest mistakes, self-delusion and the occasional case of malice or greed. But because science has been so enormously successful, it now plays a major role in creating wealth and informing public policy. Certain individuals or groups -- often well endowed -- can have a very large stake in the outcome of a certain scientific investigation, and that creates a strong incentive to influence it.

So for many people, especially non-scientists, maybe examining motive really is the most cost- and time-effective method available when they don't know how to judge a claim on its own merits.

I find even myself making this argument when I point out the irony of the energy companies accusing climate scientists of being financially motivated. But it still makes me uncomfortable and I'm not sure what we can do about it.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Not Myself on April 12, 2013, 10:42:18 AM
So for many people, especially non-scientists, maybe examining motive really is the most cost- and time-effective method available when they don't know how to judge a claim on its own merits.

I think it is often likely to be the most cost- and time-effective method for scientists as well.  No one can be an expert in everything.

In this regard, it seems to me that many scientists and non-scientists alike are very inclined to judge the most reliable sources to be those which tell them what they want to hear.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 12, 2013, 09:15:20 PM
In this regard, it seems to me that many scientists and non-scientists alike are very inclined to judge the most reliable sources to be those which tell them what they want to hear.
Then we're all doomed.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Not Myself on April 12, 2013, 11:21:44 PM
In this regard, it seems to me that many scientists and non-scientists alike are very inclined to judge the most reliable sources to be those which tell them what they want to hear.
Then we're all doomed.

Oh, I don't know.  I suspect not much has changed in this regard for thousands of years.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 13, 2013, 12:16:05 AM
Oh, I don't know.  I suspect not much has changed in this regard for thousands of years.
That's precisely the problem! Our mode of thinking hasn't changed for thousands of years. But our numbers, our technology and our impact on the environment have all changed, and they're all in an unprecedented state.

Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Not Myself on April 14, 2013, 12:53:41 AM
Oh, I don't know.  I suspect not much has changed in this regard for thousands of years.
That's precisely the problem! Our mode of thinking hasn't changed for thousands of years. But our numbers, our technology and our impact on the environment have all changed, and they're all in an unprecedented state.

But then (assuming we're right about how much thought has changed) all of this happened despite a lack of fundamental change in modes of thinking.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 14, 2013, 07:08:14 AM
Biologically we're little different from our ancestors of 200,000 years ago. But because we have culture, defined as the passing down of knowledge from generation to generation, we have the accumulated knowledge of all the generations between them and us. In particular we have the discovery of a highly effective method for determining how the natural world works, and the application of this discovery has been enormously successful.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Allan F on April 14, 2013, 07:57:34 AM
Newton's famous quote: "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: ka9q on April 15, 2013, 12:44:02 AM
Exactly. I've always loved that quote.

Interestingly enough, I don't think it's exactly original with him, either. Which just underscores the point that it makes.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: raven on April 15, 2013, 01:29:51 AM
Truth don't matter who says it. That's one if its terrible beauties.
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: Echnaton on April 15, 2013, 07:49:12 AM
The metaphor is quite old.  There are four windows in the Chartres Cathedral that show the four  evangelists sitting on the shoulders of the four main Jewish prophets.  The prophets are noticeably taller than the evangelist, thus on the shoulders of giants. 
Title: Re: A Little Help, Please?
Post by: darren r on April 15, 2013, 10:52:47 AM
Exactly. I've always loved that quote.

Interestingly enough, I don't think it's exactly original with him, either. Which just underscores the point that it makes.

It's also believed to have been a subtle insult aimed at one of his rivals, a man of short stature.