Author Topic: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith  (Read 48743 times)

Offline JayUtah

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #135 on: April 05, 2019, 01:25:25 AM »
The modern translation of the psalm does not say that the firmament 'did' its handiwork. It says 'shows his handiwork'  -  the pretty stars in the sky. Your choice of one word completely skews your interpretation. Is that deliberate?

Probably.  In ancient Hebrew, the operative verb here best translates as "narrates" or "tells." (cf. Gesenius) It's specifically meant to be detached from "does."  Jr Knowing's desired translation of the Hebrew words meaning "and the work [of] his hands" is as an agent.  That's wholly precluded by the grammar.  For it to be translated that way, there would have to be an adverbial which is not in the text.  As is the case with so many religious adherents, he is beginning with his desired meaning and just pretending the text supports it.  He's not translating the text.  He's just making crap up, as usual.

He doesn't really know engineering, so he just waves his hands vaguely.  He doesn't actually know image analysis, hence we get "remix the contrast."  And he doesn't actually read Hebrew, so we get the religious-sounding gobbledy-gook above.
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Offline Jason Thompson

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #136 on: April 05, 2019, 02:28:08 AM »
Hi Jason/Jay/ Von Smith

Don't want to belabor this point,

Of course you do. You'll belabour any point as long as you think it's distracting us from the pile of unanswered questions you are already accumulating.

There is nothing here to belabour. The fact remains, von Braun's headstone does not have the words on it at all. You are inferring the words he intended to have there, then further inferring some hidden meaning to the exact words you inferred he meant by trying to use their literal meaning. That isn't even close to being a sound argument.

'To you' it's a strange epitaph. Well whoopee-f***ing-do. So what?

Now get back to the actual business at hand, and address the argments you claim you want to have. Specifically, I still await your response to the outstanding questions regarding LM stability and that memo (not paper) that you claim proves it is unstable when it actually, mathematically and graphically, shows the exact opposite.
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Offline gillianren

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #137 on: April 05, 2019, 02:46:13 AM »
I will bet you $50 that Wernher Von Braun did not grow up using the King James Bible.  Want to take me up on that?
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Offline Jason Thompson

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #138 on: April 05, 2019, 04:04:39 AM »
Huh? What are truth's protective layers and what specific one is he talking about?

Confusing for you, is it? Look, human history is basically the story of work done to uncover the truth about how the world works. Think about how many truths have been 'hidden' until we developed the right tools. No-one knew diseases were caused by micro-organisms until we developed a microscope and saw them for the first time. No-one knew Jupiter had moons until we developed a telescope and saw them for the first time, and that led to ever increasing support for the truth of the solar system being heliocentric rather than geocentric.

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To me, he is either talking about the firmament or he is suggesting a certain truth is being withheld from the public and that truth needs to be made known in order for us as a civilization can progress "to places beyond belief".

So you really don't think he might have been referring poetically to the fact that the truth about the Moon's composition and creation, which was hidden for so long behind the 'protective layer' of being too far away for us to reach throughout human history up until the second half of the twentieth century, was found by actually going there for the first time? To the way we 'removed a protective layer' of distance by developing the technology that allowed us to cross that distance and set foot on it? By collecting and analysing material that up until then we could only conjecture about? You really don't see that as a more likely meaning from the guy who was the first to make that step onto the surface and pick up the stuff we couldn't get to until then?
"There's this idea that everyone's opinion is equally valid. My arse! Bloke who was a professor of dentistry for forty years does NOT have a debate with some eejit who removes his teeth with string and a door!"  - Dara O'Briain

Online Zakalwe

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #139 on: April 05, 2019, 04:19:38 AM »
This forum is primarily dedicating to exploring the science and engineering in the Apollo program as well as debunking hoaxie nonsense. It's not really a place for the philosophical discussion about an conspiracy believer's view on epitaphs on gravestones.

This is a diversion into an area that jr Knowing can try to control as there is no way to show definitively what was going through a dead man's mind when choosing an epitaph (assuming it was von Braun that chose the epitaph and not one of his family!).

If jr Knowing is determined to take this down a rabbit hole without addressing his glaring mistakes then can we close this thread down and allow him to start a new one in the Beyond Belief section, or preferably, on somewhere dedicated to this nonsense.
It's clear to me that jr knowing is nothing more than yet another hoaxie with a bad case of crank magnetism. Having had his arse handed to him on a plate he clearly has no intention of addressing the glaring gaps in his "thinking" but wants to "bait and switch" into crankiest of crank discussions.
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Offline onebigmonkey

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #140 on: April 05, 2019, 06:38:03 AM »
I will bet you $50 that Wernher Von Braun did not grow up using the King James Bible.  Want to take me up on that?

:D

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Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, und die Feste verkündigt seiner Hände Werk.

1912 Lutheran https://www.biblestudytools.com/lut/passage/?q=psalm+19:12-13;+psalm+19:1

Offline Halcyon Dayz, FCD

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #141 on: April 05, 2019, 08:29:37 AM »
An old-timey Prussian Lutheran would use Luther's translation.

Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, und die Feste verkündigt seiner Hände Werk.

(For some reason Himmel is plural here.)


Except that you have a problem linguistically between the concepts of "derived from" and "translated as."
AKA etymological fallacy.
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Offline Von_Smith

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #142 on: April 05, 2019, 09:57:40 AM »
Yes Jay the firmament did (was or is) doing it's job. God, by his handywork, had ensured it was in place full filling God's intended purpose.

No, that's not what the verse says.  Try again.

The funny thing about all this talk about literalism is that it is self-defeating.  jK's entire hypothesis here relies on the notion that von Braun was using the verse as a metaphor for something it doesn't literally refer to at all.  The author of Psalm 19 wasn't literally referring to concealing the moon landing hoax, nor would von Braun have thought he was.  Using it that way necessarily involves construing the passage metaphorically.

Offline JayUtah

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #143 on: April 05, 2019, 09:59:19 AM »
For some reason Himmel is plural here.

Because it's plural in the Hebrew.  Or more accurately, a dual.  Hebrew has three numbers for nouns:  singular, dual, and plural.  So does ancient Greek.  Mayim means "[two] waters," and the word Luther renders as die Himmel, shamayim, derives from it -- the "[two] sky waters."  English translators also translate shamayim as "heavens" instead of "heaven."  Even today, we in English use a poetic plural, e.g. "The heavens opened" to indicate rain, probably irrespective of the question of translation from Hebrew.  Number in Hebrew doesn't always connote cardinality.  Here it's more likely to be a "majestic" dual.  Making something dual or plural -- even when it's clearly singular (or where number is meaningless) -- endows the word with greater importance and power.  The jury of Semitic linguistics is still pondering whether that's the case for mayim.  In any case t's up to the translator to decide what to say in a language that has different conventions.  For example, the Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, is also a dual.    It literally refers to the two Egypts because back then the notion of Egypt was as a late unification of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms.  Now the translator could easily adopt a construct such as what we mean when we say "The Americas," but that would be confusing.  So he just uses the concept familiar to English speakers -- one Egypt.

You point out the etymological fallacy, which is quite pertinent to the discussion, but it wasn't exactly where I was going with that.  Putting together two words, say sha + mayim, to create a new word is an example of a derivation.  The Gesenius lexicon for Hebrew is immaculately researched on points like this.  The derived word isn't always meant forever to be a concrete combination of its constituents.  "Mortgage" doesn't literally mean "death pledge," although that's what you'd think if you tried to define it solely by the constituents from which it was derived.  In Hebrew as in English, the derived word takes on a meaning of its own, and may take on meanings for symbolic or poetic purposes that have nothing to do with its derivation.  I could write, "We've mortgaged our future by a short-sighted energy policy," and that would use "mortgage" to mean a diminishment of use or potential.

Translation is different.  The path that arrives at the Hebrew word shamayim can be wholly different than the path that arrives at the English "heaven."  Each of these words has its own derivation according to its prototypical languages or related languages.  Each brings with it a certain linguistic baggage.  At some point, however, a translator decides that there is enough congruence between the two present meanings of those words that one can stand for another.  To say "heavens" derives from shamayim (or, for that matter, that "firmament" derives from raqqiya) is misleading.  No, it's outright incorrect.  We've decided that the English word "firmament" is the best word to represent the Hebrew word raqqiya.  That has nothing do with how either "firmament" or raqqiya was derived.  Amusingly, Jr Knowing insists that shamayim and raqqiya must be distinct and that "firmament" and "heavens" must also be distinct.  He's all at sea when it comes to understanding how Hebrew poets write.  The structure of Ps 19:1 (actually it's v. 2 in the Hebrew numbering) mandates that shamayim and raqqiya must -- here, at least -- evoke a common image.  And to throw a wrench in the works, "heavens" is a term in Elizabethan theater meaning the removable ceiling over the thrust stage.  As you might expect, Jr Knowing is simply making up stuff to suit his purposes.

Along those lines, in his rush to tell us the limitations of the "firmament," he has told us that raqqiya means a solid dome.  That's true enough.  It doesn't have to be dome-shaped; it can be flat surface such as a desert floor.  It's derived from a root meaning to beat out or flatten as with a mallet.  Less often it can mean a figurative "extent," or also the title of the James S.A. Corey novel series.  That would be an example of a meaning that transcends its literal derivation.  In very ancient Hebrew cosmology, though, it means dome-shaped, and it conveys solidity.  We refer to the other extra-Biblical meanings to help inform us what nuances might apply to a Bible reading.  But Jr Knowing took solidity also to mean it was impenetrable, impermeable.  That is not a connotation of raqqiya.  That's certainly what he needs it to mean in his von Braun fantasy, but in very old Hebrew cosmology the firmament is certainly permeable because that's how you get rain.  And the Lutheran commentator to which I referred him said as much.  That's probably why Jr Knowing has been evasive about that.  There is absolutely nothing in Hebrew cosmology or Lutheran exegesis that says the raqqiya is impenetrable.

The final laugh comes, as Von_Smith has just noted, when you see the contradiction in his recent approach.  Jr Knowing has fallen all over himself telling us that von Braun, as a good Lutheran, would have read the Bible literally, and that this means he would have considered the "firmament" to be impenetrable.  But when I ask Jr Knowing to render the verse literally from the Hebrew to support his paraphrase, "the firmament did its job," he can't do it.  He has to lapse into a figurative (and wholly ungrammatical) rearrangement of the concepts in the verse to arrive at his desired meaning.  The only way he can get the verse to mean what his argument requires it to mean is to paraphrase it and radically change its meaning, not read it literally.  That's probably why he evaded my requests for so long that he do so.  Once he did, his hand was tipped.

Rest assured Jr Knowing's linguistic and theological skill is just as inadequate as his engineering skill.
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Offline Echnaton

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #144 on: April 05, 2019, 10:35:20 AM »
I will bet you $50 that Wernher Von Braun did not grow up using the King James Bible.  Want to take me up on that?
No way! LOL

Stating that a German speaking Lutheran born in the early 20th century in a town that is now in Poland actually grew up reading an English language bible is mind boggling ignorant on jr Knowing's part.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2019, 10:38:53 AM by Echnaton »
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Offline bknight

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #145 on: April 05, 2019, 10:55:40 AM »
<snip for brevity>
Rest assured Jr Knowing's linguistic and theological skill is just as inadequate as his engineering skill.

We should get back to discussing regolith rather than religious beliefs, IMO
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Offline gillianren

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #146 on: April 05, 2019, 11:03:38 AM »
Y'all just don't want me to get the $50.  I see how it is.
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Offline Echnaton

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #147 on: April 05, 2019, 11:35:54 AM »
Y'all just don't want me to get the $50.  I see how it is.
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Offline JayUtah

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #148 on: April 05, 2019, 11:53:33 AM »
We should get back to discussing regolith rather than religious beliefs, IMO

I would love that.  Sadly, short of heavy-handed moderation, there is no way to get Jr Knowing to stick to a subject he assiduously wants to avoid.  When he first brought up the von Braun tombstone, I voted to disregard it and stick with the regolith discussion.  But we are individuals operating by loose consensus alone, so it really only takes one person who is interested in addressing the religious cosmology question for the distraction to work.  Then it's either follow, or sit on the sideline.  At worst this should be its own thread.  LunarOrbit likes keeping the forum topically organized.  That way those who don't want to follow don't have to.

This forum is primarily dedicating to exploring the science and engineering in the Apollo program as well as debunking hoaxie nonsense.

I certainly prefer the scientific and engineering debates, or at least debates based on observation and straightforward lines of reasoning.  They raise tractable questions, in contrast to eternal second-guessing and mindreading.  But there's no rule that says hoax claims have to attack the science and engineering.  It's perfectly legitimate to talk about "soft" things like human behavior or politics.

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It's not really a place for the philosophical discussion about an conspiracy believer's view on epitaphs on gravestones.

The pertinent argument is that maybe Wernher von Braun was trying to say something by choosing that particular verse for his epitaph.  There is a subgenre of Apollo hoax claims that focus on Apollo participants' behavior after the missions and try to attribute nefarious motives to behaviors they characterize as suspicious.  Armstrong was reclusive to avoid talking about his fraud, Aldrin was driven to alcoholism by guilt, etc.  It falls into that category to argue that von Braun may have been trying to blow the whistle on his deathbed by alluding to the heavens as impenetrable.

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If jr Knowing is determined to take this down a rabbit hole without addressing his glaring mistakes then can we close this thread down and allow him to start a new one...

That should happen anyway, just to facilitate organizing the information we contribute to this site.

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Having had his arse handed to him on a plate he clearly has no intention of addressing the glaring gaps in his "thinking" but wants to "bait and switch" into crankiest of crank discussions.

This is all ego driven.  He's trying to find a subject on which he can pontificate without having his arse handed to him.  The problem is that he relies so much on bluff and bluster instead of actual knowledge that he's always going to run into someone who can hand him the particular arse-cheek he waves.

As I attempted to summarize yesterday, he is really out of premises in this thread.  They've all been refuted, and he's even conceded a few.  The only unaddressed one that remains is how he can discern the depth of the regolith just by looking at a picture of it.  It's been rebutted, but he hasn't rejoined.  There's no question his argument fails that says the photos of the surface are fake because the regolith doesn't look right.  It's been piecemeal refuted.  All that's lacking is an overarching concession of his entire point.  And we'll never get that.  It's never in the nature of a fringe theorist to respond to conclusive refutation with a decisive retraction.  I've been doing this since the mid-1990s and I've seen it happen only once.  This is because the proponent never actually changes his mind.  He keeps believing that, despite his failure to argue effectively, his claims are still somehow valid.  So this thread, as it treats photographs of the lunar regolith, is as effectively closed as it's ever going to get.  We have successfully refuted the claim, but he still believes that somehow the photos "just don't look right," and may indicate forgery.  When the belief comes first and the argument after, it's easy to keep the allure of the belief separate in one's mind from the inadequacy of the argument.  It doesn't matter in that case that there are glaring errors.

Ditto the lunar module thread.  He's reached a point where, if he doesn't address the mathematics, he can remain blissfully confident that "somehow" his fears of instability have some sort of technical foundation.  He can continue believing that his common sense trumps the math.  He has concluded that the reaction control jets themselves are causing the flow separation.  But since he is not burdened with a knowledge of flow dynamics, he can remain blissfully unaware that this is not possible.  He can continue to believe that out there, somewhere, is the paper that confirms his diagnosis of LM stability, even if he presently can't find it.

Fringe argumentation is less about establishing the point at hand than about establishing the fringe theorist as an authority, a hero.  As long as there's some path through the shell craters in his argument toward a reasonable boost in self-esteem, the exercise has succeeded for the claimant.  That's why we're talking about Hebrew poetry and Lutheran exegetics.  Jr Knowing is desperate to show he's better at something than somebody.  It doesn't matter a lot to him who or what that is.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline bknight

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Re: Moon Rocks and the Absence of Regolith
« Reply #149 on: April 05, 2019, 12:12:00 PM »
<snip for brevity>

Fringe argumentation is less about establishing the point at hand than about establishing the fringe theorist as an authority, a hero.  As long as there's some path through the shell craters in his argument toward a reasonable boost in self-esteem, the exercise has succeeded for the claimant.  That's why we're talking about Hebrew poetry and Lutheran exegetics.  Jr Knowing is desperate to show he's better at something than somebody.  It doesn't matter a lot to him who or what that is.

I agree with summation, and he wants attention to bolster his willfully ignorant knowledge and his ego.
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan