Teachers: do you believe the moon landings were a hoax?

[noblegiraffe]

I was just on Teacher Tapp and found the results from this poll pretty horrifying: 15% of teachers polled don’t disagree with the statement “I believe the moon landings from 1969 to 1972 were actually a hoax”.

What now? Nearly 1 in 6 of us??

his marriage to Ann of Cleve's was annulled so therefore never actually existed

That would be an ecumenical matter.

It would indeed.

Drink!

Sorry. Can't resist a father jack interlude with that phrase....

Thanks, @Cooroo btw. Sometimes you feel like you’re going a bit mad!

StripyDeckchair

I can't always, but yes, facts exist separately from my feelings about them.

MissMarplesKnitting

As was his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. He argued that, because she was his brother's wife, he was ill-advised in marrying her. And he annulled the marriage himself, once he seized control of the Church. Apparently/

Because the conspiracy theorists won’t be couching their arguments in caveats and weak pleading, and kids (and adults) need to see people who aren’t afraid to call them out on it.

If this argument is considered rational, I just don't know what to say. I am an Englishman in New York.

People like certainty and confidence. We can’t let the only people talking with certainty and confidence be the idiots peddling stupid ideas.

Moon landings = living witnesses
Holocaust = few still living witnesses but plenty of recorded testaments
Henry VIII = only written evidence

noblegiraffe

I believe I talk with confidence. I just don't express things as certainties until I am confident that they are that.

elephantoverthehill

And I believe that is true. I simply happen to have looked more at the Henry than the ML.

I guess where that leaves us is with an extreme empiricist position in which you are able to know the truth only of those things you directly experience. It's a philosophical position but not one I can get on board with, given its moral consequences. Often, historically, it's been a position people take when they want to say their experience is the only one that matters.

I don't think our evaluations of facts are just neutral. I think they are messy, ethical, emotional, and involved. I can see how it might seem that we're less likely to get to the truth that way but I don't think that's so. I think we wrestle with the facts together as communities to come to the best judgements we can. These judgements allow us to say that we don't just believe certain things, we do know them. We know the holocaust happened. But that isn't a detached knowledge- it's a storied knowledge, full of feelings.

When they liberated Auschwitz they found 43,000 pairs of shoes. I don't think they'd let you count the ones left now but you could go there and see a lot of shoes. Have you done that? Could you look at those shoes and say you don't know whether the Holocaust happened? Are those shoes pieces of moon rock to you? I.e. Potentially stuff generated by a conspiracy you could never ultimately disprove?

May I ask how old you are farce? I watched Bo66y tonight. I was aged 1 when England won the World Cup. I have never doubted it happened. I obviously have no recollection of it but I know from all the evidence that it did happen in 1966. However if I was to ignore that evidence, and base my theories on my experience of England playing in World cups it would bring me to the conclusion that it simply did not happen.

When they liberated Auschwitz they found 43,000 pairs of shoes. I don't think they'd let you count the ones left now but you could go there and see a lot of shoes. Have you done that? Could you look at those shoes and say you don't know whether the Holocaust happened? Are those shoes pieces of moon rock to you? I.e. Potentially stuff generated by a conspiracy you could never ultimately disprove?

I have never been. I believe it happened. What you want from me, an admission that it is a certainty, you will never get, but that doesn't mean I do not feel it.

elephantoverthehill

I am not old enough to have seen England win the World Cup. I believe they won it. I have no reason not to believe it. I do not know it.

Farce I guess you are not very good at pub quizzes then.

I think those with doubts or who need more concrete evidence of the moon landings should consider what it would entail to perpetrate a hoax on that scale. Common sense alone should tell most people and especially those responsible for educating young people that the sheer numbers of people who would have to be involved in the cover up would make keeping such a secret untenable.

There'd be scientists, engineers, astronauts, members of the military, politicians, manufacturers of components and materials, not to mention all their families, friends and other associates then we have the journalists, tv companies and all those involved on the production side of broadcasting the event and on and on. They'd number in the bloody thousands yet not one single adherent to this particularly ludicrous conspiracy theory can point to one single person who has blown the whistle.

It's one I admit to finding very annoying given I live and work in an area and in industries closely associated with aerospace tech and know it makes a mockery of so many people's bravery not to mention the work that went into the contributions to the sciences surrounding space exploration, much of which has had enormous spin-off benefits for mankind.

The holocaust one? Yeah, a lot of white supremacist twats hiding behind keyboards voicing that one. Never met one brave enough to say it out loud in my hearing and I hope I never do because though I'm a believer that violence is never the answer I'd almost have to make an exception to punch such a person in their evil lying mouth. Scum of the Earth.

elephantoverthehill

I suck arse at pub quizzes.

Do you accept that to say it is not a certainty is to be morally culpable (even if only in some small way) in making room for Holocaust denial and its consequences?

I've come across many people who doubt the moon landings. They believe it was a huge hoax.

I remember watching it on telly, half asleep and later seeing a rerun. I've no idea whether it was real or staged - don't care either.

What does it matter?

RibbonAurora

I get all of that, and I think a conspiracy is unlikely.

StripyDeckchair

No I fucking don't! Excuse my French.

Need to get some sleep now. I think we could continue this for some time. I think a white nationalist who heard you say you didn't know whether the Holocaust happened wouldn't hang around to hear the qualification about nonetheless believing it did.

Thanks for the chat.

We do know the Holocaust happened.
We do know the moon landing happened.
We do know climate change is happening.

What does it matter?

One of the greatest achievements of humankind. People worked together to put humans into space. They walked on another world and came back home safely. In terms of our place in the universe, our view of ourselves as a species, that’s massive. We came in peace for all mankind.

It’s paved the way for so many technological advances, for further space travel, for collaboration between nations. We’ve sent probes to the edge of the solar system and landed robots on Mars, comets and asteroids. People are seriously planning a manned Mars mission in the near future.

But instead of thinking of that in awe and wonder, you get idiots going ‘yeah but that flag looks a bit funny so I’m having none of it’.

Just need to submit my 2p on this. People that deny the moon landings are incredibly short sighted and at a guess (majority) have not done their research. Do you not know that thousands of technology discoveries were due to NASA inventions in their bid to get to the moon and explore space? To think that inventions like insulation, cordless power tools, memory foam, smoke detectors...all came from such missions. To deny the moon landings would be rewinding decades of man kind progress!!

What does it matter? These people are meant to be teachers but are so gullible they get caught up in whacky conspiracy beliefs that most children can see through.

My 13 year old has more developed critical thinking that some of the whack jobs on here.