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??

What would be the reasons to keep going to the moon? If there are billions of dollars going spare in the space budget it makes more sense to investigate other places.

It must be difficult to imagine if you haven't lived through times when two superpowers ruled the world but if there was even an inkling of a smigeon of a chance of a hoax 1969 manned landing the Soviet Union would have found out and delighted in sharing it with the rest of the world. I assume they spent years trying to find out as well.

Wow - why the belligerence OP?

Well firstly it was disappointment in my fellow teachers who believe a conspiracy theory. Then it was annoyance at the whole pomo ‘everyone’s opinions are equally valid’ bullshit. It’s the ‘we’ve had enough of experts’ narrative that has caused no end of crap. No Brian, your views on why the Twin Towers fell like they did are not as valid as those of a structural engineer.

The whole ‘explain this to me and if you can’t then you have to doubt everything’ line is insidious.

Will no one think about Laika? does pearl clutching MN stuff

Completely agree, OP. People who ask you to explain everything to them and then remain belligerent are generally just ignorant, having usually read one story or listened to David Icke and bade their whole belief system on that. Educators should be educated!!

The whole ‘explain this to me and if you can’t then you have to doubt everything’ line is insidious.

Yes. that's what I am facing atm with my dh and find it really hard. But start to understand why, since people educated enough to be a teacher is divided in opinions, not like 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000, but 1 in 6!

Just looked it up and Laika launched 61 years ago today.

Oops! Thought it was the 3rd today so not an anniversary at all....

I am not going to sit here debating the ins and outs of everything I think. What's the point? I think what I think. If you - or anyone else - disagrees and wants to believe I am an idiot, I really don't care.

But just to clarify (not inviting further attack, by the way, just clarifying), I don't think the ML was faked. I just don't know it wasn't.

Wednesdaypig but still a bit of a coincidence.

Yes!

Yes. that's what I am facing atm with my dh and find it really hard.

irvine tell him you don’t need to be able to explain every single scientific detail of the moon landings because the conclusion that they were faked is easily disproved by thinking about the whole picture sensibly.

Or you could go the Buzz Aldrin way of dealing with conspiracy theorists and punch him in the face

My dad, who is the most sensible, rational person ever is convinced the whole thing is a fake. Thinks the technology was basic, the spaceships were just covered in tinfoil, is utterly convinced it's fake. He has read books about it, biographies, we bought him the Haynes Apollo 11 manual for Christmas one year, be he remains 100% certain it was all fake. It's very strange.

Why haven’t we been since then. iPhones have more technology than their rocket did, should’ve opened up an M&S food store on there by now

This made me laugh.

Surely there are teachers who believe in God...?

Soviet communism in the 50s, they faked a lot of things to show to the world their brand of communism was working so if they had landed on the moon first, I would seriously consider it a hoax. The world would have been shown a propaganda film/interviews etc. and nothing else. With the US there was so much build up and periphery and history since, that something somewhere would have leaked.

What makes you capable of evaluating the evidence for everything?

I do feel the need to reply to this.

Firstly, Noble, I am disappointed by this thread as well. I used to think you were clever, and nice. Now, I not only think you are mixing up probabilities and certainties (which is, for a Maths teacher, a bit odd) I think you have been on the gin, and a side of you which isn't very nice has come to the fore.

Secondly, I don't think I am capable of evaluating everything. There are many things I am completely incapable of evaluating, such as the veracity of the Big Bang theory, quantum mechanics, the multi-universe, and so on. But that doesn't mean I accept, wholesale, any theory I am incapable of demolishing or proving. All it means is that, mentally, I put those things in the category "unknown", a place they will probably have to stay.

reallybadidea

Why would getting in a plane have been terrifying?

at the terrible denouncing of noble as not-nice for this

If the moon landings were faked, why would they have stopped?
Think about it. Some conglomerate of dudes with nothing better to do would be extorting money from the rest of us with promises of we’ve nearly cured cancer up there... just another $$$trillion...
But instead it was boring old moon rock and now there’s basically no need to go back. If that doesn’t shout realism then I don’t know what does apart from science

grin at the terrible denouncing of noble as not-nice for this

Noble has been quite unpleasant on this thread.

Surely there are teachers who believe in God...?

Absolutely, yes. I believe that the number who pray rises tenfold the night before OFSTED arrive.

Brizzle. I think not nice=incredulity.

Brizzle! 😂
I’m just saying they are also ‘well educated’
I don’t think the moonlandings were a hoax but bloody hell; there’s some intolerance of differing opinions by the OP which, i agree, are not that nice.

I’m with you farce

I think it's what happens as a result of putting things in the "unknown" category that matters. I know bugger all about climate change. Probably a bit more than Donald Trump, but not much more. Donald Trump, I think, has put climate change in his "unknown" category and thus thinks it's fine to ride roughshod over any measures that might be useful, in the informed opinion of the majority of experts, because he cannot critically evaluate the evidence and it is thus "unknown".

Moon landings - who cares?

TheFallenMadonna

In my case, not much. I generally - like everyone else - operate on the basis of probability. I don't know the mechanic who passed my car on its MOT checked carefully and competently. I trust that they did, and therefore I behave as if they did. But if you put a gun to my head and asked my whether I know the car is safe, the answer is no, of course I don't.