Quote: Renegade Carpark @ July 18 2009, 1:29 PM BSTI'm in agreement with NoggetFred. The Moon is powerful enough to regulate the movement of a gazillion tonnes of water around our planet. That kind of power must haven an influence on us.
A basic grasp of Newtonian physics would make you re-evaluate that statement.
Quote: Tim Walker @ July 18 2009, 12:05 PM BSTThe gravitational influence of the Moon over our tides is reasonable, though the Sun and the Earth's rotation have a bigger effect.
My understanding is that the Moon plays a larger role than does the Sun.
It's not good enough to say that because the Moon has some influence over some parts of our lives via physics and cultural and evolutionary pressures, that it "perhaps" has effects on us in more abstract and complex ways.
Typical Virgo.
Don't get me wrong guys, not having a go at any one here. Just trying to show no debate is as clear cut as adherents like to portray it.
Quote: DaButt @ July 18 2009, 1:15 AM BSTSuck on these: photographs of 5 of the 6 Apollo landers on the surface of the moon. The astronauts' foot paths are visible, too.
Let's get this straight: I'm not a total disbeliever in the moon landings but I'm not a total believer, either. And I defend people's right to choose to doubt, without them being labelled by others as stupid or genetic dead-ends.
Photos prove nothing. Not in a technological age where "seeing is believing" no longer holds true. If seeing is really believing then Independence Day and Star Wars have equal claim to being as genuine as the news. That they aren't accepted as fact indicates visual evidence is not always proof enough. Plus, you can't expect undecided people to unquestioningly accept your proof while you simultaneously poo-poo other people's photographic 'proof' as fakes - because if one side can fake it, so can the other.
Politically, the moon landings fell bang into JFK's 10 year decision to beat the Ruskies to the moon. The USA overhauled a technological gap with the Russians, stole a huge global psychological coup, and did it with piss-poor terrifying equipment. Imagine if, 2 years before the deadline, NASA told the president the moon landing wasn't going to happen. Is it then so inconceivable, with so much geopolitical and morale gain at stake, for the USA to fake it?
To present the debate as cold hard fact and rational scientific people against the stupid and unscientific undermines your cause (as it undermines every other similar debate) because (even to an idiot like me) it's clearly a lie. Both sides have argument and counter-argument and the disbelievers possess intellectuals where it's claimed there are none. This discrepancy between what doubters see and what is claimed only weakens your position. It screams desperation and intellectual bullying to force upon people a particular belief... because if they don't, it must mean they're stupid.
Do you want a world of free independent thinkers? If so, you must not only accept dissent but embrace it, that's the price. Or do you want mindless puppets believing everything they're spoonfed by their intellectual superiors? Because intellectual peer pressure is the way to get conformity through fear of being different.
It is not ridiculous to believe that man landed on the moon but it is also not utterly inconceivable that it was faked. The easiest way for NASA to disprove it, is to send up a new team. But guess what, the cost and time it would take would be crazy. Yet the USA did it in less than a decade, when they were far less advanced than now. Again, it doesn't really help the doubters decide.
Quote: Tim Walker @ July 18 2009, 1:39 AM BSTpeople are happy to disbelieve that Man landed on the moon; but many of the same follow astrology.
This is not really a proof or an argument. It's an assumption which then ties one debate to another more implausible idea so that general readers will assume both have equal implausability or wackiness. When it's not really the case. Judge the moon landings on the evidence of the moon landings, not on moon landings and 'crazy astrology'.
Plus I disagree with the basic assumption. I doubt the moon landings but disbelieve astrology and I'll bet many people who believe in Astrology also think man landed on the moon.
Quote: Tim Walker @ July 18 2009, 12:05 PM BSTThe Moon's relationship with menstruation is mainly evolutionary and breeding cycles in many species have a relationship with it.
To claim the moon's effect is miniscule is contradicted by this quote. The moon's historical social and cultural effect on man has been because we perceive it in a way that animals can't. However, long before we were capable of looking up and feeling awe and long before we decided to tie harvest and planting to its cycles, menstruation was synced to the moon.
For menstruation to sync to the moon, the moon must exert a very real effect on earth and its animals - many of which are incapable of conceiving or even having awareness of the object that's affecting them. Although I hasten to add, the effect is in an astronomical, not astrological, sense. I guess this is why cultures linked visible physical effects with other less plausible ideas. The fact that astrology arose in society is actually a further indication of man's awareness of the moon's effect since our earliest days.
Has there been official answer to how and if a full moon affects people's behaviour?
Quote: SlagA @ July 18 2009, 2:47 PM BSTLet's get this straight: I'm not a total disbeliever in the moon landings but I'm not a total believer, either.
Really? I think that's taking conspiracy paranoia a bit too far Mr Slagg!
I simply can't believe for a second that any government could keep something that huge a secret for so long; look at how bad they are at covering up even the smallest of things! 
As far as I'm concerned, we landed on the Moon. The conspiracies are an interesting diversion, but I obvioulsy don't buy them for a second.
Quote: AndreaLynne @ July 18 2009, 2:48 PM BSTHas there been official answer to how and if a full moon affects people's behaviour?
It's a real son of a bitch to those bitten by mysterious wolf like beasts whilst out hiking on moors.
I heard we did actually land on the moon, but couldn't return, so the real astronauts we left to die (or build a house) And the ones we saw come back, were actually actors. One of them went on to replace the real Paul McCartney in the Beatles and the other shot JR (were there three?) Well if there was, he... was the Roswell alien.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ July 18 2009, 3:07 PM BSTReally? I think that's taking conspiracy paranoia a bit too far Mr Slagg!
I was just getting myself prepared for a good kicking from both sides of the divide.
Quote: Leevil @ July 18 2009, 3:12 PM BSTI heard we did actually land on the moon, but couldn't return, so the real astronauts we left to die (or build a house) And the ones we saw come back, were actually actors. One of them went on to replace the real Paul McCartney in the Beatles and the other shot JR (were there three?) Well if there was, he... was the Roswell alien.
See now that I can buy; that seems reasonable.
Quote: SlagA @ July 18 2009, 2:47 PM BSTLet's get this straight: I'm not a total disbeliever in the moon landings but I'm not a total believer, either. And I defend people's right to choose to doubt, without them being labelled by others as stupid or genetic dead-ends.
There comes a point where you have to draw a line where fact is on one side and fiction the other. These people aren't just dead ends they're dangerous.
Once you start saying one event didn't happen then you can say another. No Holocaust, Magna Carter, Emnacipation Declaration then you can start saying really dnagerous things.
Nimrods who don't believe in the Moon Landings also don't believe often don't believe in 9/11. And in both cases stick their stubby fingers in their idiot ears to ignore; peaceful rocket research being used in the arms race, CIA involvement in Iraq and all the really dangerous stuff that happens. Because they make the world into a great big scary and rather comforting conspiracy
If they faked the moon landings, if they blew up the towers, if they killed Diana. Then they obviously too powerful to fight, it is as comforting as it is lethal.
There are no conspiracies. Only cowards believing in the frankly ridiculous.
Quote: SlagA @ July 18 2009, 2:47 PM BSTead-ends.
Photos prove nothing. Not in a technological age where "seeing is believing" no longer holds true. If seeing is really believing then Independence Day and Star Wars have equal claim to being as genuine as the news.
Most whistles are blown by people. People don't keep secrets from Israeli/South African nuclear weapons to JFK (generally who killed mentioned is known he had an obit in the Guardian). These things are known because people talk. From the sexual pecadilos of rulers to the recipe for KFC it's all out there.
You'd also have to be taking stupid pills for a year or so to believe ID4 was real.
Quote: SlagA @ July 18 2009, 3:12 PM BSTI was just getting myself prepared for a good kicking from both sides of the divide.
The fence is too high, we can't reach! 
Quote: SlagA @ July 18 2009, 2:47 PM BSTPolitically, the moon landings fell bang into JFK's 10 year decision to beat the Ruskies to the moon. The USA overhauled a technological gap with the Russians, stole a huge global psychological coup, and did it with piss-poor terrifying equipment. Imagine if, 2 years before the deadline, NASA told the president the moon landing wasn't going to happen. Is it then so inconceivable, with so much geopolitical and morale gain at stake, for the USA to fake it?
Russia had no technological edge they cut corners constantly on safety and ended up killing most of their senior scientists in a major accident.
The technology to get man to the moon was relatively straight forward once you had the basics.
And NASA have a long history of sticking stuff in Space that didn't work (Skylab?)
Quote: SlagA @ July 18 2009, 2:47 PM BSTTo claim the moon's effect is miniscule is contradicted by this quote. The moon's historical social and cultural effect on man has been because we perceive it in a way that animals can't. However, long before we were capable of looking up and feeling awe and long before we decided to tie harvest and planting to its cycles, menstruation was synced to the moon.
For menstruation to sync to the moon, the moon must exert a very real effect on earth and its animals - many of which are incapable of conceiving or even having awareness of the object that's affecting them. Although I hasten to add, the effect is in an astronomical, not astrological, sense. I guess this is why cultures linked visible physical effects with other less plausible ideas. The fact that astrology arose in society is actually a further indication of man's awareness of the moon's effect since our earliest days.
It doesn't contradict my assertion at all. I was talking about the gravitational effects of the Moon on the human body. Modern-day Man may now have an abstract concept of our Moon through evolutionary development of the human brain, but previously our relationship with it was only based on the effects of tide and calendar. It is also worth pointing out that the Moon has relatively little effect on defining seasonal variations compared with lunar orbital position in respect of our Sun, and the 10 degree or so tilt of the Earth's axis. What really disappoints me though is how poor people's grasp of the gravitational physics is, with the general misunderstandings leading to ignorance that gravity is very much a two-way street - relating to mass and the inverse of distance between two bodies - i.e. that the mass of my body is as important as the Moon's in any arugment about the effects of gravity relating to the two.
I might as well claim that I keep the Moon in orbit around the Earth because I exert a gravitational effect upon it (which is true).
Gravity is a pathetically weak force as far as the universe goes. Relying on gravity, galaxies, stars, planets, none would be in existence.
For real conspiracy theory fans, however, never mind the Moon landing debate, why not read the book 'Who Built The Moon?', which questions the very nature of how it came to be what it is and where it is.
I've gotta say disbelieving the moon landings is a dangerous intellectual slide you can't climb back up.
It's political inertia, laziness and a gate way for every revisionist loony who thinks the victims of Hitler and Stalin are living on a magical island in the Indian Ocean.
Believing in the moon landings is actually like believing in justice, equality and fairness. An inherently good and worth while thing to believe in.
Quote: Tim Walker @ July 18 2009, 3:24 PM BSTWho Built The Moon?
I'd start with these guys,
Deal with real conspiracies like Diego Garcia being turned into a torture chamber or the government dealing with private companies to collect data on us.