Sunday, September 2, 2012

Point by point critique of 'Ancient Aliens on the Moon' -SUPERSEDED

SUPERSEDED. See September 23rd.

97 comments:

astroguy said...

There are several more errors in his discussion of the fission hypothesis for the moon's formation and his discussion of mascons.

And, literally, my discussion of Jim Berkland is less than 24 hours old, the podcast episode having gone up just about 17.5 hours ago. And I JUST posted the statistical companion discussion: http://podcast.sjrdesign.net/files/050_EarthquakeStatistics.pdf

Esteban Navarro said...

This baby just been read Bara's theories

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA7Xy5rbtpg

strahlungsamt said...

...according to rogue geologist Jim Berkland, the Moon may play a significant role in the frequency of earthquakes"

Of course Mike, trust a "ROGUE" geologist. I mean, the "REAL" geologists, you know, the ones who ACTUALLY STUDIED GEOLOGY are not to be trusted as they're all PS4NASAs and BLOPs.

Then again Mike, I wonder what Ken Johnston's chances of getting another real job again are? Now, Super Size those Fries Ken. Pronto before I tell your manager and get your ass fired.

Biological_Unit said...

The Moon affects the Tides, pulling millions of tons of seawater

duh

it might pull some crust into slip mode

Binaryspellbook said...

I'll probably get banned from Mikey boy's author page for this.

Anonymous said...

Bara is such a joke.

expat said...

Binary: Good fun. Mike had a go at Richard Dolan on twitter today.

Binaryspellbook said...

Sadly Mikey has me blocked from his twitter too. I have no idea why.

Chris Lopes said...

I was wondering when either Hoagland or Bara was going to address their critics in the alternative research community. I guess the critics are starting to cost them some appearance and book money.

Trekker said...

Well, Chris, Mike has removed "S. Harris" damning review from Amazon...I wonder why? Lol!

Trekker said...

I should have said it was S. Harris's review of Mike's brother's book, not Mike's new one, that was removed.

James Concannon said...

I still see it. No doubt Mike wishes he had the power, but he surely doesn't.

Trekker said...

Yep, you're right. I must have been looking at something else! Sorry!

FlightSuit said...

I can't wait for you guys to get a hold of the entire book. Even though it's been discounted, though, I personally can't allow myself to give that asshole one dime, so I won't be buying it.

expat said...

He says it'll be another two weeks before it's Amazonable.

astroguy said...

I'll buy the book when I can get it for free -- same as when I'll visit the creation museum in Kentucky.

Trekker said...

That's the museum with the one and only saddled dinosaur!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3IFG_2dphNg/T7hOQ5P2qkI/AAAAAAAABDw/jUyiefqZKZs/s1600/a.jpg

Chris Lopes said...

Wow, just wow. There really are people who think The Flintstones was a documentary.

Esteban Navarro said...

Ha, ha ha! It´s not a fake , trekker? That´s real?

Trekker said...

Yes, Esteban, it's real!! Supposedly, people rode on dinosaurs back in those days!

Chris Lopes said...

Trekker,
Any of that related to "Dr." Kent Hovind? I know he used to have some lame creationist park too somewhere.

Trekker said...

Chris, I'm not sure if Hovind is connected to the museum, but he DID create a 'Dinosaur Adventure Land' in Florida: http://www.pensapedia.com/wiki/Dinosaur_Adventure_Land

You may be confusing him with Ken Ham, who created the museum.

Binaryspellbook said...

I rode several dinosaurs especially as a teenager. Then I woke up and sneaked out their bed before they woke up. Thankfully I didn't have to chew an arm off to escape.

Chris Lopes said...

Trekker,
You are quite correct. On further research I see that Ham's set up (and background) is much more extensive than Hovind's was. Along with the saddled dinosaurs (Google has a few pictures of people doing exactly that, quite funny), they have a Garden of Eden exhibit (Adam and Eve are white of course....), and a planetarium (I wonder how they explain the concept of light year in a 6000 year old universe).

At the risk of bringing this thread a bit more on topic, the similarities between Bara/Hoagland and these folks is striking. In order for the YEC crowd to be right, everything we know about biology, geology, physics, and chemistry has to be wrong. In order for Bara/Hoagland's theories to be right, everything we know about astronomy, planetary science, physics, and logic has to be wrong. It's the "ALL YOUR SCIENCE IS WRONG!" argument.

expat said...

Speaking of which, Alan Archer has recently given Richard Hoagland's wikipedia page an overhaul. It's quite entertaining.

Chris Lopes said...

Interesting wiki article. It's funny how stupid Hoagland's mythology sounds when you put it all (well mostly, the page wasn't big enough for ALL that BS) on one page. Makes the guy sound almost like a nut case.

I also liked the discussion by the editors (it's on the talk tab). What to leave in and what to leave out, as well what sources to accept can be tough to figure out sometimes. I'm not sure why Hoagland's declarations on the Gulf oil spill were left out. He actually made them and they actually turned out to be nonsense. Over all though, the article gives one a good (though not complete) of the guy, which is probably why Hoagland calls it a hit piece.

expat said...

Yes, he wrote on FuckBoo "The article has been edited and re-edited by NASA, and it's full of lies about me and my work." He didn't say which bits were lies. Alan Archer isn't NASA -- as far as I know he's a geologist.

jourget said...

I'm not really surprised that Hoagland apparently doesn't know how the editing process on Wikipedia works, but his Wikipedia page is probably the one source on the Internet that would be the most difficult for a single eeevil organization to manipulate unilaterally. Chris, your mention of the editing discussions is a case in point. In pursuit of representing the truth fairly, the editors that have modified Hoagland's page have created for him a much more objective narrative than he has addressed any of the myriad subjects he's turned his attention to over the years with. Sorry, Dick, but this is what decades of lunacy end up looking like when distilled. Lots and lots of claims and blanket assertions, but no real successes or accomplishments.

Chris Lopes said...

jourget,
Your last point is really the key. On this blog, we tend to dissect each Bara/Hoagland assault on the truth with the intensity and focus of a forensics analyst from some police procedural show. While that work is both needed and fun, it's easy to forget the enormity of the insanity that is being promoted. No matter how objective you really try to be on this (and the wiki editors tried their best), you can't hide just how crazy this stuff is.

Trekker said...

Chris, Jourget, and anyone who cares to remember, today is the anniversary of the non-event of Comet Elenin’s perihelion. This, if you recall, was a really contentious issue a year ago, with the ‘big man’ insisting, against all evidence, that the all-important perihelion was the next day, the auspicious 11th, rather than the mundane 10th. Remember the frenzied activity on his Facebook page a year ago? How the mighty have fallen!

I believe Elenin was the beginning of the end for him, with his idiotic conclusion – that its message was all about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Add to that the YU55 nonsense and the Obama Christmas Card delusion, and you have a serious case of paranoia.

I don’t think he’s ever really recovered. Having fallen from the dizzy heights of one year ago, to total silence now – that’s indeed a comedown!

James Concannon said...

Very good point, that. Hoagland argued that the time zone that really counted was Sri Lanka, where his "good friend" Arthur Clarke wrote Rendezvous With Rama. He calculated wrongly -- it was still the 10th in Sri Lanka. It was only the 11th in the far, far east.

I remarked that it was inconsistent to use the Sri Lanka time for the perihelion but GMT for closest approach to Earth. He replied (that was when he was replying, albeit spottily) "Have you ever heard the expression 'Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds'?"

Trekker said...

Ugh! Did he really say that?

Chris Lopes said...

Sometimes the rules have to change for the sake of the story, because consistency is just too much work when you're making stuff up. On the other hand, hack story tellers like Hoagland have to change the rules more frequently than most, which makes it harder for the reader to maintain the suspension of disbelief. In Hoagland's case, that problem is accentuated by the fact that the story he is telling is easily recognizable as someone else's story he's just putting his twist on. When the connection is made, Hoagland has to then include the original story teller as a part of the vast conspiracy he's selling.

With Elenin and YU55, Hoagland now has Arthur C. Clarke going to Sri Lanka not because of his love of privacy and great scuba diving, but to fulfill some destiny that only Hoagland can see. Even then though (as James pointed out), he got it wrong.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Just last year, Jim Berkland accurately forecast the Fukushima and Christchurch Earthquakes, for within his window of one week of a full Moon, you puke.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

"Even before the Japan earthquake and tsunami Dr. Jim Berkland had predicted this Seismic window of events. We are more focused on the possibilities since Christchurch, Chile and now Japan. Looking at the science and other related factors allows a historical trending to occur. Let's just hope the worst case scenario will not happen within the next few days."

Earthquake Predictions, 2011, Dr. Jim Berkland

Trekker said...

Mike's response to the 9/11 anniversary: "So it's been 11 years and I still feel the same way I did then; kill them all and let God sort 'em out."

Nice.

His fans, however, are not giving him an easy pass.

strahlungsamt said...

Jim Berkland sounds like another Hoagland in that video.
He's predicting a major earthquake that didn't happen.
He's holding up some old newspaper cuttings as proof.
He's on Fox.
He's claiming some super-seekrit-knowledge that only he knows about since he can detect earthquakes when the rest of the scientific community can't.

I never heard of him before but I wonder what kind of Hyperdimensional Physics he's promoting.

S. Harris said...

I reviewed the Kindle edition of AAotM on Amazon. I'd appreciate any "helpful" clicks.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R19K257SU6RLJ?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B0093C7GLC&cdMSG=addedToThread&cdPage=&linkCode=&newContentID=Mx1QJ9S42O1ZXQD&newContentNum=1&nodeID=&ref_=cm_cr_pr_cmt&tag=#CustomerDiscussionsNRPB

Biological_Unit said...

Someone should take the last ten big earthquakes and see if they occur on New Moons and Full Moons. If they occur on First Quarter or Third Quarter Moons, Jim Berkland's theory is falsified.

Biological_Unit said...

kill them all and let God sort 'em out."

I wonder how many of his friends are enlisted in the Military. Probably ZERO. Hollywood Joos don't serve, they are the Generals.

Chris Lopes said...

S Harris,
Beach House? As in Malibu Barbie's Beach House?

BU,
No I don't think he knows anyone in the military either. You see before you a prime specimen of the North American Chicken Hawk.

S. Harris said...

Chris: Very literally, yes. In Chapter 9 we read this:

"There also look to be pylons below the terraces dug into the mountain to support the dug-in bunker, similar to support pylons at beach houses in places like Malibu."

Trekker said...

To be fair, though, doesn't that mean that he sees a bunker, rather than a beach house, supported by pylons? (Not that a bunker's any the less idiotic!)

Did he specifically say that he saw a 'beach house'?

S. Harris said...

Yes. The text continues...

"If you let your eyes keep travelling along this frame [AS11-38-5564] from left to right at the same level as the beach house, they will come upon something that simply is too weird to even contemplate, but yet it is there. It's another head.

Sitting on what may be an artificial shelf at roughly the same level as as the Saucer and the Malibu beach house is this enormous, human looking head. ... The "head" looks much like "Data's Head" from Shorty crater, but is more on a scale of the statues at Easter Island."

Trekker said...

Ah, OK...it's worse than I thought!! Does he circle these items, or point them out in any way?

Anonymous said...

greetings and salutations in the name of the great self assimilating order of the universe.

yes Bara is ranting on unkonwncountry with none other than the other kook mr.william henry the star gate chasing nut.

here are some comments from his show..when mikey the bara was on..its unusual for that site to get this much comments

comments;


Unusual interview that left me scratching my head...I don't doubt that there is some kind of moon-base up there (A quick remote-view says "Yes!"). I just did not like the tone of this interview and his interjection of political views. (It wouldn't matter which candidate or political view mentioned. The fact that he felt he had to say it in this interview left me wondering about HIS agenda).

And look what he went and did...Got everyone stirred up and deflected them from the real topic. Who does he work for? :-)

the rest are there
http://www.unknowncountry.com/revelations/latest

damn kooks

S. Harris said...

Trekker: Yes, almost all the Bara fantasies are illustrated. I couldn't possibly comment on the basis of Kindle-quality imagery, except to say that the "head" looks nothing at all like the rock in Shorty.

Anonymous said...

bara is talking about your guys in unknown country
lol

Anonymous said...

apparently he is a self-described engineer who can see 3d images lol. what an idiot.

Trekker said...

Anonymous, his political comments about 9/11 are costing him dearly. His 'friends' on his main page are deserting him over the ugliness of his "kill 'em all" comment.

Meanwhile, Neville, James, Catriona: he's also purged his FB 'Author' page of all your dissent, allowing only his own comments and a few other supportive ones to stand. Each thread now looks like swiss cheese - as Hoagland's did when he started deleting the critical posts! What a loser!

Chris Lopes said...

Trekker,
One of the reasons Hoagland tried to stay away from conventional politics (you now, politics that wasn't connected to the grand and glorious conspiracy) is that he understood that the risk of offending people on a topic they know (or at least think they know) about is too great. He violated the rule with Obama, and paid a price for that mistake.

Bara has apparently convinced himself he is some kind of all knowing guru. He doesn't realize that the people coming to his page are there to hear about the ancient monuments on the Moon, not who he is going to vote for in November. When you demonstrate the political nuance of a 1980's action movie, you are bound to get a few people angry.

Anonymous said...

engineer? c'mon mikey really? structural engineer? really?

Trekker said...

Chris, yep, that's true. I wonder how this will play out. This comment of his has garnered more responses than anything his book or the ziggurat fiasco produced!

jourget said...

My favorite part of S. Harris' review was his recounting of Mike's apparent beliefs about the way color and albedo behave. If that quote is accurate, then Mike eschews all discussion of wavelength, intensity, and reflectivity, and instead tells us that the apparent color and brightness of a particular surface is solely a function of the surface's distance from the viewer (i.e. bright things are closer and dark things are farther away).

I am astonished by this statement. Did Mike do no research whatsoever? Or is his opinion of himself such that (as Chris points out) if he believes he knows a particular fact, then no fact-checking is required. Because he already knows it, you see.

Mike's statement reminds me of a teaching technique one of my college professors had: at the beginning of a discussion of a topic, explain your view of it and how you think it works. Then see how well the reality corresponds with your critical thinking exercise. It helps build a logical thought process. Mike apparently never got beyond the first day of class.

Expat, I think you've got your work cut out for you if you intend to chronicle every factual error in this tome. Myself, I'd like to get a look at it, but I'm pretty averse to giving Mike any kind of financial reward. Maybe I'll get one from my friend TOm, at the ReaR ENTrance of his house.

Chris Lopes said...

I admit I thought this might be a fun read at one time, but if it's all botched science and no X-Files mythology about Moon bases and space Nazis, I may have to reconsider. I figured given a whole book to work with on the subject, there would be a bit more 1940's pulp sci fi in the thing then you all seem to say. I want the thrilling tales sort of thing that you could find in old issues of Amazing Stories, not a rehash of some Hoagland paper.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Berkland is a scientist, not an television talent. He has about an eighty percent hit rate, and the Christchurch and Fukushima quakes had already occurred as forecast. That's the reason that the TV news had him on, because they had been embarrassed by viewers who complained about it.

I think Hoagland said something about the Space NAZIS using scalar weapons specifically at opportune times such Berkland describes, in order to make their attacks appear as natural disasters.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

The word, SYZYGY, is in your dictionary, surprisingly enough. It refers to an alignment of celestial bodies, primarily the Sun, Moon, and Earth, and it happens twice a month at the time of a new or full Moon. At such times, the gravitational forces are in line, and the ocean tides (as well as the solid Earth tides) are at a maximum, especially if the bodies are close together. The Earth and Moon are closest (at perigee) once a month; the Earth and Sun are closest (perihelion) once a year in early January. Thus the most extreme gravitational stress on the Earth's crust and oceans must occur in early January, if a syzygy and perigee occur on the same day. The optimum such example in 600 years was on January 4, 1912, when syzygy and perigee were only six minutes apart. On that day the strongest quake (5.5M) in California/Nevada in two years occurred near Bishop, California. Under less extreme conditions but within a day of syzygy we find such notable earthquakes as: Long Beach, CA(1933), Tehachapi, CA(1952), Olympia, WA (1949), Hebgen Lake, MT (1959), Anchorage, Alaska (1964), San Fernando, CA(1971), Tangshan, China (1976), Eureka, CA(1980), Landers, CA(1992), and Kobe, Japan (1995). The World Series Earthquake was publicly predicted by this method when the maximum tidal force in two years occurred on October 14, 1989, less than four days before the devastating 7.1M quake. The Seattle Quake of January 28, 1995 was predicted on Seattle television and radio less than six days before the strongest Seattle shaker in 30 years struck on January 28, 1995, the day after perigee and two days before New Moon.

In 1995 (through July) Seismic Windows helped predict the three strongest earthquakes in western Washington, the three strongest in the S. F. Bay area, and 12 of the 14 major earthquakes in the world. If someone tells you that earthquakes cannot be predicted, don't believe them. Try it yourself, anyone can do it. (the hard part is being right.)

Jiminy Oddbird said...



The Effect of Water on Earthquakes

Most high school graduates, having had at least one science class, learned that a cubic foot of fresh water at standard conditions of temperature and pressure weighs 62.4 pounds. That fact may have little impact on you unless you have carried buckets of water for livestock, or for landscape irrigation, or for camping, or have packed "Indian tanks" on your back for firefighting. I have participated in all of those activities and I have a healthy respect for water weight.

As a geologist I have appreciated the importance of underground water pore-pressure in de-stabilizing hill slopes, and I have participated with engineers and other geologists in preparing plans and procedures for controlling concentrations of water to prevent damage of various kinds to both natural landscapes and artificial constructions.

In relatively recent years it has been recognized that water can be an important factor relative to triggering earthquakes, although each step along the way has been highly controversial at the outset. Now it is generally accepted that pumping fluids in or out of deep wells can stimulate earthquakes. Often construction of large dams and reservoirs is also associated with subsequent earthquakes (R.I.S.), even in areas that have been historically stable.
Similarly there are a number of significant papers in the scientific literature that show clear correlations between earthquakes and local flooding or unusually heavy and prolonged precipitation.

Furthermore, the rhythmic oscillations of tide waters have been studied as another means of triggering earthquakes in Coastal areas. Several hundred articles in the world's scientific literature have explored this mechanism, along with the undulatory effects of "earth tides" that affect the interiors of continents, more than a thousand miles from the seashore.

[continued below]

Jiminy Oddbird said...


These tidal effects are mainly the result of the phases of the Moon, although the Sun contributes about 42 per cent to the range of ocean tides. When the Earth is in a tug-of-war between the Sun and Moon, the earth tides can attain three feet, and in sea coast areas of unusual topography, such as in the Bay of Fundy, the ocean tides can range more than 50 feet in a six hour period. (Contrast this with the island shores of the mid-Pacific, where tides may range less than two feet.)
All this talk of water loading and unloading needs a quantitative basis for clear understanding. There is no question that the crust of the Earth behaves elastically and massive ice sheets depresses it many hundreds of feet. In fact, in Scandinavia and Canada where continental glaciers exceeded two miles in thickness as recently as 12,000 to 18,000 years ago, the solid crust is still slowly rising in response to relief from the great load of ice.

At the Golden Gate, where a normal range in daily tide is four to five feet, the daily difference between high and low tide often exceeds eight feet at the time of a new or full Moon (syzygy.) The range may reach 8.5 to 9.2 feet on the rare occasions when a syzygy occurs on the same day as the monthly closest approach of the Moon to the Earth (perigee.) This rare event takes place only from two to five times per year and the maximum gravitational force between 1600 AD and 2200 AD took place at such a time on January 4, 1912, the day of the strongest West Coast earthquake in two years. Was this just coincidence? Let us analyze some forces that may cause old Mother Earth to "slip a disk" (or a plate?):

One acre = 43,560 sq. ft. ; One acre-foot of water = 43,560 cu. ft.; x 62.4 lbs./cubic foot = 2,714,439 lbs. = 1,357.22 tons

One square mile =640 acres; 640 x 1,357.22 tons = 868,620 tons/ ft. (of pure water)

Sea water (specific gravity 1.035) weighs more. 1.03.5 x 868,620 = 899,022 tons/sq. mi. (per foot of sea-water). In addition, for each foot of cold turbid sea-water (maximum density at 39.4F), the load for each square mile would be about 920,000 tons. To make it memorable, I refer to the loading as "nearly 1 million tons per square mile."
Now look at the 500 square miles of the San Francisco Bay and Delta, where eight to nine feet of saline water surges back and forth within a six-hour cycle:
9 ft. x 500 sq. mi. x 1 million tons equals a rapid load change totaling about 4.5 BILLION tons No wonder Mother Earth occasionally slips a disk in the San Francisco Bay Area!

By: James O. Berkland

Jiminy Oddbird said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tara Jordan said...

"The moon doesnt affect my menstrual cycles" By James O. Berkland.
http://tinyurl.com/22b3t

expat said...

Jourget: Yes, that paragraph about Earth observation does make one go weak at the knees. Not only is albedo a function of distance from the camera, light travels faster from whiter surfaces And that long, long round-trip to the ocean floor and back! No wonder the light gets a bit tired.

You have to keep reminding yourself that this unbelievable balderdash was written by an author whose primary topic is interpretation of space photography. Truly the inmates are in charge of the asylum in the publishing business.

Jiminy Oddbird said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jiminy Oddbird said...


The first page at the head of the queue at the Internet.

expat said...

Mike Bara has now posted all the images from AAotM to a Picasa gallery:

https://picasaweb.google.com/108348453161239832103

See the Malibu beach house (Ch. 9)!!!

Trekker said...

New blog, please, Expat!!!

Chris Lopes said...

The beach house is l, but I especially loved the crane. Given the probable size of the thing, I guessing our alien overlords were from The Thunderbirds(tm) school of engineering. What did Gerry Anderson know and when did he know it?

expat said...

Well, Trekker, I wouldn't mind. I'm not busy, I have time, but everything seems to be on hold until I can review the paperback AAotM. Hoagland might as well be dead, for all he's contributing (but I bet he's fuming over Bara's recycling of Dark Mission material.)

FlightSuit said...

I'm not seeing anything in that crane photo that looks even remotely like a crane.

Trekker said...

Expat, yes, I got an amazing sense of deja vu - there's an awful lot of recycling from Dark Mission, as you've pointed out.

And what's with the 40 year old blurry stuff? It's as if the LRO or Kaguya never happened!

Chris Lopes said...

"but I bet he's fuming over Bara's recycling of Dark Mission material."

I must admit that's the one part of this deal that I am really enjoying. Hoagland could have gotten off his lazy ass and actually written a sequel to DM while Bara was busy with The Choice. Instead, he chose to rest on his laurels and play with his FB fans. So now Bara gets to use the same material in another book without having to share any of the limelight or credit with Hoagie. Yep, he's gotta be kicking himself in the ass for that one.

Esteban Navarro said...

"The chalet", Cap 8 ...Ha haha haaaaa....!!!

Anonymous said...

Chalet on the moon?
aliens are french i guess

Anonymous said...

correction swiss..

Chris Lopes said...

"It's as if the LRO or Kaguya never happened!"

That's because if they did happen (and they did) and they didn't show these artifacts (and they don't), then that means Bara is promoting nonsense (and he is). Very sound reasons to forget mentioning such things to the Moon anomaly book buying public. Never let the facts get in the way of a good (and profitable) story.

Trekker said...

He's not letting the Ziggurat go, despite the trouncing he got from Dr Robbins:

http://2012.consciouslifeexpo.com/october-2012-expo/l-mike-bara2.html

FlightSuit said...

The more recent LRO and Kaguya images don't show the ancient artifacts because The Powers That Be wised up and started Photoshopping the images before they were released to the general public.

The older images do show the anomalies because NASA hadn't expected them to be there.

Except for the whole part about how the secret Nazis and Masons in NASA already knew that stuff was there, and that was the whole reason for the space program in the first place.

Hmmmm...

It seems Hoagland and Bara's logic contradicts itself.

expat said...

Well, not only that but the airbrush team was instructed to remove the ziggurat but leave the flying saucer in. Oh, and the beach house and the human head and the crane and the drill. Perhaps they though nobody would be clever enough to find those items. If so, they underestimated the amazing photo-interpretation skills of Mike Bara, who thinks albedo is a function of distance from a camera.

astroguy said...

Supposedly, Mikey will be on C2C on Sept. 24 (a Monday). I do plan on calling in. If I get on, and if at all possible, I plan on asking three things:

1. What would it take to falsify his belief/claim that can actually be done (as in, going there doesn't count).

2. Why does he only believe the one source from a video game forum and NO other source? (His "other images" that show it really don't if you bother to look at them - part 5 of his 5-part series).

3. If he wants to play "follow the money" games with my education and research, I want to know how much of his income is made by promoting his ideas on the radio, through books, and at conferences.

FlightSuit said...

I love it when the kooks want to follow the money! I recently got involved in a debate with a Moon Hoax believer on YouTube, and when I pointed out the Phil Plait had disproved the belief that we never went to the moon, he kept asking "Who'd funding Phil Plait?"

This lead to us going around and around in circles. I was trying to get him to explain to me exactly what it was that he thought Phil Plait was engaged in that would require "funding," but he couldn't do that. He made allusions to Plait running some "big organization," which I assume was JREF, but I pointed out that Plait no longer runs JREF and that JREF's finances would have to be a matter of public record, given that JREF is a non-profit.

No matter what I said, this idiot kept coming back to "Who's funding him?"

So if you debunk crazy beliefs, you are obviously a puppet, and shadowy puppet masters are clearly funneling millions of dollars in your direction so you'll continue to spread disinformation.

Chris Lopes said...

eserFlightSuit,
That is the default position whenever a professional woo-merchant meets up with someone who actually studies the field they are purporting to work in. Bara's NASA-shill play was telegraphed from the very beginning, as it is Hoagland's play too. Apparently anyone with any kind of education is automatically suspect and must be disregarded immediately.

FlightSuit said...

The really funny thing is that the idiot I was arguing with couldn't provide any example of Phil Plait doing anything that would require "funding."

I asked him how much he thought it cost Plait to host his Bad Astronomy blog, and I pointed out the published authors with PhDs after their names are often able to support themselves, but it didn't matter. It was almost frightening how many times he asked me,"But who's funding him?"

Total inability to think or debate rationally.

Anonymous said...

The nerves in the Kooks goes round and round ..round and round..round and round..

Kooks make money out of ignorance. Also, just plain giving up rationality to feed on their woo woo theories cuz some of them love it.

I mean the nerves in the kooks goes round and round.

expat said...

Stuart, no way George will let you ask three. #2 is the really good one, I'd lead with that and follow-up with #1 if you're lucky enough to get it in.

Esteban Navarro said...

Stuart, what happened to your appointment with that radio program to respond the fallacies of Bara?

FlightSuit said...

Expat is right. I can already predict how that phone call is going to go. You'll get cut off mid-sentence, Bara will smugly proclaim that you're some nut who's been stalking him, and Noory will readily agree that it's such a shame there are so many "haters" out there.

expat said...

Yep, you can write the script in advance. Another part of it is "People like Robbins who have a vested interest in the conventional view get scared by what I have to say."

astroguy said...

See, I was recently listening to a Nancy Lieder episode from 2003 when Phil Plait called in. Because he was someone knowledgeable and someone against whom Nancy had spoken, I was thinking George might afford me some liberties if I keep it objective and simple. Just an idea.

Esteban - Karl said it'd go up last weekend ... it hasn't yet. He kinda gets behind with this stuff. I'll ask him for an update and try to push it. Watch my podcast's FB page (facebook.com/ExposingPseudoAstronomy) for an update when it's out.

Okay, now to record said podcast on Lieder ...

FlightSuit said...

Well I do hope you phone the show, and I hope I get to hear it!

astroguy said...

My interview about the ziggurat: http://yrad.com/cs/

expat said...

That was way too long but you expressed the fundamental issue accurately and well (and more than once).

Thank you.

Trekker said...

Listening to it now. While what you have to say is great, how did you keep your cool with that interviewer? He's very difficult to listen to! He's driving me nuts with his ums and uhs!!

astroguy said...

Karl's a nice guy and a big fan. But I'll admit that I find his style a bit difficult to follow.

Trekker said...

Yes, you seemed stumped for words, and completely exasperated at times!

astroguy said...

I wouldn't say exasperated. But I do like it when things are linear, and his interviews are VERY non-linear and I did get lost a few times with the digressions.

expat said...

How sweet it is! Mike's Fuckboo pals have utterly failed to respond to his pleas for them to "get on over to Amazon and post a good review." I put it down to the fact that none of them can write (and Mike's twin brother Dave somewhat supports that theory.) Meanwhile the one-star reviews pile up....

Chris Lopes said...

Expat,
I doubt many of Bara's fans will actually read the book, let alone write a review of it. While they may be interested enough in what he has to say to hang out on his FB page (or listen to him on C2C), they might not be interested enough to pay real money to read his words. That's especially true if those words are just a regurgitation of stuff they've heard before.

Hoagland has the same problem. For the most part, his fans love him until it's time to pay for his words. Yes there are exceptions of course(the suckers who donated money for his "trip"), but most of his fans just hang out for the free stuff. I'm guessing that may have something to do with his absence on FB. He only wants to talk to paying customers these days.