Seriously, I am very appalled at the scientific ignorance displayed in the comments for each and every video (if comments have not been disabled). Not only scientific ignorance, but ignorance of the English language, spelling, and grammar. I don’t know if they are just lazy or if they really type “sum” repeatedly when they mean to say “some”. Or they type “hoo r u” in lieu of “who are you”. They leave out nouns, verbs, vowels, conjunctions, so that their sentences truly become gibberish and it takes real effort to deduce what they are trying to say. Their lack of education and knowledge is appalling and they have absolutely no critical thinking skills.
For example, they may view and comment on a video by John Lear. Like Richard Hoagland, John Lear is truly a money making scam artist who can’t possibly believe the drivel that spews out of his brain. John and Richard are way too smart for that. Anyway, John Lear claims that there is a breathable atmosphere on the moon, equivalent to about 15,000 feet ASL here on Earth. People comment on his videos, as if this was an established fact.
It does not seem to occur to people that they don’t need a degree from MIT or expensive laboratory equipment to test this. All they have to do is go outside and look up. Look at the moon! Do you see clouds? Do you see a halo similar to the atmospheric halo you see on every picture ever taken of the Earth from orbit? Do you see ill defined, gray, diffused shadows that an atmosphere might cause or do you see sharp, distinct, black shadows typical of an airless place? When you see a star eclipsed by the moon, does it blink and twinkle like it would if it passed behind an atmosphere, or does it disappear just like turning off a light switch? Do you see a twilight zone? All of these features and remote proofs of NO atmosphere on the moon can be seen with the naked eye, or better yet, with a pair of binoculars.
So why do people believe this crap? I don’t know. Maybe they are lazy and bored with their existence and want something exciting to happen to them so they believe anything outlandish that gives them relief from their daily monotony. I guess they don’t know how exciting the REAL world really is if you just work at it and try to improve yourself.
When I was a kid in school, one of our English teachers made damn sure we knew that authority does not necessarily equal truth. One of the best signs of a scam artist or of someone just repeating urban legend or whatever, is the appeal to authority to “prove” a point. If anyone begins a discussion citing authority as the source, it’s time to put up your defenses because you know the evidence or logic can’t be all that strong. By “appeal to authority” I mean when someone says Dr. so and so said… or Ph.D.’s say that… and so on. The more the credentials are stressed by someone, the weaker the coming argument, as a rule.
Don’t get me wrong, many scientific papers often cite authorities and rightly so, but they do provide references.
Although some of the comments on YouTube I am sure are from people just having fun, I get a horrible sense that most are really serious in their comments. They are not necessarily stupid people, no no, heaven forbid I should suggest such a thing. I am very certain that were they to apply themselves, and were they to obtain some sort of real education, and be taught critical thinking skills, they would sooner reach their potential. I really believe they are not stupid, they are just ignorant. Now to some, being called ignorant is an insult. I don’t mean it in the derogatory sense; I mean ignorance in the sense of not having knowledge.
Now here is one definition of “stupid” that makes sense in the context of this post. You ARE stupid if you don’t actively seek to improve yourself. Then I will call you stupid and mean it. So in that sense, “stupid” is not a “lack of intelligence” nor is it a “lack of knowledge”, but it is a “failure to exercise that intelligence in a meaningful way.”
Don’t be stupid, people.
