Help! Someone I Respect Believes the Moon Landing is a Hoax

May 31, 2018

Tilted Glass readers... help!

You are the smartest, most well-adjusted, and most caring group of people in the world.  You were also voted "Most Likely to Win the Lottery and Lose the Ticket” and “Worst Driver” in your high school yearbooks, but we’ll skip that part.

Someone I respect believes the moon landing is a hoax.  This person believes the scientific evidence is faked.  And it doesn’t matter which evidence you point to to prove that it did happen, this person just knows “the US government is corrupt” and the whole thing is a fake.

Overwhelming third-party evidence for the landings exists.  You can even see footprints left by the astronauts though photos taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.  (It’s pretty awesome).

So what do I do about my friend?  This is someone I truly respect and hold in high-esteem.

How do I deal with someone that:

  1. Has an illogical belief.
  2. Is not willing to use examine their biases.
  3. Doesn’t care to at least prefix the opinion with “this might be out there, but…”

What are my options?  

  1. Lose respect for this person?
  2. Laugh it off and not care?  Humans are crazy.  No big deal.
  3. Try harder to appeal to specific facts?
  4. Try harder to appeal to the scientific method to get them to examine how they come to form beliefs more deeply?
  5. Accept the conspiracy.  Change myself.  Jump right in.

I know what you are thinking right now.  You are really impressed by these great bullet lists I made.  

But focus.  Back to the topic.  What advice do you have?

Come on Tilted Glass readers.  Help!