Faked moon landings, creationists, and 9-11 truthers

The Apollo moon landings were a hoax.

Bigfoot is real.

Creationism is valid science.

The Holocaust didn't happen.

9-11 was an inside job.

In fact, spend just a little time online and you'll find entire digital societies blindly devoted to these positions. I say “blindly” because at the end of the day, not a single scrap of real evidence is ever offered to indicate the existence of a freethinking mind in their midst.

Never before in history has information been so easily accessible; we live like sorcerers who can snap their fingers and download data from the air. And perhaps that’s part of the problem: Things are too easy, and we can just as readily click on a professionally peer-reviewed site as we can the website of the Flat Earth Society. And since the media seems unwilling to give up their Circus Maximus of “liberals-and-conservatives” any time soon, no side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on being, well, idiotic.

Last year, a fellow from South Carolina tried convincing me that the WTC buildings on September 11th 2001 had been brought down by demolitionist conspirators. He sent me a link to the video Loose Change, which I watched and then explained to him how, when, and why that video has been completely discredited. It's not that I didn't think the Bush Administration was a band of lying thugs whose damage to this country would take years to recover from. It's not that I didn't think certain members of government broke out champagne in the hours following the attacks, because of the opportunities it gave them.

But if you're going to make claims that the towers weren't hit by the planes in question, or that there was controlled demolition, or that it was all a cover to steal gold from beneath the WTC site, or that reptilian aliens have mixed their blood with English royals in time to watch reruns of V: The Series, you better be prepared to provide documentation that stands up to scrutiny.

As a point of contrast, I asked my friendly emailer to respond to the many counter-points that now exist. My correspondent flatly refused to oblige. Then I ask him if he would address a few other points of interest behind the making of the Loose Change video...

Twenty seconds later, I get this reply (mispellings and all): “You are blind, or wosre you are a zionist shill go to hell.”

I told him I'd need to see some evidence for Hell. He didn't respond.

On the other side of politics and far and away my favorite example of American Unthinkers are the Creationist crowd. Creationists clutch their beliefs like a lost Amazon tribe’s devotion to spears. There’s almost something noble in their lack of cognition.

Evolution is taught in schools because, like it or not, it suffers from the condition of being supported by factual data. It doesn’t require belief. Belief is something that is done in absence of facts.

For example, I don’t believe that there are fish in the sea. Rather, I have seen the evidence for fish in the sea and accept that evidence. I have read books and seen documentaries and yes, I have actually fished and caught fish. It’s not an issue of belief.

I don’t believe that mankind landed on the moon. I have seen the evidence for it and accept that evidence. The so-called "proofs" from the anti-landing crowd dissolve at the first light of serious scrutiny; their position is rooted in misinformation, sensationalism, and ignorance. By the same token, I don’t believe in a Hollow Earth, chupacabras, or the flying spaghetti monster, because the evidence for all three is less than compelling.

Creationists are just like the 9-11 conspiracy buffs --

though here is a more accurate rendition of them:

All they have is raw belief, couched in the glitzy wrapping paper of ignorance and dishonesty. It’s precisely the same mindset used in the Salem witch trials:

“I had a dream that my neighbor turned into a black cat.”

“Do you have any proof?”

“Dude, that IS the proof. Spectral evidence, remember?”

“Oh right, sorry. Hang her.”

The problem with Unthinkers is that they believe things blindly, and so they think that everyone else does. Rational thinking requires a rational process. It’s not about being narrow-minded – in fact, it’s about being open to possibilities… while applying the test of evidence and method to those possibilities.

Does Bigfoot exist? Maybe… but I’ll need more evidence than blurry photos of Chewbacca to convince me.

Americans face very serious issues today – questions on terrorism, war, economics, the environment. And things are about to get a whole lot more complicated: the horizon is filling with debates over cloning, genetic engineering, and ever-more-invasive spyware technologies.

If we can’t address today’s problems with a clear-thinking honesty, how do we face the problems of tomorrow?