Apollo 11 Moon Landing Revisited: Hoax ~vs~ Debunk

[W.D.Clinger]

I was responding to WD Clinger who expressed his observations about various SAT scores and the sheer scarcity of various normal population characteristics away from the norm. [....] I am not sure WD Clinger studied psychology so I am not sure how you have decided he knows more about IQ than myself or that I had no idea how a normal distribution works.

My point was not to emphasize the "sheer scarcity of various normal population characteristics away from the norm", but to emphasize their non-scarcity when you're looking at populations whose members were selected precisely because they deviate from the norm. Here, for example, is a list of 37 colleges and universities that say their students averaged 1500 or higher (composite) on the modern SAT. High scores would be even more common if we were looking at graduate students, and still more common among PhDs.

At the other end of the scale, we'd see a remarkably large number of extremely low scores among a population selected for their belief that Apollo 11 did not really land on the moon.

By the way, my own study of psychology included one undergraduate course, one graduate-level lecture course, and multiple PhD-level seminars. (Although I was in a pure math program, my first PhD thesis advisor was a cognitive psychologist. But psychology is hard, and I soon realized that (for me) it was easier to do mathematics than psychology.) Because I am a trained mathematician whose first journal paper was published in the Annals of Statistics, it would be very surprising if my knowledge of Gaussian and other probability distributions were inferior to that of a person whose ability to deal with numbers has been all too well documented in this and other threads.

Or more likely the sad tragedy of when mean sd meets three sd. You saw the grief I was subjected to over primes.

I might have been regularly and horrendously victimised for no reason other than hate because of my interests but I am proud to say I have never bullied or victimised anyone. Glad to be a triple niner.

Just thinking: wouldn't nearly all highly numerate people with IQs in the top 0.1% be found in the highest echelons of national/international business, commerce or politics? Surely it'd otherwise be a shocking waste of such talent?

It is certified and true. Please bear that in mind next time you abuse me as though you were addressing an idiot.

Let's give the triple-niner a big hand, folks.

Please can you not mention it again, thanks.

Yes, it would probably be best if you didn't mention it again.

<sfx vague beeps and crackling>

COMING THROUGH, A DEEP BOOMING NON-HUMAN-SOUNDING VOICE: This-is-the-voice-of-the-Mysterons! Earthlings-can-you-hear-us...?

RADIO ENTHUSIAST: Hold on...just let me get the right wavelength and frequency...need to adjust the antenna a bit...hello? Are you there? Hello...?

Oh you poor, poor thing.

 

[Axxman300]

Side fun space note: The space shuttle Endeavour will soon be on display with it's fuel tank and rockets, because that's how we roll out here in California. Bring the kids.

https://californiasciencecenter.org/exhibits/air-and-space/space-shuttle

Oh, and I just leaned out the door and got a daylight picture of a star:



Sure, it's our star ( the one at the center of the solar system) but it still counts...unless I try to get a picture of the rest pf the galaxy, in which case I'm out of luck...

 

[JayUtah]

Please can you not mention it again, thanks.

Sorry, I didn't think you could hear that from six steps ahead.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Good Lord, did you just confuse NASA's Artemis missions with the plot from Armageddon?

Ah! I did wonder where he heck that idea came from.

 

[Axxman300]

Nixon, such an exemplar of honesty and integrity,

You need to up your medication.

Apollo was set in motion long before Nixon even thought about running for President. It was budgeted and paid for well before Johnson bowed out of re-election. Did he use the event to promote himself, and get his name in the history books (the one that will really count)? Sure, and good politician would have done the same thing, and landing on the moon was a huge deal. Hell, he hadn't even begun to bomb Cambodia yet.

Nixon was many things, but a strawman is not one of them.

 

[LondonJohn]

I was responding to WD Clinger who expressed his observations about various SAT scores and the sheer scarcity of various normal population characteristics away from the norm. So, IQ approximates to a normal distribution. As does height. Whilst it might be exceedingly rare to find, say men taller than 6'7", you'll find that such men, assuming they do not have a chromosonal abnormality, simply come from a family where being that height is normal for them. I am not sure WD Clinger studied psychology so I am not sure how you have decided he knows more about IQ than myself or that I had no idea how a normal distribution works.

*cough* "mean sd" *cough*

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Does this mean you 'Owned' us?

Is that the term people use?

I think in the current small talk the kids tell you how Vixen destroyed us with this legendary clap back. Whatever that means. It does seem only to get used in circumstances where the overblown claim is writing cheques the feeble riposte cannot actually cash. Perhaps that makes it especially appropriate.

 

[LondonJohn]

Nixon, such an exemplar of honesty and integrity, was there to meet the guys off the helicopter, like some kind of cheeky-chappie Hughie Green or Bruce Forsyth to exchange witty repartee for the tv studios, from the three astronauts encased in a box, their cheerful shiny faces peering out from behind the glass. Just touched down from a frightfully stressful reentry into Earth without breaking up. It's amazing Nixon didn't have a couple of extra boxes, one containing a car and the other a booby prize, and asking the tv audiences at home which one he should open first.

Sorry to be flippant but we-eeeeell...

Reality check.

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ pathetic. Do better.

 

[Helen]

I think in the current small talk the kids tell you how Vixen destroyed us with this legendary clap back. Whatever that means. It does seem only to get used in circumstances where the overblown claim is writing cheques the feeble riposte cannot actually cash. Perhaps that makes it especially appropriate.

I think the kids would say she ate. And slayed. To which we would come back with "only in Ohio".

 

[Foster Zygote]

Because 1950s and 60s engineering and technology was so crude. They could barely get off the ground

View attachment 73443
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That last one was the next project for the Grumman design team that built the LM. It remained one of the world's most formidable fighter aircraft for thirty years.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I can recall as a kid listening to my little tranny under the sheets desperately waiting for Radio Luxemburg to play Homeward Bound again, which was on a half hour loop. The sound was dreadful, coming in and out, with all kinds of crackling and hissing. It was transmitting from the North Sea (to beat the broadcasting laws).

So yeah, 250,000 miles to the Moon's surface...doddle. I feel sorry for the poor crew of the 2028 Artemis who will have to suffer a real phone call from the current White House incumbent, probably in the early hours...They could just take the headphones off and let him ramble on...

Is that you're roundabout way of admitting that there is nothing the least bit remarkable about an incoming phone call being transmitted by radio?

 

[Foster Zygote]

Of course they managed to explain it.

Of course Nixon gave Buzz a buzz whilst he was prancing around collecting Moon rocks. Shee-eesh!

I'm sure that I'm not the first person to notice that this is how you write when you're frustrated about painting yourself into a corner.

 

[Foster Zygote]

No, I am saying Nixon is not credible. The 'explanatory' stuff about having to do it via this means and that is post hoc rationalisation to make the story fit the feel-good factor. You can think of an explanation to explain anything.

Nixon also went to China. Using your (what we'll charitably call) logic, then we should doubt that China actually exists.

I listened to that, too. The thrust was the poor quality.

Imagine what you could do with something more sophisticated than a cheap little transistor radio.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I was responding to WD Clinger who expressed his observations about various SAT scores and the sheer scarcity of various normal population characteristics away from the norm. So, IQ approximates to a normal distribution. As does height. Whilst it might be exceedingly rare to find, say men taller than 6'7", you'll find that such men, assuming they do not have a chromosonal abnormality, simply come from a family where being that height is normal for them. I am not sure WD Clinger studied psychology so I am not sure how you have decided he knows more about IQ than myself or that I had no idea how a normal distribution works.

This is sounding dangerously close to eugenics regarding intelligence.

 

[Vixen]

My point was not to emphasize the "sheer scarcity of various normal population characteristics away from the norm", but to emphasize their non-scarcity when you're looking at populations whose members were selected precisely because they deviate from the norm. Here, for example, is a list of 37 colleges and universities that say their students averaged 1500 or higher (composite) on the modern SAT. High scores would be even more common if we were looking at graduate students, and still more common among PhDs.

At the other end of the scale, we'd see a remarkably large number of extremely low scores among a population selected for their belief that Apollo 11 did not really land on the moon.

By the way, my own study of psychology included one undergraduate course, one graduate-level lecture course, and multiple PhD-level seminars. (Although I was in a pure math program, my first PhD thesis advisor was a cognitive psychologist. But psychology is hard, and I soon realized that (for me) it was easier to do mathematics than psychology.) Because I am a trained mathematician whose first journal paper was published in the Annals of Statistics, it would be very surprising if my knowledge of Gaussian and other probability distributions were inferior to that of a person whose ability to deal with numbers has been all too well documented in this and other threads.







Yes, it would probably be best if you didn't mention it again.

Yes, I picked up you were a mathematician and understand how a Gaussian bell-curve works. In experimental psychology where you are expected to have a thorough understanding of statistical analysis, you'll know that IQ in a normal population only approximates to the Gaussian equation. Thus, in reality we do see a near parallel line at the +3sd end because IQ becomes harder and harder to measure at the extreme end simply because of insufficient population samples by which to 'norm' the scores. BUT also, because you are looking at people, we do inherit a lot of our characteristics, including intelligence, so you may well find that amongst the admissions with high SATS will be many siblings, although random chance would have excluded that factor. In addition, British Mensa, which has run from 1948 with independent proctors, test setters, invigilators and rigorous blind scoring of the supervised tests are highly accurate. Whilst a candidate might score a few points more or less on another day one can say with near certainty that their scores will remain within the same standard deviation/s from the norm. So yes, it is more meaningful to talk in terms of +/- sd's from the norm than IQ itself.

 

[Vixen]

This is sounding dangerously close to eugenics regarding intelligence.

That's been a major criticism and which has led to reform in UK schools.

 

[Vixen]

Nixon also went to China. Using your (what we'll charitably call) logic, then we should doubt that China actually exists.

Imagine what you could do with something more sophisticated than a cheap little transistor radio.

We were discussing debunking and Nixon ringing up the astronauts on the Moon hardly qualifies as a debunk. Quite the opposite.

 

[JayUtah]

So yes, it is more meaningful to talk in terms of +/- sd's from the norm than IQ itself.

So what’s a “mean sd?”

 

[Vixen]

Is that you're roundabout way of admitting that there is nothing the least bit remarkable about an incoming phone call being transmitted by radio?

If you are so bought in to the premise then of course you will believe anything that supports it no matter how wild, hilarious and absurd. This is why a debate is set up so that one can step back and examine all of the things we believe are true.

 

[JayUtah]

We were discussing debunking and Nixon ringing up the astronauts on the Moon hardly qualifies as a debunk. Quite the opposite.

No one has claimed it as a “debunk.” That’s hay you’re trying to make.