ConcordCowboy;4131887 said:
That guy explains it perfectly.
Why do people believe this stuff?
I have come to categorize the hoax believers into two generalized types: the Confused and the Hardcore.
The Confused are average people who have seen or heard the claims of the hoax advocates on TV, the Internet, or from friends and associates. They usually lack the scientific knowledge or experience necessary to dispute the claims, so they begin to doubt the authenticity of the moon landings.
The Hardcore, on the other hand, are a completely different type of personality. They almost always exhibit strong paranoid tendencies with an extreme distrust and hatred of the U.S. government. Rather than allowing the evidence to speak for itself, they will often begin by assuming a hoax and then search for evidence to support that preconception. When they see something that looks suspicious they immediately accept it as proof of their belief. When someone attempts to offer an alternate explanation they dismiss it as a NASA lie. Any evidence that contradicts their belief is described as an attempt by the government to deceive us. They will say that anyone who believes in the moon landings has been brainwashed or is in denial. They are usually argumentative and often hostile.
The Hardcore also tend to be completely close-minded, refusing to consider alternate possibilities. I have often debated with hardcore individuals over various hoax topics and, to date, I have always been able to completely discredit their claims with arguments that would more than satisfy any open-minded individual. However, they routinely refuse to acknowledge the possibility they could be in error. They will stubbornly cling to their belief in the hoax even when they have no creditable evidence to fall back on. The debate is clearly not just about evidence and physics; there are those who believe in the hoax merely because they want to believe it.
Why do some people choose to believe in the moon-landing hoax? I wish I could provide a definitive answer to that question, however I suspect it is a combination of paranoia and, perhaps more importantly, feelings of inadequacy. The hoax believers create a delusional fantasy in which they are the heroes. Their ability to decipher the subtle clues and uncover the hoax is seen as a demonstration of their intellectual superiority. To the hoax believers the more complex and convoluted the theory, the smarter they feel for having figured it all out. To the rest of us the theory just doesn't make any sense.
