I thought the same thing mozz, but then I re read the post and this stuck out-

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So, do you believe there was a moon landing?

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Mozzoak was right. It was a pisstake. The moon is only  384 thousand kilometres away. I pulled the 2.3 million miles from nowhere and now that I can be stuffed to do the calculation, 2.3 million miles is  actually 600% of that distance. 

It basically goes to show that people can make totally absurd claims without laughing, and get somebody somewhere to believe them.

As far as the Pi author is concerned, I guess I'd better be serious here -  he's obviously far more advanced than any of us (possibly an alien lifeform). A quick view of this important piece of human endeavour reveals that it is about higher levels above science, sometimes conveniently called philosophy (of Pi). Or it has been called Pi 'Swedish Science' (PISS) or to use the Swedish acronym,  CRANK.  

Now because this incredible work has already reached perfection, there are no errors, hence, no Swedish Crowns  

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As The governor of California would say "Get owt of heer"

3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 4197

That's Pi to 39 digits. At that level of precision, a circle encompassing the diameter of the known universe would be accurate to the diameter of a proton.

Not sure if this attachment will work, but it's a pi calculator. It calculates Pi to heaps more digits than you'll ever need..

HypnoticTortoise wrote on Nov 13^th, 2009 at 5:55pm:



It's a crank site that I selected at random to make a point. 

The point was that if you make an argument with enough technical detail to confuse your readers, then you might actually convince some people, especially if they want to believe the conclusion in the first place. 

I was taken in by it, even though the bit about missing the moon was there to highlight it's silliness, the fact that I have no understanding of the finer points of mathematics, and that he put his money where his mouth is, created enough uncertainty for me.

It is very instructional in highlighting the old Menzies truism, "bullshit baffles brains", a system he used to great effect to stay in power longer than any other PM in our history.


In fact, I am so confused by the whole question now, that I could probably be tricked even further on the subject.

That muso chose to show it as an example of how confusionalist deniers work their mass voodoo made me consider just how easily people who have no great interest in a subject, or expert knowledge of a subject, can be so easily taken in.

Of course denialists will make the claim that all the governments and great scientific institutions of the world are colluding to produce a lie, and they, and the handful of dissenting scientists, are the ones clever enough to see through it.

That is their case in a nutshell, once you have stripped away all their lies and confusionalist BS, and so we, the average people, are left with a choice of whom should we believe?

Now few are more cynical than myself, and few have a greater mistrust of bureaucracy, and politicians, but even coming from that position, I still cannot see how it would be possible for so many independent individuals to come together and collude to create such a global phenomenon.

On top of that we have the science, real data, from real scientists, whose arguments are not even challenged by denialists, because they know they do not have any evidence to credibly challenge the science, and this is where the quasi scientists come in, working from tractor sheds in ohio, you can get theories on water vapour being the driving factor, and evangelical bible quotes from the same source.

Of course people have the right to be skeptical, and the right to be cynical, but that does not give them the right to be disingenuous at best, or dishonest at worst.

When the skeptics come up with some real science that impresses the real climate scientists, then I will be happy to reappraise my stance, but unless that happens, I have to support the best qualified, and most experienced people in the world, when they tell me what is happening.

muso wrote on Nov 17^th, 2009 at 8:51am:



Yep, you can make anyone believe just about anything, the American prove it everyday.

I have been haunting an American chat room and the poo those guys come out with simply beggars belief...