Slow down. It was something some people assert about the moon. The authors mentioned it for that reason only. It is NOT the subject of this book. They go through a painstaking discussion of the tides and how the moon orbits.Robert Tulip wrote: This hollow moon theory looks to be the epitome of cranky kookiness. If the moon was hollow, its mass would be far less than it actually is. Astronomers have calculated the mass of the moon because it keeps it in stable orbit, it causes tides on earth, and it causes the precession of the equinoxes. These are all calculated and observed so exactly in line with the classical mechanics of gravity that there is no such room for error in mainstream science.
Well, cranks and kooks. The difference is that cranks only hurt themselves. Kooks hurt everybody. If a crank group believes the moon is hollow, they're not shoving it down my throat or yours. If they believe it, they are only hurting themselves and people have a right to hurt themselves as long as they don't hurt others. But a kook might believe the earth was created in 6 days because the bible says so and so everyone must believe it and we are going to teach it in school and not scientific theories which is just atheist religion. THAT hurts everybody. After all, the hollow-mooners have a point: if the earth is made of the same material as the earth's crust, then why does it vibrate when struck? That opens up a whole line of discussion during which those who participate will learn new things.The problem with cranks is that scientists can point out a glaring flaw in their theory but they just don't care, because they are emotionally invested in it. And often, cranks are self taught and have major serious gaps in their knowledge. That enables real experts to see the immediate error in their ideas.
Suicide hotlines have known for years that activity increases during the full moon and would hire extra operators for the duration even though science insists there is no correlation.There are examples of theories such as continental drift that were initially dismissed as crank but proved to be true. Astrology is a very interesting case in point, since its cultural background is so complex. It is clear that there are seemingly astrological phenomena, such as the ability of rats to sense the gravity of the moon. But in line with the theory of paradigm shift, such anomalies are dismissed as the preserve of cranks when they appear to undermine a prevailing opinion.
I don't call the Jesus thing crankism. It's kookism. It's shoved down our throats and legislated into our lives. If Christians stayed in their corner and debated it among themselves and any outsiders who cared to engage them, that would be fine. But no--you and I have to believe this garbage and they won't stop until we do.Another major supposedly crank topic is the invention of Jesus Christ. Several scholarly books provide strong evidence for the invention hypothesis, but this just gets dismissed out of hand by Christian apologists on fallacious grounds such as that the existence of Jesus is so widely believed that it must be true. There are people who are so fearful of being labelled crank that they will not investigate evidence. One interesting example is the influence of Buddhism on Christian origins, which appears massive, but gets generally dismissed by Christians.
[quoteA useful starting point for such analysis is the crackpot index - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crackpot_index[/quote]
Thanks, looks interesting.