This isn't a 2012 or moon landing question!?

For the same reason religious fundamentalists want to push their beliefs on the rest of us, in spite of the evidence against them (e.g., evolution is a fact, Jesus wasn't a Christian, and the world didn't begin about 6000 years ago). These people are bone-headed and self-righteous twits, with a very inadequate background in and appreciation for science.

People will tell you they are entitled to believe waht they want, whether this is right or wrong does not matter, whether there is evidence or not for what they believe does not matter. They will continue to believe it even when the evidence before their eyes shows them it is not true, and some will actually turn to physical violence to defend what they believe.

Conspiracy Theories are actually very potent, they play into the idea that the government, or any other authority never tells the truth, that there is always some form of cover up or hidden agenda at work to prevent us from really knowing the truth. This is rarely if ever the case, but as from time to time governments do hide informaion, often out of necessity, these things are then used to prove that governments are by association also covering up other information. It is human nature to be distrusting of others.

In this case the religion example is actually a good one, it describes this behaviour very well, despite everything that we now know, still there are people that will fight to ensure that whatever belief they have is considered valid, they will take up arms and they will kill for that belief.

The thing is, how do we change that, how do we educate people to look at these things clearly for what they are, how do we get people to rationalise out what is real against what is fantasy, so far it is clear that we are failing, and will continue to fail, until we can find a different way to present factual information in such a way that people easily understand it and equip them with the questioning and research skills to be able to go out and confirm these things for themselves.

Mark, I realize that I am answering this one very late, but there is a fairly recent fairy tale that makes the moon landing hoax wackos almost seem sane by comparison: It's the recent rebirth of the flat earth movement. These profoundly ignorant morons deny not only that the earth is (roughly) spherical, but also the heliocentric solar system, Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation, Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and pretty much everything else science has learned for the last couple of millennia. The amount of effort they invest into promoting this insanity is to me almost beyond belief, they post endless videos to YouTube, some running as much as four hours! The should be investing as much effort into actually learning a bit about geography, physics, and astronomy, might keep them from embarrassing themselves by publicly displaying their ignorance. They seem to base their beliefs on some combination of misinterpretation of Biblical scriptures and a profound distrust of anything from "the government".

Living proof that sanity does not run in some families!

<QUOTE>No matter how much evidence to the contrary you give them they still believe.</QUOTE>

You should know by now that truthiness trumps all in discussions.

<QUOTE>The question is why?</QUOTE>

Low risk, high reward.

It takes very little investment (maybe some time reading wacky stuff, or writing in a blog), but they get the impression that if they're right, they'll reap great rewards (fame, and perhaps even good money).

If there is a punishment for being wrong (e.g. being ostracized), then people will think twice about it. But the chance of being shuned for being wrong is not too high when there are so many people thinking the same way.

Because it's a narrative that explains all of the stuff they're ignorant about, that's too complex for them to try and learn about and gives them a sense that they;'re privy to secret information.

You should ask them this question: Why, when the Soviets/Russians had every means and motivation to expose the Moon landings as a hoax, have they never done so? There would be no real disinsentive for them, unlike a US whistleblower who might be frightened into silence (which is how they respond if you ask why not one of the 400,000 people involved had ever gone on public record about this).

When you try and show them evidence - even if you flew them to lunar orbit and showed them the landing module - they claim it is faked. You should poke holes in THEIR theory. The answers they give are hilarious

People like to believe that they know better. All the chumps believe the government line, but I'm smarter than they are, and I know the truth. You can't fool me.

People like to provoke a reaction. They don't really believe in anything other than saying something that will get you to react.

Some people are just crazy.

It's an appealing fantasy to them, in their careers as sandwich artists and customer service drones, that they know something special, and have seen through the schemes of all of those evil intellectuals and such.

I assume they are trolling. It's the same mentality as 2012ers, they get a kick out of upsetting people.

They get to frighten the uninformed, and then abuse and anger those that know better.

This question could have easily been asked exactly as it stands in Religion and Society. It is exactly their modus operandi.

Sheer utter absolute moronic stupidity!