The Other Side of Midnight - Richard C. Hoagland - Live Chat Thread

[Yorkshire pud]

I can see why this stuff makes legit scientists crazy.  I love good hard science shows but I also like hearing about fringe ideas too.  I treat these more as speculation, as if I'm reading some sci-fi story. 

Or as MST3K put it:

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
and other science facts (la la la),
Then repeat to yourself, "It's just a show,
I should really just relax."

You do; but Hoagland et al peddle it as real science. His hitherto best pal, Bara simply insults (Such as telling one woman she was too ugly to have children) those who tell him where he's going/has gone wrong.

If there was a caveat before he opened his mouth to the effect that pretty much everything he was about say was crap, then it wouldn't be a problem. The thing is, there are very vulnerable people who hang on to the words of such as him; Remember the Planet X debacle? And the Heavens Gate tragedy? Peddled by deliberate deceivers who know better.

[BellBoy]

Remember the Planet X debacle? And the Heavens Gate tragedy? Peddled by deliberate deceivers who know better.

Yeah, some of us are still a bit miffed about the whole "Hey everyone! Let's all cut off our weiners and wait for the Mothership that's hiding behind the comet!" thing. 



(too soon?)

[astroguy]

The thing is, there are very vulnerable people who hang on to the words of such as him; Remember the Planet X debacle? And the Heavens Gate tragedy? Peddled by deliberate deceivers who know better.

Or comet ISON?  Or comet Elenin?  Richard Hoagland is not only a peddler of woo, he is playing people over it and by this point he has to know that he's making it up.  How many times can he be wrong before people stop believing him?  How many times can he say - when called out on it - that "I was presenting a model, a scenario" before he has to just admit that he makes s--- up?

Another of my issues is that based on these examples, I think he knows that what he says is B.S., and he holds is audience in such contempt that he thinks he can get away with just coming up with these idiotic excuses.  If you're wrong, own up to it!

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

Or comet ISON?  Or comet Elenin?  Richard Hoagland is not only a peddler of woo, he is playing people over it and by this point he has to know that he's making it up.  How many times can he be wrong before people stop believing him?  How many times can he say - when called out on it - that "I was presenting a model, a scenario" before he has to just admit that he makes s--- up?

Another of my issues is that based on these examples, I think he knows that what he says is B.S., and he holds is audience in such contempt that he thinks he can get away with just coming up with these idiotic excuses.  If you're wrong, own up to it!

But... 19.5!

[astroguy]

But... 19.5!

And both expat and I have written about how even his 19.5 claims are either cherry-picked or wrong.  For example, he cites a volcano on Io that's at "19.5."  Except that there are over 80 volcanoes all over Io.

[popple]

He should embrace it!  he could do it like the old fashioned shows where they employed sound effects people using all types of tools to create weird noises.

I was telling Bateman he should do it like an old time kids show. Captain Kangaroo whooooo? I would love to hear the phone ringing and interrupting him every time there was a caller, hahahah. HOAGIES MYSTERY PHONE! Maybe sometimes he wouldn't pick up for a prolonged period of time because he is too into his conversation  I would buy a 24 month 'other sider' sub for the phone element alone. Every show a bucket of pingpong balls shoud fall from the ceiling though. The secret word is 19.5!

GOOOOOOD MORNIN CAPTAIN HOAGIE!


https://youtu.be/SSpPyTNSlTU

[BellBoy]

Every show a bucket of pingpong balls shoud fall from the ceiling though. The secret word is 19.5!

GOOOOOOD MORNIN CAPTAIN HOAGIE!

[zeebo]

... If there was a caveat before he opened his mouth to the effect that pretty much everything he was about say was crap, then it wouldn't be a problem. The thing is, there are very vulnerable people who hang on to the words of such as him; Remember the Planet X debacle? And the Heavens Gate tragedy? Peddled by deliberate deceivers who know better.

Yes but people are constantly exposed to all kinds of stuff in the media .. round-the-clock religious prophecies, bellicose political propoganda, crazy medical supplement claims, questionable investment vehicles, etc ....

Sure the people who espouse this stuff should be ashamed if they know it's all phony, but some I suppose are actually delusional so I guess in that case it's not their fault.  And some might actually be ahead-of-their-time and we just don't know it yet.  Heck it took ol' Higgs like fifty years to be proved right.  (Ok bad example, he's a legit scientist.)

Look in any case imho it's ultimately the responibility of the listener to make their own judgement.  Some folks will buy into anything and if it's not Hoagie's Moon Domes it'll be the Pleiadians or the Illuminati or End Times or whatnot. 

[zeebo]

But... 19.5!

[chefist]

If he just used more of the qualifier words like Art does, "could be", "might just be a trick of light and shadows", "or just a dream"...i don't think I've heard RCH say those things...

[popple]

Next open-lines needs to be shown on pariscope!

[zeebo]

If he just used more of the qualifier words like Art does, "could be", "might just be a trick of light and shadows", "or just a dream"...i don't think I've heard RCH say those things...

I agree but he seems to lack such gray areas in his thinking.  True believers often have problems with such qualifiers.

[ShayP]

I was telling Bateman he should do it like an old time kids show. Captain Kangaroo whooooo? I would love to hear the phone ringing and interrupting him every time there was a caller, hahahah. HOAGIES MYSTERY PHONE! Maybe sometimes he wouldn't pick up for a prolonged period of time because he is too into his conversation  I would buy a 24 month 'other sider' sub for the phone element alone. Every show a bucket of pingpong balls shoud fall from the ceiling though. The secret word is 19.5!

YES!   

Wow.  Captain Kangaroo.  Ahhh....childhood memories. 

[ShayP]

Next open-lines needs to be shown on pariscope!

Some of the things we could see:

The bean bag chair,  70's style wood panelling,  adobe pots,  turquoise (lots of it),  pictures of Walter Cronkite, VHF and Beta tapes,  a bakelite telephone,  stacks of magazines, a broken console TV that is being used as a table (just throw some fabric on it...it works) and a lot more!!!

Well at least these are the things I imagine.   

[BellBoy]

Some of the things we could see:

The bean bag chair,  70's style wood panelling,  adobe pots,  turquoise (lots of it),  pictures of Walter Cronkite, VHF and Beta tapes,  a bakelite telephone,  stacks of magazines, a broken console TV that is being used as a table (just throw some fabric on it...it works) and a lot more!!!

Well at least these are the things I imagine. 

...and the Lava Lamp... and the macrame plant hangers... and the bong hidden in the corner

[SaucyRossy]

Yeah, we could call this the other side of midnight 3000.

Hahaha
Who's Tom servo

[BellBoy]

...and the Lava Lamp... and the macrame plant hangers... and the bong hidden in the corner

Hoagie's crisply pressed trousers, meticulously folded and draped over a chair's back.... The man himself, lounging comfortably in the bean-bag... black dress shoes, gray flannel socks (replete with sock-suspenders)... garishly polka-dotted, white-on-red boxers... knees ever so slightly parted...

(Sorry, I've been over in the Falkie thread... things in there are getting pretty HOT between DPS and Inglorious Bitch) 

[ShayP]

Hoagie's crisply pressed trousers, meticulously folded and draped over a chair's back.... The man himself, lounging comfortably in the bean-bag... black dress shoes, gray flannel socks (with sock-suspenders)... garishly polka-dotted, white-on-red boxers... knees ever so slightly parted...

(Sorry, I've been over in the Falkie thread... things in there are getting pretty HOT between DPS and Inglorious Bitch) 

I like the imagery Bellboy.  especially your previous mention of "...and the macrame plant hangers..."    It's like we're remote viewing!    LOL!   

I've weened myself off the Falkie thread.  Some thing's are just wrong......my gut tells me so. 

*edit*
I just visted the Falkie thread.  I feel shame. 

[BellBoy]

*edit*
I just visted the Falkie thread.  I feel shame. 

Twas I, that when thou were't i'the way to heaven,
Damned up thy passage; when thou took'st the book,
To view the scriptures, then I turned the leaves
And led thine eye... to the Falkie thread

[Jackstar]

I am now both a Time Traveler and Other Side of Midnighter. The pull of RCH was too strong.

I feel like I am the only person who signed up for both shows before RCH was announced as host, was elated about that instead of immediately cancelling, am cheerfully willing to stipulate this, and haven't been banned and/or trapped under something heavy.

It seems a rarefied strata, tell you what what.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

And both expat and I have written about how even his 19.5 claims are either cherry-picked or wrong.  For example, he cites a volcano on Io that's at "19.5."  Except that there are over 80 volcanoes all over Io.

Haha I know.  I was just reminded of Hoagland's dismay the other night regarding how Richard Dolan called Hoagland out on MITD about his Comet Elenin prediction.  You were probably referring directly to that monologue.  As you said, Hoagland claimed it was just a model.  He challenged Dolan to come on his show and point out any errors in his data.  He then went on to say that 19.5 was written all over the thing so I thought I would jokingly advocate for him.

Although I believe it was Qaddisin who was properly defended Hoagland's right to free speech, I agree with you that he is abusing that privilege to potentially mislead an audience of millions of people (the listenership of C2C) and further degrade the general educational level of America.  This of course has all sorts of damaging ramifications.  America, a once proud nation that represented the height of learning, science, and technology, is now seen increasingly as a land where superstition and religious dogma rule.  This is not a statement against religion, but more of a concern that the the directed perversion of religious teachings is being used to persuade portions of the population against science and critical thinking.  I refer to an episode of the British series Dr. Who last year when, faced with a global crisis, the Doctor was told the President had just boarded his plane.  He responded bitterly "We don't want Americans bobbing around the place. They'll only start praying."

Hoagland clearly has a strong passion for science and a good layman's understanding, but that's where his knowledge stops.  If he had stuck to scientific writing and, as he's doing now, interviewing, he would have been fine.  But he is clearly ill equipped to be pushing himself as a scientist investigating alternative physics and, I think, actually not only misguided but actively fraudulent. 

I say he is ill equipped because, first, he does not practice the basic tenants of the scientific method, which include among other things peer review, repeatability, uncertainty analysis, control (baseline) measurements, and scientific accountability.  I think his 'white crow' argument encapsulates his fundamental misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the scientific method perfectly.  Although it may be true that it just takes one white crow to prove all crows are not black, I think this statement misses all the points I just listed.  For that matter, he wants to spend tens of millions of tax payer dollars to put an EM Drive into space before it has even been properly vetted as authentic and before it is understood well enough to make predictions about its performance, not to mention that the observed effect is so small it is difficult to separate from uncertainties in the experiment.

Second, he only has a high school level understanding of science but he thinks he can go up against the big boys such as yourself or even the giants like von Braun.  As expat pointed out recently, Hoagland demonstrated some sort of conspiracy in the thrust of an Apollo rocket by applying a simple high school level momentum balance to it.  He completely ignored the natural log in the rocket equation, and didn't separate out the three rocket stages in his analysis.  This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how rockets work and of science in general.  If you have a science background and you see a natural log in an equation, you know that equation is probably a solution to a differential equation, which is very important because natural phenomenon (and rockets) are described in the language of mathematics by differential equations.  A rocket is continuously exchanging mass for acceleration so you can't just apply a simple momentum balance.  And if you attempt to evaluate an equation without knowing where it comes from, then don't plan to tell millions of people you just proved the scientists at NASA are all in on a conspiracy.  I would have just accepted I got something wrong and tried to learn more about it.

One of the reasons I say Hoagland is fraudulent goes back to a claim he made about an image showing a tram line over a structure (which he claimed was a city) on Mars.  I debunked it in about five minutes during the interview (expat used my image on his blog).  The original NASA image showed something like 14 parallel strips (lets say 14 for argument) of slightly contrasting brightness running parallel along the length of the image.  They were really quite obvious.  This suggested the intersections between the strips were an artifact of the way the image was taken.  I reviewed the technical specs on the camera used to take the image.  The camera consisted of 14 parallel CCDs that continuously added pixels to the image as the satellite flew over, creating the 14 strips. 

Most of the image was barren, so Hoagland took this one feature with a CCD intersection over it and cropped that section.  So, now there is just an image of an interesting feature with a line through it.  He then rotated the image so that the line was no longer parallel to the image, but at an odd angle.  This way it looked like a terrain feature ("tram line") rather than an artifact of the image. 

That looked like fraud to me.

[Inglorious Bitch]

The good news - RHC's podcast comes with Pluto coverage from the 14th and 15th. The bad news - they cut out all those delicious moments with RHC dropping the guest and not being able to operate the board that first night. I giggle every time I hear his chair squeak and it sound like he's farting while discussing rocket science.

[astroguy]

[snip]I say he is ill equipped because, first, he does not practice the basic tenants of the scientific method, which include among other things peer review, repeatability, uncertainty analysis, control (baseline) measurements, and scientific accountability.  I think his 'white crow' argument encapsulates his fundamental misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the scientific method perfectly.  Although it may be true that it just takes one white crow to prove all crows are not black, I think this statement misses all the points I just listed.  For that matter, he wants to spend tens of millions of tax payer dollars to put an EM Drive into space before it has even been properly vetted as authentic and before it is understood well enough to make predictions about its performance, not to mention that the observed effect is so small it is difficult to separate from uncertainties in the experiment.

[snip]That looked like fraud to me.

I'm hesitant to call someone a "fraud" because of the legal and libelous ramifications, but I agree with you and you agree with me at this point that various things he claims are so wrong, and yet he keeps saying they are so right.  To me, that indicates he probably knows he's wrong and so the perpetuation of his nonsense is ... well, you can stick in your own noun or adjective.

As for the EM drive, it's similarly ridiculous at this point.  What Richard, Mike, and others fail to report is what The Raw Story did:  they point out that their CONTROL - the experiment specifically designed to produce ZERO RESULTS - ended up showing the LARGEST effect in the EM Drive tests. That should indicate a problem to anyone who knows anything about how science works, or cares about reporting about science.

[GuerrillaUnReal]

I read most of your post. If you want to remove Hoagland's access to the media because of untruths, then quite frankly will anyone be left in the media?

Hoagland is a con artist with no accredited educational background who's only credentials in the science field are being a tour guide at a kid's planetarium and being some honcho at a tourist trap science center in a little town. He's made his career being a laughing stock and punching bag on the backs of Art Bell and C2C as a manic loon conman who manipulates alternative media.

I think you guys are taking RCH too seriously. The vast majority of the audience is listening for the high comedy of the constant fuckups and RCH going full RCH. At least I hope so as I have difficulty not laughing at a man who's telling me about the masonic greys.  :

I really hope someone got that first night recorded live as the 20 minutes of just utter chaos and fuckuperry was one of the funniest things I ever heard.

ASTROMONOMICAL GENIUS RENEGADE WHO CHALLENGES THE NASA CONSPIRACY BY DAY!!!!! ...can't figure out how to restart his computer at night...

[BellBoy]

....and it sound like he's farting while discussing rocket science.

Yes... it "sounds like" he's farting  :



On a side note: It's rumoured that during Einstein's Paris lectures you could quite nearly slice a jarful of pungency 

[Beelzebubbelah]

Haha I know....I thought I would jokingly advocate for him.
I agree with you that he is abusing that privilege to potentially mislead an audience of millions of people (the listenership of C2C) and further degrade the general educational level of America. Although it may be true that it just takes one white crow to prove all crows are not black, I think this statement misses all the points...
Second, he only has a high school level understanding of science but he thinks he can go up against ...the giants like von Braun. Hoagland demonstrated some sort of conspiracy in the thrust of an Apollo rocket by applying a simple high school level momentum balance to it.  He completely ignored the natural log in the rocket equation, and didn't separate out the three rocket stages in his analysis.  This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how rockets work and of science in general.  If you have a science background and you see a natural log in an equation, you know that equation is probably a solution to a differential equation, which is very important because natural phenomenon (and rockets) are described in the language of mathematics by differential equations.  A rocket is continuously exchanging mass for acceleration so you can't just apply a simple momentum balance.  And if you attempt to evaluate an equation without knowing where it comes from, then don't plan to tell millions of people you just proved the scientists at NASA are all in on a conspiracy.
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One of the reasons I say Hoagland is fraudulent goes back to a claim he made about an image showing a tram line over a structure (which he claimed was a city) on Mars.  I debunked it in about five minutes during the interview (expat used my image on his blog).  The original NASA image showed something like 14 parallel strips (lets say 14 for argument) of slightly contrasting brightness running parallel along the length of the image.  They were really quite obvious.  This suggested the intersections between the strips were an artifact of the way the image was taken.  I reviewed the technical specs on the camera used to take the image.  The camera consisted of 14 parallel CCDs that continuously added pixels to the image as the satellite flew over, creating the 14 strips. 

Most of the image was barren, so Hoagland took this one feature with a CCD intersection over it and cropped that section.  So, now there is just an image of an interesting feature with a line through it.  He then rotated the image so that the line was no longer parallel to the image, but at an odd angle.  This way it looked like a terrain feature ("tram line") rather than an artifact of the image. 

That looked like fraud to me.

=====================================
'Allo!
With you still i am.
Funny how mr.Hoagland seems to be out of his depth,and the vultures are circling his still moveing corpse,eh?
I have lots of qvestions about he and Mr.Bara's sources,and the wierd ideas he promotes.
Yet,he seems to me to be kind of benign.
I don't think it is fair to lump him in the 'i'm propheseying,you must do as i say'kind of theo-faschists a la billy-bob haggis or whatever he was,or bo & peep the Hale-Bopp set.
I remember the factoids that Mr.Bell was favouring the comet fear meme without hoagland or bara on many open-line and nooze comments.
Some-how his skidding around the influence he had on impressionable listeners was obviated as info-tainment speculation.
You here in the Bell_Grab forae seem to transfer doomer guilt directly to bara and hoagland,some-how revisionist history??
"B_B"

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

Yeah, sorry about the long diatribe.  I only meant to write a couple of sentences.  I don't know, maybe the only people who take RCH seriously are others who are trying to break into the business.  I do think he's starting to do a pretty good job with his show, at least getting people to question what they are hearing. 

I also understand you have to be a little more diplomatic and well-considered in your arguments than I do, astroguy  .  That was  interesting about the control test for the EM drive experiment.  I had missed that somehow.

[Inglorious Bitch]

Yes... it "sounds like" he's farting  :

That's his story and he's sticking to it.

[Claudius]

I was trying to find the Hoaxland fight and I found it  skip to 22:40 This maniac thinks that Hoaxland can actually screw with his audio on the fly... he could barely hang up the phone!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvbKq-qzj3Y&ab_channel=MarsRevealer

Also I screen grabbed this, RCH's Cultural Adviser has spoken!

[trostol]

i think this pretty much sums up RCH

Many scientists have responded to Hoagland's claims and assertions. Professional astronomer Phil Plait described Hoagland as a pseudoscientist and his claims as ridiculous.[10] Plait has also criticized Hoagland for having no university degree.[21] Prof. Ralph Greenberg asserted that the logic of Hoagland's deductions from the geometry of Cydonia Mensae is flawed[11] and says that he is not a trained scientist in any sense. The claim that the crashing of the Galileo orbiter into Jupiter caused a "mysterious black spot" on the planet has since been disputed by both NASA and Plait. There is photographic evidence that a similar "black spot" was present in imagery of Jupiter taken in 1998. A second image referenced by Plait shows a dark ring which looks similar to the spot Hoagland cited.[40] In 1995, Malin Space Science Systems, NASA prime contractor for planetary imaging, published a paper critiquing claims that the "city" at Cydonia is artificial, the claimed mathematical relationships, and â€" very specifically â€" denying any claims about concealing questionable data from the public.[41]
In October 1997, Hoagland received the Ig Nobel Prize for Astronomy "for identifying artificial features on the moon and on Mars, including a human face on Mars and ten-mile high buildings on the far side of the moon." The prize is a parody award given for outlandish or "trivial" contributions to science.[4]