Anil Gulecha’s Musings

Been wanting to get on with more woo-woo busting, and now found the time.

If you are kind enough to point your browser to http://science.krishna.org/Articles/2000/08/00082.html you will see some cowardly plug for irrationality by the Hare Krishna cult.

Let me quote a certain paragraph.

We realize that this is very difficult for you to accept, since it directly contradicts your established beliefs. But since you yourself have not actually gone to the moon, you owe it to yourself to consider why you are so confident that the astronauts actually have gone there. Why do you accept the popular version of the manned moon landing? Because you believe the authority of the scientists, the journalists, and the politicians who propagate that version. When we cite the Vedic scriptures, which state that the “astronauts” could not have gone to the moon, we are simply favoring another authority. In both cases, it is a matter of accepting an authority and believing what it says.

This seems to be the central defense for the entire essay. You base your beliefs on science as an authority and we on the vedic scriptures. The above is hidden in a fairly long FUD, and a naive reader may overlook the problem with the above logic.

To cite an analogy, consider a 6 year old boy at the edge of a high cliff. His parents (could be from a cult) tell him it is safe to jump off, he would descend safely as it is written in the scriptures. Reason, however, tells the boy that he wont survive it. Form the time he started walking (and falling), every time he fell off the stairs or off the window sill, or off the tree house, experience has taught him that it causes bodily harm, and risks his life. He is able to recognize that the higher the fall, the more he gets hurt. But being just a 6 year old, he also has learnt to obey his parents words. So what should he accept? Reason and experience? Or authority and blind belief?

Apply this analogy to the quoted portion when you reread it. When the cultists state “Because you believe the authority of the scientists, the journalists, and the politicians who propagate that version. When we cite the Vedic scriptures, which state that the “astronauts” could not have gone to the moon, we are simply favoring another authority”, they make it sound as if it our outlook were simply a matter of choice. As if it were a choice between the authority of the scientist and the authority of a divine person. It is not. It is a matter of Reason, which scientists represent, and Authority, which the ‘vedic scriptures’ represent. Make your choice.

Roughly translated, the cultists are saying “You choose to believe Reason, we choose to believe Authority”

Now that we have that cleared, we move to the apologist’s reasoning (pun unintended) for his choice of vedic scriptures over scientists’ opinion. It is because the vedic scriptures are based upon apaurusa, i.e, they emanate from God. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the classical loop aka Begs the question fallacy. Watch this to see this fallacy explained.

And then

The Vedic account of our planetary system is already researched, concluded, and perfect. The Vedas state that the moon is 800,000 miles farther from the earth than the sun.

Ah, bet the researchers were cultists too. Surely must have won the Nobel prize for such work. And solar eclipse, according to the vedic scriptures, simply cannot occur. Must be those damn scientists deceiving the population.

When we contradict the revered scientists like this and warn people that, through the use of brainwashing propaganda, they are being cheated out of billions of hard-earned tax dollars–we ourselves are accused of brainwashing. But which is better: a sober warning or a colossal multi-billion-dollar hoax?

And when I debunk your likes, I’d probably be accused by you and your followers of ungodly behavior. But which is better? A sober warning or colossal excreta spread across a whole page on the internet?

..before going there the scientists themselves predicted they could not live in that atmosphere, and upon reaching the moon they discovered the same thing–that they could not live there. So what is the value of this kind of billion-dollar excursion, which has produced only a few rocks?

Some men, unlike you guys, have a grand view of life, of success, of the limits of humanity. And they revel in pushing knowledge beyond the known. Through reason. And evidence. That in itself is a goal for some. There are those for whom goal of human life is not “to free the soul from its continuous transmigration among different species of life on various planets, and to transfer to the spiritual planets, where life is eternal”. Sooner or later natural selection will take care of you.

There is a lot more I’d like to talk about, including the mental state of the author of the article, and whether it was delusion or greed that gave life to the article. I’ll save it for later.

[EDIT: to all the folks who find this page using google searches like this and this and this : Seriously, stop being so easily manipulated by the scams of moon hoax. Even better visit Phil Plait's excellent page debunking the whole myth and the so called logical fallacies.]

Hi there..

Are you a patriot? Do you love your country? And be willing to lay down your life if it came to it? Allow me to be break you up.

I was disillusioned when I read Albert Einstein’s “The world as I see it”. He says:

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that does by the name of patriotism–how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.

He was of course talking about “patriotic” soldiers. I want to go beyond this and look into all sorts of chauvinism, where patriotism like behavior is seen: religion, culture, nationality, creed, the college you attend, the place you work.

Have you ever expressed opinions of the kind “I am a proud Indian” or “India is the greatest country” or “We have the best culture” (substitute with any other country as the case may be). If you make such a statement, you owe yourself a little question. “WHY?” What makes India better, that you are proud of it. Why is it better than the US, or Australia, or Denmark, or Switzerland?

Do you defend your university as “It is the best?” or “My religion is the best”. Again.. how is it better than others?

Coming to the soldiers in you, who are ready to lay down your lives for the country, have you for a moment wondered what it is that you are laying your life down for? Why is the land on one side of the border worth your blood, and the land on the other side the blood of another being? Just because you were born into it? Just because the people around you consider it ‘noble’. Those people, who in turn base their opinions upon the opinion of still others?

These are manifestations of what I call “Chauvinism-by-default”. You defend, or are proud of, an entity solely on the reason that you were born into it. If you were instead born in another country, you would be ready to lay your life down for that country. If you were born into another religion, you’d have gone through a separate set of activities and events, that would have led you into believing that that religion is “The one”.

Some of you might have seen the fallacy by now. Some of you may say “Well yes, thats true. I agree with the you, I would be a patriot of the US if I were born there. It’s the being a patriot that is the good thing, the virtue.”

THAT is the fallacy. It is nothing short of an abominable evil to be a chauvinist-by-default. Just being born, or enrolled, or selected into something, does not bring it above others. It does not prove it correct, it does not alter it’s nature. And it should not be, even in your own eyes.

I hope you see the reasoning. Take some time to mull over these words. You have been shown the door; entering it is wholly up to you. For some, this disillusionment may be the hardest thing to do. If you believe that the truth, no matter how hard, should be accepted, then you will come out of these reflections as a non-patriot.

If you do continue being a patriot, a chauvinist-by-default, understand that you’ve just lost your right to blame the world for its sad state. The reason, simply, is you.

[This was written sometime back, but disappeared when I changed my webhost. So, back again..]

This is an experimental new project started by a couple of friends and myself. We plan on creating one every month or so, but that could change with popularity
Heres the First: The steel man

More will be added as updates. Stay tuned!