20 August

Conspiracy theories and urban myths are both fascinating things. David Grimes took a completely different approach to conspiracy theories (which he doesn’t dismiss out of hand), by ignoring the facts involved and instead looking at the secrecy needed to keep something from becoming known. For example NASA employed over 400,000 people at the time of the moon landings, and Grimes calculated that with that many people in the know of any cover up, the secret would have been exposed in under 4 years. Climate change is very similar, humans don’t keep secrets, particularly when large numbers of people are involved. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/faked-moon-landing-would-have-been-exposed-within-four-years-sci/