Green Cheese Moon

GREEN CHEESE MOON: A Facebook Conversation*

 *Any resemblance to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental

 

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Arone posts: "The moon looks like its made of green cheese."

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Terry: It can look like that but its surface is made of basalt and breccia.

 

Arone: But it looks like green cheese, so it is.

 

Terry: You seem to be confusing visual comparison with evidence of its composition.

 

Dron: Whatever Arone says is true.

 

Terry: Dron, if Arone told you the sun was a god that rode across the sky in a golden chariot, would you believe it? Arone, the moon’s lowlands are made of a kind of basalt and the highlands are breccias. We’ve been to the moon and we know what it is made of. People didn’t used to know what the moon really was so they made up all sorts of things to explain it based on what it looks like. But the history of science shows logical avenues of study, including technology development like spectrometry, long before we had the ability to sample it directly and they showed it to be made of kinds of rock similar to Earth’s formation.

 

Arone: I am an atheist, Terry. I don’t believe in gods. But, I KNOW cheese and I know empirical evidence when I see it. What Dron said has some merit. I am right about lots of things. You don’t get credit for going to the moon, Terry. You are just being pedantic with your convoluted double speak. You are ignoring the clear fact that it looks like green cheese and I have an experiment that will prove it. Let’s both slice a wheel of swiss cheese, leave it unrefrigerated for a few days until it starts to get a slight veneer of mold on it. Then we will go out at the next full moon, hang the wheel of cheese from the limb of a tree and view it from a distance such that it takes up 1 degree of sky space, just like the full moon. We will shine a light on the cheese wheel and put on a pair of dark glasses to obscure the difference in distance and lighting between the two objects and account for any potential bias in knowing which object is which. If you can honestly say that they look pretty similar in shape and general appearance, you must dance naked down the main street of your town and post a video of it on youtube entitled “I am so stupid I thought the moon was made of basalt and breccia”. If I can honestly say they look completely different in shape and general appearance, I will do the same with the title finishing “... made of green cheese”.

 

Tum: Cut the cheese! Whoever smelt it dealt it.

 

Terry: Your challenge is completely absurd, Arone. By what standard do you define the terms “look pretty similar” and “shape and general appearance”? Your proposal is completely biased toward the aesthetic attributes of shape, space occupied in the field of vision and illumination. What about spectroscopy results of the moon viewed from Earth that match the chemical composition of basalt and breccia, not green cheese?

 

Arone: It is an experiment, Terry. It is perfectly scientific. I have a theory, I set up a means of testing it and abide by the results and conclude accordingly. You are just blinded by your profession. If you can’t excavate it personally, you call everybody else’s opinion about it wrong.

 

Dron: I believe whatever I see. You read too many books, Terry. That is you’re problem. 

 

Carl: LOOK at it, Terry!

 

Reama: I write poetry. I know how to write and Terry is dumb.

 

Carl: Ha! Good one, Reama! Reama is reely smart, Terry! You need to here a reely smart person tell you yer dum so you will get it!

 

Tum: I’ll see you on the dark side of the cheese.

 

Terry: Hey Reama, do you have anything at all to say about the topic of the moon? Carl, seriously? You make yourself sound stupid when you declare that simply viewing something can explain its composition.

 

Reama: I know how to write and so do you, Ms Terry. I know how to write so well, I snowed all my college professors my freshman year into giving me good grades. I am highly intelligent and insightful because I know how to write. And I know your type well, Ms Terry. You know how to write but you are dumb. You can’t see the wisdom in these simple men’s simple words, but you are full of yourself and your vocabulary to make arguments on obfuscation and no substance. Whatever I say is true because I have such a great command of the English language and my professional career in education. Whatever you say is not true because you lecture people about how smart you are instead of trying to communicate with them. I obviously don’t care at all about what your profession is and how it informs on what you are saying. I just don’t like you because you question my friends’ assertions.

 

Carl: You tell her, Reama! All Terry does is insult people! I don’t have nuthin more I need say about the moon! Reama said it all! Ha!

 

Dron: You don’t have to read books to be smart, but you can be smart and read books. I feel sorry for you that you don’t get that, Terry. You liberals just read some books.

 

Terry: Reama, you really need to GFY. Oops! There I go just insulting people instead of talking about the scientific basis of studying the moon’s composition! LOL! Oh, nevermind. You folks are brilliant... not as brilliant as the luminosity of the moon as a celestial object viewed from earth, but I have learned a lot from you. Never EVER try to reason with self-absorbed, arrogant fools about matters of objectively demonstrable truth. Thank you. Bye bye.