Loony lunar leanings

EVERYONE is entitled to their opinion, of course: but when an opinion runs counter to accepted scientific fact, it is reasonable to question whether the holder of that opinion is truly qualified for public office.

In last year’s presidential campaign, Sinn Féin ran a candidate who had raised illinformed and often wholly incorrect claims about the safety of the cancer-preventing HPV vaccine. Now we learn that a Sinn Féin councillor, Séighin Ó Ceallaigh, has questioned whether the Moon landing of 1969 actually took place.

Now, Cllr Ó Ceallaigh is not the only person in the world to hold this view: there is a community of people out there who do believe it – just as some believe the 9/11 attacks were staged by the US government or that Elvis Presley faked his own death.

However, the role of a politician is to analyse facts objectively in order to arrive at logical conclusions: and objective analysis shows that those conspiracy theories are fantasy.

Some would argue that believing in such theories is harmless in itself. Perhaps – though in truth such theories, if they become mainstream, can end up being extremely dangerous (as we have seen with the anti-vaxxer movement). Either way, when conspiracy theorists get to make decisions affecting all our lives, we should all be afraid. Very afraid…