http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1022/2
Toward the end, there's an passage that is relevant to discussions here:
But how does this theory inform the study of history? For starters, it teaches a lesson about methodology. A historian, like a lawyer, needs to establish a clear chain of evidence to prove a case. And unlike a teacher, they have to close the circle themselves—in other words, they cannot allow the listener/reader/student to take the evidence presented and draw their own conclusions, they have to present them all the evidence in a convincing narrative, acknowledge holes and weaknesses in their interpretation, and only then let them draw conclusions. Hoagland thinks he does that, but he doesn’t. He’s taken tiny little datapoints and claimed that they add up to a big picture. He claims he’s found motive (the collapse of civilization baloney), opportunity (the Apollo program), and evidence (smudges on a few pictures), and connected the dots into a giant story of earth-shattering proportions. He ignores contradictory evidence or even better explanations for what he’s seen (light leaking into the camera; dust on the lens). Of course, that’s because he is nuts. But at least he provides a teachable moment.