The Wrong Argument Again
A post over at the “Professor Astronomy” blog discusses why astromomers (most of them anyway) don’t believe in “alien UFOs.” I don’t “believe” in them either, I simply think it’s more interesting to entertain possibilities instead of shutting down speculation. The post was inspired by the recent Texas sightings. Let’s take on his astronomy-type arguments in the ufomystic way:
1) Our eyes play tricks on us
They sure do, but while this is a good argument in general, it does not of course explain every UFO sighting. It also doesn’t explain all the sightings in Texas, as far as I know.
2) Space travel is amazingly difficult
Who says they’re coming from space? Unfortunately, most of the discussion on UFOs is framed by this assumption, including the Professor Astronomy post. I’ll have to say that the writer is only arguing this point, but it is unfortunate that the public debate revolves around aliens from other planets. Prof Astromony sez: “And, though there may be physics we haven’t yet discovered that allows us to travel safely among stars, as of now we don’t see any evidence that such physics exists. It is true that it is poor reasoning to say that the absence of evidence of advanced physics means that it doesn’t exist, but it is equally poor reasoning to say that the absence of evidence of advanced physics means that it is likely to exist.” Perhaps he hasn’t seen this paper.
3) The government can’t keep a secret
This is faulty reasoning, since it assumes that all secrets that have come to light are all there are. There is a good chance that some covert programs and events will never come to light. Of course, this is an assumption as well, but we’ve got reasonable doubt, and it’s more interesting this way.
Prof. Astronomy goes on to say that there are no accurate and exacting observations of UFOs to make any determination on their existence. I think that there are, like the RB-47 case (trained observers, ground and aircraft-based radar) and the exhaustive research on both the McMinnville and Santa Ana (Rex Heflin) photo cases.
It seems that “Professor Astronomy” has simply not taken the time to examine good evidence for something that exhibits many signs of being more than erroneous observations, hoaxes, or something with a mundane explanation. He ends with a personal observation of a case where Venus was mistaken for a UFO. This has happened more than once, but it is an example guilt by association, rather than a good reason for dismissing the UFO enigma as a whole. To his credit, he does suggest that trained observers armed with good equipment would be a step in the right direction. I agree. This has been done already by a scientist named Harley Rutledge (which was pointed out by one of the commenters here a few days ago.) The point is to get people out there to do it again and again. I suspect that they will find more than they bargained for, as Dr. Rutledge’s crew did.
There is no real evidence of UFOs as craft piloted by extraterrestrial beings, but that does not mean that all strange things seen in the sky are currently explainable by science. The point is to use what we have to try and determine what the unexplainables are. Perhaps we will need to change the way we study some things to understand them better. Simply shutting the door of inquiry for a few weak reasons doesn’t cut it.
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Jan 25 2008 
January 25th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Playing devil’s advocate here, it should be said that space travel is incredibly difficult for us. Any alien civilization with 10,000 year head start on us could easily have figured out how to build a self sustaining(energy wise) starship, not to mention the advances in other technologies like computing and biology.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Oh yes. The ol’ “Venus-light-refracted-on-swam-gas” hand trick
January 25th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
“It also doesn’t explain all the sightings in Texas, as far as I know”
There is no proof there were any sightings to begin with — and there is nothing to explain where nothing can be proven to have happened in the first place. Remember, a report of an event is not evidence of the thing being reported. Furthermore, the reports themselves are contradictory and ludicrous (see the report by Terry Groff), so once again, no one was able to take any clear pictures or videos of anything resembling a UFO because maybe there was nothing to take a picture or video of to begin with.
True, not all sightings can be explained as our eyes playing tricks on us, but it should be the very first thing one should try to eliminate as a possibility, yet the vast majority of UFO “researchers” never take the time to do this. I doubt if they could even tell you how this is done. They simply skip that step and assume whatever they want to believe.
That UFOs are space faring vessels is one of the biggest assumptions made, but it not the biggest one. The biggest assumption made is that UFO experiences cannot come from our imagination or mass delusion. That is one explanation that could even explain *ALL* UFO (in the classic sense) sightings. It would explain the complete and total absence of evidence of any UFO experience. It would explain why there are no good pictures, videos, or physical artifacts. All there are is the poorly taken pictures to go along with the even more poorly told storytales.
Scientists do not believe that space travel is impossible, but they do believe it is *DIFFICULT*. There are lots and lots of light years of travel between us and all those stars out there, so why go through all that DIFFICULTY to come here, put on a silly airshow, mutilate cattle, leave some graffiti in a couple of wheat fields, perform colonoscopies on a few unfortunate individuals…and then leave. It paints a picture of either the visitors being juvenile delinquents with a teenage homosexual crush on us, or that immature people are competing with each other to see just how big of a lie they can tell before people will wise up and stop believing in it. Considering the human propensity to tell tall tales, like the “big one that got away”, told and retold by thousands of fishermen all over the world, that would be reasonable and likely.
The government obviously can keep secrets but the real issue is, how long can they keep a secret, especially the more significant it’s revelation would be? Let us take an example of a very detrimental secret, one that the US government would never ever want to reveal: secret nuclear/biological/chemical human experimentation. Yet there have been multiple leaks of these secret experiments in which Presidents had to publicly apologize for. And what was the longest time a secret of this caliber has been kept secret was the Tuskegee Syphilis Study from 1932 to 1972, for which President Clinton apologized for in 1997. Why would UFOs be an exception to the rule? Governments are not known for being competent at anything other than waging war on each other, so why the exception to the rule? It is not reasonable to believe that an government could not only keep their alleged knowledge of UFOs secret for a longer time than they could keep unwilling human experimentation on the public secret, but they could even magically prevent the general public from ever experiencing UFOs for themselves. That is nonsense.
So it is no wonder scientist do not believe in UFOs: the reports of them are neither objective or thorough, the evidence offered for them is non-existent and/or ludicrous, or the witnesses cannot even get their stories straight with each other. With the number of UFO sightings each year numbering in the thousands, it is a miracle that airlines can get off the ground for all the UFO traffic overhead.
January 25th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
But the things that people use to dismiss UFOs (like the arguments above: mass delusion, sketchy evidence, varying accounts…) are the very things that can some people actually think are part of the phenomena itself! Ufology is a reflexive thing, and that in itself is highly unpalatable to many.
I get why ’scientists’ would want to dismiss it all, how people can look at it and just think it’s ‘made up’ or worthless, whatever.
But it seems to me that the UFO phenomena persists IN SPITE of itself. In spite of its lack of ‘credibility’ it’s there, always. Whether its origins are ‘real’ or ‘unreal’ doesn’t seem to matter, because people keep reporting UFOs and having experiences, and the whole mystery keeps being so darn attractive even to those who discount it all. This in itself is worthy of intellectual and thoughtful inquiry.
I’m so tired of all the canned spew. The whole “why would they come a darzillion miles to eat cows and make bad babies” argument. Well, the legend exists–why not speculate? If it’s meaningless, why bother with it?
January 27th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Sage, some of these things have actually happened. Many really didn’t, but I’ve little doubt that many have. Not to bore you with yet another story that appears, for you, as just more words in print, but in 1972 or 1973, my brother and I saw one of the classic phenomena in the middle of a forest on the California/Oregon border–a moving, spherical or disc-shaped orange plasma, about 20 feet in diameter, moving around a couple hundred feet above our heads in ways that we couldn’t imagine would occur without intelligent control–and not some radio-controlled balloon either. It wasn’t a mutual delusion that managed to impinge itself on our retinas, or our brain’s visual centers, simultaneously. Theories about visible mass delusions have usually been found to be very rare, and usually associated with religious beliefs. Mass psychological delusions not associated with visible phenomena are more common, but the UFO phenomenon visibly appears to people, either individually or in groups, out having a walk, etc., with no thoughts about UFOs buzzing around in their heads (until they see one). The UFO phenomenon, as a whole, doesn’t fit the usual patterns of any kind of mass delusion. I’ve also witnessed a few other “impossible” things (on the ground–it doesn’t all happen in the sky) that seemed deliberately designed to be weird, that ocurred under the most prosaic and unexpected circumstances, and not very welcome either–I wasn’t wishing for them. I’m sorry you haven’t witnessed any of these things yourself, and I know you’re tring to be rigourously scientific, but in fact you’re being unscientific to be so quick to dismiss witness reports as all being delusion, lies, etc. because they rarely, if ever, leave useful physical proof. An “advanced” species that works hard at preventing us from capturing useful evidence, could very well succeed at that, and that possibility needs to be included in any scientific study of the subject.
Richelle, you’re right that the whole “why would they come a darzillion miles to eat cows and make bad babies” argument is tedious. Anyone making this argument automatically marks themselves as someone who hasn’t bothered to do much research–they’ve taken a “pop” approach, usually just to get off a few sound bites–or hasn’t chosen to understand what research they’ve done. These are the things that have been proven to be bogus anyway–elaborate stories about “human/alien hybrid babies”, and underground alien bases where shootouts supposedly took place, and all this kind of nonsense, invented by the same people, and their ilk, that drove Bennewitz nuts, and by people wanting to sell books and have their personal version of “having a good time” by pulling one (or many) over on people. THOSE things have been proven false, not all the myriad sightings by individuals not out to make a buck, etc. Some of the classic cases of UFO lore have gradually been admitted as fakes by the people who pulled them off–particularly the stories accompanied by photos–but there are plenty of other reports not easy to dismiss.
As Richelle also says, “The things that people use to dismiss UFOs…are the very things that some people actually think are part of the phenomena itself”. The characters behind the phenomena carefully conduct their performances to be unappealing to most scientists. They want to be dismissed by them. We (at least I) don’t know why. Maybe it’s an attempt at a grass-roots thing.
Weird behavior by the others is obviously deliberate. Why they do it, we don’t exactly know yet. It probably has multiple uses to them (and maybe they think it benefits us too). But it’s not a method that any species would use to remain altogether hidden. One possibility is to prevent the less desirable effects of a cargo cult (cultural assimilation)–to be able to show that they’re here, but to make us look at them as unreliable sources for any kind of real help or camaraderie, or explanation about what they are, at least for a while–certainly no technical assistance (I don’t believe any of the stories about transfer of alien technology to humans–all human scientific advances can be traced back, in exhaustive detail, to their humbler, purely human beginnings). Maybe they want to inspire us (like a scifi writer’s work can) to do our own scientific research to accomplish what they seem to be able to do. Some people think we can get psychological or metaphysical inspiration from the others (Strieber is one who believes this, at least part of the time), but we’ll see how much of that turns out to be true.
The UFO phenomenon doesn’t persist in spite of itself–it persists because of its weirdness. Or maybe it just persists.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Well, that was rather what I meant–The UFO phenomenon is weird, and it persists, so it persists because it’s weird, its weirdness being inextractable from itself, it persists, so it presists in spite of its weirdness, which should logically render it immobile and non-enduring–so it persists in spite of itself…
Just being picky.
January 28th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Sadly, the planet as a whole is treated like a zoo and rightly so. We are restrained to a planet (with manned off planet excursions to the moon) and man will probably never get much further than the asteroid belt before utterly destroying ourselves. Whether or not we are restrained by off world intelligences is up for debate. It does seem every time someone might make a breakthrough in space travel something happens, ie: money runs out, 500 scientists say different, the inventor dies or disappears, etc. However, try and put yourself in a ET’s foot apparel: would you let those crazy homo sapiens leave that planet? The ones who make war at the drop of a religious nuts hat? The ones who have destroyed people on another country with nuclear devices as well as their own soldiers? The ones who have soldiers and armies? The ones who damn life instead of celebrating it? I damned sure wouldn’t!
I believe a very few people have had the opportunity to leave this planet, do some supervised touring and have returned with memories intact, but, I doubt seriously they would tell anyone - living in this world of people who would ridicule and/or revile them.
Whether or not ET is benevolent just remains to be seen. I for one hope they are.
Obviously, I believe extraterrestrials exist and that they come here and have come here for a very long time. Only in a few circumstances have they altered history such as Alexander’s flaming shields (if it were in fact ET).
The way they get here is probably through some sort of time travel or interstellar “stargate” (forgive me) that can be energized and de-energized at the whim of ET. Flying FTL is just not healthy - an FTL craft would probably not be able to alter course quick enough to avoid debris, rocks, planets and stars.
Well, just some thoughts about that.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
“Some of these things have actually happened. Many really didn’t, but I’ve little doubt that many have”
If by “really” you mean “reality”, no, none of them happened. Your lack of doubt adds nothing to this argument other then you are believer.
“My brother and I saw…a moving, spherical or disc-shaped orange plasma, about 20 feet in diameter, moving around a couple hundred feet above our heads in ways that we couldn’t imagine would occur without intelligent control”
But imagine is what you did. A plasma? How did you confirm that? By the way, a plasma is not an object, so how is it you call it an Unidentified Flying *OBJECT*? If it was intelligently controlled, what specific maneuver did it perform that could only be performed by an intelligence? Did you see any plasma beings piloting the plasma sphere/disc? How did you measure how big it was?
And do not confuse a delusion with an illusion.
“Theories about visible mass delusions have usually been found to be very rare, and usually associated with religious beliefs”
Completely false. Mass delusions are very common. Take for example the mass delusion of a sex idol or certain people with charisma. Columbus convinced himself that monsters existed in the Americas because it was a very popular belief in his day, yet no one ever actually saw any of the purported monsters.
“The UFO phenomenon, as a whole, doesn’t fit the usual patterns of any kind of mass delusion”
It does nothing for your case when you make up science that contradicts actual science. Let’s take a look at a synopsis of some typical hysterias and how they compare with the UFO sighting/abduction syndrome:
1. Grande hysteria :
1. Very suggestible,
2. From time to time, under the stress of emotional excitement, have attacks of amnesia that last from two days to several weeks
3. While in this state, they will wander about, visit relatives, contract debts, and so on, all with missing time.
2. Negative hallucinations :
1. Suddenly oblivious to certain things around them.
3. Pseudologia phantastica :
1. The development of fantasies during the attack, such as visions of star dwellers.
2. Many cases are known in the literature of fits of pathological lying, accompanied by various hysteriform complaints
4. Hysterical lethargy :
1. Superficial respiration
2. Lowering of the pulse
3. Corpse-like pallor of the face
4. Peculiar feelings of dying and thoughts of death
5. Psychogenesis :
1. Outbreaks of wild emotionalism
2. Psychotic delusions
3. Often, but not always accompanied by vasomotor derangements.
That sounds exactly like every UFO abduction I’ve ever read…
6. UFO phenomenon :
1. A massively popular delusion that ETs are visiting or abducting humans, characterized by psychotic and various nervous symptoms such as ‘missing time’, star-dwellers paralyzing the subject, self-inflicted injuries, sudden changes in behavior, etc, etc.
“You’re being unscientific to be so quick to dismiss witness reports as all being delusion, lies, etc. because they rarely, if ever, leave useful physical proof”
The only logically proper thing to do when presented with a claim given in a complete vacuum of any evidence whatsoever, is to dismiss the claim. It is not the nature of real things to leave absolutely no evidence of their presence and/or interaction with other real things. What other things, besides UFOs, do you know of that occur ten thousand times a year and leave absolutely no evidence? Why are UFOs the one and only exception to the way real life things interact with other real life things?
Dismissing something that is completely and totally without evidence is the only logically proper thing to.
The suggestion that aliens are “working hard at preventing us from capturing useful evidence” is not a intellectually honest thing to do. Unless someone actually interviewed the aliens and learned from them that this is the reason why we have no useful evidence of their presence, is making up evidence out of thin air in order to excuse us for having no evidence. It would not be scientific at all to even entertain make believe excuses.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
“If by “really” you mean “reality”, no, none of them happened.”
So, when the Belgian Air Force sent 2 F-16s chasing a big black triangle that many independent witnesses reported seeing and photographed and then held a press conference to show the radar tapes from their pursuit, which type of hysteria would that be on the list? When all those cops saw something very similar in Illinois and also took photos, were they infected by the same type of hysteria the Belgians had?
As a hypothetical exercise, if something is smarter than the observer and doesn’t want to be observed, what is the correct way to scientifically study it? Think of it as a science fiction plot. Man encounters an intelligence that has the means to understand us and how we observe and test ideas and then actively interferes with that process. I always thought that would make for an interesting plot anyways.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
“Dismissing something that is completely and totally without evidence is the only logically proper thing to.”
UFOs are, unarguably, at the very least, a complex sociological phenomenon. Were they not, none of us would be posting here. This site would not exist. You simply cannot argue that point.
The SUBJECT itself, Sage, if you can think outside the box a moment, is what I am referring to. I dare say you are yourself interested in that, otherwise, why the daily posts? The phenomena itself, whatever it is, is worth study. That’s why most people seem to be here.
So what there’s no evidence (although that is arguable)–there’s a lot of evidence of the subject, and it exists for a reason. You can so easily just dismis it by calling it a ‘mass delusion’, but some people (not you, I get that) would like to investigate the reasons behind a ‘mass delusion.’ Some people think it might be meaningful (not you. got it.)
Get it?
January 29th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
“So, when the Belgian Air Force sent 2 F-16s chasing a big black triangle that many independent witnesses reported seeing and photographed and then held a press conference to show the radar tapes from their pursuit, which type of hysteria would that be on the list?”
Well since there is no proof of any supposed black triangle or the jets that chased it, I would call it a mass hoax. I wonder how many witnesses can be named versus how many witnesses were said to have been there when it supposedly happened? Zero? Minus one?
“When all those cops saw something very similar in Illinois and also took photos, were they infected by the same type of hysteria the Belgians had?”
There is insufficient evidence to offer a diagnosis.
You can pretend these two events actually occurred outside of the storytales told about them, but the fact is there is no evidence that these events happened exactly as they were said to have occurred. Twice again, we have lots of stories with absolutely no proof they ever happened. It is based purely on blind faith belief, not reason or science.
“As a hypothetical exercise, if something is smarter than the observer and doesn’t want to be observed, what is the correct way to scientifically study it?”
That is not being hypothetical, that is pretending. It is also a go nowhere argument. For example, let’s pretend that invisible pink elephants exist. Now let’s make up excuses for why they don’t appear to everyone. Then let’s continue making up reasons for the reasons for the make believe excuses for why they don’t appear to everyone. A ‘discussion’ of that type could literally go on forever because when does the make believing end and reality begin? Imagination is limitless but reality has limits. One of those limits is common sense logic.
January 29th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I thought you were not going to respond to me anymore, Richelle, “just like everybody else doesn’t do”? Have you changed personalities on us?
“UFOs are, unarguably, at the very least, a complex sociological phenomenon. Were they not, none of us would be posting here. This site would not exist. You simply cannot argue that point”
You have more than one point there and one of those points is incorrect. Not every single one of us here are posting because UFOs are a “complex sociological phenomenon. You presume way too much.
“So what there’s no evidence”
So the only logically proper thing to do when presented with a claim in the complete and continual absence of evidence is to dismiss the claim.
“(Although that is arguable)–there’s a lot of evidence of the subject, and it exists for a reason. You can so easily just dismis it by calling it a ‘mass delusion’”
Facts are not arguable…do you have any of those to show us? If you have any actual facts, that would be very hard to dismiss, so why do you not just show us some facts and get the “arguing” over with now?
“But some people (not you, I get that) would like to investigate the reasons behind a ‘mass delusion.’ Some people think it might be meaningful (not you. got it.)”
Are not mass delusions a “complex sociological phenomenon” worth study? Therefore you should be welcoming this idea with an open mind instead of dismissing out of hand without doing absolutely any research on the matter first. Is not that a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
January 29th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I cannot make heads nor tails out of your post. Your last paragraph is particularly puzzling, and it seems as if you are actually arguing my point. It’s not my job to provide data and facts for you; this is a BLOG, son. This is not a formal paper. It’s ridiculous to provide debunkers with facts anyway, because debunkers like you have their minds mind up. It’s rather like arguing against the existence of God with Benny Hinn.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
“Well since there is no proof of any supposed black triangle or the jets that chased it, I would call it a mass hoax.”
As far as I’m concerned you’ve just identified yourself as a troll as you clearly don’t know any particulars about the cases I’ve mentioned and are responding with a generalized denial of the existence of what amounts to the public record. You can watch the Air Force press conference headed by Major General De Brouwer on the net as well as read the reports written by Major Lambrechts on the Belgian Air Force’s involvement. You can also find many video interviews with Belgian citizens that directly observed the object.
You then seem to suggest that the Belgian Air Force and a large number of Belgian citizens are involved in a mass hoax which four Illinois police officers in different locations and jurisdictions decided to mimic a decade later. Brilliant….and plausible too.
The demand that encounters with another intelligence at least equal to our own be presented in a killing jar for observation and experimentation at your leisure is not reasonable. The social sciences don’t operate like that and neither does counterintelligence.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
So, Sage, to what extent are you investigating the mass delusion/ mass
hoax hypothesis?
January 30th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
“I cannot make heads nor tails out of your post”
That is not my fault. Read it again.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
“As far as I’m concerned you’ve just identified yourself as a troll as you clearly don’t know any particulars about the cases I’ve mentioned”
You did not ask for any particulars — your mistake, not mine. You would be jumping to conclusions if you are trying to insinuate that I have no particulars either. You also do not know what a troll is, since a troll is someone who posts controversial messages and then does not take part in the ensuing dialogs. Again, your mistake.
“[You] are responding with a generalized denial of the existence of what amounts to the public record”
Read my post again. I did not deny anything. I did question the validity of the claims made and my conclusion is that in all probability it started somewhere as a hoax because there is no evidence that it was anything else. You cite a conference by Major General De Brouwer, reports written by Major Lambrechts, and some video interviews by who knows who, but once again I need to remind everyone here that a report of a thing is not evidence of the thing reported.
You want particulars? The pieced together storytales go like this: all that anyone ever “saw” were some distant lights arranged in a triangular formation. The videos and pictures, which appeared long after the fact, were all poorly taken and offered no proof they were taken on the date or location in question. The witnesses claimed to see up to eight lights/”objects” but the radar “sightings” contradicted those claims because they only showed one signal. Two F-16s were scrambled after the lights but the pilots never saw anything except for a blip that always appeared just out of reach on their radar. No witnesses came forward to say they saw the two F-16s chase off a bunch of UFOs through the city. Just because something is public information does not mean it is based on fact and finally, testimony without physical evidence you can put in your hands and take home is nothing more than storytelling.
The fact is, lights are not objects. Radar blips are not objects. Storytales are not objects. But that is all we have to go by in the Belgium case. You can call it an unidentified flying light or an unidentified moving radar blip or an unidentified contradictory storytale, but you cannot call it an unidentified flying object. Can’t you do better than that incident?
“The social sciences don’t operate like that and neither does counterintelligence”
Which is an irrelevant point since these kind of things are entirely within the realm of scientific inquiry.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
“So, Sage, to what extent are you investigating the mass delusion/ mass
hoax hypothesis?”
To the fullest extent reasonably possible.
January 31st, 2008 at 8:56 am
Well, I’ll hope that your investigations
produce some result-it seems to me that
hoax and delusion are a ways apart on the spectrum of human behavior.
“The social sciences don’t operate like that and neither does counterintelligence”
Which is an irrelevant point since these kind of things are entirely within the realm of scientific inquiry.
Umm, pardon my density, but what sort
of things? the social sciences? Counterintelligence? the phenomena of
Unidentified Flying objects? For some
who trumpets their rational faculties
you can be remarkabely obtuse. But, there, I’ve erred again-all failures of
communication are entirely the fault
of the recipient…
January 31st, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I ‘read it again’ Sage. Still nonsense.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Hoaxes could not exist if people did not know how to delude themselves. People that know how to think for themselves question what they are told to believe and are immune to hoaxes — and that is basically what delusion is: the ability to talk yourself into believing without question whatever it is you wish were true. There are lots of people who desperately want to believe ETs exist but they also want to see some proof, so any offer of proof that comes along, no matter how questionable it is, is the hope they are looking for and they will latch onto it like a pit bull.
You are making the (false) claim that science can only know about things that can be killed and placed in a jar. That is not science at all; that is about manipulating the conversation. Science, in a nutshell, is about finding flaws. If there is any flaw in your reasoning or in your story or in your Exhibit A, it is the job of science to dismiss your claim(s).
You can say all you want about how a thousand Frenchmen cannot be wrong; that a hundred witnesses and an entire military organization cannot be wrong, but that will not negate the fact that it is flawed reasoning because a thousand Frenchmen *CAN* be wrong. Millions of people *KNEW* the Earth was flat as a pancake and they were *ALL* wrong. Thousands knew that humanoid monsters roamed the Earth in Columbus’ day and they were all wrong too. They all had their testimonies by very reputable people and they had the backing of various prestigious organizations, but it all meant absolutely nothing in the end because testimony without evidence is merely another word for storytelling, and believing in a storytale in the absence of evidence is flawed reasoning.
So it is irrelevant what you believe the social sciences or counterintelligence might do about the matter, what is most important is that the only demand science makes of all of them is that whatever claims, experiments, methods, or observations they offer are without flaw — which is not something we can say about the claim that a UFO or two visited Belgium.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:47 am
“You are making the (false) claim that science can only know about things that can be killed and placed in a jar.”
Proof that you aren’t following the conversation, or–this is another instance of your irritating argument/rhetorical technique of twisting the points around and essentially creating an opposing argument from scratch.
February 1st, 2008 at 6:31 pm
“Proof that you aren’t following the conversation, or–this is another instance of your irritating argument/rhetorical technique of twisting the points around and essentially creating an opposing argument from scratch”
Neither…what is your point (assuming you even have one?). At least you are not confused anymore.
February 1st, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Not anon was making a point that all things CANNOT necessarily be put into a killing jar for scientific investigation on demand. In your post above, you call him (?) on it and bizarrely assert the same thing. Yet he was making that point. This is fun, explaining your own arguments to you.
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Not anon was making a point that all things CANNOT necessarily be put into a killing jar for scientific investigation on demand. In your post above, you call him (?) on it and bizarrely assert the same thing. Yet he was making that point”
The key word in my reply was *FALSE*, ie — the *FALSE* claim that claim that science can only know about things that can be killed and placed in a jar. That is one way but it is not the only way…which words did you not understand this time? Do you have anything on topic to discuss that you can discuss in an intelligent manner without getting confused or having to have people correct your delusions?
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:30 am
Listen Sage, you have been on these boards for months stupidly asserting the only thing that matters is scientific measurement and ‘facts.’ You have dismissed any other form of observation, or path of inquiry numerous times. Your own argument is the ‘killing jar’ to which I presume not anon refers.
Of course it’s a ridiculous argument, that was the point. But, conveniently, you agree when you see the blindsidedness of your own assertions.
You are so blindsided by your own argument that it is impossible to have a reasonable discussion with you. Unintelligent, confused, deluded…definintely words not normally attributed to me, Sage, it must be you. However, I have heard more than one person refer to you as obtuse here.
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:32 am
Oh yes, I do remember you mentioned that when the conversation gets personal and name calling arises, that the name caller has lost–although we all lose every time you post.
February 3rd, 2008 at 6:27 pm
“You have been…asserting the only thing that matters is scientific measurement and ‘facts.’ You have dismissed any other form of observation, or path of inquiry numerous times”
There is nothing to dismiss where nothing of the sort was ever discussed to begin with. Obviously there is no other form of observation or path of inquiry, hence the reason you nor anyone else has ever mentioned one. Please enlighten us by telling us what other form of ‘observation’ has worked better other than the kind based on hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling? Do you want to tell us the ESP or clairvoyance or women’s intuition or magic works better than observation based on hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling? If you want to say yes to any of that, be warned that History tells us a much different story. Whereas science has practically reinvented civilization in the last 100 years, observation based on ESP or clairvoyance or women’s intuition or magic has done nothing and has made no progress within its ranks in the last 1000 years.
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
ESP, clairvoyance, women’s intuition? Where the hell do you come up with this crap?
Nice self-induced argument.
No, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling–well, that’s pretty much been my argument too.
You’re a nutter.
February 4th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
“ESP, clairvoyance, women’s intuition? Where the hell do you come up with this crap?”
From people like yourself. I would certainly never gullibly believe in such obviously make believe nonsense, just like I would never gullibly believe that there is any other form of observation other then the scientific one.
“No, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling–well, that’s pretty much been my argument too”
In other words, you are unable to provide evidence for your false assertion that I dismissed other forms of observation, because no such forms were ever posted in any discussions, and you have no examples of any other forms that work. At least you are consistent, since you have made other false statements such as no one ever responds to me or that you would no longer respond to me anymore. Do you not care about your credibility (or lack thereof)? I guess not.
“You’re a nutter”
That means so much coming from somebody who has deluded themselves into believing they can diagnose and cure people by rubbing their feet. The only kind of people I know of that would work on are hypochondriacs and those with psychosomatic symptoms.
Clearly nothing you say can be taken as a professional opinion or anything but pure entertainment — not very good entertainment, but entertainment nonetheless.
February 4th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Your translation about the reflexology (rubbing feet? are you three years old?) seems pretty typcial from you–it’s about as reductive, simple, mocking, unthinking, and pedestrian as your thinking in everything else you assert. I never claimed to be able to ‘cure’ people–you’re really having a hard time following along.
You have never heard me promote esp, women’s intuition, or any such thing. Conversely, I have told you over and over I am not in any camp that promotes such thing, not a new ager as you bizarrely assert, etc.
February 5th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Once again Richelle, you are changing the subject to me instead of the topic of the archive. I know you are obsessed with me and cannot refrain from talking about me, but it is not productive, it is harassment, and it is obviously immature for a woman of your age. You are not worth our time, so I am not responding to your stupidity anymore.
PS — Does your mommy and daddy know you are using their computer without their permission?
February 6th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Nutter. good riddance.
February 7th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Just take a second and think about how old our planet earth is. Do realize there are millions upon millions of galaxies that are billions upon billions of years older than us??? they could be far more advanced in anything we could ever imagine. Over the past 60 years, there have been thousands of videos, pictures annd uncovered GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS on UFO’s. I know a large portion of these are bull shit, but there is a large portion that is real!! Us citizens only know a fraction of what NASA and the U.S. military know. Also, you skpetics always focus on certain UFO evidence that is obviously fake!
Can you please exaplain to me why Bill Cooper along with many othern ex-CIA agents put their life at RISK to prove you guys wrong? OH yeah, thats right, Bill Cooper was killed by government officials for trying to publish his book “Behold a pale Horse.”
Another great example happend recently, im sure everyone knows who Tom Brokaw is. Famous news braodcaster since the 1960’s who has interviewed many celebreties, presidents and other members of the government. He himself even claims that the U.S. government is covering up the UFO information and that we americans need to know about it.
I CANT WAIT FOR THE DAY THAT THEY FINALLY COME OUT AND LET US KNOW THAT THE UFO’S AND ALIENS ARE REAL! I WILL JUST BE SITTING BACK, SMOKING A FAT BLUNT AND LAUGHING AT YOU SKEPTICS! You just refuse to believe what is going on in the skys of this planet. If you want to email me feel free. Johnsonr74@yahoo.com
February 7th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
rojohn,
I had to edit your piece to take out the profanity. Our site owner/ administrator’s rules.
February 7th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Age means nothing in a Universe where there is an infinite time for things to occur in. It is because of this reason that I am absolutely certain there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe besides here on Earth. What is not certain is what the distribution of intelligent life within our local Universe is. Is the nearest advanced civilization 4 light years or 400 light years away? Or maybe it is 4000 or even 4 million light years away on average? This is important because if our civilization is on the verge of destroying ourselves and our environment, chances are that other civilizations will have paralleled our evolution and how many civilizations like ours would survive our up and coming crisis? The more distant the average civilizations are from each other, the more advanced they would have to be to travel those distances and the more likely they would want to have nothing to do with less advanced and barbaric people like we are.
The only kind of evidence I always focus on is the evidence that exists outside of the stories told about them — the kind of evidence you can take home with you in a wheelbarrow or examine under a microscope for example. But you believers always focus only on the testimonies and a few poorly taken photos. Testimony without evidence is nothing more than storytelling. I do not believe in storytales, I only believe in facts and there are no facts evident in any UFO report, just the poorly told storytales.
Just because someone is willing to die for their cause does not prove that their cause is based on fact. Religion has a long history of having people sacrificing their lives in vain for no good reason — as has politics. A cause can only be just and true if it is based on demonstrable facts.
Tom Brokaw has no evidence either, so who cares what his opinion on the matter is? Tom is an expert newscaster, not an expert UFOlogist or someone with some evidence for once.
Yes, one of these days you guys just might come up with some evidence for once instead of just more storytales, but in the meantime you guys are just going to have to continue to rely on blind faith belief. I will continue to rely on demonstrable facts, no matter who likes it or not.