Fortean phenomena

[paddoboy]

2. I don't like the idea that if a conclusion is believed to be true, if it's atheist or pro-mainstream-science or something, then all arguments for that conclusion must therefore be strong and defensible arguments. I'm a critical-thinking instructor at heart, and I'm motivated to criticize what I perceive as weak arguments and sloppy reasoning, regardless of who is doing it or what conclusions the arguments are being used to support. People on Sciforums have a tendency to get lazy, to join up with the perceived 'good guys' in Paddoboy's little war and then turn off their brains. (I've noticed you doing that.)

I see that as sensationalistic crap. Think about it....most scientific views are strong and near conclusive. You expect your computer to work when ever you use it...youturn on your TV and accept it is going to work.....we expect the Sun to rise in the east every morning, etc etc etc
With your little comment about the good guys and paddoboy's little war, more sensationalistic crap: This is first and foremost a science forum, and as such any and all claims that are not mainstream, can be expected to run the gauntlet of scientific review and critique.
When people claim Aliens have landed and produce a u tube video, such extraordinary claims will be severely critiqued......when people claim that reputable scientific experiments like Hulse Taylor binary observation, like the GP-B, or more recently, like aLIGO, are fraudulent, then they can most certainly be brought to account to explain such extraordinary claims.
That will continue.

3. And regrettably, I'm human. I have a tendency to react emotionally to insults, flames and perceived rudeness. I get mad, and sometimes my anger shows through.

So do I.

4. I'm less likely to question MR's massive credulity than to question his opponents, because MR is a minority of one around here and he typically has ten or twenty opponents who don't need my support. I don't feel like piling on and often side with the underdog. (No matter how many 'likes' it costs me.)

I'm totally not interested in whether anyone is in the minority or not, or who needs or does not need my support, or how many likes or dislikes I have.
I find all that superficial, and prefer to argue along the lines of the scientific methodology, no matter which side of the coin that falls on...oh yes, I have also been in the minority at times.

5. I'm inclined to think that much of the general public treats science as if it is a new religion and anything perceived as non-scientific as heresy and heathenism.

I also see that as pretentious crap for the reasons explained in my first response to you.
Let me again add as I have many times, that I am only a lay person, who has read plenty in the last 30 years or so, and while in many cases I certainly need to take things on faith, I also am able to see the results of scientific reason and endeavours all around me everyday. And again, don't we all have faith in something everyday? I do not see too much wrong with that, as most of that type of faith can be finally observed to be valid.

6. I'm also inclined to think that some of science's conceptual supports aren't nearly as strong as many people seem to think. I think that we are surrounded by mysteries at every moment, by things that humans don't fully understand.

A scientific theory is our best guess at any one particular moment in time. As long as that "best guess" keeps being validated by further and further observations, experimental results and continued successful predictions, then it gains in more and more certainty over time.
Science as yet do not have the full answers to the big questions, but it continues to pursue those questions, by applying the scientific methodology, logic and common sense.

7. Which implies that I'm sympathetic to MR's desire to find anomalies. I think that they probably do exist. I don't think that our current scientific understanding is the last word on reality, so I'm inclined to suspect that exceptions and problem cases do exist.

It certainly isn't the last word, who ever told you anyone thought that.
And the strongest aspect of any exceptions or problematic cases that also certainly exist, is that at this time they remain as unexplained, or unidentified, or unknown, rather then Aliens, ghosts, Bigfoot, or whatever.
Remember also as I have relayed to this forum, I have seen a UFO, which to this day still remains as unidentified.
Plus of course another point I often relay to the forum, is that I would dearly love my personal belief that ETL exists elsewhere, to be finally validated before I kick the bucket.

 

[James R]

Magical Realist:

No..I'm saying I'm off your corporate bandwagon that says cellphones are totally safe and don't cause cancer. I do so based on that study I posted. Are you just going to pretend to not have seen that?

Firstly, it is not my corporate bandwagon. I do not work for any cell phone compay, or anybody with a financial interest in downplaying any possible dangers of cell-phone radiation.

Secondly, I have not made any claim that cell phones are totally safe and don't cause cancer.

I would urge you to be very wary of coming to a conclusion about the dangers of cell phones based on the single study you linked to above. Even the authors of that study admit that there are many things they can't explain. The study itself has numerous "issues" that are discussed to some extent in the article you linked, but which would best be discussed in a separate thread if you're interested.

I am not convinced, on the basis of this study, that normal cell phone radiation exposure is a cancer risk to human beings. This is not to downplay the study. I merely point out that it is not conclusive of anything.

None of those complaints are adequate to dismiss a filmed documentary as "dodgy". The video quality doesn't reflect on the authenticity of the filmed events.

Right, but it's much harder to look at details when the video quality is poor. And if one wanted to fake something, making the footage dark or grainy or noisy or whatever would mean that one would need to do less work to produce something that is moderately convincing-looking.

The identity of those making the film is irrelevant.

Nonsense. If that were true, you'd trust somebody with a proven track record of fakery just as much as you'd trust somebody with a long record of reliability.

Background on the video itself isn't necessary to determine that the events really happened as filmed.

Yes it is. Especially when the video itself is the only evidence that anything happened. If there is independent evidence, this becomes less important.

Analysis by experts is never necessary to prove that the filming was real.

Where the authenticity of the footage is questionable, expert analysis can help to resolve the question.

Eyewitness reports included in the film verify and don't detract from it's authenticity.

That varies from case to case. One cannot assume that everybody one sees on a film is being truthful, or even that they are who they or the filmmakers say they are. And even if they are being truthful about something they thought they witnessed, they can still be mistaken for various reasons.

And there is no low trustability about the source of the video seeing it is a documentary made for TV. If it were all faked it would never have been aired on TV.

You are wrong. There is a lot of money to be made by selling faked footage and dishonest fabrications as "documentaries". TV shows about the paranormal generally have very low standards regarding what they will air as "authentic". They tend to treat their subject matter with credulity and usually do not bother to investigate issues such as authenticity.

The documentary would long by now have been known as fake by the media and blackballed.

And many such TV shows indeed have very poor reputations in this regard.

There IS some background on the video I just discovered: ...

You realise that this is just another second-hand account of the same footage? There's no actually new information there, apart from the claim that the Chi Guru Guy used a particular false name.

No..I asked the right question. And until you have proof a video or a documentary has been faked, there's no reason to take your claims that it is seriously at all. Remember, when you make a claim, you need to support it.

This is typical of you.

What you are saying is that you will believe that this is real, unless somebody can serve up proof to you on a platter that it is fake. Your track record, even in that regard, is not good. When presented with proof in the past, you have being extremely resistant to changing your belief.

I have not claimed that your Chi Guru Guy is a faker. I have pointed out that I am aware of several ways in which his paper-burning trick could be achieved through fakery. That should raise some inkling of a concern for you, but apparently it does nothing to shake your faith in him.

What you need to ask yourself is: why are you so ready to accept what you see on that video as real, while at the same time you claim that there's "no reason to take your claims seriously at all"? You have a double-standard on the kind of evidence you demand. If the source is somebody peddling woo to you, you accept it without question. But when a skeptic raises reasonable questions, you demand watertight proof of fakery. Why is that?

Just watch the whole video. I'm not goin out of my way to do anything for you.

Ok. Just for you I watched the whole thing - the whole 10 and a half minutes.

All of the "testing" of Chi Guru Guy was done either in locations that the guy himself chose, or else in uncontrolled locations in which no special precautions were taken to prevent fraud.

Very little in the way of scientific testing was done at all. They attached a voltmeter to the guy that showed nothing unusual. And that's a about it, really.

Oh so now the videos are too grainy? Where was it too grainy? Give me a time stamp.

The whole thing is grainy. The footage is old - some of it supposedly from the 1980s.

In all the important parts, the shots cut away so that what we see is not a continuous record of what happened, but bare snippets of film that have little to no context of what happened immediately before and afterwards.

You haven't even come close to proving this guy faked anything. And you certainly have no credibility claiming so.

I haven't tried to prove the guy faked anything.

As for credibility, how credible is it that somebody can light an LED with the power of his mind? Or cause paper to light up by mind power alone? Or spin a machete on a table (or whatever it was) by mind power alone?

You apparently regard all of these as more "credible" than my reasonable suggestion that fakery would be more "credible".

You need evidence of fakery. That's how science works.

What evidence do you have that rules out fakery? That's how science works, too. You said you had some. But you don't.

You are making a positive assertion: Chi Guru Guy has magical and mysterious Chi powers. So, what's your evidence of that? One dodgy yourtube video. That's all, as far as I can see. That's not good evidence for your extraordinary claim. It's very weak evidence. It could be worse. We could have just a written account of "Somebody met this guy and he did amazing stuff". Or we could have merely your assertion, like "I've heard of some guy in Borneo who has magical powers." The video is more interesting that those, but only marginally so.

That world of fake news stories and lying frauds is YOUR world not mine. That's the world you live in. In reality, news stories on TV and documentaries are highly reliable sources for anyone who isn't living in a paranoid bubble like you are. If they don't meet your high criteria for credibility that's not on me. That's on you and your inability to accept compelling evidence when it's put right in front of you.

You ought to read more widely instead of wasting your time on dumb youtube videos.

For example, in your country recently, there was an election for your next President. Since then, there has been a fair amount of discussion about fake news stories, particularly in the context of postings on Facebook. I urge you to investigate these as an example of how news can be faked. You are far too trusting of the media, it seems.

You really are a bundle of contradictions, MR. On the one hand, you'll support any half-assed conspiracy theory if it tends to lend support to the woo you believe. But on the other hand, you're apparently happy to ignore very real manipulations of media that are definitely going on and have been exposed.

I think you're delegating the responsibility of deciding what it is reasonable to believe to other people. That probably wouldn't be a big problem if the people you're putting your trust were are actually trustworthy.

 

[James R]

(continued...)

I don't know James. According to you any doctor could be total quack. No peer review of his diagnosis. No confirmation of his diagnosis by experts. Anecdotal accounts of my symptoms. No rigorous controls over the lab data. Grainy MRI photos. All so totally suspicious.

Right. The doctor could be a quack. This is why we have certification procedures for medical doctors, codes of conduct, registration etc. Moreover, for serious matters, usually multiple medical professionals will be involved in managing medical care, not just one. That allows for peer review, confirmation and so on.

Your accounts of your own symptoms do form part of the basis on which a doctor can make a medical diagnosis. But usually they will also run scientific tests as necessary to put your reported symptoms in context. Your say-so that you have cancer will not by itself convince any doctor that you have cancer, for example.

Medical lab data does, in fact, have rigorous controls, because this is important. We don't want the samples to be mixed up and for people to get incorrect results or diagnoses. This happens behind the scenes to a large extent, so perhaps you're not aware of it.

MRI is a tool for diagnosis in medicine (among other things). It is not infallible, and it is not a perfect source of information. So, you are right to say that it is "grainy", in a sense. An MRI photo alone may not be sufficient for a doctor to form a diagnosis, for example.

You are right to be suspicious of medicine. Medicine isn't infallible, and you shouldn't automatically trust everything a doctor tells you. It is good to be skeptical in this, as in everything.

Actually this account wasn't written by Whitley Streiber but by Jeffery Kripley, a professor of religious comparative studies at Rice University. I have no reason to doubt a thing he said here. But I'm sure you do.

Yeah, I do. His association with Whitley Streiber, for starters.

Do I care? Nope..

Does it surprise me that you don't care? Nope...

No..he changed his name to protect his identity.

Right. So nobody can verify that Professor Dan is a real person at all. And that's before we even get to the magical honey jar.

Guess he didn't want some paranoid nutcase like you frantically knocking on his door at 3 in the morning demanding scientific validation of his experience.

Personal insults now, Magical Realist? How disappointing.

If I've said something nutty, you'll of course point out what it is, in the hope that I can be cured. Won't you?

It's a goddamn personal experience James. Just like 90% of everything that happens to you or anyone else. There's no evidence of any of that occurring at all. We just have his testimony. Which is totally credible.

We have a second-hand account that mentions a guy that we can't verify even exists. And somebody else has written down that guy's supposed "experience" for him, just like somebody could write down some fiction in a novel.

And this is all you've got. And you say this account of a magically-teleporting honey jar is "totally credible".

Don't you find the idea of teleporting honey jar, on the face of it, incredible? Is your head really so full of woo that you've lost touch with what is normal?

No..people don't imagine such things...

Sure they do. People imagine all kinds of things.

... nor do they absentmindedly and with great effort bury a jar of honey in a tin of flour that they had just seconds before put in the sink without remembering doing any of that. That's just stupid.

Firstly, the human mind is a strange thing and people do strange things.
Secondly, and more importantly, there's no actual evidence that any of this happened, anyway, other than a second-hand story about a person who might not even exist.

I left that part of the account out not anticipating anyone being crazy enough to suggest he didn't rule out other things in that moment of utter impossibility. People usually do that you know James. They don't need you to do it for them:

"He went thru all the usual skeptical rebuttals: that this feat was a trick or show designed for an audience (where was the audience?)..that he had somehow hypnotized himself and put a wet jar at the bottom of the flour tin himself (the later is a nearly impossible feat he later learned--he tried)...that his unconscious mind had played a trick on him and somehow traded places with his conscious mind for the duration of the experience (then how to explain the fully conscious and fully remembered sensation of the tin suddenly becoming heavier?) None of these "explanations" really resolved anything, ofcourse. They were more unbelievable than the event itself, which was already outrageous enough."---ibid. pg. 201..

This report is inconsistent with his statements that Professor Dan jumped to an "immediate conclusion at the time of the original event" and that he "knew at that instant that materialism is false".

Quote where I have ever claimed to believe in astrology or admit you are lying to make me look foolish. Put up or shut up James.

Are you saying you don't believe in astrology?

This may be the first bit of woo that I've come across that you don't buy into. Well done, MR.

Note that I made no claim that you, personally, believe in astrology, by the way.

Actually it'd be you who'd doubt the weather forecaster, lacking any crucial information about his credentials, or the repeatability of his forecast in a lab, or his being published in a peer reviewed journal. Oh and let's not forget that the forecast can't be real because it is actually on TV. We can't trust anything we see on TV, right? It's all just entertainment right? And well, it is just HIS anecdotal account ya know. I mean how can we rely on anecdotal accounts? It's all just so iffy isn't it?

Generally, I don't trust in the credentials of a particular TV weather presenter. Actually, I don't always know the credentials of the presenter. Rather, my trust is in the source of the information those people use, which comes down to a scientific organisation. But, if you think it's about that, you're really barking up the wrong tree on this.

My level of trust in the weather forecast is ultimately based on its past record of accuracy. If the weather forecast tells me that it will probably rain tomorrow, and it does, then my trust in the weather forecast will rise as a result. Over years of experience in hearing/seeing/reading weather forecasts and comparing them to my own lived experience, I know to what level the weather forecast can be trusted in terms of its accuracy. (Incidentally, the answer to that is that these days the weather forecast is generally pretty good for the next day or two, but its accuracy tends to be worse as we go further ahead. Most forecasts are for 7 days in advance, but the 7 day forecast isn't that good, except in broad terms.)

You mention repeatability, and I've talking about that. Also, if you compare the weather forecast from different sources, you will also see that it demonstrates repeatability. If you don't trust one station's forecast, you can always compare it to another's - although they all ultimately draw on the same sources of data.

The fact that the forecast is on TV doesn't matter much. It is not true that the only check we can do concerning the forecast is to watch the forecast itself. We can, for example, go outside and look at the weather. So, even if we have an inherent distrust of TV as a medium for conveying accurate information, we can still compare the information conveyed against other sources of the same or comparable information.

Your claim that weather forecasts are anecdotal is wrong. If I tell you "some guy I saw on TV said tomorrow will be sunny", then that's an anecdote. But if I can direct you to multiple independent sources that support the notion that the weather forecast for tomorrow is for sunny weather, than we have something better than mere anecdote. If still in doubt, we can do even better. Just wait until tomorrow and compare the forecast to the actual weather. After that, it is easy to see whether that forecast was trustworthy or not.

In summary, yes, the weather forecast is somewhat "iffy", for many reasons. That is why you are well advised to keep a rough tab on whether the particular forecasts you watch have a good record of trustworthiness. In other words, applying skepticism to the weather forecast is as worthwhile as applying it to other things.

 

[James R]

Yazata:

Possibly you will reply to my earlier response to you, or maybe you are going to ignore it. Anyway, a few comments on your latest post...

1. MR is my friend. I knew him (online, never in person) for some ten years before either of us arrived here. (I knew CC back then too, but she doesn't attract the abuse that MR does.) I defend my friends when I think that they are being bullied and unfairly attacked.

May I ask: do you think my "attacks" on MR (e.g. see my posts to MR in this thread as an example) are unfair or bullying?

2. I don't like the idea that if a conclusion is believed to be true, if it's atheist or pro-mainstream-science or something, then all arguments for that conclusion must therefore be strong and defensible arguments. I'm a critical-thinking instructor at heart, and I'm motivated to criticize what I perceive as weak arguments and sloppy reasoning, regardless of who is doing it or what conclusions the arguments are being used to support. People on Sciforums have a tendency to get lazy, to join up with the perceived 'good guys' in Paddoboy's little war and then turn off their brains.

There is certainly an element of cheer-leading that goes on here, on both sides of the fence, as it were.

Of course, anybody here is free to point out weak arguments and sloppy reasoning, where they occur.

4. I'm less likely to question MR's massive credulity than to question his opponents, because MR is a minority of one around here and he typically has ten or twenty opponents who don't need my support.

Fair enough. However, it is worth pointing out that MR is not obliged to respond to anybody, let alone take on ten or twenty "opponents" at a time. Like everybody else, he is here by choice and he can reply to or ignore whoever he wants to.

I think that a lot of people are probably frustrated at MR's hit-and-run, spamlike approach to his pseudoscience. He posts youtube clip after yourtube clip, and anecdote after anecdote, mostly with no real desire for discussion or analysis, and his position is always "prove me wrong" rather than "here's why I'm right".

I'm inclined to think that much of the general public treats science as if it is a new religion and anything perceived as non-scientific as heresy and heathenism. Science has become the new gnosis, the source of knowledge of the origin of the universe, the universe's fundamental principles and mode of operation and its ultimate fate. We are supposed to believe that science sweeps away religion and provides not only the best, but the only source of reliable information about anything. One isn't even thinking properly unless one is thinking scientifically. Unfortunately, real knowledge of science is only open to a small minority who devote some ten years of their lives to earning a PhD. So for most people out there, science is as much a matter of faith as religion ever was. I don't think that's healthy but don't know what to do about it, apart from prescribing a little skepticism and humility. You and I have already argued about that.

I've also talked about this with you, I think. I also have my doubts about whether the cross-section of the general population that you see here, and their attitudes, is a good reflection of the wider society.

However, I am also inclined to come back to my point that there are experts in every specialised field, and scientific ones are not the only ones that require 10 years of training and a PhD in order for a person to have deep knowledge or understanding. And I repeat that we all have little choice but to trust in experts all the time, because nobody can be an expert in everything.

I'm also inclined to think that some of science's conceptual supports aren't nearly as strong as many people seem to think. I think that we are surrounded by mysteries at every moment, by things that humans don't fully understand. All one needs to do is ask 'why' about any deep question, ask 'why' again about the answer, and repeat that process for just a handful of steps to arrive at the frontiers of existing human knowledge about almost anything. So I get nervous when people start to proclaim certainties that I don't think are fully justified down at the foundational level and when they claim to know things that I doubt that anyone really knows.

It is true that we are surrounded by mysteries. But saying that is to make a much more defensible claim than saying that we are surrounded by the "paranormal" or the "supernatural".

Clearly, there's always a lot we don't know. But whenever we discover something new, we are usually able to put it in a box where it fits nicely with all the other stuff we already know. It goes from mysterious to being part of the accepted canon of knowledge.

The philosophical foundations of knowledge are interesting to explore, and like most areas of philosophy we often end up finding ourselves on shakier ground than we might have expected when we started. But often such concerns have little practical effect, and indeed most people live their lives quite happily with zero awareness of any of those philosophical issues. Philosophy, like science, is an expert field that requires years of study in order to gain expertise. Most of us, if we worry about such things at all, have to put our trust in the philosophers to sort things out for us.

Which implies that I'm sympathetic to MR's desire to find anomalies. I think that they probably do exist. I don't think that our current scientific understanding is the last word on reality, so I'm inclined to suspect that exceptions and problem cases do exist.

I'm still interested in drilling down into that a bit.

Do you have any particular examples in mind of the kinds of anomalies you mention?

While I don't think that MR's examples are very convincing, I don't want to totally condemn his search. I don't think that he does any harm so long as his threads are posted in the appropriate forums, and think that all the hostility and rudeness directed his way (including your calling for his banning) is uncalled for.

I oppose people calling for anybody's ban on the mere basis that they hold a different view on some topic or other.

There is much debate, both among the moderator group and in the open forums, as to what extent dishonesty, evasion and troll-like tactics ought to be grounds for banning. I suspect that I am among the most forgiving of the moderators in that respect, for which I receive quite a bit of criticism.

 

[paddoboy]

There is certainly an element of cheer-leading that goes on here, on both sides of the fence, as it were.

Please explain to me what science cheer leading is, and in your opinion why you think it occurs?
My answer to that in post 141, was as follows........
"I see that as sensationalistic crap. Think about it....most scientific views are strong and near conclusive. You expect your computer to work when ever you use it...youturn on your TV and accept it is going to work.....we expect the Sun to rise in the east every morning, etc etc etc
With your little comment about the good guys and paddoboy's little war, more sensationalistic crap: This is first and foremost a science forum, and as such any and all claims that are not mainstream, can be expected to run the gauntlet of scientific review and critique.
When people claim Aliens have landed and produce a u tube video, such extraordinary claims will be severely critiqued......when people claim that reputable scientific experiments like Hulse Taylor binary observation, like the GP-B, or more recently, like aLIGO, are fraudulent, then they can most certainly be brought to account to explain such extraordinary claims.
That will continue"
Is there anything in my reply that you take umbrage at?
Is this science cheer-leading? In a science forum?
I would have thought that if I had walked into a church last Sunday and started preaching the BB and the evidence that supports it, and the fact that science has pushed the need for any deity into near oblivion, as maybe science cheer-leading.
But in a science forum? Perhaps you maybe of the opinion that I believe science should not be questioned?
That's not true, as in my opinion, I only question those questions that are made from a baseless position with no evidence.
Or are you referring to someone else?

 

[James R]

paddoboy:

Please explain to me what science cheer leading is, and in your opinion why you think it occurs?

Cheer-leading is the kind of response that says little more, in effect, than "Yay for science!" or "Wow! You really put down that crank with your science!" Or, from the other side, "Wow! You really showed those science guys that science doesn't know everything, because it couldn't explain that woo you posted!" It's a kind of knee-jerk posting that focuses more on rooting for a team than on addressing the substance of what has been argued.

Why do I think it occurs? I think it occurs because some people are inherently tribal, and particularly so on the internet. On sciforums, in particular, discussions are often not conducted in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Also, people who hold opposite views are often seen as opponents to be put in their places or crushed, rather than as people who might contribute a different perspective to one's own.

This is not unique to sciforums. With people these days getting more of their news and interactions on the internet, there is a kind of filtering effect at work - some of it quite deliberate. The result is that people are used to getting their own views reflected back at them a lot of the time. They read stuff that they agree with, most of the time, and mostly don't look at stuff from people who hold different views. This is one reason why people were surprised when Trump was elected, and when the Brexit happened. For example, we heard lots of reports from people who didn't know anybody who voted for Trump, and on the other side from people who didn't know anybody who voted for Clinton.

On sciforums, I think there are some people who see posts with which they agree, and they think "Hey, that's similar to what I think!" So they hit "like", and sometimes they post a "Yay!"-type one-liner effectively to letting that poster know that they have their moral support and to let opponents know which "side" they are on. This can be a fairly mindless process, because it can be done without really engaging in the substance of whatever arguments are being made on either side. At worst, it can come across as a kind of stacks-on bullying.

My answer to that in post 141, was as follows........
"I see that as sensationalistic crap.

I think you're upset at the mention of your name there as somebody who is engaged in a sort of crusade for science.

As to the content, seeing as you asked:

Think about it....most scientific views are strong and near conclusive.

I think this is an overstatement. I'd be more inclined to say that science works very well for many things, but there is still loads of stuff we don't know. When it comes down to it, very little in science is "conclusive" or "near conclusive". The whole point of the scientific method is that everything is provisional and subject to revision in the light of new evidence.

This is first and foremost a science forum, and as such any and all claims that are not mainstream, can be expected to run the gauntlet of scientific review and critique.

Are you confident that you can always reliably distinguish between what is "mainstream" and what is not?

Also, you must appreciate that sciforums is not the peer-review panel of some scientific journal. Everybody's opinions here are just opinions. And ultimately, it doesn't matter if somebody is wrong on the internet. It's not a crusade. If somebody posts something novel here that has actual scientific merit, then probably they will have also submitted that through the usual peer-review process and it will be scientifically critiqued by actual scientists. We don't have to be the gatekeepers to protect "science" from nutbaggery. Science can look after itself perfectly well.

What we can do here is to toss ideas back and forth and see if they have legs, provided that we have enough combined expertise to be able to make an informed judgment one way or the other.

When people claim Aliens have landed and produce a u tube video, such extraordinary claims will be severely critiqued......when people claim that reputable scientific experiments like Hulse Taylor binary observation, like the GP-B, or more recently, like aLIGO, are fraudulent, then they can most certainly be brought to account to explain such extraordinary claims.

It's quite reasonable to ask people to back up the claims they make with appropriate evidence. But we can't force people to explain themselves, or "bring them to account". In the end, the record of interaction that is left on the forum speaks for itself. Those people will either make a good case, or make a poor or non-existent one. But there's no forum policeman to slap them on the wrist and tell them they are a bad person if they are wrong. We don't need that.

Is there anything in my reply that you take umbrage at?

There's nothing specific, paddoboy. My impression is that you have a tendency to be over-zealous in leading the science cheer squad. I particularly don't like your tendency to spam the same point over and over again, as if hammering away at it will make your point more effective than the first time you posted it. I also do not generally approve of your posting of irrelevant and off-topic information rather than directly addressing the actual arguments that have been made, which you do on occasion.

Importantly, everything in this post is just an expression of my personal opinions; none of this has anything to do any official role I have here.

Is this science cheer-leading? In a science forum?

Well, to call something "sensationalistic crap" is fairly emotive, wouldn't you say? I think it's perfectly fine for Yazata to express his point of view. I don't agree with everything he wrote, and I have replied in that regard. But I don't see the need to go into some kind of us-vs-them battle with him because he think some people here at sciforums are too "scientistic" or whatever. We can have a mutually respectful disagreement without making it personal.

I would have thought that if I had walked into a church last Sunday and started preaching the BB and the evidence that supports it, and the fact that science has pushed the need for any deity into near oblivion, as maybe science cheer-leading.
But in a science forum? Perhaps you maybe of the opinion that I believe science should not be questioned?
That's not true, as in my opinion, I only question those questions that are made from a baseless position with no evidence.

I'm only answering here because you asked directly for my opinion. In general, I understand where you're coming from and I am supportive of your intent. As a moderator, I am somewhat tired of the interpersonal conflict that you tend to get into with one or two other members, in particular. But that is mostly, on a balance, more their fault than yours.

 

[paddoboy]

I think you're upset at the mention of your name there as somebody who is engaged in a sort of crusade for science.

As you said, and as I agree with, science does not need my cheer leading, and I'm certainly not on any crusade, rather it appears others with agendas of sorts that appear to be on a crusade.

I think this is an overstatement. I'd be more inclined to say that science works very well for many things, but there is still loads of stuff we don't know. The whole point of the scientific method is that everything is provisional and subject to revision in the light of new evidence.

I'm pretty sure I have expressed that exact view many times.

Are you confident that you can always reliably distinguish between what is "mainstream" and what is not?

As you know James, I am an amateur at this game which is why I generally supply reputable links and/or citations.

Also, you must appreciate that sciforums is not the peer-review panel of some scientific journal. Everybody's opinions here are just opinions. And ultimately, it doesn't matter if somebody is wrong on the internet. It's not a crusade.

Agreed and I'm sure you have seen me express the same or similar sentiments.

If somebody posts something novel here that has actual scientific merit, then probably they will have also submitted that through the usual peer-review process and it will be scientifically critiqued by actual scientists. We don't have to be the gatekeepers to protect "science" from nutbaggery. Science can look after itself perfectly well.

I couldn't have said it better myself!

It's quite reasonable to ask people to back up the claims they make with appropriate evidence. But we can't force people to explain themselves, or "bring them to account". In the end, the record of interaction that is left on the forum speaks for itself. Those people will either make a good case, or make a poor or non-existent one. But there's no forum policeman to slap them on the wrist and tell them they are a bad person if they are wrong. We don't need that.


There's nothing specific, paddoboy. My impression is that you have a tendency to be over-zealous in leading the science cheer squad. I particularly don't like your tendency to spam the same point over and over again, as if hammering away at it will make your point more effective than the first time you posted it. I also do not generally approve of your posting of irrelevant and off-topic information rather than directly addressing the actual arguments that have been made, which you do on occasion.

In a recent debacle between myself and expletive deleted, he was insinuating, claiming and putting down the Hulse Taylor binary pulsar results that have come to be known as the first real direct evidence of gravitational waves.
I asked for a reference or citation supporting his stuff and was constantantly ignored. So yes, I repeated many times my request.
I'm sure you know the thread I am referring to.

Well, to call something "sensationalistic crap" is fairly emotive, wouldn't you say? I think it's perfectly fine for Yazata to express his point of view.

Yes to both, but in my defence, my name was mentioned.

Thanks for the rest of your thoughts and I must say that recent action is rather pleasing in as much as keeping the crap out of science, and whether you are aware or not, I am trying to tone down some of my actions. And I certainly admit to being sometimes a stubborn old bastard.

 

[Yazata]

Possibly you will reply to my earlier response to you, or maybe you are going to ignore it. Anyway, a few comments on your latest post...

I'm not sure which one you are referring to. After I finish this post, I'll go back and look for it. I'll add that I don't always reply to every post. There's no disrespect intended, I just post my own thoughts about various things and others do the same. I have no expectation that everyone will agree with me. I don't always feel the need to battle every disagreement. Others have the right to express their own opinions. I usually just let a post of mine stand if I think that it expressed my point well.

What's more, the post you are replying to now wasn't meant as an attack on the board or on you. Nor was it meant as a single sustained argument. It was a reply to a very specific question of Exchemist's asking why I often defend MR. I note that Exchemist has succeeded in maneuvering me into conflict, which I expect was his intention.

May I ask: do you think my "attacks" on MR (e.g. see my posts to MR in this thread as an example) are unfair or bullying?

I think that most of your posts are very good. You are generally one of the smarter and more reasonable people around here. But you do occasionally go overboard. But my remarks weren't really aimed at you. Whenever MR posts, people mock him, insult him and call for him to be banned. And I note that MR has once again has been banned.

There is certainly an element of cheer-leading that goes on here, on both sides of the fence, as it were.

Of course, anybody here is free to point out weak arguments and sloppy reasoning, where they occur.

That's what I typically try to do.

However, it is worth pointing out that MR is not obliged to respond to anybody, let alone take on ten or twenty "opponents" at a time. Like everybody else, he is here by choice and he can reply to or ignore whoever he wants to.

True. That's my attitude towards the 'politics' and 'ethics' fora. I typically ignore them because I know that any posts by me would just get me flamed and probably banned eventually. I post here for fun, not for aggravation. But if too many of us behave that way, it allows a single party-line to totally dominate. Despite all the talk about the wonders of 'diversity', diversity of opinion isn't always welcome on Sciforums.

I think that a lot of people are probably frustrated at MR's hit-and-run, spamlike approach to his pseudoscience. He posts youtube clip after yourtube clip, and anecdote after anecdote, mostly with no real desire for discussion or analysis, and his position is always "prove me wrong" rather than "here's why I'm right".

I can't read his mind, but I think that he might be responding to the common charge: 'there's no evidence!' He's illustrating that is demonstrably false, there's no end of evidence. You were playing that game yourself when you announced that he has nothing. That's why I challenged you by saying that he has nothing that you are willing to accept. Which isn't the same thing at all. (I happen to agree with you about not credulously believing most of what MR posts, but that's a different point.)

I've also talked about this with you, I think. I also have my doubts about whether the cross-section of the general population that you see here, and their attitudes, is a good reflection of the wider society.

I agree. For one thing, the percentage of militant atheists is hugely higher here.

But my point is that many of our atheists seem to treat "science" as a religious-style belief system. I suspect that one of the reasons why many atheists try to set up "science" and "religion" as antithetical blood enemies is that there's only room in their psyches for a single all-encompassing faith.

My own discomfort revolves around dismissing epistemology and metaphysics and somehow collapsing them into the category of "science". The assumption seems to be that "science" has answered all the outstanding philosophical problems, or alternatively, that it has exposed them as bullshit. As I argue repeatedly in multiple threads, I don't think that view is in any way justifiable.

I'm guessing now, but I think that MR's discomfort arises from the attempt to erect "science" as humanity's ultimate authority. MR doesn't like the repeated attempts on Sciforums to discredit personal experience, and to replace it with dependence on authority. That's another reason for MR's liking anecdotal reports. He's inclined to think that the best evidence for something is seeing it with one's own eyes, not whether the report has been approved by the "scientists" or conforms to some pre-determined catechism of approved belief. I think that MR goes way overboard on that, but he nevertheless has a point that I'm sympathetic to.

However, I am also inclined to come back to my point that there are experts in every specialised field, and scientific ones are not the only ones that require 10 years of training and a PhD in order for a person to have deep knowledge or understanding. And I repeat that we all have little choice but to trust in experts all the time, because nobody can be an expert in everything.

Sure, we are dependent on plumbers when we need our pipes fixed. But plumbers aren't being promoted as ultimate authorities on questions of what does and doesn't exist and on the shape of valid reasoning itself. Plumbers aren't the ones that people look to when they are looking for answers to all the age-old questions. They aren't the ones who have elbowed aside the shamans, priests and wizards, promising mankind some ultimate gnosis.

It is true that we are surrounded by mysteries. But saying that is to make a much more defensible claim than saying that we are surrounded by the "paranormal" or the "supernatural".

Clearly, there's always a lot we don't know. But whenever we discover something new, we are usually able to put it in a box where it fits nicely with all the other stuff we already know. It goes from mysterious to being part of the accepted canon of knowledge.

Right. "Usually". My point is simply that it isn't a necessary thing. Events aren't somehow obligated to fit into our little conceptual boxes. Our current understanding is a huge generalization and extrapolation of our previous experience. Subsequently, newer events have been observed to fit into the pattern and we call that 'confirmation'. But that doesn't exclude the possibility that the next observation won't fit at all.

Do you have any particular examples in mind of the kinds of anomalies you mention?

If they are unexpected, then it's going to be hard to specify them beforehand.

If we don't already understand everything, if we in fact are pretty vague on the foundations of just about all of our beliefs, and if science is always a work in progress and not the last word on everything, then I suspect that we are apt to encounter some anomalies and problem cases out there where our current understanding doesn't hold true.

I don't believe that MR's ghosts and ufos are those anomalies, though. In my opinion they are more apt to look like the reactionless EM drive in the other thread. I'm thinking of things like the photoelectric effect that ushered in energy quantization or the failure of the Michelson-Morley experiment to detect ether drift. Maybe dark matter has some fundamental surprises in store, I don't know.

The philosophical foundations of knowledge are interesting to explore, and like most areas of philosophy we often end up finding ourselves on shakier ground than we might have expected when we started. But often such concerns have little practical effect, and indeed most people live their lives quite happily with zero awareness of any of those philosophical issues. Philosophy, like science, is an expert field that requires years of study in order to gain expertise. Most of us, if we worry about such things at all, have to put our trust in the philosophers to sort things out for us.

Sure, but very little that's discussed here on Sciforums has any practical effect in people's lives. Surprisingly little discussion here even concerns science, per se. A great deal of it is about the philosophy of science, and cognate areas in metaphysics and the philosophy of knowledge. Thread after thread address the science/pseudoscience 'demarcation problem', the question of what does and doesn't constitute evidence, the interpretations of quantum mechanics, the role of mathematics, the semi-mythical 'scientific method', natural-selection vs ID, questions of origins (life, the universe and everything) and similar topics. Paddoboy loves to insult philosophy (without having ever studied it) but writes about little besides the philosophy of science. (He would probably really enjoy studying it, if he could ever bring himself to do it.)

People love to immediately go for the more foundational and/or cosmic questions as opposed to the more elementary or technical ones. Nobody's discussing introductory physics problems here, this isn't a homework-help board, people immediately want to know what physics and cosmology imply about the nature of reality itself. Or else they want ammo for the incessant "science" vs "religion" war. Or they want to attack pseudoscience heretics. And those are all places where the philosophical issues arise.

I oppose people calling for anybody's ban on the mere basis that they hold a different view on some topic or other.

Yet I saw this morning that MR has been banned (again). Why is that? Can you explain who did it and why it was done?

 

[paddoboy]

Paddoboy loves to insult philosophy (without having ever studied it) but writes about little besides the philosophy of science. (He would probably really enjoy studying it, if he could ever bring himself to do it.)

Really Yazata, paddoboy does not really love to insult philosophy:
Sure, at times I have made certain remarks, and posted certain quotes denigrating philosophy, but most of those are in reply to posts denigrating science. And yes, in one memorable moment one of those quotes did get you off side, and of course the remarks of Laurence Krauss.
Perhaps I was shit stirring.
In actual fact [and without the Krauss opinion] I see science as the hands on, hard copy of obtaining knowledge, seeking explanations, and seeing further.
Philosophy in my opinion is more the guiding light as to how we behave.
Let me say Yazata, that since I came to this forum, I had no real interest in Philosophy, and saw it as an "airy fairy" type of discipline, but this view has changed somewhat for the positive, you should be pleased to know.
I certainly recognise the fact of my own participation in philosophical banter, as you and others have pointed out: The big questions are philosophical and will remain for a long while, as science continues to wade through the data and tries to reveal the nature of our observations.

I post here for fun, not for aggravation. But if too many of us behave that way, it allows a single party-line to totally dominate. Despite all the talk about the wonders of 'diversity', diversity of opinion isn't always welcome on Sciforums.

Yet this forum, when compared to other science forums, has a far greater diversity of opinions.
My own beef, is when some of the more "non scientific diversities" spill into the sciences.
Finally as you have directed this post at James.......

but I think that MR's discomfort arises from the attempt to erect "science" as humanity's ultimate authority.

Yazata, who or what would you present as humanity's ultimate authority?
If we were on the verge of ultimate destruction, and could only save a dozen or so humans, to carry on, who would you select?
Can we as a human race, do without science?...if we are to survive?
Why isn't, and why shouldn't science be the ultimate authority, and as guided by well known philosophical behavourial traits.
And of course if it is the ultimate authority, does that mean it's also the ultimate dictator?....or would you say the ultimate benefactor?
Enough of my philosophical rants!

 

[Magical Realist]

Yazata, who or what would you present as humanity's ultimate authority?

Why do you assume there IS an ultimate authority for humanity? We're 7 billion primates all struggling for an understanding of reality based on our knowledge and our personal experience. We ARE our own authorities. We are all conscious beings, and have direct access to reality at all times. You have decided to rely on science as your ultimate authority. A body of second hand abstractions reliant on corporate and govt funding and peer consensus. But that is a decision you made for yourself. Not everyone makes that same decision.

 

[paddoboy]

Why do you assume there IS an ultimate authority for humanity?

As I have told you in the past MR, science and the scientific method are basically an application of using what knowledge we are gaining for the benifit of all. You know those trees you would still be swinging in?

We're 7 billion primates all struggling for an understanding of reality based on our knowledge and our personal experience. We ARE our own authorities. We are all conscious beings, and have direct access to reality at all times.

No, we all, all of us depend on others at one time or another......on personal hygiene when we arise in the morning and the scientific knowledge of proper care etc.....relying on the bus/train or even your own car to get you to work.....the meteorological people that keep you informed of the weather...the mass media that keeps you also informed...the satellites that obtain the info for the meteorological services as well as many other services we rely on to get you where you are going...need I say more?

You have decided to rely on science as your ultimate authority. A body of second hand abstractions reliant on corporate and govt funding and peer consensus. But that is a decision you made for yourself. Not everyone makes that same decision.

Wow!!! take it easy!!! Yes I rely on science just as you do everyday, despite your denial of that fact. If it were not for science you would not be on this forum.....your computer, the Internet...Think about it.
Your apparent passion for the fringes and extremism and unscientific, unevidenced claims, has you blinded to the above many everyday facts.

 

[Magical Realist]

Paul Hill's PSI experiments:

"Paul Richard Hill (1909–1990) was a renowned mid–twentieth-century American aerodynamicist. He was a leading research and development engineer and manager for NASA (National Aeronautical and Space Administration) and its predecessor, NACA (the National Advisory Council for Aeronautics) between 1939 and 1970, retiring as Associate Chief, Applied Materials and Physics Division at the NASA Langley Research Centre. He is arguably most widely known today as the author of 'Unconventional Flying Objects: a Scientific Analysis'.....

In an interview in 2000 Hill's daughter, Julie, described her father's interest in psi research:

"He spoke about a friend who was a psychic and experiments they did. He said he set up a pinwheel experiment – I don't know how, but he knew how to set up an experiment that would be valid – and he told me that for about a week he could turn it with his mind, with his thoughts, but after about a week he couldn't do it anymore. He also told me a story about being in a car parked on the street, he was into thought experiments, and he said he projected a thought into her mind to get into my car, and as the woman was walking by the car she stopped, opened the door and sat down and looked at him, and I don't know if she shrieked or what but she was absolutely stunned at what she was doing. He said, I willed her to get into the car, and she did. I think he was as shocked as she was. They were both shocked. He told me when I was in my late teens, and this was before Shirley Maclaine and astral projection, that when he slept, he could float out of his body at night and float on the ceiling and look down and watch himself sleep. He never said he went anywhere or saw fantastic things, just that he left his body and watched himself sleep"."-----https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Hill\

"After Paul Hill had a UFO sighting in early 1950 he began a 25 year quest, working as an unofficial clearinghouse for NASA, collecting and analyzing sightings' reports for physical properties, propulsion possibilities, dynamics, etc.

Official NASA Policy prevented him from proclaiming his findings that, "UFOs obey, not defy the laws of physics." vindicating his own sighting and thousands of others, he proves that UFO technology is not only explainable, but attainable."----http://alienscientist.com/NASA.html'

 

[James R]

Paul Hill's PSI experiments:

Oh, are we off on a new adventure now? Bored of the UFO case and Chi-Guru guy?

He is arguably most widely known today as the author of 'Unconventional Flying Objects: a Scientific Analysis'.....

In an interview in 2000 Hill's daughter, Julie, described her father's interest in psi research:

Oh look! He was into two different kinds of woo. How unusual.

"He spoke about a friend who was a psychic and experiments they did. He said he set up a pinwheel experiment – I don't know how, but he knew how to set up an experiment that would be valid – and he told me that for about a week he could turn it with his mind, with his thoughts, but after about a week he couldn't do it anymore.

So, let me get this straight. Here we have Julie telling an anecdote about her father telling her anecdotes. Second-hand evidence. And even the first-hand anecdote wouldn't be worth must. Were the experiments documented and recorded? Were there independent witnesses, or was this a one-off miracle?

Official NASA Policy prevented him from proclaiming his findings...

Poor guy. Another victim of the grand conspiracy.

 

[Magical Realist]

Oh, are we off on a new adventure now? Bored of the UFO case and Chi-Guru guy?

He whines after he asks me if I got anything else. What's wrong with you?

So, let me get this straight. Here we have Julie telling an anecdote about her father telling her anecdotes. Second-hand evidence. And even the first-hand anecdote wouldn't be worth must. Were the experiments documented and recorded? Were there independent witnesses, or was this a one-off miracle?

These are the kind of anecdotes I trust the most. Memories of a loving daughter of her own father. Intimate facts of his life only she would know about and certainly has no motivation to make up. If you had a human heart James you'd understand this. Instead you just whine and cry about documentation and independent verification. Newsflash...the vast majority of everything that has happened in your life is neither verifable or documented. Does that mean it never happened? Hardly.Welcome to reality.

 

[James R]

These are the kind of anecdotes I trust the most. Memories of a loving daughter of her own father. Intimate facts of his life only she would know about and certainly has no motivation to make up.

No doubt Julie recalls with fondness about how Dad told her about Santa Claus delivering presents at Christmas time, too.

Does this second-hand anecdote encourage you to believe in Santa?

Are we going to get back to Chi-Guru or your UFO case, or have we moved on to talking about Julie's Dad now?

 

[Magical Realist]

No doubt Julie recalls with fondness about how Dad told her about Santa Claus delivering presents at Christmas time, too.

Does this second-hand anecdote encourage you to believe in Santa?

Riiiight..Santa Clause now..lol!

Are we going to get back to Chi-Guru or your UFO case, or have we moved on to talking about Julie's Dad now?

Already posted the compelling evidence for those., This thread is about fortean phenomena. That's what I'm continuing to post here.

 

[paddoboy]

I certainly hope no one sees any need to go out and do something he may regret after reading the next article......
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...the-truth-may-not-be-out-there-after-all.html

UFO enthusiasts admit the truth may not be out there after all
Declining numbers of “flying saucer” sightings and failure to establish proof of alien existence has led UFO enthusiasts to admit they might not exist after all.

For decades, they have been scanning the skies for signs of alien activity.

But having failed to establish any evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life, Britain’s UFO watchers are reaching the conclusion that the truth might not be out there after all.

Enthusiasts admit that a continued failure to provide proof and a decline in the number of “flying saucer” sightings suggests that aliens do not exist after all and could mean the end of “Ufology” – the study of UFOs – within the next decade.


Dozens of groups interested in the flying saucers and other unidentified craft have already closed because of lack of interest and next week one of the country’s foremost organisations involved in UFO research is holding a conference to discuss whether the subject has any future.

Dave Wood, chairman of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (Assap), said the meeting had been called to address the crisis in the subject and see if UFOs were a thing of the past.

“It is certainly a possibility that in ten years time, it will be a dead subject,” he added.

“We look at these things on the balance of probabilities and this area of study has been ongoing for many decades.

“The lack of compelling evidence beyond the pure anecdotal suggests that on the balance of probabilities that nothing is out there.

“I think that any UFO researcher would tell you that 98 per cent of sightings that happen are very easily explainable. One of the conclusions to draw from that is that perhaps there isn’t anything there. The days of compelling eyewitness sightings seem to be over.”

He said that far from leading to an increase in UFO sightings and research, the advent of the internet had coincided with a decline.

Assap’s UFO cases have dropped by 96 per cent since 1988, while the number of other groups involved in UFO research has fallen from well over 100 in the 1990s to around 30 now.

Among those to have closed are the British Flying Saucer Bureau, the Northern UFO Network, and the Northern Anomalies Research Organisation.

As well as a fall in sightings and lack of proof, Mr Wood said the lack of new developments meant that the main focus for the dwindling numbers of enthusiasts was supposed UFO encounters that took place several decades ago and conspiracy theories that surround them.

In particular, he cited the Roswell incident, in 1947 when an alien spaceship is said to have crashed in New Mexico, and the Rendlesham incident in 1980, often described as the British equivalent, when airmen from a US airbase in Suffolk reported a spaceship landing.

Mr Wood added: “When you go to UFO conferences it is mainly people going over these old cases, rather than bringing new ones to the fore.

“There is a trend where a large proportion of UFO studies are tending towards conspiracy theories, which I don’t think is particularly helpful.”

The issue is to be debated at a summit at the University of Worcester on November 17 and the conclusions reported in the next edition of the association’s journal, Anomaly.

The organisation, which describes itself as an education and research charity, was established in 1981. Its first president was Michael Bentine, the comedian and member of the Goons.

It contains both sceptics and believers in UFOs and has been involved in several notable sightings and theories over the years.

Its current president Lionel Fanthorpe has claimed in its journal that King Arthur was an alien who came to Earth to save humans from invading extraterrestrials.

The summit follows the emergence earlier this year of the news that the Ministry of Defence was no longer investigating UFO sightings after ruling there is “no evidence” they pose a threat to the UK.

David Clark, a Sheffield Hallam University academic and the UFO adviser to the National Archives, said: “The subject is dead in that no one is seeing anything

evidential.

“Look at all the people who now have personal cameras. If there was something flying around that was a structured object from somewhere else, you would have thought that someone would have come up with some convincing footage by now – but they haven’t.

“The reason why nothing is going on is because of the internet. If something happens now, the internet is there to help people get to the bottom of it and find an explanation.

“Before then, you had to send letters to people, who wouldn’t respond and you got this element of mystery and secrecy that means things were not explained.

“The classic cases like Roswell and Rendlesham are only classic cases because they were not investigated properly at the time.”

But Nick Pope, who ran the MoD’s UFO desk from 1991 to 1994 and now researches UFO sightings privately, said there was a future for the subject: “There’s a quantity versus quality issue here.

“So many UFO sightings these days are attributable to Chinese lanterns that more interesting sightings are sometimes overlooked.

“The same is true with photos and videos. There are so many fakes on YouTube and elsewhere, it would be easy to dismiss the whole subject out of hand.

“The danger is that we throw out the baby with the bathwater. And as I used to say at the MoD, the believers only have to be right once.”
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Or perhaps people are not as gullible these days when it comes to lights in the sky etc.

 

[paddoboy]

http://www.endevil.com/aliensandufos.html

Aliens and U.F.O.´s
There have been thousands of reported UFO sightings, alien sightings and alien abductions over the years and many people not only believe that extra terrestrials exist but that they have visited earth, in fact according to a Gallup poll one third of Americans believe aliens have visited earth. There is a huge community of enthusiasts on the internet reporting on sightings and offering their own usually ridiculous explanations about the aliens, some of them claim to have identified a number of species and to know things about their social structure and what they want here on earth but it reads like cheap unimaginative sci-fi.

When faced with obviously faked or even just unclear footage believers choose to interpret it as genuine because they want to believe. The level of belief among some enthusiasts is akin to religious faith in it´s stubborn refusal to logically examine the evidence. Applying the idea of Occam´s razor that the simplest explanation is probably correct it should be obvious that a hoax or unknown man made craft, or perhaps even a weather effect is far more likely as an explanation of a UFO sighting than an alien craft.

While it is certainly possible and perhaps even likely that we are not the only life in the universe it is distinctly unlikely that we are being visited by aliens. The case for aliens visiting earth is leant weight by the fact that many respected people have reported sightings and I don´t doubt that many of them believe what they are saying, although there are plenty of attention seeking liars out there too, but I do think in all probability they are mistaken about what they have seen.

The vast majority of UFO sightings if investigated can be explained. The UFO community seem to be fixed on the idea that there is a government conspiracy to cover UFO´s up. There has been much talk about Roswell and the plausible government report that they were testing crash dummies airdropping from high altitude has been rejected. In fact every time the government release a report on their UFO or alien investigations people refuse to believe it. None of the governments of the world have ever found any evidence of aliens visiting earth and if they did why would they cover something like that up? I´ve yet to hear a good reason for this. I also think the enthusiasts are giving the government an awful lot of credit if they really believe that they are capable of covering something like this up, if we really have been visited by aliens and the government knows about it then the information will undoubtedly come to light, the government are rubbish at cover ups and conspiracies. It also seems likely that if aliens visited and wanted us to know about them there wouldn´t be anything the government could do to stop it, they can´t even stop humans from exposing things and committing all sorts of crazy acts so how the hell are they going to effectively stop aliens with advanced knowledge?

While some believers have quite plausible stories the volume of reports is staggering and inevitably there are many deeply silly ideas about aliens. My personal favourites are cattle mutilations, abduction stories and the retarded idea that aliens built the pyramids. Why would an advanced race of beings (they would have to be advanced to even travel to earth) arrive here and then carve up cattle? Why would they abduct people and probe them and then put them back again? If they have been doing these things how have they managed to leave absolutely no evidence behind?

Cattle mutilations have been reported several times along with mutilations of sheep and horses. These can all more easily be explained by predator attack or in cases where the animals have been surgically carved by psychotic human attack. People commit atrocious acts all the time I find it far more plausible that a disturbed human cut up an animal than the idea that an alien travelled light years across the void in order to do it.

Abduction stories are great and largely a product of the latter half of this century, interestingly there are very few earlier accounts of alien abduction; they coincide quite neatly with our sudden fascination for science fiction. Mentally deranged or confused people and attention seekers tell stories of being picked up in an alien spacecraft and subjected to all kinds of probes and tests and then returned. No-one else ever sees them being taken or returning and they never have any physical evidence of their encounter that they coudn´t have caused themselves or that some other person couldn´t have visited upon them. The typical abduction story was developed early on and subsequently people have adhered to the same basic structure. Now even supposing there was some truth to it why would the aliens continually do the same procedure on multiple people over a period of years, wouldn´t they have found whatever it was they were looking for by now? Some of the accounts have hilarious details like being shown around the spaceship or exposed to a hybrid alien-human child, yeah I´m sure advanced aliens would want to find a way to breed with inferior creatures and given the fact most species on earth can´t cross breed what is the likelihood that we could breed with an alien? It reminds me of the whole Independence Day scenario where computer software is uploaded to defeat the alien mother ship, Apple and Microsoft aren´t even compatible on earth so I´m kind of doubting that one. Abduction stories always have the same elements and they seem to be similar to stories of demonic visitation and even out of body experiences which makes it far more likely there is something common to human brain chemistry which allows for a strange event and different people interpret it in different ways according to their personal beliefs.

The idea that aliens built the pyramids is especially annoying because it belittles our ancient civilisations; it is an arrogant modern view where people simply cannot believe that ancient cultures built those structures so it must have been aliens. There have also been attempts to link aliens with the lost city of Atlantis; none of these ideas have any supporting evidence whatsoever.

In reports of encounters the aliens are almost always humanoid, why would they be humanoid? Doesn´t that just betray a lack of imagination, I mean sci-fi shows and films make aliens humanoid because it is cheaper to realise on film, a human actor with some make-up can play an alien, there is no fundamental reason they would be humanoid in reality.

With UFO sightings believers often point out aerial manoeuvres which would be impossible for our aircraft to make but if you watch some of the footage you have to wonder why an alien ship is coming here just to zoom around in a cloud and then disappear again. How come all of the footage is blurry? If they regularly visit why has no one ever gotten a clean look at them or a convincing piece of evidence?

Flying saucers are also a pretty daft idea and it is amazing how many of these tapes of UFO´s feature a saucer shaped object even although it would be an incredibly inefficient shape for flying which would require massive amounts of energy to propel itself. It´s also not a very practical shape from the inside, even if you accept that perhaps aliens have technology which flaunts the laws of physics as we know them wouldn´t they build a nice practical cube rather than a saucer? It´s actually an extremely dated view of what an alien spacecraft might look like which has embedded itself in popular culture.

A few respected professionals have come out in support of alien theories of visitation and even abduction but it is worth pointing out that the most prominent ones have a clear vested interest in spreading the idea, they write and sell books on the subject and they get paid to appear on television shows talking nonsense about aliens. I have no problem at all in believing that they would trade their reputations for riches, people from all walks of life have been doing that for years.

Aliens do not visit earth, if they ever do I suspect we´ll know all about it and there has to be a decent chance they will exterminate us all for being arseholes. There is nothing wrong with speculating about aliens, it´s a fun topic but people who claim to be an authority on the subject, people who classify alien races and talk about the visits as though they are unassailable fact are annoying idiots. Of course there´s always the possibility that I´m an alien or a government stooge trying to throw them off the scent because their knowledge is so accurate.

 

[Magical Realist]

“The same is true with photos and videos. There are so many fakes on YouTube and elsewhere, it would be easy to dismiss the whole subject out of hand.

“The danger is that we throw out the baby with the bathwater. And as I used to say at the MoD, the believers only have to be right once.”

Well said Nick Pope! And tks for that reminder!

 

[paddoboy]

“The same is true with photos and videos. There are so many fakes on YouTube and elsewhere, it would be easy to dismiss the whole subject out of hand.

“The danger is that we throw out the baby with the bathwater. And as I used to say at the MoD, the believers only have to be right once.”

Well said Nick Pope! And tks for that reminder!

And as of the 12th day of the 12th month 2016, we still have no extraordinary evidence to support any Alien visitations, kidnappings, medical procedures, or just plain buzzing around our ear.