'A core of very good ... cases', but not one shred of hard evidence.
I'll have to quote Gusto here...
what constitutes hard evidence?
You seem to be going by a very strict definition of not only "evidence" but the entire method of
ascertaining what qualifies as valid evidence.
If I remember correctly, my current dialogue with you started when I dared to state that ufology was a mere valid study of a currently unexplained phenomenon, one that I believe remains inadequately explained today.
phlogistician said:
Here we get into semantics.
Yes, don't we EVER?!?!?
UFO's, well, yes, people see stuff they cannot identify. Often planets that are brighter than usual, aircraft, meteorites, satellites, etc etc. Does that make Venus a UFO? No. Many of the reported sightings do not actually exhibit the 'F', flying, mostly footage shows no controlled flight, but camera shake, and sometimes deliberate manual panning.
P. Klass would be proud.
Some people hide behind the term UFO to soften their opinion, when they really mean extra terrestrial vehicles. Are you doing that?
Not a whole lot, no. ETV???
I believe very sincerely that the possibility of non-humans being responsible for at least some of the UFO sightings in the history of those recorded sightings is extremely high.
And you obviously strongly believe in the opposite direction, so it looks like we're pretty even.
It's telling that you think debunking UFO's is biased.
It's also quite telling that you think this sentence proves me wrong in some way. Who said that having a skeptical mind when confronting the UFO question was wrong? Maybe I was talking about specific instances?
However, I have never been convinced by so-called skeptics in every case.
Show me one case where there is not contention, where the evidence is truly inexplicable by mundane means, and maybe you can make a case that debunking in the light of this is biased. But while there are mundane explanations, there is no mystery.
Contention is entirely subjective, as you well know. There are always those who have a theory and an answer for this and that, mundane explanation or otherwise.
phlogisitician said:
That is really desperate.
No, just true. You seem to have a lower standard of what constitutes evidence. You seem to think that you can convolve disparate pieces of poor evidence into something larger and more reliable.
I don't think that every incidence is as poor as you describe. I at least realise that fallible or not, humans can and do see things and events accurately, and that they aren't making observations of Venus or what have you into visions of motherships.
I however think each piece must stand on it's own.
Is this "think" on
YOUR part imperative to the
scientific method?
Just wondering.
I think that each case should stand on its own, but that they should also be examined as a whole. Repeating patterns and all that. You don't just segregate similar incidents for the sake of segregation. Or maybe
YOU do. I however say, that if someone says they saw this, and another person reports the same thing, one shouldn't automatically conclude that they saw completely separate things, or that neither saw anything of note at all.
No, evidence, show me some of this 'core' of good cases.
I don't think you'll ever accept anything as valid evidence (other than your own insistence that it doesn't exist) but I shall endeavour to post things that I consider to be good evidence.
