Pathological Skepticsm.

Communist Hamster said:
No, not in this thread. I didn't say that he had refuted stupid baseless theories in this thread. Try others.
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What are these stupid baseless theories, if I may ask?
 
The Happeh theory, the moon-landing-hoax (ok, thats not quite as stupid and baseless as the happeh theory, but is still worong IMO) and garry denkes theory.
 
I'm only familiar with the moon-landing hoax.

I'm not familiar with Gary Denke's theory: I AM the Gary Denke theory!
 
Giambattista said:
What are these stupid baseless theories, if I may ask?
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Arent they all stupid just because they are baseless? And they are baseless. Everything discussed in here is without a shred of scientific evidence. Oh, there's plenty of "evidence" but it's evidence only a fool would accept. No rigor, no peer review, no repeatability of observations, no controls. In fact any piece of "evidence" ever submitted for scientific evaluation has been shown to be clearly a hoax, ordinary earthly matter, or someones overcredulous imagination having its way with them.
 
*the theories being referred to by superluminal are not specified

*hamster's characterization...."stupid baseless theories" are blindly accepted by superluminal

*he alludes to some nebulous and undefined "evidence" and then goes on to rant about...."No rigor, no peer review, no repeatability of observations, no controls."..

*lastly, whatever phenomena he is talking about has, in every instance of its occurrence, been proven to be a hoax

did i get em all?
ja?
good

now superluminal
i ask that you drop the ambiguities and get specific. i demand references and links that support your verbiage. get rigorous

your peer review is now in session
andale
 
Excellent!

First lets make a list of the "theories" I was referring to:

- UFO's (i.e. alien spacecraft) as anything other than hoax, misidentification, or delusion.

- Alien abductions as specified above.

- Crop circles

- "We never went to the moon" hoaxes.

- Telepathy, precognition, telekenesis, and any other "phenomenon of the mind".

- Ancient astronauts.

- Atlantis

- Perpetual motion machines or anything that "demonstrates" a violation of known physical law.

- Antigravity

- FTL travel/communications

- Faith healing

- Ghosts, spectres, spirits of any kind

- God, gods, deities, angels, jesus, demons, hell, heaven, and the like.

Have I missed any? Please include your favorite delusion if I have...

Thanks.
 
i do not get it
but lets muddle thru this mess anyway

try this statement for size........crop circles actually exist.
it is hardly a delusion or theory.
 
Gustav said:
i do not get it
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You asked me to put up or shut up right? So, I listed some "theories" to discuss. What don't you get? Were you thinking of something else?

but lets muddle thru this mess anyway

try this statement for size........crop circles actually exist.
it is hardly a delusion or theory.
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Duh. Sorry, I meant what Communist Hampster said.
 
superluminal

lets establish a background for you thru some questions

*probability of extrasolar planets habitable by carbon based life forms?
*probability of sentience in said forms?
*probability of advanced spacefaring civ? (relative to us)

can some or all of these, be computed?
i would like you to take into account that an actual example of the above exists in the form of earth, its inhabitants and thier endeavors aka the basis for the above postulates

if unlikely, explain our uniqueness factor
 
superluminal said:
- UFO's (i.e. alien spacecraft) as anything other than hoax, misidentification, or delusion.

- Ancient astronauts.
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the differentiation is mainly temporal since "alien spacecraft" would imply a pilot aka "astronaut", ancient or otherwise

agree?
 
"Spontaneous healing" is the label that the medical establishment puts on healing that is not caused by conventional medical treatments. A majority of the cases of "spontaneous healing" are associated with faith healing; some are related to alternative medicine. The results associated with "spontaneous healing" are real as evidenced by medical records. The how of "spontaneous healing" is still unexplained.
 
Gustav said:
superluminal

lets establish a background for you thru some questions

*probability of extrasolar planets habitable by carbon based life forms?
*probability of sentience in said forms?
*probability of advanced spacefaring civ? (relative to us)

can some or all of these, be computed?
i would like you to take into account that an actual example of the above exists in the form of earth, its inhabitants and thier endeavors aka the basis for the above postulates

if unlikely, explain our uniqueness factor
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I dispute none of your probability statements above. None of those were in my list.
1) Almost certain.
2) Also, almost certain but far less common
3) Also, almost certain but even less common than general sentience.

Is an advanced spacefaring civilization the explanation for UFO's? Based on the absolute lack of evidence, no. Absolutely not.
 
Gustav said:
the differentiation is mainly temporal since "alien spacecraft" would imply a pilot aka "astronaut", ancient or otherwise

agree?
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Sure. Ancient as in "the aliens built the pyramids" and other nonsense.
 
candy said:
"Spontaneous healing" is the label that the medical establishment puts on healing that is not caused by conventional medical treatments. A majority of the cases of "spontaneous healing" are associated with faith healing; some are related to alternative medicine. The results associated with "spontaneous healing" are real as evidenced by medical records. The how of "spontaneous healing" is still unexplained.
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Show us the citation to the medical literature that acknowledges spontaneous healing that has no probable explanation. The body does have the ability to fight disease and can heal. There's nothing "spontaneous" about this. There is not one documented case of "faith healing" that shows the patient made any sort of healing in connection with christian witch doctors, etc. There are, however, many documented cases of so-called "faith healings," and "alternative" treatments that have murdered people.

To put it bluntly: spontaneous healing and alternative medicine is bullshit and it kills people. Nearly all of them ignorant believers.
 
phlogistician said:
No, not really, we've done this one before. NASA and mechanised military organisations with the capability to communicate, co-operate, react. and control, are fairly recent.

So what about all the visitations that should have occurred before the govts of the world were in a position to stifle the news?

Surely, such things would then have been common knowledge.

I now think that the public have such tools as to be able to disseminate any information publicly too, despite any attempts by any organisation to quash such communcation.

So the ability to control was perhaps only during a brief period where govts had a technological advantage over the populace, say, WW11 to the 70's. Of course, that period included the cold war, and that rather destroys the co-operation required to stifle such an internationally huge story.

So, even if you could prove an attempt by govts to stifle, I really don't think such an attempt would have worked.
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Phlogistician, I see what your saying but that's only one side of the issue - a one-sided debunkery attempt.

When I said I wanted to prove such a thing, I suppose the better word would be too investigate it's potential to be true. I cannot (you cannot either) investigate such a thing, if I debunk it before I even start.

The best way to investigate such a thing would be to consider all angles and possibilities from the start and then see where the evidence leads.

You appear to feel that such an investigation would be a waste of time - not because of your own investigation or study - but because of mere proclamation.

That's not to say I disagree with everything you said, but that merely there are alternate explanation's to everything you've asked but apperently have never once thought of them. I think that is unfair too true science or investigation.

This issue is WAY to complicated and unsolved to be making grand proclamation's any way or the other at this point.
 
superluminal said:
I dispute none of your probability statements above. None of those were in my list.
1) Almost certain.
2) Also, almost certain but far less common
3) Also, almost certain but even less common than general sentience.

Is an advanced spacefaring civilization the explanation for UFO's? Based on the absolute lack of evidence, no. Absolutely not.
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This all comes down to probabability. If you view the probability of life forms visiting us as high you will see ETI as a resonable explanation for some UFO's.

As little as we know about our own solar system we are in no position to make grand proclamation's one way or another yet. We can make grand proclamation's, but doing so and then citing a "Lack of evidence" as the reason for our proclamation's seems to me, to be rather stupid.
 
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