Then what are we doing here James? I mean, if we were so closed off, why don't we just stick to our own conspiratorial kind instead of venturing into a forum dedicated to science?
Because you're proselytisers, just like young-earth Creationists. You want to disseminate your views as widely as possible and hopefully "convert" people who don't have all the facts at their disposal or the apparatus with which to refute you point by point.
If you were serious, you'd publish in professional, peer-reviewed journals, rather than trawling internet forums looking for converts. You'd be willing to have your ideas reviewed by experts.
For example, in our debate you only cited 2 scientific papers...LOL.
Two was enough to debunk your entire blog.
Your standard of argument doesn't begin to match the general standard of wikipedia, which you so disparage.
I know this "feeling" or recognition James. I run into this quite often with extremely intelligent people. This being with my hope that they will truthfully and objectively consider the case for UFOs.
What you apparently don't realise is that extremely intelligent people
have truthfully and objectively considered the case for UFOs/alien visitation, just as they have considered expanding earth theories and 9/11 conspiracy claims.
The fact that the average joe on the internet isn't aware of all the expert analyses doesn't change the fact that they exist.
The thing is, the experts generally give something a good look-over
once. They analyse it carefully, look at all arguments and draw conclusions. When they are done, they write up their conclusions and that's that.
The problem is that the conspiracists, like scott3x and other with narrowly-focussed one-track minds, like OIM, will never accept that expert analysis has been done and is complete and valid. Instead, they use tactics such as picking on minor points and apparent inconsistencies in the expert analyses. If that fails to make an impact, they resort to simply ignoring contrary evidence, as I said before. They waste everybody's time by trying to draw the experts into having the same arguments over again, as if there is something new to be discussed.
These kinds of tactics are unfortunate, in that they can convince those who are new to a particular discussion that there is some kind of legitimate ongoing debate, when in fact the matter was completely settled when the experts looked at it.
A good example is OIM's expanding earth nonsense. He challenged me to debate the fact that the Earth is expanding. I agreed. He put his best arguments for expansion in the debate, and I refuted them all, point by point. And what has happened since then? Has OIM admitted that he was wrong, or even that he lost the debate? No, he has gone right on making
the same claims, as if they were never proved false.
).