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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2007 : 19:05:04 [Permalink]
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Cune.....
I said there were exceptions....| Actually, very few folks on the forum were aware of this. |
You were an exception, Cune. There were a few others. Most certainly seemed to be pretty unaware of highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents, so I think the general characterization holds.
What was distressing about those threads to you? Dude expressed a similar view. I found them really interesting and also informative, but I was coming from an entirely different perspective than most of the other participants were! |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 12/31/2007 : 19:22:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Dave.....
Thank you for your correction. You, unfortunately, are entirely correct! No, I meant sixteen light years (16.308)to be exact. |
Well, twenty-five parsecs is 81.45 light years, and few people would sweat the rounding-up since your argument didn't depend on the math.| Foolish mistake, but fortunately the only one I've made this year. |
Um, you left out a space between your close parenthesis and the word "to." So, two mistakes.| I'm going to try harder in 2008! |
You are certainly underachieving in the mistakes department, I think you could easily make many more if you would just apply yourself.
But earlier, you said:I think both the goose and the gander were equally sauced here. I assumed that well-informed skeptics who deal with matters like UFO's regularly - (I did know that at least the professional ones like Shermer and Randi do) - would be fully aware of the fact that a number of sightings had been carefully investigated and still remained unexplained.
Many who demanded "evidence" were assuming that I was taking a position of advocacy for the existence of an extraterrestrial origin for UFOs/UAP.
Neither position was supported by any evidence. My thinking was still in the box of the 50's, 60's and 70's, when all skeptics were knowledgable of UFOs. Not very Critical! Many of those asking for evidence of little green men did not understand my question because of a cognitive bias against the possibility of little green men, not because of such bias against the possibility of the existence of unexplained objects in the sky. Not very Critical, either. |
Actually, the way I remember it is that many thought you were advocating because your OP was as clear as mud. Besides, to level a charge of "bias against the possibility of little green men," you'll have to cough up evidence that those particular people hadn't already thoroughly examined the question and come to a skeptically strong conclusion, against which your first few posts did not argue.
The charge of "bias" is a tough one because, in these circles, you've got to be able to distinguish prejudice from education. Since you weren't arguing in favor of little green men, a charge of bias against little green men is irrevelant.In the classic nine-dot-puzzle from which the "think outside the box" mantra originated.....
.....it is obvious what is inside the box, nine dots! What is not obvious is that the box is a not a boundary to the action required. Simply knowing that there is a box and there are nine dots inside of it is not sufficient or useful to solving the puzzle. |
No, it is necessary. I never said it was sufficient, and neither does the aphorism. "To think outside the box, you first have to know what's inside the box" doesn't discuss sufficiency, only necessity. If I were to say "connect the nine dots I'm thinking of with four lines," the problem would be impossible to solve because knowledge of the pattern those nine dots are in is necessary.| If the aphorism you quote means you have to understand that there is a box and something is in it before you can solve the puzzle, that is both a truism and self-defeating. Better one not even perceive a box, in order to imagine a solution! |
Sadly, that is precisely what leads people to keep trying to build perpetual motion machines: a complete ignorance of the box (the Laws of Thermodynamics).| Perhaps it would be better to say: "In order to overcome preconceived bias preventing solution to a problem; it is necessary to understand both the limitations, and the lack of limitations necessary for its solution" |
No, because the stuff inside the box tends to be working solutions to the problem, but ones that are outdated or inefficient or suffer from some other fault. The box is rarely empty. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2007 : 19:25:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Most certainly seemed to be pretty unaware of highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents, so I think the general characterization holds. |
Holds up hand.
I still don't know of any "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents." Not a one.
But then again, I don't know how you define "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incident," so perhaps the problem is one of standards. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2007 : 19:47:12 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
But then again, I don't know how you define "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incident," so perhaps the problem is one of standards. |
Well, this was my point all along. I'm plenty familiar with UFO reports and have been interested in them since I was a kid. But it seemed to me that until we established what counted as a "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incident" it was moot to talk about them. From my experience on this site, it makes far more sense to agree on X and then talk about it, instead of talking about all the things we think might be X only to find out 12 pages down the road that we were talking about two different things. |
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Boron10
Religion Moderator
USA
1266 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2007 : 21:04:54 [Permalink]
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Well, bngbuck, I was quite interested in continuing the line of discussion in your first thread, but I lacked the patience that some here have: when you refused my request for evidence of your "vetted, yet unexplained" phenomena and then failed to comprehend my explanation that you were being rude, you were quickly thrust into the "not worth my time" category. In fact, you have only recently pulled yourself out of that compartment for me.
That is, by the way, a compliment: though you had a rocky and (to me) frustrating start, you are clearly more interesting than you had initially let on.
Now to address some of your points in this topic:
Originally posted by bngbuck
...I cannot reduce the ETA hypothesis to next to impossible because of several factors:
1. There are 64 known stars within five parsecs (16.08 light years) of our solar system. This is not an impossible distance for an object created by extremely high technology to transverse. |
Perhaps, but according to what we know of physics right now, any travellers would have to be either very long lived or willing to accept that everything they know will have been long changed by the time they got back home.| 2. Implications of recent brane theory suggest the possibility of intra-dimensional space travel, negating the thousands or millions of light-years necessary to reach other galaxies - the folded paper analogy. |
You are referencing a postulate, not a theory. At this moment it is barely worth our consideration.| 3. The very remote possibility exists that technologically protected intelligent life could exist on solid planets or moons of gaseous planets within our solar system. |
What do you mean by the phrase "technologically protected" above? Do you mean hidden from us by a cloaking device of some sort? If so, isn't that a little silly? By that line of thought, some technologically protected intelligent life could live on our moon or even on Earth!| 4. An equally remote but still possible scenario is an artificial planet (something like George Lucas's Death Star), too small and remote to appear in our telescopes, but much closer than the closest planetary system to Earth as a habitable base for intelligent life. |
Possible, but isn't it a little premature to begin considering things like this?| ...I have yet to see arguments that are persuasive as to the impossibility of extraterrestrial visitation. |
Nor will you. It is unnecessary to craft such an argument, just as it is unnecessary to craft an argument that Easter Bunny visitations are impossible.| ...I think it is inexcusably arrogant for man, at this early stage of the development of astrophysics, to deem extraterrestrial visitation "impossible". |
I don't think anybody here is claiming that it is "impossible." Do you think so?| ...Also to blame were those who would or could not realize I was asking a serious question, because their cognitive bias (as you point out above) caused them to know that I was a believer and they really wanted to be one of the hounds in the fox hunt! |
Or, like me, they decided you were unable or unwilling (functionally no different) to follow basic rules of courtesy and so they gave up on you. I am very glad you have modified your posting style, since you often have interesting things to say. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2008 : 07:00:14 [Permalink]
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bng said:
| But I think it is inexcusably arrogant for man, at this early stage of the development of astrophysics, to deem extraterrestrial visitation "impossible". |
There is, I'm sure you are aware, a vast universe of difference in saying a thing is impossible and saying that you don't think it has happened.
It seems to me that you have been mistaking doubt with some preconceived notion of certainty. When I scoff at the claims of little green men coming to earth with rectal probes, artificial inseminators, and cow-mutilators in hand it certainly doesn't mean I am saying it is impossible for some intelligent species to do so. As far as ET goes I'm certain of only one thing; that no one has provided sufficient evidence to make a minimally reasonable case for them coming to earth, placing the claim squarely in the realm of unevidenced assertion.
And we all know what unevidenced assertions are good for.
Let me just ask you to start a different thread and provide those of us who don't know about these "vetted" UFO sightings the data we've been asking you for since shortly after your first post on these forums. As I said before, I'm definitely interested in examining these alleged instances.
| but in very extensive reading on the subject over many years, I have yet to see arguments that are persuasive as to the impossibility of extraterrestrial visitation. |
bng.... c'mon now. You know very well how this works. How does a statement like that make it into your writing?
No one has to prove such things impossible. Those who are convinced ET has landed, on the other hand, are required to prove he has. Until then such claims are freely dismissible. Has your bias crippled your ability to think critically here? Because from where I'm sitting, it apparently has.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2008 : 10:31:20 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
Holds up hand.
I still don't know of any "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents." Not a one.
But then again, I don't know how you define "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incident," so perhaps the problem is one of standards. |
Bill....
Holds head in hands.
So much to refute, so little time.....These are a few examples!
Let's start with the Condon Report. Quote from wiki:| Among the most obvious discrepancies frequently noted by critics is the fact that while the Condon Report declared that all UFO reports had prosaic explanations, they simultaneously classified 30 percent of their 56 case studies as "unknown"; this was a higher percentage of unknowns than any previous Air Force UFO study. A few of the cases were judged most puzzling, even after detailed analysis, but Condon made no mention of these instances. |
Links here for a few of those 16 cases:
Case 2
Case 11
Case 21
Comment on any of these?
If you truly have any interest in the subject and your mindset can allow that it is possible that some sightings have been investigated and not explained, albeit nothing about aliens, I would strongly suggest you read the entire Condon report, including all sixteen unexplained cases. That is necessary to comment appropriately on Condon's work, which was the first serious investigation undertaken (discounting several Air Force predecessors which were pretty prejudicial, but also had numerous investigated-but-unexplained examples.)
My view of one of the most famous, most publicized UAP events, BOLA (The Battle of Los Angeles) is that it was highly vetted for the time - literally thousands of spectators, many newspaper enquiries, questions directed to the Defense Department, etc. It was UAP, it would be ludicrous to take a position that it never happened, it had as much investigation as the news media are capable of, and yet it has never been explained. Your comment on BOLA?
From 1967, this report is certainly an example of an investigated yet unresolved sighting. Again, no green creatures or suggestions thereof.
Does this appear to be a vetted and investigated UAP?
Not on the Internet, but a remarkably well documented book is The Missing Times by Terry Hansen. A description follows:
The Missing Times is an investigation into whether some of America's most influential news organizations, many of which have maintained close ties to the U.S. intelligence community, have willingly suppressed full and accurate news coverage of the UFO phenomenon for a variety of national- security reasons. After a "case study" of news coverage about UFO encounters at Montana nuclear-missile facilities, Hansen reveals the remarkable and persistent difference in UFO-related news coverage between local and national news organizations. The author then reviews the history of censorship and propaganda during the twentieth century. He explains how and why the elite news organizations work closely with government agencies during times of national crisis, and reviews the evidence for such media-government collusion over the course of the half-century-long UFO controversy.
About the Author
Terry Hansen is an independent journalist with an interest in scientific controversies and the politics of mass media. He has followed the UFO controversy for decades and has written about it for various media. In addition, he has organized and moderated two symposiums about "The Science and Politics of the UFO Research" for the Science Museum of Minnesota. Hansen holds a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's degree in science journalism, both from the University of Minnesota. He is a founding partner of KFH Publications, Inc., a Seattle computer-magazine publishing company. He is also an active private pilot with ratings for single-engine aircraft and gliders. He lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with his wife and two parrots. Hansen can be reached via electronic mail at: twhansen@pscu.com
Good book, available at large libraries, if you want to go to the trouble of finding it.
If you read it, is Terry credible?, and are his events well documented and investigated?
Then there is the Condign Project in Great Britian
"• While this study found that the majority of sightings could be explained as mistaken identifications of natural and man-made phenomena – it could not fully explain away a residue of “natural but relatively rare and not completely understood phenomena” in the atmosphere, mesosphere and ionosphere."
As with Condon, the Brits found a few examples that they could not explain. No one suggested extraterrestrials.
Did the Brits investigate thoroughly?
Dave, I can give you or anyone interested, literally dozens, in fact hundreds of investigated and yet unresolved reports. If you cannot glean from the above reading that for more than fifty years people have been investigating UFO reports, debunking by far the majority of them, but again and again ending up with a few that could not be satisfactorily explained; then what's the use of more examples?
If Critical Thinking prohibits the acceptance of such evidence that these events have occured and continue to occur - on the basis of insufficient investigation, no additional numbers of examples will help, as no investigation will be perfect.
You have already said elsewhere that you do not doubt that there have at least been sightings of UFO/UAP. Why don't you set down in fully detailed quantification and qualification, the investigative protocol that you feel would be necessary to follow in order to reach a conclusion of "unresolved"? Then I might be able to find examined reports that would allow you to say "there are, in fact, properly investigated UAP sightings that have not been satisfactorily explained" If I cannot, then both your standards and my standards need to be examined.
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2008 : 12:44:47 [Permalink]
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Boron.....
| you were quickly thrust into the "not worth my time" category. In fact, you have only recently pulled yourself out of that compartment for me. |
Whew! Thank Zeus for that!That is, by the way, a compliment: though you had a rocky and (to me) frustrating start, you are clearly more interesting than you had initially let on.
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Well, Boron thank you! There seems to have been a paucity of your comment, at least in the threads I have been involved in for the last few months, so I have little to be judgemental about regarding you. But I do not rate others as worthy or not of my time, as I have learned much here from some of the real second-stringers such as the banished Jerome, as well as from the regular commentators who possess much more debating skill and draw from a more informed repertoire of fact and opinion than poor J. I'm sure you will live up to my standards; as Dave said once, I can not criticize you as I do not know you! It is nice to be.... interesting, tho!| Perhaps, but according to what we know of physics right now, any travellers would have to be either very long lived or willing to accept that everything they know will have been long changed by the time they got back home. |
How can you possibly predict the metabolism or psychology of an alien life form? I really doubt that any such creatures would be anthropomorphic!| You are referencing a postulate, not a theory. At this moment it is barely worth our consideration |
It is worth the consideration of several astrophysicists, so I feel it is certainly worthy of my poorly educated consideration!| What do you mean by the phrase "technologically protected" above? Do you mean hidden from us by a cloaking device of some sort? If so, isn't that a little silly? By that line of thought, some technologically protected intelligent life could live on our moon or even on Earth! |
Oh, come on Boron! Get out of the science fiction box. I'm postulating that aliens with a high enough degree of technology to transverse deep space would also be able to provide high-technology living quarters to deal with an adverse (to their requirements) environment. And yes, they might be capable of existing in a high-tech Quonset hut or cave for long periods, even in an airless environment like our Moon. Air might be poisonious to them, for that matter!| Possible, but isn't it a little premature to begin considering things like this? |
premature to what? This is all sheer speculation. I don't see prematurity or postmaturity as relevant to speculation!| Nor will you. It is unnecessary to craft such an argument, just as it is unnecessary to craft an argument that Easter Bunny visitations are impossible. |
Well, apparently you cast the Easter Bunny and Extraterrestrials in the same light. Carl Sagan, Michael Shermer, James Randi, many here on this forum and certainly I, disagree with that conflation. A lot of folks believe that ET's are possible, many feel that is a likely speculation. Visitation is, of course, quite a different thing!| I don't think anybody here is claiming that it is "impossible." Do you think so? |
For a moment, I thought you thought so. Now, it does not appear that way. I don't think I understood your Easter Bunny comment. I most emphatically do not think ETs are impossible, nor that visitation is!| Or, like me, they decided you were unable or unwilling (functionally no different) to follow basic rules of courtesy and so they gave up on you. I am very glad you have modified your posting style, since you often have interesting things to say. |
I don't think I have changed my posting style, I just have a much better idea who I am talking to, than I did when I first met the collective group.
As to courtesy, the Forum in those days was not exactly a citadel of exemplary demeanor! Again, I thank you for the compliment which, with the addition of the adverb "often", has become a panegyric! I hope we can speak to each other again! |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2008 : 15:16:33 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
| There is, I'm sure you are aware, a vast universe of difference in saying a thing is impossible and saying that you don't think it has happened. |
and| bng.... c'mon now. You know very well how this works. How does a statement like that make it into your writing? |
OK, OK semantic shadings of meaning. Degrees of probability! In the first place I wasn't talking about you, or for that matter, anyone on the forum making an "impossible" statement!
A hell of a lot of the unwashed masses are as certain that extraterrestrial life is impossible and vistation can not happen, as their equally unwashed brethern are sure that ambulating green fungus are among us - I've seen it at many levels in many different kinds of literature. I think most of the folks on the forum are of the opinion that ETs and Long Distance Traveling ETs are possible, if not likely. Also, that it's damn unlikely that any have traveled here to our tiny grain of sand.
But there are a significant number of scientists who rather tacitly endorse the Drake equation or one of it's subsequent derivatives. And I've run across several, including Bernie Haight, who I introduced in the 'stupid-fest' of a few months ago, who don't think the hypothesis of visitation is extremely implausable, to use a more judicious phrase. Sagan, whom most here seem to respect, seemed to have little doubt about the existence of life elsewhere, and at least gave respectability to the notion of extraterrestrial Intelligent life! He certainly was skeptical enough about earth-visitation by ETs, and probably was right, although if a trend in that direction among astrophysicists and hard scientists in general develops, you will see a rush to join the movement, and "True Believer" will no longer be a term of scorn, but rather a term of endearment.
I think that it is unlikely that ETs have visited Earth in the past, are currently visiting, or that they may visit in the future. But to put an actual probability number on any of those possibilities is, to me, pretty damn presumptious. I can only be a negative agnostic in that regard. I personally think that it is as foolish and unwarranted to proclaim an extremely low likelihood of such a thing happening (next to impossible), as it is to make a claim that such things have happened, or are inevitable! |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2008 : 15:53:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Dave, I can give you or anyone interested, literally dozens, in fact hundreds of investigated and yet unresolved reports. If you cannot glean from the above reading that for more than fifty years people have been investigating UFO reports, debunking by far the majority of them, but again and again ending up with a few that could not be satisfactorily explained; then what's the use of more examples? |
And that attitude of yours is the main part of the problem I have with you, Bill. I said that I was unaware of any "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents," then you cite a few that you feel fall into that category, but you can't resist chiding me for not being able to "glean" something that wasn't being discussed, and you continue to make references to little green men as if I think that's what you're talking about.
In other words, try to think outside the box you've built for yourself, Bill. When I said that I didn't know of any "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents," it meant that I didn't know of any "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents," not that I thought that "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents" means "extraterrestrials," and not that I dismiss any/all investigations that have occured as not being "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents." Your assumptions were wrong, Bill, and they still are. Try to pick a few new ones.
I'd heard of the Condon Report before, but never read it. Perhaps I will, now.
As far as BOLA is concerned, we talked about it before, and I was under the impression that whether there was anything in the sky to shoot at or not was still an open question. At best, that makes BOLA a "highly vetted, rigorously investigated maybe-there-was-a-UFO incident." If it was just a case of "war nerves," then it is explained without reference to UFOs.
We also spoke before of the Ocala incident, but all I was able to find on it was regurgitations of the story itself (typically referenced to a book), and no indication it was ever vetted or investigated at all. Some large online UFO databases don't even include it, but I don't know how authoritative they were trying to be. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2008 : 20:27:45 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
| And that attitude of yours is the main part of the problem I have with you, Bill. I said that I was unaware of any "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents," then you cite a few that you feel fall into that category, but you can't resist chiding me for not being able to "glean" something that wasn't being discussed, and you continue to make references to little green men as if I think that's what you're talking about. |
Sorry about your problem, but I really don't know what you are talking about! Months ago I gave you, and others, several examples of the kind of report to which I was referring. Then you come on here and say you don't know of even one example. From that little slap in the face, I got that what I had given you before was not what you were looking for - so I give you five or six new examples of what I mean and suggest that it isn't going to do any good to give you any more if these don't suffice, because then I obviously don't know what it is that comprises your criteria of rigorous investigation.
I ask you for clarification as to your definition of "vetted" and instead, I get a sermon on attitude!
My several references to aliens were an effort to make clear to the many others on this forum that read these posts, that I am not an advocate for the position that extraterrestrials are here! Folks like Dude that have stated that they are unclear about that subject. Dude said recently:| In your first posting here, for example, it seemed to me that you were implying these "vetted, yet unexplained" UFOs were in fact little green men come to visit. In fact, I still am not 100% sure of your position on that specific matter. |
If my post had been a PM direct to you, I would have omitted the green men reference, as I am sure you are clear on that point! I responded directly to Dude in an earlier post, and I used this opportunity for reinforcement of my statement of position, particularly to others. Even though I generally direct my posts with a personal salutation, I am acutely aware that many others are reading! Dude, Boron and Cune are all interested in reading of more specific instances, so I took the opportunity to respond to your "I know of not one" comment to provide more information to several others besides yourself.
So now you've got your knickers in a knot over nothing. If it was my wont to "have problems" with people, your penchant for taking everything personally would cause me to have a problem with you. I don't. My "attitude" is largely your perception and some of the same kind of personal sensitivity that you have accused me of displaying from time to time! Probably accurately, for that matter!
The stones that GeeMack accused me of not having, are frequently strangled by twisted skivvies!
I asked specifically for response to the various examples I gave you so I could find out what it is you are looking for to be persuaded that there have been at least a few vetted, investigated sightings of UAP. From your lack of response I can only glean ( Webster 2: to gather information or material bit by bit) an impression that I still have not provided you with what you asked for.
I thank you for the response to the BOLA incident, and your objection to it as a UAP is noted. Your previous views were:| I bet the whole thing is an even better example of mass panic than The War of the Worlds ever was, since the BoLA dealt with a much more concrete enemy and specific tensions. |
and | It's easy to speculate that someone saw something that they didn't actually identify but called it an airplane, anyway. (Brains make such leaps all the time, it's a survival skill.) Adrenaline and explosions did the rest, and in the aftermath, a very few people would be willing to admit that their identification of the planes (note the plural) was haphazard or even incorrect. I also can't discount the possibility of an actual plane simply being innocently lost and so flying into the wrong place at the wrong time, starting the whole mess (a scenario one can easily come up with independent of seeing a certain movie). |
so I understand that your view of that incident is pretty much established. I see it a little differently, but that's what makes a day at the Derby!
But what do you mean by this?:| ," and not that I dismiss any/all investigations that have occured as not being "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents." |
Your statement was that you knew of not one. I had given you several that apparently you dismissed, and you had not looked for more. OK, you were not interested. Then why complain that you know of not one?
It took me less than thirty minutes to gather the references I gave you, structure them into links and post. With your obvious prowess using google, you could do that in ten minutes and so could many others on this forum. I said a long time ago that anyone could get as much of this information as they cared to read by spending a few minutes with a search engine. If anyone doesn't want to, or are not interested, fine! But no one should complain about lack of examples unless all of their information has to be delivered by links.
I bolded this in your comment:| But then again, I don't know how you define "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incident," so perhaps the problem is one of standards. |
because I thought that was what you were emphasizing. I have attempted to demonstrate what my standards are by giving examples, but I still don't know what you are looking for in the way of investigative criteria!
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2008 : 21:38:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
I bolded this in your comment:| But then again, I don't know how you define "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incident," so perhaps the problem is one of standards. |
because I thought that was what you were emphasizing. I have attempted to demonstrate what my standards are by giving examples, but I still don't know what you are looking for in the way of investigative criteria! |
Asking me what my opinion was of the meaning of "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents" when I'd basically asked you for that same thing doesn't make much sense, does it? Offering your definitions by saying - in effect - "go read the Condon Report" or "go read this book" is simply annoying. If you cannot articulate what you mean by "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents" (perhaps following an "I know it when I see it" sorta rule) that's fine if you'll admit it, but one of the very last things I plan on doing with my life is teasing out the meaning you give to a phrase that you used by reading some material while asking myself "what would bngbuck make of this?" and playing twenty questions with you on the forums.
Me? I don't know what a "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incident" would look like, which is why I can't say that I've ever seen one. Perhaps I would agree that the Condon report is full of just that, but I haven't read it. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2008 : 22:32:25 [Permalink]
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bng said:
| Sagan, whom most here seem to respect, seemed to have little doubt about the existence of life elsewhere, and at least gave respectability to the notion of extraterrestrial Intelligent life! |
To me, it seems implausible that life doesn't exist elsewhere in the universe. But let me be clear: This is pure speculation.
Any claims, and all attempts to calculate some probability for this, are nothing more than nonsense if one presents them as a serious claim of fact.
Could that situation change? Absolutely! I hope it does, and within my lifetime. Astronomers are getting closer to detecting earth-type planets (liquid water temp range from their primary) around main sequence stars every year.
I'm 100% for scrapping Bush's manned mission to Mars and replacing it with a massive robotic exploratory mission (or series) to Jupiter's moons. Something capable of getting below the ice of Europa and returning pictures, and specimens, to Earth.
The very idea would keep me awake at night waiting to hear results from the xenobiology team of such a mission.
Obviously I am completely biased in favor of the idea that life exists elsewhere in the universe. I have to restrain that biass though when critically examining the topic. Not always easy.
| I think that it is unlikely that ETs have visited Earth in the past, are currently visiting, or that they may visit in the future. But to put an actual probability number on any of those possibilities is, to me, pretty damn presumptious. I can only be a negative agnostic in that regard. I personally think that it is as foolish and unwarranted to proclaim an extremely low likelihood of such a thing happening (next to impossible), as it is to make a claim that such things have happened, or are inevitable! |
You will pardon the comparison, I hope, but this sounds so much like statements from religious people (you can't disprove god, therefore...) that I have to mention it.
Logic would indicate that both positions (extremely low/impossible and very likely/certain) are untenable. Neither can be supported via any inductive or deductive argument with sound premesis (evidence, verifiable, repeatable, etc).
The only reasonable position, therefore, is to dismiss the positive claim, and doing that renders the negative claim meaningless.
But I know you know this.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 01/02/2008 : 00:46:34 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
You ask.....
| Asking me what my opinion was of the meaning of "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents" when I'd basically asked you for that same thing doesn't make much sense, does it? |
You know, I kind of thought that when two people were discussing a controversial subject, it was pretty conventional for one to give her opinion of the subject in question, and then ask the other to give his opinion of the very same subject! Makes sense to me!
But, I dunno, I haven't been at this kind of thing very long, Dave.| Offering your definitions by saying - in effect - "go read the Condon Report" or "go read this book" is simply annoying. |
So you state "I don't know of a single instance" in a context where I have stated that there are many instances. And then I give you nice, lazy, links to a number of instances. Gee, I kind of thought you were asking me for substantiation of my claim, like you did a few months ago. I do know that's what Dude, and Boron, and Cune were asking for!
But you are annoyed. By my attempts to obey the Categorical Imperative of Critical Thinking - back up your claims! Well, I'll be damned! And I thought you were the high priest of the Temple around here. God forbid that the sachem of CT read a book, or a report for crissakes! | If you cannot articulate what you mean by "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incidents..." |
Cannot articulate?| But then again, I don't know how you define "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incident," |
How better to articulate or define than to give specific, concrete examples of what I mean? Isn't that pretty common in science, in law, in discourse, in just plain conversation, Dave?| but one of the very last things I plan on doing with my life is teasing out the meaning you give to a phrase that you used by reading some material while asking myself "what would bngbuck make of this?" and playing twenty questions with you on the forums. |
I appreciate the insights into your life plans, but you've spent a good chunk of it already asking people to substantiate their statements and give examples of what they are talking about, so that the critical thinking tools can be applied to the evidence to see if it warrants the claim. I did exactly that, and can do a great deal more of it, as I said some several months ago. But now I gather that that would annoy you! I sure don't want to do that! And I understand about the Twenty Questions game. You might lose!
| Me? I don't know what a "highly vetted, rigorously investigated UFO incident" would look like, which is why I can't say that I've ever seen one. Perhaps I would agree that the Condon report is full of just that, but I haven't read it. |
Dave, you'll find it's full of exactly what you and I are full of - crap - with a soupcon of sense! |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 01/02/2008 : 01:01:37 [Permalink]
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| Well said, Dude. I think we are pretty much on the same page of the Book of Questions! |
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Can Critical Thinkers become critical too soon?
