I agree! You have to experience something not of this world with one of your physical senses to become a knower, and its not exactly easy to give proof of something that is not of this world in this world. That is why the sceptics will always have the advantage. I personally have not seen a UFO, but have seen an apparition in the mirror that was not of this world. I seem to remember Jimi Hendrix asking mankind "Are you experienced".
Merged Skeptics vs. Knowers/Believers
- Thread starter King of the Americas
- Start date
wollery
Protected by Samurai Hedgehogs!
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2003
- Messages
- 11,308
So, you have no idea what the explanation could be.
And yet, you are perfectly willing to offer one that defies all reason.
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
"absolutely nothing" is included in "not human-piloted aircraft". It would be my pick.
Marduk
Banned
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2009
- Messages
- 10,183
Marduk
Banned
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2009
- Messages
- 10,183
you were the one claiming that there were....
I am only asking you to produce one, can you do that yet because apparently this is a large part of the argument, that its not just your delusion, that what you say is supported by historians of every age. So, what are their names ?
How much do you know about Troy
can you even spell the guys name right who discovered it ?
some very very badly
the older a text is the clearer its original message is, cuneiform tablets talking about the flood myth have not been subjected to millenium of religious bias, Can you show me for instance in Atrahasis anywhere it might mention the size of the flood ?
http://www.earthhistory.org.uk/genesis-6-11-and-other-texts/flood-texts-from-mesopotamia/
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152198&highlight=mesopotamia
is incorrect, it should read,
unless you know specifically what the truth is in advance you won't find it in mythology...and theres the problem
Last edited:
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
And yet, you come to a conclusion that:
When you say "nothing else to conclude", and then go on to conclude something, you're exhibiting illogical thinking. You're embracing a contradiction - that both P and not-P are true at the same time. When you determine that there's nothing else to conclude, then you can't conclude in the very next sentence that something non-human exists that is more capable than us.
For all I know, you may have seen a flock of geese. I don't know. By your own admission, you don't either. You can't conclude anything from that.
Umm... here's the "flood".
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/ax/frame.html
Seek and ye shall find!
OMG EVIDENCE!
No, please, no, whatever you do...DON'T show me evidence!
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/ax/frame.html
Seek and ye shall find!
OMG EVIDENCE!
No, please, no, whatever you do...DON'T show me evidence!
Marduk
Banned
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2009
- Messages
- 10,183
how is that evidence of a world wide flood
how is it evidence of the river flood that the biblical global flood tradition is based on
are you looking for evidence for something that never happened
or don't you just know anything credible about this subject ?
how is it evidence of the river flood that the biblical global flood tradition is based on
are you looking for evidence for something that never happened
or don't you just know anything credible about this subject ?
Last edited:
Debunker tactics at work
At the risk of getting ON topic…
Debunker tactics at work.
(I am forever indebted to Jakesteele for much of the following - I hope he won't mind my borrowing from him so heavily - he did post much of this this in another place. I have edited and added some of my own ideas so Jakesteele, please feel free to disown if you feel I have misrepresented your approach)
Rat Packing or Piling On:
This is where a UFO proponent makes a post and suddenly finds multiple debunker posters burying that post under a stream of derision and mostly off-topic generalisations. It becomes practically impossible for the original poster to answer such an ill-focussed and massed debunking of the original idea.
Anecdotal Rejection Syndrome:
This is where the debunker’s anecdotes count but yours don’t. On your side of the anecdotal fence you have many highly qualified military/commercial pilots, radar people, engineers, etc. But none of those count, because they are all wrong. They are either innocently mistaken, lying or deluded.
For example on the debunkers side of the fence you have things like the two amateur astronomers in the Phoenix Lights who ‘allege’ that they saw planes. Debunkers consider that golden and beyond reproach. Another example is Jimmy Carter, who ‘alleged’ he saw a UFO. Debunkers labelled him woo until he recanted and said he saw Venus. Then he became golden.
It CAN be: therefore it IS:
If you take 100 people who witness a UFO sighting and 99 say it was a for real UFO and 1 person says it was a weather balloon, then in the debunker’s mind the 1 is right, proof positive, and the 99 are either woos, innocently mistaken or deluded, etc.
Here is link that is a list of “possible” UFO explanations compiled by Donald Menzel, a noted debunker of the 50s and 60s. They fall under the below listed main headings. Each heading has a number of variations on the same theme, but they’re too numerous to list here. For the complete list go to:
http://www.cufon.org/cufon/ifo_list.htm
A. MATERIAL OBJECTS
B. IMMATERIAL OBJECTS
C. ASTRONOMICAL
D. PHYSIOLOGICAL
E PSYCHOLOGICAL
F COMBINATIONS AND SPECIAL EFFECTS
G PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORDS
H RADAR
I HOAXES
My personal favorites that are embedded in the list include the following. I’m having them bronzed so I can prominently display them on my mantle.
*paper and other debris
*leaves
*insect swarms
*moths
*seeds (milkweed, etc.)
*feathers
*tumbleweeds
*spider webs
*matches
*smoker lighting pipe
*cigarettes tossed away
*ghost of the Brocken (I don’t know what that is, but it sounds pretty cool. Kind of like one of those low budget movies you see on The SyFy channel)
This tactic also has many variants, such as:
1. Since a thing can be faked, it must be a fake.
2. It cannot be, therefore, it is not.
...and this in turn is a variant on the…
All Crows are Black fallacy:
I have seen only black crows, therefore all crows are black.
Translated into debunker speak:
Most UFO reports I have seen have mundane explanations, therefore all UFO reports will have mundane explanations.
It is also related to:
The Law of Forced Plausibles:
Trying to make something fit where it doesn’t fit. Every explanation MUST be a plausible and mundane one, even when it doesn’t fit, it fits.
For a classical example of this and for a good belly laugh, go to this site. It is a History Channel special on Human Levitation. Go to: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwvEPeGPxeU). Go to the 1:15 mark and hear shamless Joe Nickell give the most ridiculous, ludicrous, pathetic attempt of a Forced Plausible I’ve ever seen. Any debunker worth his salt would denounce him and tell him to get out of town.
The Law of Immaculate Perception:
Debunkers are the only ones who see reality exactly as it is, unhindered by any cognitive biases. So therefore, to disagree with them is to disagree with reality itself.
The Law of the “Official Story”:
The Official Story is always right. If the “Official Story” says it was a weather balloon, then by God, it WAS; proof positive, case closed.
Absence of evidence is evidence of absence:
Because there is no evidence that “proves” ET, then ET does not exist.
(the following are not attributable to Jakesteele - I say this because I do not want to put words in his mouth)
The Law of Endless Repetition:
This is a simple matter of the debunker ignoring whatever their opponent has to say and then to repeat a fallacious contention over and over, no matter what, until your opponent becomes frustrated and hopefully makes an unwise or otherwise ill-considered move, or simply becomes sick of your implacable obtuseness and goes away.
The Law of the Sweeping Generalisation:
A Debunker should use sweeping generalisations wherever possible. For your opponent to point out the fallacy of such statements will force them to consume many precious resources, in hours of research and many pages of text to explore and dispel the many unfounded assumptions and misconceptions contained in a single throwaway line. You on the other hand have wasted no resources, merely a single line of text and no research necessary.
The Law of the Rational Opponent:
As a debunker, you realise that your opponent is committed to logic and rationality and thus cannot use any of your own spurious tactics against you. This confers an enormous advantage to you. You can use charlatanism and legerdemain with impunity, knowing your opponent cannot.
The Law of the Avoided Question:
If a UFO proponent asks a question the debunker should answer a question they would have liked to have been asked - rather than the one that was asked. Who cares what the original question was, answer a question that you have prepared an answer for regardless (any question will do, as long as it is related to the subject… and sometimes not even then). This has a twofold effect. First it distracts and frustrates the questioner from their original line of attack, hopefully permanently, and second, it forces them to open another front to deal with the new fallacy you have just thrown into the battle – thus putting them on the defensive and dispersing their resources, hopefully into ineffectualness.
The Law of Transposed Sin:
The debunker should accuse an opponent of committing your own sins, then let them try to justify themselves. This immediately turns their attack into defence. It deflects attention away from you and works particularly well if you get the accusation in before your opponent realises you are not here to engage in a logical debate. For your opponent to then turn around and legitimately accuse you of those very same sins they will make them seem at the very least churlish and they will also be deemed not to have denied the accusation.
Obviously there are other tactics available to the debunker, such as deliberate hoaxing in an effort to destroy a researchers credentials, deliberate distortion of research outcomes, outright lying, etc, but these are more malign and if caught out may reflect badly on the debunker, so should only be used with caution.
Cats... pigeons....
At the risk of getting ON topic…
Debunker tactics at work.
(I am forever indebted to Jakesteele for much of the following - I hope he won't mind my borrowing from him so heavily - he did post much of this this in another place. I have edited and added some of my own ideas so Jakesteele, please feel free to disown if you feel I have misrepresented your approach)
Rat Packing or Piling On:
This is where a UFO proponent makes a post and suddenly finds multiple debunker posters burying that post under a stream of derision and mostly off-topic generalisations. It becomes practically impossible for the original poster to answer such an ill-focussed and massed debunking of the original idea.
Anecdotal Rejection Syndrome:
This is where the debunker’s anecdotes count but yours don’t. On your side of the anecdotal fence you have many highly qualified military/commercial pilots, radar people, engineers, etc. But none of those count, because they are all wrong. They are either innocently mistaken, lying or deluded.
For example on the debunkers side of the fence you have things like the two amateur astronomers in the Phoenix Lights who ‘allege’ that they saw planes. Debunkers consider that golden and beyond reproach. Another example is Jimmy Carter, who ‘alleged’ he saw a UFO. Debunkers labelled him woo until he recanted and said he saw Venus. Then he became golden.
It CAN be: therefore it IS:
If you take 100 people who witness a UFO sighting and 99 say it was a for real UFO and 1 person says it was a weather balloon, then in the debunker’s mind the 1 is right, proof positive, and the 99 are either woos, innocently mistaken or deluded, etc.
Here is link that is a list of “possible” UFO explanations compiled by Donald Menzel, a noted debunker of the 50s and 60s. They fall under the below listed main headings. Each heading has a number of variations on the same theme, but they’re too numerous to list here. For the complete list go to:
http://www.cufon.org/cufon/ifo_list.htm
A. MATERIAL OBJECTS
B. IMMATERIAL OBJECTS
C. ASTRONOMICAL
D. PHYSIOLOGICAL
E PSYCHOLOGICAL
F COMBINATIONS AND SPECIAL EFFECTS
G PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORDS
H RADAR
I HOAXES
My personal favorites that are embedded in the list include the following. I’m having them bronzed so I can prominently display them on my mantle.
*paper and other debris
*leaves
*insect swarms
*moths
*seeds (milkweed, etc.)
*feathers
*tumbleweeds
*spider webs
*matches
*smoker lighting pipe
*cigarettes tossed away
*ghost of the Brocken (I don’t know what that is, but it sounds pretty cool. Kind of like one of those low budget movies you see on The SyFy channel)
This tactic also has many variants, such as:
1. Since a thing can be faked, it must be a fake.
2. It cannot be, therefore, it is not.
...and this in turn is a variant on the…
All Crows are Black fallacy:
I have seen only black crows, therefore all crows are black.
Translated into debunker speak:
Most UFO reports I have seen have mundane explanations, therefore all UFO reports will have mundane explanations.
It is also related to:
The Law of Forced Plausibles:
Trying to make something fit where it doesn’t fit. Every explanation MUST be a plausible and mundane one, even when it doesn’t fit, it fits.
For a classical example of this and for a good belly laugh, go to this site. It is a History Channel special on Human Levitation. Go to: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwvEPeGPxeU). Go to the 1:15 mark and hear shamless Joe Nickell give the most ridiculous, ludicrous, pathetic attempt of a Forced Plausible I’ve ever seen. Any debunker worth his salt would denounce him and tell him to get out of town.
The Law of Immaculate Perception:
Debunkers are the only ones who see reality exactly as it is, unhindered by any cognitive biases. So therefore, to disagree with them is to disagree with reality itself.
The Law of the “Official Story”:
The Official Story is always right. If the “Official Story” says it was a weather balloon, then by God, it WAS; proof positive, case closed.
Absence of evidence is evidence of absence:
Because there is no evidence that “proves” ET, then ET does not exist.
(the following are not attributable to Jakesteele - I say this because I do not want to put words in his mouth)
The Law of Endless Repetition:
This is a simple matter of the debunker ignoring whatever their opponent has to say and then to repeat a fallacious contention over and over, no matter what, until your opponent becomes frustrated and hopefully makes an unwise or otherwise ill-considered move, or simply becomes sick of your implacable obtuseness and goes away.
The Law of the Sweeping Generalisation:
A Debunker should use sweeping generalisations wherever possible. For your opponent to point out the fallacy of such statements will force them to consume many precious resources, in hours of research and many pages of text to explore and dispel the many unfounded assumptions and misconceptions contained in a single throwaway line. You on the other hand have wasted no resources, merely a single line of text and no research necessary.
The Law of the Rational Opponent:
As a debunker, you realise that your opponent is committed to logic and rationality and thus cannot use any of your own spurious tactics against you. This confers an enormous advantage to you. You can use charlatanism and legerdemain with impunity, knowing your opponent cannot.
The Law of the Avoided Question:
If a UFO proponent asks a question the debunker should answer a question they would have liked to have been asked - rather than the one that was asked. Who cares what the original question was, answer a question that you have prepared an answer for regardless (any question will do, as long as it is related to the subject… and sometimes not even then). This has a twofold effect. First it distracts and frustrates the questioner from their original line of attack, hopefully permanently, and second, it forces them to open another front to deal with the new fallacy you have just thrown into the battle – thus putting them on the defensive and dispersing their resources, hopefully into ineffectualness.
The Law of Transposed Sin:
The debunker should accuse an opponent of committing your own sins, then let them try to justify themselves. This immediately turns their attack into defence. It deflects attention away from you and works particularly well if you get the accusation in before your opponent realises you are not here to engage in a logical debate. For your opponent to then turn around and legitimately accuse you of those very same sins they will make them seem at the very least churlish and they will also be deemed not to have denied the accusation.
Obviously there are other tactics available to the debunker, such as deliberate hoaxing in an effort to destroy a researchers credentials, deliberate distortion of research outcomes, outright lying, etc, but these are more malign and if caught out may reflect badly on the debunker, so should only be used with caution.
Cats... pigeons....
No... Not "THE" flood, just a plausible explanation of where "THE" flood mythology might have originated - PLUS it shows that there WERE floods that DID wipe out civilisations in the past, something that some posters above have been denying outright.
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
You're making no sense, Rramjet. I've not seen anyone do any of those things.
Well, except perhaps for ratpacking. But that is an unfortunate consequence of posting unevidenced claims on a skeptics forum where most of the posters don't accept cllaims without evidence.
Well, except perhaps for ratpacking. But that is an unfortunate consequence of posting unevidenced claims on a skeptics forum where most of the posters don't accept cllaims without evidence.
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
AntiTelharsic
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2008
- Messages
- 252
[content moved to later post]
Last edited:
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
Did you really experience what you thought you did?
http://visualfunhouse.com/impossible_objects/impossible-triangle-statue-optical-illusion.html
Marduk
Banned
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2009
- Messages
- 10,183
its not plausible that this answers anything, all the data was debunked by soviet scientists long before Ryan and Pitman put pen to paper and long before Ballard smelled the cash cow
no it doesn't, this flood didn't wipe out a civilisation and neither did any others, I am denying it, do you have any credible evidence that any civilisation was wiped out by a flood ?
do you know anything at all about mesopotamian mythology because it seems like you don't even know the source of the story you are attempting to post evidence for, as such, you don't know the details that you are trying to fit evidence to, this isn't a jigsaw where you can trim the pieces that don't fit with a pair of scissors and flood mythology has nothing to so with ufos anyway, KotA only mentioned it as an attempt at distraction from his own sorry unevidenced fable
AntiTelharsic
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2008
- Messages
- 252
In other words, "I'm pretending my beliefs are true".
You had an experience. You have been unable to explain your experience. Now that's where a rational person stops -- he calls the experience "unexplained" and leaves it that way pending future observations which might help explain it. You, however, have instead taken the irrational step of abandoning ignorance in favor of claimed "knowledge" with absolutely no valid inference anywhere in between.
You're doing the same thing with your non-humans that a religious person does when he thinks "I don't understand how the universe got here, therefore a supreme being named Yahweh did it, here's a list of things we shouldn't do because they really piss Him off, and by the way He's going to have you tortured forever if you don't make friends with his son".
Your desire to believe in this story you've invented has overridden any interest you ever might have had in discovering the truth; you have abandoned reason for faith.
If you want to know which side is winning, then ask yourself which is the most plausible: a position backed up by reason and evidence, or a fairy tale with only your declaration of faith to support it?
People have been explaining all this to you for six pages now. Do you really not understand? Are you so committed to your faith that you're impervious to reason?
Last edited:
QUOTE=King of the Americas;5148951] I KNOW that what I saw was beyond human capability [/QUOTE]
Yes and I fully understand your consequent distinction between “knowing” and “belief”. This is something the debunkers cannot get past – once you have had verified a “UFO” experience – you simply KNOW. It is no longer a matter of “mere” belief. There are certain things that no amount of “mistaken identity” or “delusion” explanations can disclose.
There are experiences people have where they may be uncertain…”Was it or wasn’t it?” and are never really sure that they might not have been mistaken… but then there are the experiences which simply defy all rational explanation.
I will tip my hat in the ring at this point and state I have had more than one such experience. In those experiences it is not so much either the shape, or the distance or the weather conditions or any other physical aspect of the experience that “makes” it so compelling…it is the BEHAVIOUR of the thing.
For example when a light in the sky is perfectly still (steady as a rock) with an apparent size of say ¾ of a full moon and as bright as a car headlight at say 200 metres, then it could be anything. A hovering helicopter springs to mind, or even an approaching aircraft on a direct line toward you, it COULD be anything… and one just looks at it wondering. But then when it makes a jump to the left of about 6 or 7 diameters, immediately reverses that to jump to the right about double that, then jumps back to the middle, to resume as steady a state - as it ever was. And that happens quickly enough so you almost doubt your own perceptual ability and so turn to the other people watching to say “Did anything just happen to that thing?” and they say yes, it jumped left, then right…” you just KNOW something is awry.
Or when you have your attention drawn to the sky with “Those stars are moving!” to see a trail of four “stars” slowly (a relative term) crossing the sky, with the two at the front oscillating as if they were attached in the middle by a solid bar and the others trailing along, but slowly gaining on the two in front, and you just KNOW they are way, way up there… you just KNOW that this is something that cannot be explained away so easily as “meteor” or “satellite” or anything of the kind.
It is their behaviour that does the trick!
And of course the Debunkers will say “oh, it could have been this, or it could have been that…” But all the while you KNOW it simply could have been NONE of the things they mention. THAT is the difference between knowing and belief.
Simply it is one of those things where you just HAVE to be there, otherwise the full impact of what just occurred can never be captured by a “mere” description. And if you ARE there (especially in the company of other witnesses), well, that changes EVERYTHING…
Now I know I won't CONVINCE anyone with this, I just wanted to try and convey what it is LIKE to have such an experience...
Yes and I fully understand your consequent distinction between “knowing” and “belief”. This is something the debunkers cannot get past – once you have had verified a “UFO” experience – you simply KNOW. It is no longer a matter of “mere” belief. There are certain things that no amount of “mistaken identity” or “delusion” explanations can disclose.
There are experiences people have where they may be uncertain…”Was it or wasn’t it?” and are never really sure that they might not have been mistaken… but then there are the experiences which simply defy all rational explanation.
I will tip my hat in the ring at this point and state I have had more than one such experience. In those experiences it is not so much either the shape, or the distance or the weather conditions or any other physical aspect of the experience that “makes” it so compelling…it is the BEHAVIOUR of the thing.
For example when a light in the sky is perfectly still (steady as a rock) with an apparent size of say ¾ of a full moon and as bright as a car headlight at say 200 metres, then it could be anything. A hovering helicopter springs to mind, or even an approaching aircraft on a direct line toward you, it COULD be anything… and one just looks at it wondering. But then when it makes a jump to the left of about 6 or 7 diameters, immediately reverses that to jump to the right about double that, then jumps back to the middle, to resume as steady a state - as it ever was. And that happens quickly enough so you almost doubt your own perceptual ability and so turn to the other people watching to say “Did anything just happen to that thing?” and they say yes, it jumped left, then right…” you just KNOW something is awry.
Or when you have your attention drawn to the sky with “Those stars are moving!” to see a trail of four “stars” slowly (a relative term) crossing the sky, with the two at the front oscillating as if they were attached in the middle by a solid bar and the others trailing along, but slowly gaining on the two in front, and you just KNOW they are way, way up there… you just KNOW that this is something that cannot be explained away so easily as “meteor” or “satellite” or anything of the kind.
It is their behaviour that does the trick!
And of course the Debunkers will say “oh, it could have been this, or it could have been that…” But all the while you KNOW it simply could have been NONE of the things they mention. THAT is the difference between knowing and belief.
Simply it is one of those things where you just HAVE to be there, otherwise the full impact of what just occurred can never be captured by a “mere” description. And if you ARE there (especially in the company of other witnesses), well, that changes EVERYTHING…
Now I know I won't CONVINCE anyone with this, I just wanted to try and convey what it is LIKE to have such an experience...
AntiTelharsic
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2008
- Messages
- 252
I once heard about a police officer who was amazed by a light in the sky that was swinging back and forth sideways across the horizon. He later figured out that it was Venus, and that the reason he'd thought it was moving was because he had been driving down a winding road at the time.
We know how error-prone human cognition is. On the other hand, we have no reason to believe we're being visited by aliens. When it comes to finding a plausible explanation for something you'll be better off blaming the former.
Last edited:
arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
Oh, I think we all know what it's like to have such an experience. When I was in the USA, Hcmom was driving me from Meteor Crater to Las Vegas, and on one long stretch of road, I looked up and saw a bright light in the sky. It appeared to be moving extremely fast, and after a couple of minutes, completely vanished without a trace. It sure appeared to be moving faster than an airliner could have.
The difference between you and me is that I didn't assume that the fact that I didn't know what it was was in some way significant, or that it was non-human in origin. I believe it actually was an aircraft, despite the fact that it appeared to be going faster than any aircraft was capable of doing. It might have been a satellite - Iridium or the ISS - catching the sunlight at a particular angle. I don't know. But I don't conclude from that fact that it was non-human in origin.
AntiTelharsic
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2008
- Messages
- 252
Yeah, I saw a UFO once too, and I have also drawn no conclusions about it. Basically, I figure that I'm in a better position to find out the truth if I admit I don't know than I would be if I pretended I'd already found it.