Merged Is ufology a pseudoscience?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That depends entirely on what the discipline of "ufology" studies. As Mojo and lothian rightly allude, UFOs (in the sense of air/spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin) demonstrably exist as an abstract concept, and as a result one can study that abstract concept as a cultural phenomenon, regardless of whether UFOs actually exist as concrete objects.

Heck, you can study UFOs as concrete objects, too. You just might want to avoid begging the question by assuming they are alien craft.

~~ Paul

 

[Access Denied]

IMHO, a solid dialogue on UFOlogy will depend on the proponent acknowledging UFOlogy's methods are flawed and considering what could be done to handle this issue. If you -or anyone else- wish to rescue it form the pseudoscience pit, adopting the scientific method is the way to go. This, of course will mean you run the risk of having to dump most UFO evidence and seriously considering the possibility that aliens are not behind the UFO phenomena.

^ This.

Well put Correa Neto. To that I would add a considerable body of knowledge (read Science) exists establishing that eyewitness “testimony” is notoriously unreliable and this must be taken into account when evaluating UFO reports.

No one is immune to this, not even myself I must admit. Given that historically (ref. USAF Project Blue Book) some 95% of UFO reports ultimately turn out to be identifiable, this is very strong (statistical?) evidence that there are perhaps some confounding observational errors present in the accounts of the remaining 5% or so that prevent conclusive identification, if not other contributing factors.

As far as I know the (granted, fairly loosely defined and informal) PSH (as opposed the ETH and others) is the only hypothesis that has yet to be falsified…

Psychosocial hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosocial_hypothesis

If the aim of UFOlogy is to prove that aliens are in our midst and not just sell books and other promotional materials to the benefit of it’s practitioners or become another religion, they’re going to have to produce some scientifically verifiable (objective) evidence.

As it turns out, this can be accomplished (that is of course assuming alien spaceships are actually flying around in our atmosphere) with a very modest investment in some instrumentation… in fact for about the same amount it costs to fly a bunch of “credible” witnesses to Washington DC for a press conference.

One wonders why UFOlogists invariably choose the latter as opposed to the former approach?

 

[ufology]

From the above link:

"The intent of ufology is to establish the true nature of UFOs..."

This is a problem. In science, one follows the evidence where it leads. To have a predetermined conclusion and work toward it is pseudoscientific.

The quote does not fit what you are suggesting. There is no "predetermined conclusion". There is the question of establishing the truth. That may or may not require "science", but science can be very helpful.

j.r.

 

[Correa Neto]

One wonders why UFOlogists invariably choose the latter as opposed to the former approach?

At Rramjet's "evidence" thread, more than once I stated that if UFO lore is true, then it should not be hard to get reliable experimental data. And no, the costs of such a project are not stratospheric, its within the reach of what advanced amateurs spend with their hobbies (astrophotography, wildlife photography, etc.). Budget constraints can be diminished even further. Just use some of the money top UFOlogy authors get from selling books, or money made from UFO meetings. I bet a very good project could be built from UFO Hunters' budget. And yes, it could be conducted by amateurs, as long as they keep the methodology within the scientific methodology (something thats really not hard). The contributions of amateurs to astronomy and paleontology prove that.

Its almost as if they feared they would not obtain extraordinary evidence to back their extraordinary claims...

One last (for this post) thing-

Its really useless, as it can be inferred from Access Denied's post, to follow the "explain this as anything other than aliens, you skeptics" line if the "this" is an anecdote. If all you've got are tales about aliens, tales are all you've got.

 

[ufology]

^ This.

Well put Correa Neto. To that I would add a considerable body of knowledge (read Science) exists establishing that eyewitness “testimony” is notoriously unreliable and this must be taken into account when evaluating UFO reports.

No one is immune to this, not even myself I must admit. Given that historically (ref. USAF Project Blue Book) some 95% of UFO reports ultimately turn out to be identifiable, this is very strong (statistical?) evidence that there are perhaps some confounding observational errors present in the accounts of the remaining 5% or so that prevent conclusive identification, if not other contributing factors.

As far as I know the (granted, fairly loosely defined and informal) PSH (as opposed the ETH and others) is the only hypothesis that has yet to be falsified…

Psychosocial hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosocial_hypothesis

If the aim of UFOlogy is to prove that aliens are in our midst and not just sell books and other promotional materials to the benefit of it’s practitioners or become another religion, they’re going to have to produce some scientifically verifiable (objective) evidence.

As it turns out, this can be accomplished (that is of course assuming alien spaceships are actually flying around in our atmosphere) with a very modest investment in some instrumentation… in fact for about the same amount it costs to fly a bunch of “credible” witnesses to Washington DC for a press conference.

One wonders why UFOlogists invariably choose the latter as opposed to the former approach?

There are some flawed assumptions and incorrect statistics here. Ufology is an area of inquiry and study. It isn't science nor is it psudoscience. Those are what happen to it when certain individuals do certain things with it. As for the statistics, yours are white washed spin doctored innaccurate numbers. Look at the numbers that come directly from the head of Project Bluebook. You will see the numbers are quite differrent. Here is the actual breakdown:

j.r.

 

[Access Denied]

And so it appears the deliberate deception and cover-up at the hands of UFOlogy continues…

Look at the numbers that come directly from the head of Project Bluebook.

From when, the 50s, and from who, the former head who went on to make a career out of selling UFO books after only two years on the job?

Please tell us in the interest of full disclosure what year Project Blue Book started, what year those figures were compiled and by who and what the conclusion was, and what year Project Blue Book ended.

You appear to be from the Stanton Friedman school of UFOlogy…

“What the public doesn’t know, we certainly won’t tell them.”

Do you know who that “rule” of his was directed at?

Anyway, here’s the final figures directly from the Air Force…

Factsheets : Unidentified Flying Objects and Air Force Project Blue Book
http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=188

Of a total of 12,618 sightings reported to Project Blue Book, 701 remained "unidentified."

I trust you can perform the calculation yourself?

Extra credit: Who accomplished the majority of these identifications and what did he go on to do after the project was terminated?

Hint: This would be the person you’re accusing of producing “white washed spin doctored innaccurate numbers”.

 

[Stray Cat]

These things outmaneuver fighter jets

No they don't. It would be accurate to say some stories have been told that tell us they outmaneuver fighter jets.

Stating it as if it's a proven fact is plain wrong.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Ufology, an advise.
Please try not to follow the standard fringe subject proponent routine. Please bear in mind that:
The debaters you'll meet here have indeed looked at the evidence; we are anything but ignorant on the subject, so the path "you disagree because you don't study the evidence" will not lead to where you wish to go.
If you are going to present he same old UFO cases, please remember the debaters here most likely have already looked at them and found them lacking substance.
Appeals like "having an open mind", wild speculations and special pledges for UFO evidence will also lead you to a dead end.

IMHO, a solid dialogue on UFOlogy will depend on the proponent acknowledging UFOlogy's methods are flawed and considering what could be done to handle this issue. If you -or anyone else- wish to rescue it form the pseudoscience pit, adopting the scientific method is the way to go. This, of course will mean you run the risk of having to dump most UFO evidence and seriously considering the possibility that aliens are not behind the UFO phenomena.

Are you willing to do that?

Bump for Ufology. Apparently you read this, as you responded to it. But did you actually READ it? You've already started down a couple of paths that Correa Neto was good enough to warn you about.

 

[Correa Neto]

You make some really good points here. I've noticed them in other threads. Cool avatar too.

Thanks.

The strategy you mention makes a lot of sense but I once learned the hard way that even sensible easy to implement low-cost strategies require agreement, and having been in ufology for over 40 years it's a lot like herding cats.

Well, I've been in to it from the late 70's to late 80's as a believer; since them sometimes still checking things for curiosity, mostly.

But honestly, wherever you go, people will be people. In the academic and technical environments its also not easy to get people working together. The project I suggested would not require too many people. Think about this- how many people worked to shoot UFO Hunters? Much more than such a "watch" project would require. It would be cheaper, also.

Infights are not an excuse, funding is not an excuse.

The other thing is that capturing UFO evidence isn't easy. A butterfly net isn't going to do the job. These things outmaneuver fighter jets and are elusive.

I will resist the tempation to reply with the obvious "there is no reliable evidence that these things...". Lets suppose UFO lore is correct. Those "things" can outmaneauver fighter jets but can be captured by cameras, right? They are also known to appear in "flaps" and "hotspots", right?

Should not be that hard. Three stations with the proper cameras and telescopes at a hotspot and there you go. Could make us skeptics STFU or conclude "wow, maybe there's actually something really extraordinary in their data"...

Still, you are right. So far as civilians getting their hands on any good evidence, it is going to take coordination and a lot of luck. I'm at least trying to do my part.

j.r.

Well, good luck! Try thinking outside the UFOlogy box, OK?

Oh, and please don't fall in that civilians x millitary trap... Sticking to CTs and cover-ups in an attempt to provide "explanations" for some aspects of UFO phenomena will not work.

ETA- It would also be interesting for you to know (maybe you already know it, but...) that a number of skeptics here have had their own UFO sightings. We just concluded that aliens are not the better answers.

 

[tsig]

There are some flawed assumptions and incorrect statistics here. Ufology is an area of inquiry and study. It isn't science nor is it psudoscience. Those are what happen to it when certain individuals do certain things with it. As for the statistics, yours are white washed spin doctored innaccurate numbers. Look at the numbers that come directly from the head of Project Bluebook. You will see the numbers are quite differrent. Here is the actual breakdown:

[qimg]http://ufopages.com/Reference/Graphics/Chart-02a.png[/qimg]

j.r.

Then what is it? Uscience*.

*Unidentified science.

 

[Stray Cat]

Should not be that hard. Three stations with the proper cameras and telescopes at a hotspot and there you go. Could make us skeptics STFU or conclude "wow, maybe there's actually something really extraordinary in their data"...

As far as I know, this has been tried in Hessdelen though not with three cameras.

So far nothing to report.

 

[ufology]

Then what is it? Uscience*.

*Unidentified science.

Ufology is neither science nor pseudoscience. I've explained that already.

j.r.

 

[GeeMack]

Assuming those descriptions were accurate, which, again, we can’t because those alleged performance characteristics were “measured” by humans who’s observational abilities are demonstrably unreliable.

Anyway, I noticed you neglected to report the conclusion of that naïve study you cited (and has been discussed extensively in another thread here) as requested….

Project Blue Book Special Report #14 (May 1955)
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/

Why is that?

You mean the later two and a half decades (some 25 years!) and you neglect to account for the vast improvements made in radar technology and coverage since then.

Prove it.

Those aren’t Ruppelt's numbers (they’re the Battelle Memorial Institute’s) and to which edition do your refer? It should be noted…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_J._Ruppelt

Of course he couldn’t continue to make a living from books because he died of a heart attack after his first one.

Prove it.

Help me out here guys, what is this called, “the dog ate my homework” fallacy?

Maybe ufology is actively engaging in pseudoscience here on purpose. He's got it all: Typical examples of confirmation bias, alluding to conspiracy theories or at least withheld information, assuming as fact that "these things" demonstrate some particular flight characteristics, arguments from incredulity and ignorance, and wholly unsupported assertions. It could be ufology is providing examples of just how silly some of these logical fallacies are and imitating the sort of contorted rationalization we might expect from a real alien believer trying to validate his/her belief. An excellent representation of pseudoscience indeed.

 

[ufology]

Maybe ufology is actively engaging in pseudoscience here on purpose. He's got it all: Typical examples of confirmation bias, alluding to conspiracy theories or at least withheld information, assuming as fact that "these things" demonstrate some particular flight characteristics, arguments from incredulity and ignorance, and wholly unsupported assertions. It could be ufology is providing examples of just how silly some of these logical fallacies are and imitating the sort of contorted rationalization we might expect from a real alien believer trying to validate his/her belief. An excellent representation of pseudoscience indeed.

I'm not engaging in "science" nor am I engaging in "pseudoscience". This is an online forum ... I'm just trying to have a discussion.

j.r.

 

[Yeah_Right]

I think UFOlogy is so far from being a science you shouldn't use science and ufology in the same sentence. In fact it's not even good enough to have psuedoscience in the same sentence.

 

[AdMan]

I'm not engaging in "science" nor am I engaging in "pseudoscience". This is an online forum ... I'm just trying to have a discussion.

j.r.

Ufology (the subject, not the poster) is most certainly not science. However, it is pseudoscience: "a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.".

I still don't get how ufology (the poster) argues against this.

 

[fuelair]

One mentioning of ufology reports that


A PhD in ufology!?

When I think of -ology, I think of (associated it with) empirical evidence that has been demonstrated by that field. But the denoted meaning does not convey that.




Concerning unidentified objects, is there any demonstratable (repeatable) data that provides evidence for the existence of UFOs?

Is ufology a pseudo-science?

It's a not-science. So, he will be getting a not-science degree for studying not-stuff.

 

[ufology]

It's a not-science. So, he will be getting a not-science degree for studying not-stuff.

Well technically a PhD is a Doctorate in Philosophy, probably with ufology as the subject matter. This would not be the same as a science degree. I don't see a problem with it.

j.r.

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

Well technically a PhD is a Doctorate in Philosophy, probably with ufology as the subject matter. This would not be the same as a science degree. I don't see a problem with it.

j.r.

A PHD is not a doctorate in philosophy. That's what the words mean, but that's not what it is. You get a PHD in cellular biology too...

 

[Rramjet]

The study of UFOs (“ufology”) can be a science – as demonstrated in the following scientific study. The Battelle Study - 5 May 1955 - Blue Book Special Report No. 14
(here is the actual link to that study so that you may see what it is for yourselves - http://www.ufocasebook.com/pdf/specialreport14.pdf).

Of course the mere ability to apply scientific methodology within a discipline of study does not make that discipline a science (consider History for example) – however, considering any definition of pseudoscience will contain the phrase “without scientific foundation”, the ability to successfully apply scientific methodology certainly does prevent something from being a pseudoscience.

Ufology seeks to determine whether UFOs are truly inexplicable in terms of our knowledge of the natural or technological world. In that endeavour it applies scientific methods in the examination of the evidence (multiple eyewitness, radar, photographic and film and physical trace evidence). The fact that many UFOs turn out to be genuine unknowns (as indicated in the Battelle Study) makes assigning the correct scientific discipline, under the auspices of which a study should be made, difficult – for example should it be physics (a science) or should it be psychology (a science)?