Merged Is ufology a pseudoscience?

[Stray Cat]

OMG!!! Look what's shown up on the FLIR!!!

Subtle... nice.

 

[Stray Cat]

Now you did it. You just gave proof of NASA's involvement in Kecksburg! If you keep this up, you will be drummed out of the debunker corps.

Well I'm sorry but I'm ready to blow the gaff on NASA.
Everyone knows it's a fact that there are records of NASAs involvement in the great Flying Saucer cover up that go back to before records began... And there's no smoke without fire, to PROVE it you just have to look at NASAs own Apollo rockets... look at the smoke that comes out of them and you can not deny there is also fire!!!!!

Even during the Moon Missions (that never happened by the way!!!!!), the Lunar Lander (that never landed on the Moon because we never went there) was based on the Kecksburg Acorn, although it would probably have been a bit too obvious if it looked exactly the same, so they maded it without it's """outer skin""" so people wouldn't be able tell, but we can so it didn't work ha!

LOOK, they even have the original 'Acorn' (that they 'carted away' on an invisible flatbed truck), in mission control and it MONITORS all the space missions now for the aliens:

Photo provided by Bob Dean - Verified for authenticity by Jim Diletteso

I'm sorry if I seem like a UFOdebunker debunker, but debunking the debunkers kind of debunks the bunk that debunkers constantly post here as if its a factual fact, when in actual fact the actual factual facts speak for themselves!

If you can't the face the truth*, then I suggest you do some research and you'll find out for yourself!





* Although I will have to redefine 'truth' so it also includes 'fiction'

 

[Agatha]

<snip>
Whitney Balliett (1926– ), U.S. jazz critic.
<snip>

.. twaddle I say !


j.r.

Twaddle indeed, since Whitney Balliett died in February 2007.

 

[Akhenaten]

Twaddle indeed, since Whitney Balliett died in February 2007.

So, he's transcendended this earthly realm then, has he?



For some reason, I find myself reminded of this:

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

- Abraham Lincoln​

 

[RoboTimbo]

LOL. Starting to get a sense of what the JREF is all about yet ufology?

The Critical Thinking thread and the UFOlogy is Pseudoscience thread have pretty well crushed you, haven't they? You don't engage in critical thinking at all and ufology (the poster) has defined what you do as pseudoscience. Have YOU got a sense of what UFOlogy is yet, Rramjet?

Do the terms closed-minded, faith-based, dogmatic and cultist figure anywhere in that understanding perchance?

"Understanding" is putting too fine a point on it, but I think you're getting a feel for your actual worldview. I'm surprised that you recognized the words I would have used to describe it, though.

But of course you're too polite (and thoroughly deserving of a commendation in that regard) - me on the other hand ....

Actually, he isn't. No more than you.

Critical thinking? - At this point it seems we are reduced to merely searching for the thinking bit...

Keep looking, with everyone else's help here, eventually you might find it. You just have to get past your "closed-minded, faith-based, dogmatic and cultist" mindset. Good luck on your journey towards rational thinking. If you feel that I've aided in any way, turning your back on your "closed-minded, faith-based, dogmatic and cultist" mindset will be thanks enough.

 

[ufology]

Well I'm sorry but I'm ready to blow the gaff on NASA.
Everyone knows it's a fact that there are records of NASAs involvement in the great Flying Saucer cover up that go back to before records began... And there's no smoke without fire, to PROVE it you just have to look at NASAs own Apollo rockets... look at the smoke that comes out of them and you can not deny there is also fire!!!!!

Even during the Moon Missions (that never happened by the way!!!!!), the Lunar Lander (that never landed on the Moon because we never went there) was based on the Kecksburg Acorn, although it would probably have been a bit too obvious if it looked exactly the same, so they maded it without it's """outer skin""" so people wouldn't be able tell, but we can so it didn't work ha!

LOOK, they even have the original 'Acorn' (that they 'carted away' on an invisible flatbed truck), in mission control and it MONITORS all the space missions now for the aliens:

Photo provided by Bob Dean - Verified for authenticity by Jim Diletteso

I'm sorry if I seem like a UFOdebunker debunker, but debunking the debunkers kind of debunks the bunk that debunkers constantly post here as if its a factual fact, when in actual fact the actual factual facts speak for themselves!

If you can't the face the truth*, then I suggest you do some research and you'll find out for yourself!

* Although I will have to redefine 'truth' so it also includes 'fiction'

OK all you other slackers ... If you want to slam in style ... Stray Cat is showing you how it's done ... exposing the "acorn" ... man I should have made this a Cynicism in UFO humor thread instead ... I practiacally fell out of my chair laughing ... nicely done!

j.r.

P.S. Now if we apply Occam's Razor and go with the least complex hypothesis, the object in question is obviously a burial urn, portable barbeque ... or a piece of Darth Vader's luggage.

 

[Akhenaten]

OK all you other slackers ... If you want to slam in style ... Stray Cat is showing you how it's done ... exposing the "acorn" ... man I should have made this a Cynicism in UFO humor thread instead ... I practiacally fell out of my chair laughing ... nicely done!

j.r.

You might want to try and hold your sides together long enough to have a look around. I think you'll notice that your baseless assertions that ufology and critical thinking are somehow related are practiacally dead in the water.

 

[ufology]

You misspelled 'transcendent', genius.

Maybe you'd be better off just trying to address the substance of the post from which you're trying to divert attention.

C'mon man ... quit chafin' me. I was tired. All your negative waves are wearin' me down.

j.r.

 

[ufology]

You might want to try and hold your sides together long enough to have a look around. I think you'll notice that your baseless assertions that ufology and critical thinking are somehow related are practiacally dead in the water.

Oh I couldn't agree more. With that last post by Stray Cat this thread has gone completely off the rails, down the hill, along main street, into the subway, back on the rails, and into an bandoned tunnel connected to the funhouse ride at the local fair. I'm completely lost, don't care anymore and am just enjoying the ride. Perhaps Roger Ramjet will save the day ...

j.r.

 

[citizenzen]

There is no filter or third party for the data to pass through before it hits the witness's retina and becomes a stimulus for optical observation.

Culture is a third party and a huge filter through which we interpret the data that passes through our retinas. UFO lore has seeped thoroughly into our culture and colors the way we see and relate our experiences.

 

[Akhenaten]

Culture is a third party and a huge filter through which we interpret the data that passes through our retinas. UFO lore has seeped thoroughly into our culture and colors the way we see and relate our experiences.

Exactly right, I reckon.

If you asked everyone on this forum to draw a flying saucer you'd get thousands of versions of this:

Ask them to draw an alien and you'd get this:

Ask them to draw Jesus and you'd get this:

And yet none of these things exist.​

There's no accounting for folk.​

Welcome to the zoo, citizenzen!

​

 

[ufology]

Culture is a third party and a huge filter through which we interpret the data that passes through our retinas. UFO lore has seeped thoroughly into our culture and colors the way we see and relate our experiences.

Good point. But culture is not associated with eyesight or the visual cortex. The context of the post to which you responded is that in a direct visual sighting there is no "apparatus" so to speak between the object and the observer that can malfunction and introduce bad data into the observation. Culture can introduce prejudice into any observation, but it's always after the fact.

This point was made to address the issue of "video proof". It reinforces the idea that a good first person sighting report is better than most generated data such as Youtube videos or photos or whatever, especially when they have no credits. For example, I would be more inclined to believe a sighting actually happened if I could interview several random witnesses on the street who all saw the same thing, than just the video, or even the videographer himself, especially if he or she were looking through the camera display at the time.

We have a number of cases from the old Gulf Breeze sightings where the UFO turned out to be the way the lens motor assembly for the zoom worked at high zoom levels. In another case infrared signatures were mistaken for UFOs. In other cases we've had false radar echoes. In other cases we've had camera flares. All this so called "proof" is in my view less reliable that first person eyewitness testimony from reliable sources.

j.r.

 

[citizenzen]

Welcome to the zoo, citizenzen!

Thanks.

I think I have something to contribute.

But culture is not associated with eyesight or the visual cortex.

But people aren't merely satisfied with perceiving stimuli and moving on.

They interpret, they speculate.

And that is all done through the filter of culture.

 

[Stray Cat]

All this so called "proof" is in my view less reliable that first person eyewitness testimony from reliable sources.

Only in the same way that a wax teapot is of less use than a chocolate one.

 

[Stray Cat]

Oh I couldn't agree more. With that last post by Stray Cat this thread has gone completely off the rails, down the hill, along main street, into the subway, back on the rails, and into an bandoned tunnel connected to the funhouse ride at the local fair. I'm completely lost, don't care anymore and am just enjoying the ride. Perhaps Roger Ramjet will save the day ...

It was a simple demonstration of how critical thinking is often misapplied.
Hopefully you found it funny because you recognised the comparisons with some of the things which have been posted here recently.

 

[Stray Cat]

P.S. Now if we apply Occam's Razor and go with the least complex hypothesis, the object in question is obviously a burial urn, portable barbeque ... or a piece of Darth Vader's luggage.

I know (hope) you are being light hearted with this, but if I could just make a serious point based upon it.
It's quite obvious that the object has been added and is not really at mission control, so Occam's Razor doesn't require a hypothesis of what the object is... The Razor would have cut at the "fake" point.

 

[ufology]

Only in the same way that a wax teapot is of less use than a chocolate one.

Bad analogy A wax teapot and a chocolate teapot would be like a digital video vs an analog video. Human perception can tell us if there was any tea in the first place by having tasted it ourselves.

Take the case of a video made by a guy on a street corner who posts it on Youtube. Now we could choose to believe that, or we could investigate and talk to real people, perhaps a bobby on the beat who noticed the guy with the video and looked up to see the object. Now suppose when we talk to this officer and he says he couldn't see anything, and furthermore that he knows the guy who took the video works at a CGFX studio across the street. Let's add to that a few more interviews of people in the video who also saw nothing. Now ( although the skeptics would dispute this has any more value than one witness ), we have multiple bits of data from first hand witenesses that nothing was actually there, and circumstantial evidence that the video may have been a CGFX creation by the guy from the effects studio. Now what would be the most reasonable thing to believe ... the wax teapot ( digital video ) or the people who were interviewed ( police and bystanders who saw nothing )?

j.r.

 

[Akhenaten]

I know (hope) you are being light hearted with this, but if I could just make a serious point based upon it.
It's quite obvious that the object has been added and is not really at mission control, so Occam's Razor doesn't require a hypothesis of what the object is... The Razor would have cut at the "fake" point.

I think you're being overly generous since it seems to me that we've already had ample demonstration that a True Ufologist™ can't tell the difference between a shoop and reality.

Still, I'm happy to defer to your better-natured analysis.




ETA: Although having just read that last bit of nonsense, it's getting harder.

 

[ufology]

I think you're being overly generous since it seems to me that we've already had ample demonstration that a True Ufologist™ can't tell the difference between a shoop and reality.

Still, I'm happy to defer to your better natured analysis.

Love the "TM" on "True Ufologist there ... I really think you are catching on with the subtlety of style. Nice touch.

As for the NASA acorn ... I didn't really care if it was actually photoshopped in or not. I just figured if it wasn't shopped in then it was even better, but it was pretty good anyway.

j.r

 

[Pixel42]

But people aren't merely satisfied with perceiving stimuli and moving on.

They interpret, they speculate.

And that is all done through the filter of culture.

Someone just posted a nice example on the "what you see ain't always what you see" thread:

It reminded me of my UFO encounter where a large triangular shaped craft flew overhead, my mind and my friends' minds registered UFO, shattering my worldview, until the geese circled back and we were able to see the triangular craft for what it was, a V formation of geese, eerily lit from below by distant street lights. Had they not come back around, I would still believe I had seen a huge UFO.

I feel this ability to trick the mind is more than likely responsible for the vast majority of woo encounters. Insufficient evidence translated into very real but very wrong perceptions.