Merged Is ufology a pseudoscience?

[dafydd]

Regarding the statistics, we are looking at something pretty self evident. You have regular fliers who are wannabe fighter pilots who enter into the program where they have to receive regular flight training, then military training, then fighter training, and all along the way you have people dropping out. Only the best ever make it. There are a few documentaries out there and I postred a short video clip earlier. If you really want statistics, ask the USAF how many make it compared to how many don't ... ( you don't make the grade by doing worse than the next guy ).

Of course all that being said ... sure pilots can make mistakes. But how do you explain a mistake for the sighting I just posted. This pilot got within 1000 yards, and at one time as close as about 500 yards, in the daytime, and saw it was a flying saucer ... and was on it for about 2 minutes before it just took off ... easily outperforming his jet. Pilots can make make mistakes under ambiguous conditions ( night time, poor visibility, short duration, long range ), But these were unmistakable conditions.

j.r.

Why don't they just land on the White House lawn?

 

[dafydd]

Here is another favourite con trick of the UFO debunkers. Everyone knows (including the debunkers) that they believe that UFO reports arise principally from misidentifications of mundane objects. UFOs to them are simply misidentified mundane objects. That is their belief.

However, when a UFO proponent comes along and states there is evidence for UFOs and that UFOs are real (meaning of course that they are not merely misidentified mundane objects), the debunker springs his con trick – pretending that he does not believe in the misidentified mundane object explanation at all – rather that the “U” in UFO merely means “unidentified” - and of course unidentified flying objects abound – so the claim that “UFOs are real” is not significant at all.

This has the affect of forcing the UFO proponent into using alternate terminology (such as “genuine UFO”) but of course this is unwieldy and leads to confusions of its own – which is of course the debunkers intention from the very beginning.

It is much better to simply call the debunker out on the con trick and be done with it. The application of a little critical thinking can often work wonders! LOL.

UFO's in the sky=aliens is far too big a step for me.

 

[Akhenaten]

Why don't they just land on the White House lawn?

It's not in the right dimension.

 

[ufology]

UFO's in the sky=aliens is far too big a step for me.

I often forget how big a step it is for some people. I've just taken it for granted my whole life because I grew up with people I knew and trusted who said they had seen them. Then I met more people who had seen them. Then I started reading everything I could about them, skeptical and otherwise. Then I saw one myself. Now I don't even hesitate to say they are real, or at least that some of them were real at the time. I don't know if they are still actually coming here or not. The November 2006 sighting of a UFO at O'Hare International Airport is fairly interesting.

j.r.

P.S. Is that you on guitar there in your avatar?

 

[Akhenaten]

I often forget how big a step it is for some people. I've just taken it for granted my whole life because I grew up with people I knew and trusted who said they had seen them. Then I met more people who had seen them. Then I started reading everything I could about them, skeptical and otherwise. Then I saw one myself. Now I don't even hesitate to say they are real, or at least that some of them were real at the time. I don't know if they are still actually coming here or not.

j.r.

What are these highlighted words referring to - UFOs or aliens?

 

[Stray Cat]

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.

But comparing it to your UFO stories, you don't get to taste the tea, you have someone else tell you what the tea tasted like. There are drinks out there that look and taste like tea, but aren't tea and there are also drinks out there that don't look or taste like tea, which are.

So, videos and "first person eyewitness testimony from reliable sources" are at an equal level in any hierarchy of evidence. Plus before you claim any witness is reliable, you have to prove that they are immune from human fallibility, which is going to be your hardest task... Of course you could at least eat a chocolate teapot whilst you're waiting for the results of any valid test you could put your witness through to determine they are infallible.

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 )?

No, you have some people saying they didn't see anything. Then you end up with a story written down about some people who didn't see anything and a story about a person who may or may not work in CGI who posted a video claiming he did.
Neither really gets you any closer to what really happened.
Go to the source... stuff the bystanders.

 

[Stray Cat]

I often forget how big a step it is for some people. I've just taken it for granted my whole life because I grew up with people I knew and trusted who said they had seen them.

I grew up with people I knew and trusted who told me that a beardy bloke lived in the clouds and could see everything I ever did...

Then I met more people who had seen them.

Then I got dragged to a really old, cold building with hard wooden seats where I met lots of other people who believed in the beardy bloke too...

Then I started reading everything I could about them, skeptical and otherwise.

Then I developed a critical mind, learned some science and quickly figured out it was all nonsense.

Then I saw one myself.

Whilst the rest of them kept seeing and hearing the beardy bloke talk directly to them and do miracles and everything.

Now I don't even hesitate to say they are real, or at least that some of them were real at the time. I don't know if they are still actually coming here or not.

Yes, people who believe in the beardy bloke who have a really bad run of luck often ask why God has deserted them.

The November 2006 sighting of a UFO at O'Hare International Airport is fairly interesting.

IIRC it was briefly discussed in the 'Evidence' thread. Interesting; maybe. Accurately reported; no.

 

[tsig]

Roswell may have been a "non-sighting", however there is a record of another rancher who found a small cardboard disk and burnt it, then later reported it because hethought it might have something to do with the UFO flap. So that wasn't a sighting either, and it was less significant, and it happened before 1947. So that is an exception to your explanation. So because such reports were included in the files, why do we have that kind of report and not one from a major cleanup that was reported to the media as a "flying disk"? Even though the wreckage ( remnants or whatever ) was supposedly taken to Wright Patterson AFB, nobody on the UFO investigative team got to look at it, no report was made, no news clippings are in the files, no mention of it ... period. Like I said at the start, it's a little more than curious.

j.r.

Looks like we've reached a point where lack of evidence becomes evidence. I think we're over the rainbow now folks.

 

[dafydd]

I often forget how big a step it is for some people. I've just taken it for granted my whole life because I grew up with people I knew and trusted who said they had seen them. Then I met more people who had seen them. Then I started reading everything I could about them, skeptical and otherwise. Then I saw one myself. Now I don't even hesitate to say they are real, or at least that some of them were real at the time. I don't know if they are still actually coming here or not. The November 2006 sighting of a UFO at O'Hare International Airport is fairly interesting.

j.r.

P.S. Is that you on guitar there in your avatar?

Do you mean UFOs or aliens? I can believe they saw UFOs but I will have a hard time believing they saw aliens. That is me playing the guitar.

 

[ufology]

No, you have some people saying they didn't see anything. Then you end up with a story written down about some people who didn't see anything and a story about a person who may or may not work in CGI who posted a video claiming he did.
Neither really gets you any closer to what really happened.
Go to the source... stuff the bystanders.

The illustration was the value of first person testimony vs a Youtube video by an unknown source. The source is therefore left out of the equation for the purpose of the illustration. However it would be natural upon having identifed the source from interviewing the police officer, that the source should be approached.

j.r.

 

[ufology]

Do you mean UFOs or aliens? I can believe they saw UFOs but I will have a hard time believing they saw aliens. That is me playing the guitar.

Alien observations are definitely another type of sighting, and they are harder to take at face value. In the Hynek/Vallee classification system they are called a CE-3, as in the title of the famous movie Close Encounters. I've never seen an alien, although I suppose the MIB I saw might have been aliens ( not as in the movie parody ). They were certainly strange enough. I did interview someone who saw a landed saucer with little beings. He was a retired RCAF pillot. I believed his account.

j.r.

I used to play more often. I still have my old Gibson. Yours looks like s Stratocaster. What's your style? Mine was kinda folk-rock-metal-fusion.

 

[Stray Cat]

The illustration was the value of first person testimony vs a Youtube video by an unknown source.

And still you seem not to appreciate the little value of either.
You have on the one hand a video (to examine) and on the other, the unverifiable testimony of someone who's reliability can not ever be guaranteed, who tells you a story. To confound matters, in your 'illustrative' example, the person tells you a story about not seeing something.

The source is therefore left out of the equation for the purpose of the illustration. However it would be natural upon having identifed the source from interviewing the police officer, that the source should be approached.

I find it odd (even in a hypothetical example) that someone would be able to track down and interview a policeman, on the basis of having seen a video on YouTube and yet not be able to track down the person who made the video... is all I'm saying.

What you should be hypothesising about is comparing what the person who made the video says in relation to what is being seen on the video.
You'll find that in 99% of cases, the two don't match.
So you are left with an unreliable first person account and an unverifiable video. Luckily most video hoaxes contain mistakes as not much care is made on them because the people who make them know they aren't going to be critically looked at... Take January's Jeruslem UFO videos (all 5 of them) as a prime example... Though your illustration sounds more like the London UFO videos from a few weeks ago.

 

[Stray Cat]

I did interview someone who saw a landed saucer with little beings. He was a retired RCAF pillot. I believed his account.

Is this the same story as the real estate agent you knew, who told you about a "landed saucer with little beings" that sounds exactly like Lonnie Zamora's story?

I used to play more often. I still have my old Gibson. Yours looks like s Stratocaster. What's your style? Mine was kinda folk-rock-metal-fusion.

There's a section further down the boards called 'Forum Community' where people talk about music.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Alien observations are definitely another type of sighting, and they are harder to take at face value. In the Hynek/Vallee classification system they are called a CE-3, as in the title of the famous movie Close Encounters. I've never seen an alien, although I suppose the MIB I saw might have been aliens ( not as in the movie parody ). They were certainly strange enough. I did interview someone who saw a landed saucer with little beings. He was a retired RCAF pillot. I believed his account.

j.r.

<snipped off-topic rambling>

Do you think the highlighted above is critical thinking? Or uncritical thinking?

 

[ufology]

What you should be hypothesising about is comparing what the person who made the video says in relation to what is being seen on the video.
You'll find that in 99% of cases, the two don't match.

Oh sure, if that is what this little segment had been about, I would agree. Here's an example video that is much like the problem I described. There's no police officer, but for the sake of illustration we could imagine there were, and since we have the date and place it would be easy if he or she were there to track them down, get there story and possibly some leads. Actually ... this would be a good one for you Stray, since you have some image manipulation experience and found some good stuff in the past. What's your take on this one?




j.r.

 

[GeeMack]

Do you think the highlighted above is critical thinking? Or uncritical thinking?

We have his admission in a post above that his faith in the existence of aliens is exactly like growing up in a religion and believing in a god. No critical thinking there.

I often forget how big a step it is for some people. I've just taken it for granted my whole life because I grew up with people I knew and trusted who said they had seen them.

Pretending to be applying critical thinking in order to cling to a religious belief, or in your case the equivalent belief in aliens, is quite a different thing than actually critically thinking. And given the dishonesty that pervades the believers' arguments, it does seem that lying is a requirement of the faith. Speaking to the psychological issue of irrational faith in the existence of aliens, that lying, while being quite transparent to objective observers, seems to be pretty effective at keeping the believers believing. Again, no critical thinking involved.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

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.

Now you're cooking!

Kenneth Arnold == pelicans

Rosswell == Mogul Balloon

Phoenix Lights == aircraft flare

Betty and Barney (Hill, not Rubble) == warning light on tower

Randlesham == lights from a lighthouse

Just to do away with some of the "BEST" ufo sightings.

 

[ufology]

Do you think the highlighted above is critical thinking? Or uncritical thinking?

Critical thinking with respect to this case would have to be applied to the believability of the pilot and the story he told, not to any casual comments like my personal beliefs.

j.r.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Critical thinking with respect to this case would have to be applied to the believability of the pilot and the story he told, not to any casual comments like my personal beliefs.

j.r.

How does one arrive at the believability of the pilot? Are military pilots more believable than civilian pilots?

 

[Stray Cat]

My take is that the guy works in a CGI studio. He shot 2 different videos from different angles and uploaded them to WooTube where they were lapped up by people who don't have any critical thinking skills.

I even mentioned this 'event' in my last post.

It doesn't take tracking down witnesses to show it's a fake... Track down the uploader: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDIF-ZwJbF0

Then see on his channel he has only uploaded two videos, both of the London UFOs
Then look at his favourites and he's favourited a video that is so full of BS about analysing his video that is beggars belief. Packed full of really good examples of uncritical thinking. We'll set up a few strawmen to knock down so it looks like we've done some 'ruling out the mundane', introduce some irrelevant and frankly already debunked UFO myths, enforce some wild speculation as if it's fact and all the time the actual video analysis is showing nothing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKJz5TL6Kgs

But see he doesn't link any of the videos that show the flaws in his hoax.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy9XLtF7lGY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T6L-QSjFjY

What else do you need to know?