Again there you go wanting to slap the label over everything. People are entitled to their opinions and ideas whether they are scientifically proven to exist or not and they can write them down and publish them too.
Prices are down 11%! Now's a good time for you to stock up on straw.
I didn't say they
couldn't do it. I said it's pseudoscience when they do.
Neither of things means they are doing pseudoscience.
Yeah, they do. Both of those things constitute the "doing" and promoting of pseudoscience, just like the bigfoot hunters and ghost hunters do.
But once they start saying they have scientific proof and start using scientific credentials and formatting that don't meet scientific standards in support of their claim, then their claim may fall under pseudoscience, but not until.
Claiming anecdotal evidence, and forwarding pseudoscientific hypotheses like outer space aliens, moonbases in the Solar System, anti-gravity propulsion, plasma trails, and the like, is the very definition of pseudoscience.
You just said it yourself ... science is science and ufology is not.
Ufology is not science because it is pseudoscience.
For example, if an astronomer is asked for a sky map on a certain date, that is a genuine scientific report. And if that report is used to rule out the possibility of Venus as the stimulus for a UFO report, nothing pseudoscientific has taken place.
Why would you seek to "rule out" the possibility of Venus in the first place? Are you trying to use objectivity to determine the real identity of an unidentified object, or eliminate possible "mundane" causes to leave the door open to the ET hypothesis?
However if the report concludes that it must have been an alien spacecraft because the astronomical report rules out Venus, then we'd obviously have a problem. However not all reports do anything like that.
Most UFO reports I've seen tend to emphasize the possibility of ET over all other causes. That approach in itself is pseudoscientific, because it uses an anti-scientific approach to reach a scientific-sounding conclusion. It uses "pseudo-evidence" (stories) to indicate the existence of something material that has never been proven to exist by means of "real," material evidence.
Does that make any kind of sense? Am I getting through at all?
Even if
some UFO reports don't conclude that it was aliens, the entire field is rife with a massive body of pseudoscientific mythology, including imaginary science-fiction technology, various "species" of aliens, weird abduction scenarios, conspiracies about "men in black" from the government who use alien technology to thwart witnesses, etc. Considering ufology is rife with all that garbage "pseudo-knowledge," the entire field is exemplary of pseudoscience.
It's
pseudoscience. Isn't it obvious? Are you sitting there with a straight face, or are you laughing your ass off as you troll the JREF to mess with all the silly, gullible skeptics?
In many cases no scientific reports are used at all and no scientific conclusions are drawn. Yet you want to slap the label on them too? Why?
You're ignoring a fundamental criterion for what constitutes pseudoscience. It doesn't matter whether ufologists refer to scientific materials or not. What makes it pseudoscience is using false scientific methods (like gathering stories as "evidence," comparing and correlating these stories to determine "hypotheses," etc.) to foster belief in things that are contrary to actual scientific knowledge.
As for what the JREF is trying to do, I'm fine with it. It's why I'm here.
Well good for us, I suppose, though a week ago you were threatening us all with legal action.
Ufology is a contentious topic and is constantly under attack.
It's not under attack; it's just called pseudoscience because it
is pseudoscience. It makes unfounded claims without evidence and promotes them as scientific facts. That's why it has no credibility.
You have the opportunity to work with someone in the field to help clear up the problems, but most of my time here is spent deflecting attempts to demonize it all. Can we not take a more constructive approach?
Sure, but you have to understand that the problems are inherent in the way ufologists do business, and not in the way skeptics criticize their methods. Since you've been here, you've promoted numerous pseudoscientific ideas and have been called out on it.
If you really want to conduct the study of UFOs in a non-pseudoscientific manner, you're going to have to completely reorder your priorities, learn critical thinking skills, and adopt scientific methods of research. Otherwise you're just spinning your wheels and ufology will continue at exactly the same pace of progress (ie.
zero) as it has over the past 60-odd years.
You might want to consider adopting a new name for your new pursuit as well, to make a clean break from the pseudoscientists and cranks. Besides, "ufology" sounds really stupid anyway.
