Amazing how the poster turns their lack of knowledge and presentation of relevant information into an "agument from ignorance" on my part.
Um, refusing to back up your own claims with evidence and challenging your opponent to disprove them instead
is the definition of an
argument from ignorance.
Let it be noted that when challenged to present evidence to back up his kooky claims of outer space aliens being chased by USAF fighter jets over Washington D.C., Mr. J. Randall Murphy (noted pseudoscientist, and founder and proprietor of the online bookstore and UFO club "Ufology Society International") responds by shifting the burden of proof onto the skeptics and asserting a conspiracy of disinformation on the part of everyone who disagrees with him.
Mr. J. Randall Murphy* persists in his use of these dishonest and illogical debating tactics even though he has been repeatedly warned that these arguments represent improper and dishonest failures of logical form and debating protocol. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that Mr. J. Randall Murphy* has absolutely no interest in participating in an honest and fair discussion wherever anyone might question his faith-based beliefs in extraterrestrial visitation and related pseudoscientific mythology.
The other thing is that I'm not here to answer questions to anyone's "satisfaction". What I have done so far is provide reasonable information for which no reasonable rebuttal has been given.
Numerous follow-up questions have been asked of Mr. J. Randall Murphy* in the pursuit of clarification regarding flaws in his
arguments from anecdote, but he refuses to answer them, instead offering only
arguments from ignorance,
arguments by assertion,
dishonest redefinitions,
special pleadings, and
allegations of persecution.
- The speaker in the video I was asked to comment on made several misleading statements with respect to ufos including misrepresenting the definition, when in fact the official definition by the people who created the term defines them within the proper context of the discussion. I backed my comment with a quote of the exact air force regulations, thus proving my point.
Here we see Mr. J. Randall Murphy (noted pseudoscientist and founder and proprietor of the online bookstore and UFO club "Ufology Society International") blatantly lying in defense of one of his dishonest
redefinitions of the terms of discussion. Specifically, Mr. J. Randall Murphy has committed a fallacy of "high redefinition" whereby a definition is narrowed to a specific subset of the actual definition, with the intent of limiting the term to only cover the specific contexts which the debater wishes to address.
It has
already been pointed out that the alternate definition he provided for the acronym "UFO" is not only incongruent with the widespread common usage, but it also defies the exact wording denoted by the acronym itself ("Unidentified Flying Object"), and is also only one of many "official" definitions used by the USAF regarding the term, so his selection of that specific wording over all others represents an act of dishonest
cherry-picking.
Instead of simply accepting the acronym to mean what it literally says ("Unidentified Flying Object"), Mr. J. Randall Murphy* has attempted to assert that his dishonest redefinition somehow validates the actual existence of spacecraft of non-human manufacture, because he asserts that definition was what the USAF "meant" by coining the acronym in the first place. This is clearly a ridiculous
argument from misleading authority on top of being a fallacious
redefinition,
cherry-picked from an obscure bit of source material and justified by means of a vapid
special pleading that discussions pertaining to "UFOlogy" require special definitions different from their normal English usage.
- I was asked to provide an explanation of how ufos are differentiated from mundane explanations, and gave the answer within the context of the immediate discussion.
Clarification of this explanation was subsequently requested by several people in the form of numerous questions, but Mr. J. Randall Murphy* has thus far refused to address or even acknowledge these questions.
- I was asked to provide an example of other kinds of UFO besides structured craft that fit the official definition and answered with a description and a relevant case example supported by official documentation.
The case presented by Mr. J Randall Murphy* was a wholly unsupported
anecdote, and it therefore engendered a flurry of requests for evidence, along with several questions regarding the veracity of the details it contained. Mr. J. Randall Murphy has thus far refused to address or even acknowledge several of these questions or any of the requests for actual evidence.
What has the opposing viewpoints consisted of? Nothing but denials, rejections and maneuvering ... even to the point of denying that I had even answered the questions ... even after I posted the links to the questions and the answers given earlier.
This is yet another example of the type of
allegations of persecution typical of pseudoscientists like Mr. J. Randall Murphy* when asked to furnish the required evidence to support his extraordinary claims.
It is not true that the skeptics have offered
nothing but denials. It is true that some denials have been made for statements that are logically or factually incorrect, but many questions have also been asked in response to Mr. J. Randall Murphy's* outlandish claims. Mr. J. Randall Murphy* has simply ignored the vast majority of these questions and challenges, or else tried to shift the
burden of proof through
appeals to ignorance and
special pleadings, or has decried
claims of persecution in the fashion typical of pseudoscientists.
- Disprove the USAF were the ones who created the term UFO and defined it under AFR 200-2 Feb 05, 1958 as I stated.
Irrelevant.
It has
already been pointed out that the alternate definition for the acronym "UFO" is not only incongruent with the widespread common usage, but it also defies the exact wording denoted by the acronym itself "Unidentified Flying Object"), and is also only one of many "official" definitions used by the USAF regarding the term, so J. Randall Murphys* selection of that specific wording over all others represents an act of dishonest
cherry-picking.
Besides its irrelevance, that item was never in contention, so attempting to engage that argument is a dishonest
stawman tactic.
- Disprove that E.J. Ruppelt was head of Project Blue Book, the official UFO investigative department of the USAF at the time of the Washington National sightings.
Again, irrelevant.
It has
already been pointed out that the alternate definition for the acronym "UFO" is not only incongruent with the widespread common usage, but it also defies the exact wording denoted by the acronym itself "Unidentified Flying Object"), and is also only one of many definitions used by the USAF regarding the term, so J. Randall Murphys* selection of that specific wording over all others represents an act of dishonest
cherry-picking.
Besides its irrelevance, that item was never in contention, so attempting to engage that argument is a dishonest
stawman tactic.
- Disprove that Ruppelt did not agree with the temerature inversion theory.
Appeal to misleading authority.
What were Ruppelt's qualifications to make such a statement?
- Disprove that the the United States Weather Bureau also disagreed with the temperature inversion hypothesis.
Got any verifiable evidence to back up this assertion?
- Disprove that the archival microfilm reproduction provided is genuine.
That item was never in contention, so attempting to engage that argument is a dishonest
stawman tactic.
- Disprove that jets were scrambled to intercept unidentified objects that were tracked on radar over the US Capitol
That item was never in contention, so attempting to engage that argument is a dishonest
stawman tactic. The only contention to your argument is the disingenuous use of the term, "scrambled" which was not present in the original report.
Remember again, we're not in a situation of "extraordinary claims" here, and I've provided information that if untrue should be easily refuted or disproven ... that means it's up to the skeptics here to do it, so I'm waiting.
You have not provided evidence. You have only made claims. Regardless whether those claims are "extraordinary" or not,
you made them, therefore the
burden of proof is on you to support them, and not on us to refute them.
* Mr. J. Randall Murphy is a noted pseudoscientist, and the sole founder and proprietor of the online bookstore and UFO club "Ufology Society International." He is identified on the JREF Forums by the pseudonym, "ufology."
