UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

[Sideroxylon]

And you haven't answered Sideoxylon's question. He asked you to provide an example of where someon apart from yourself who proclaimed that the null hypothesis couldn't be used where your resulting data set was not suitable for* statistical analysis (e.g. where that data set consisted of ONE observation). Because it seems you are the only person who seems to think that this is the case.

While that might be interesting, depending on who was making that claim, what I really want to see is Mr Ufology, or even someone else, making a coherent argument in support of his claims about the limited applicability of the null hypothesis.

 

[Stray Cat]

While that might be interesting, depending on who was making that claim, what I really want to see is Mr Ufology, or even someone else, making a coherent argument in support of his claims about the limited applicability of the null hypothesis.

Indeed, just because one person is credited with naming it, doesn't distract in any way from the concept that had been utilised across all disciplines long before it was given it's name and applied to statistics.

 

[23_Tauri]

While that might be interesting, depending on who was making that claim, what I really want to see is Mr Ufology, or even someone else, making a coherent argument in support of his claims about the limited applicability of the null hypothesis.

Thank you for the clarification. We await with bated breath, folio!

In the meantime, here's a comedy interlude:

http://xkcd.com/892/

 

[RoboTimbo]

No, you've dishonestly misrepresented his position again. It has been shown that the goalposts are firmly planted in concrete. As Sagan so rightly said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." That has never changed. Why do you dishonestly say that it has?

Why do you call the J Randall Murphy null hypothesis which is:

"All UFOs are of mundane origin"​

the skeptics null hypothesis? Is it because you have no comprehension of it, even though you created it?


Until you falsify the J Randall Murphy null hypothesis, they are clearly all thought to be mundane. Simply put, you won't be able to simply declare them to exist.


Well, no. Mundane seems more reasonable than your bunny rabbit delusions. You need to falsify the J Randall Murphy null hypothesis first.


I hope you weren't thinking that anyone was going to take the word of a hoaxer. Here's the proof of the J Randall Murphy UFO ( firefly ) Hoax:

Multiple independent witnesses who claim the same thing about the J Randall Murphy UFO ( firefly ) Hoax.

Corroborating evidence in the form of the hoaxer's own posts on this forum. The details of the hoax have changed over time in response to the criticisms about the internal consistency of the "story". Researchers to this day have never found any non-mundane explanation for the "story".

Researchers have used a process of elimination and eliminated all non-mundane explanations leaving only HOAX.

Can you find any fault with this UFOlogic?

fo, if you can pull yourself away from your dishonesty about the J Randall Murphy null hypothesis, can you address the above?

 

[carlitos]

Fruit Battery Experiment


Make a battery using household materials and a piece of fruit. Does one type of fruit or vegetable work better than another? Remember, it's easiest to test the null hypothesis.

Hypothesis: Current produced by a fruit battery does not depend on the type of fruit that is used.

...

Scientific method: The null hypothesis is 'I cannot afford the car'. Now let me set about proving this null hypothesis void. I will first examine my bank account and my income....

Usual method: I probably can afford the car. Now let me see what this probability really is by examining my bank account and income....


...


A null hypothesis is a hypothesis which a researcher tries to disprove. Normally, the null hypothesis represents the current view/explanation of an aspect of the world that the researcher wants to challenge.
Research methodology involves the researcher providing an alternative hypothesis, a research hypothesis, as an alternate way to explain the phenomenon.

The researcher tests the hypothesis to disprove the null hypothesis, not because he/she loves the research hypothesis, but because it would mean coming closer to finding an answer to a specific problem. The research hypothesis is often based on observations that evoke suspicion that the null hypothesis is not always correct.

No statistics needed.

 

[John Albert]

The genius of the null hypothesis is its simplicity.

We all know it's impossible to prove a universal negative, right?

Well the null hypothesis circumvents that limitation in a beautifully logical way, by taking the notion of an hypothesis and inverting it—just flipping it on its head—so that it represents a positive statement intended to be falsified instead of relying on a negative statement being proven.

That way there's no need to prove a negative. Instead, you simply falsify a positive.

 

[RoboTimbo]

The genius of the null hypothesis is its simplicity.

We all know it's impossible to prove a universal negative, right?

Well the null hypothesis circumvents that limitation in a beautifully logical way, by taking the notion of an hypothesis and inverting it—just flipping it on its head—so that it represents a positive statement intended to be falsified instead of relying on a negative statement being proven.

That way there's no need to prove a negative. Instead, you simply falsify a positive.

So, that should make it easy for ufology to prove his hypothesis that some UFOs are alien in origin by simply providing one confirmed instance that would falsify the null hypothesis? Why would he not want to do that?

 

[23_Tauri]

The genius of the null hypothesis is its simplicity.

We all know it's impossible to prove a universal negative, right?

Well the null hypothesis circumvents that limitation in a beautifully logical way, by taking the notion of an hypothesis and inverting it—just flipping it on its head—so that it represents a positive statement intended to be falsified instead of relying on a negative statement being proven.

That way there's no need to prove a negative. Instead, you simply falsify a positive.

Ooh, I feel a song comin' on:

You've got to establish the positive
Then falsify the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don't look for something in-between

 

[Paul2]

Thanks, all, for following up on my questions to ufology and his answers in my brief absence. I'll only add one thing.

Ufology, you'll notice that my first question was about studies that are NOT statistical. Your answer, however, was about statistical studies. Nowhere, also, was an answer to my second question.

I encourage you to actually answer the specific questions. Don't you agree that any conversation should be with what the other person is actually saying? How could a conversation be otherwise and still worthwhile for anyone?

If you do that for me, I promise I'll do that for you. But you have to go first, I asked you the questions first.

 

[carlitos]

Thanks, all, for following up on my questions to ufology and his answers in my brief absence. I'll only add one thing.

Ufology, you'll notice that my first question was about studies that are NOT statistical. Your answer, however, was about statistical studies. Nowhere, also, was an answer to my second question.

I encourage you to actually answer the specific questions. Don't you agree that any conversation should be with what the other person is actually saying? How could a conversation be otherwise and still worthwhile for anyone?

If you do that for me, I promise I'll do that for you. But you have to go first, I asked you the questions first.

I only see one question and kind of a long statement. Maybe you could rephrase / repost for convenience?

 

[Paul2]

I only see one question and kind of a long statement. Maybe you could rephrase / repost for convenience?

Sure, from http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=7745204#post7745204,

I wanted Ufology to specify why the null hypothesis is not appropriate for non-statistical studies. I guess what I was looking for was the details of, if you use a null hypothesis in a non-statistical study, look at all the problems that occur - details like that. That is different from a pronouncement that you can't loosen up concepts and use them willy-nilly.

I also asked him to show what aspect of non-statistical studies are the same ones in the math analogy that ruin the null hypothesis for them. In other words, I asked him to justify his analogy, to show why his analogy applies in the way that the claimed.

 

[John Albert]

Sure, from http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=7745204#post7745204,

I wanted Ufology to specify why the null hypothesis is not appropriate for non-statistical studies. I guess what I was looking for was the details of, if you use a null hypothesis in a non-statistical study, look at all the problems that occur - details like that. That is different from a pronouncement that you can't loosen up concepts and use them willy-nilly.

I also asked him to show what aspect of non-statistical studies are the same ones in the math analogy that ruin the null hypothesis for them. In other words, I asked him to justify his analogy, to show why his analogy applies in the way that the claimed.

Have you managed to decipher his reply to Sideroxylon's similar questions?

Since you're unlikely to get any form of clarification from J. Randall Murphy himself, I'll try to deconstruct his argument to figure out what the hell it's supposed to mean, and offer my own critique:

The principles of evaluation that the null hypothesis was designed for make it consistent.

This statement is true, but there's a problem with where he takes the argument from here. It's obvious he's operating from a grave misunderstanding of, or total disregard for, the "principles of evaluation" involved. I'm guessing he sees that math and statistics are involved, and immediately hits a brick wall of disinterest, assuming it's all over his head and not worth the trouble. So he dismisses it out of hand without even bothering to investigate the details of what the maths are all about.

Without them, evaluation becomes vague and subject to debates on what is or isn't valid, which can go on ad infinitum. Clearly this would make the null hypothesis pointless.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume the hilighted portion above refers to the debates surrounding his ongoing insistence that anecdotes alone constitute evidence for themselves. He's absolutely correct in his realization that the debate will drag on and on unless he backs down from his position regarding anecdotal evidence, but that's no fault of the null hypothesis. His conflation of the two issues is indicative of a lack of mental rigor about the subject.

It would be no different than simply saying, "I won't change my mind until you prove it to me".

Here we see direct evidence of faith-based thinking coming into play. Instead of emphasizing the importance of backing up one's claims with evidence and proof, he sees the issue as a simple matter of two opposing sides whose arguments carry equal weight, and the scientific skeptical position as being less open-minded than the credulous "I know the truth" position.

What the proper application of the null hypothesis does is go beyond that by providing providing consistent unbiased guidelines based on mathematical probabilities. It brings order and structure to what would otherwise be chaos. So, no, it cannot be watered down to suit someones particular agenda.

Again he's acknowledging the uniformity and precision of math for identifying patterns within sets of raw data, and he's correctly pointing out that the null hypothesis aids in clarifying guidelines for evaluating those patterns. But then in the next breath he insists that applying the null hypothesis to something non-mathematical would amount to subterfuge. This also shows that despite hundreds of pages of discussion of this subject over the past few months, he still ignores the simple underlying concept of the null hypothesis.

But why? He's obviously not a stupid guy. He's expressed a capability for understanding far more complex matters than this one.

I believe this lack of understanding is the result of a decided refusal to further investigate and address the actual concept and purpose of the null hypothesis. Instead he chooses to simply evade the issue through these appeals to incredulity. His approach to the matter amounts to an acknowledgement that the null hypothesis involves statistical complexities that he doesn't understand; therefore he probably regards the issue as an irrelevant quagmire, an attempt by the skeptics to confuse him. I'm guessing it's primarily a matter of distrust, combined with a dismissive attitude borne of narcissism.

To be meaningful and useful it needs to be applied consistently. The rules and principles it was designed for do that. They are the accepted standards and to ignore them would be pseudoscientific and/or pseudoskeptical.

Here J. Randall Murphy charges that the skeptics are ignoring the full extent of complexity offered in the Wikipedia explanation of null hypothesis, instead applying a disingenuous oversimplification intended to trick him. The problem with this allegation is, he has never demonstrated a sufficient understanding of the concept to support such an allegation. He has stubbornly ignored countless challenges to demonstrate his own comprehension of the subject. Instead he falls back on his favorite exit maneuver, a spurious semantic dodge. This time the semantic error consists of a genetic fallacy: the allegation that the principles on which the null hypothesis was created are inapplicable outside the realm of statistics. So again we witness him abusing language in attempt to obfuscate and confuse.​

Moreover, I think UFOlogy feels he doesn't need to bother trying to comprehend the concept of null hypothesis, because he's seen enough to recognize that accepting and applying it will offer no advantage to his debating position. Therefore, all he needs to do is continue waffling around the issue, disregarding its importance or applicability to the "study" of UFOlogy ad nauseam, and we'll eventually just drop the issue.

We all know that not to be true. He also should have figured that out by now, but some people never learn.

Have you noticed his activity in this forum is becoming more and more intermittent, and his responses less engaging and more expository? It seems like he's slipping deeper and deeper into "crank mode" as time goes on. Maybe it's a backlash against the unswerving criticism he's received around here, or maybe he's just starting to show his true colors more.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Thanks, John. That was very insightful and charitable.

He is right that when you are working with quantifiable research you can easily preset the bar for your significance test.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Mr Ufology, I note on your website that you describe levitation experiences that you suggest are alien related. You may want to take a look at this thread about sleep paralysis in the forum's community section.

As often as I had them for a while, it would be weird if I never did. So, yes. For part of that timespan - we're talking several years - I still lived with my mom who had her bedroom way over on the other side of the flat with living room, hallway and kitchen between us. I would dream I yelled out for her to come and wake me up but she swears she never heard anything. Often I would also find that yelling had become physically impossible. I could breathe well enough not to worry about suffocating but I couldn't gather enough breath to make sounds.

Other times, it would feel like my body let go, levitated from the bed and was suspended some two ft or so above it. So now I wasn't just stuck without being able to move I was also stuck floating in air. For some reason that bit was pretty traumatic - I remember feeling really worried that someone would walk in and see me float - although afterwards I can't recall why. Most people would love a dream like that - where everything is experienced as incredibly real while revoking the laws of physics.

Times I have been able to snap out of it came after I had them so often I started to recognize them as dreams, which would trigger a bout of lucid dreaming. While I still couldn't move my body, I could influence things around me. So I introduced a trusted person into my dream and had them wake me up, which in turn woke me up for real. I sometimes supsect the people who wrote Inception have had similar dreams because a lot of the stuff that went on was very similar to things that go on in lucid dreaming.

 

[ufology]

Mr Ufology, I note on your website that you describe levitation experiences that you suggest are alien related. You may want to take a look at this thread about sleep paralysis in the forum's community section.

Sideroxylon,

Thanks for your feedback. I've read about sleep paralysis and the experiences were nothing like that. I was never unable to move. If anythng they were just really bizarre dreams in which I became aware of things that were beyond my perceptual reach. The reason that the experiences are suggestive of alien intervention is because they are similar to other people's stories where such connections have been made. But in my case, I don't reacall any aliens and I don't make any claim that I'm an abductee. I've never done any hypnotic regression. I'm just sharing some strange childhood experiences.

Because I am so open about my own experiences, people who would otherwise never say a word sometimes confide in me about things that they had experienced too. Personally, I'm not convinced that they are all due to purely subjective self-generated psychological manifestations, whatever label is slapped on them, but exactly what they represent is beyond me. I enjoy hearing about these experiences because they represent a side of our existence that seems to hint at something beyond ... something yet to be discovered.

 

[Garrison]

Sideroxylon,

Thanks for your feedback. I've read about sleep paralysis and the experiences were nothing like that. I was never unable to move. If anythng they were just really bizarre dreams in which I became aware of things that were beyond my perceptual reach. The reason that the experiences are suggestive of alien intervention is because they are similar to other people's stories where such connections have been made. But in my case, I don't reacall any aliens and I don't make any claim that I'm an abductee. I've never done any hypnotic regression. I'm just sharing some strange childhood experiences.

Given the bolded statement why would you feel the need to offer up any alternate explanation? Why indeed is this not an adequate explanation for a variety of alleged UFO experiences?

 

[GeeMack]

Thanks for your feedback. I've read about sleep paralysis and the experiences were nothing like that. I was never unable to move. If anythng they were just really bizarre dreams in which I became aware of things that were beyond my perceptual reach. The reason that the experiences are suggestive of alien intervention [...]

You can't, with any honesty, suggest an experience was something like alien intervention when no such thing as alien intervention has ever been demonstrated to be a component of reality. Nope, you can't suggest that kind of connection with any honesty.

[...] is because they are similar to other people's stories where such connections have been made. But in my case, I don't reacall any aliens and I don't make any claim that I'm an abductee. I've never done any hypnotic regression. I'm just sharing some strange childhood experiences.

To the best of all human knowledge there is no such thing as alien intervention, regardless of what sort of connection someone claims has been made. The existence of aliens has never been objectively demonstrated to be true.

Because I am so open about my own experiences, people who would otherwise never say a word sometimes confide in me about things that they had experienced too. Personally, I'm not convinced that they are all due to purely subjective self-generated psychological manifestations, [...]

One thing we know for certain, none of them has ever been objectively shown to be real aliens... not ever.

[...] whatever label is slapped on them, but exactly what they represent is beyond me. I enjoy hearing about these experiences because they represent a side of our existence that seems to hint at something beyond ... something yet to be discovered.

Fairy tales, campfire stories, myths, fables, fantasy. The side of our existence they represent is the side that makes stuff up. And it's been discovered alrighty. Go look at the size of the fiction section at the local bookstore or library. Most people are able to distinguish between reality and fiction.

 

[Marduk]

The reason that the experiences are suggestive of alien intervention is because they are similar to other people's stories where such connections have been made. .

in the same way that Star trek spin offs are similar to the original series, because they were made up fiction based on an earlier fiction

how many greys were reported before Betty and Barney pulled off the road for a fumble ?

 

[Robrob]

in the same way that Star trek spin offs are similar to the original series, because they were made up fiction based on an earlier fiction

how many greys were reported before Betty and Barney pulled off the road for a fumble ?

Good point. 100% garuntee there weren't any "grays" prior to then. Likewise, not "saucers" before the 60's.

 

[AdMan]

Sideroxylon,

Thanks for your feedback. I've read about sleep paralysis and the experiences were nothing like that. I was never unable to move. If anythng they were just really bizarre dreams in which I became aware of things that were beyond my perceptual reach. The reason that the experiences are suggestive of alien intervention is because they are similar to other people's stories where such connections have been made. But in my case, I don't reacall any aliens and I don't make any claim that I'm an abductee. I've never done any hypnotic regression. I'm just sharing some strange childhood experiences.

You mention in your recounting of these experiences that you were between five and seven years old. Aside from the role that childhood imagination and simple dreaming may have played, I'd say your fallible memory is an important element in building these memories for you.

It's been pointed out time and time again in this thread, but for the benefit of readers who may not have followed all posts, human memory is malleable and very fallible. Every time we remember a memory, we mould it. A memory from a dream from when you were five or six years old can be anything but reliable. It is simply what you have recreated in your mind after all these years, building upon it and moulding it until it is very likely nothing like the original experience. Every time you heard other's stories of supposed alien interventions and compared it to your recollections, you likely changed your memory to fit that. That is just the way memory works.

So I think your assessment that they were just bizarre dreams is enough, and you should likely not try to draw any further inferences from them.