23_Tauri
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RoboTimbo
Hostile Nanobacon
Sigh!Yes, he did. He does that once more and I'll turn folog into a newt!
I understand. A witch has gotta do what a witch has gotta do.
Ufology, you have linked to the search: this is the pdf document. http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_14_4_druffel.pdf
The writers of that are very uncritical to say the least; despite noting that Mr Heflin had a reputation for an "offbeat" sense of humour, they make the explicit assumption that he is telling the truth. Dr Gregory House will not be pleased.
The writers of that are very uncritical to say the least; despite noting that Mr Heflin had a reputation for an "offbeat" sense of humour, they make the explicit assumption that he is telling the truth. Dr Gregory House will not be pleased.
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I'm sure he'll get better.Sigh!
Whether he'll have sufficient reading comprehension to actually answer the point you made (rather than the one he'd like to think you made) is anyone's guess.
ufology, please give 23_Tauri a direct, clear answer that addresses her obvious point. Were the thousands of reliable, reputable witnesses to witchcraft wrong? If so, what does that say of the thousands of reliable witnesses who claim Alien Space Ships are visiting earth?
GeeMack
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Well the alleged witches didn't actually believe they were witches, so in that regard the "UFOs = OMGaliens" believers are quite different. Also...
You are not being persecuted. Your faith is being mocked and ridiculed... righteously. Your arguments are being trashed... easily... because they consist almost exclusively of logical fallacies and nonsense. Your request for the assistance of the helpful cooperative skeptics here is being met with vigor and zeal. Do not mistake that help and cooperation for persecution.
What a crappy analogy...we know comets exist...we DO NOT KNOW if aliens exist.
I heard this ignorant "argument" years ago...the only difference being the substitution of the planet Pluto for Halley's comet.
Try an original argument...re-runs bore me.
John Albert
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(my bolding)
And did this turn out to be the correct interpretation?
Did repeating the interpretation that comets were attacks by heavenly beings against terrestrial inhabitants, and refusing to accept any other explanation advance our knowledge of comets in any way?
Not at all, and a very good point.
UFOlogy...do you want us to just "roll over", and blindly accept what you say?, or do you actually want your ideas to be right?
People here are spending precious time trying to "instruct" you as to why you are wrong...to "reward" them by "whining" about "witch hunters" is irrational and uncalled for.
1. The comet could be repeatably observed with telescopes. Show me a method to repeatably observe UFOs.
2. Photographs were taken (though as you mention they've also been taken of UFOs, but UFO photos have less credibility due to the tons of hoaxes that are out there)
3. Comets were already a well-known phenomenon proven to exist. Though you could argue that UFOs have been, if by UFOs you mean just that: "unidentified flying objects". In that case, the difficulty is then when you try to claim they are alien spacecraft. Then you need more evidence to support that claim. More so then it took to propose the notion that comets were ice balls, since ice was known to exist and alien spacecraft are not.
I think when he "whines" about that, he is referring to the mockery. Notice how I avoid the use of mockery in my posts.
John Albert
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It was actually intended as a snide joke.
Anecdotes alone are never adequate evidence for anything, especially things that have never been shown to exist in the first place. Thus, there's absolutely no evidence that any extraterrestrial life exists at all, let alone intelligent humanoid life.
Yeah, even if life does exist elsewhere in the Universe, I would not expect it to take the same forms as it does here on Earth.
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John Albert
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Mr. Credulous Ufologist,
Wollery has already given you several good reasons why that Halley's Comet analogy was faulty on all but the most superficial level. Did you just skip over that post, or are you just dishonestly pretending to ignore it?
The main difference is, Halley's Comet is a singular thing. It is an identified astronomical body, known to recur regularly at a specific interval.
UFOs, on the other hand, are not a singular thing. They're multiple transient phenomena, defined not by what they are, only by what they're not.
UFOs, by definition, are unidentified objects. No UFO has ever been positively identified as an object of non-human manufacture. If it had, it would by definition be an identified object and not a UFO.
Every UFO that has ever been positively identified (as in the vast majority of cases) has turned out to be mundane in origin: a misperception of an earthly object or astronomical body, a distortion of light due to atmospheric phenomena, an optical illusion, a mental confabulation or hoax.
The variety of different objects that have been mistaken as UFOs are extremely diverse. According to all the positive evidence we have to date about UFOs that have been later identified, they have never turned out to be a single kind of object of any particular origin (let alone ET origin), but a widely diverse class of objects whose only common feature is that they had not been positively identified.
Therefore, comparing a singular known object like Halley's Comet to an indistinct class of objects whose only feature is that they're unidentified, is a disingenuous false analogy, a.k.a. "apples and oranges."
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23_Tauri
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John Albert
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Maybe you weren't around to witness the derision he leveled at us and our community, and the smugness with which he tried to dictate to us his own flawed definitions of such concepts as "critical thinking," "pseudoscience," "evidence," truth," etc.
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John Albert
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Are comets attacks by heavenly beings against terrestrial inhabitants? Considering the thousands of comets that we know have appeared in the sky, how can you prove that at least some small percentage of them weren't, in fact, attacks by heavenly beings against terrestrial inhabitants.TjW said:
Some of these people were priests who had spent their entire lives studying heavenly beings.
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_14_4_druffel.pdf
There you go.
And the object is clearly proximate given the specular highlights and focus. Obvious fake.
ufology
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Tauri,
It's not that I missed your point, it's that I don't agree with it. "Thousands upon thousands of seemingly credible and respectable witnesses" is evidence, just not the kind of evidence you want. Why? Because if you did accept it you'd have to admit that UFOs are real and you can't do that. So you dismiss human perception and memory even though it provides evidence for many things on a daily basis. In fact it is so important and works so well that without it we could not survive.
You also forget that in the end all evidence is based on observation and memory, including the outcomes of scientific experiements. Without observation and memory all scientific experiments become meaningless. Furthermore scientific experiments are often further removed from direct experience through the use of machines or experiements that are themselves subject to breakdowns and faulty data. So for example, seeing something with your own eyes is one step closer to the objective reality that observing it through a video camera or radar. That is why when UFOs are picked up on radar, jets are launched to get a visual confirmation ... and there have been such cases where such confirmation has been made ... as in the 1952 DC Sightings.
Furthermore not all scientific experiments can be 100% precisely duplicated and the laws of probability apply to all scientific experiments, meaning that even the best scientific conclusions aren't 100% certain. So the best science can do is claim a virtual certainty using a statistical model to calculate the probabilities of future outcomes based on past experiments. In such science, particularly medicine, the anecdotal evidence plays a critical role in establishing the value of particular treatments and medicines. With respect to UFOs, the Batelle Memorial Institute statistical analysis of UFO reports determined that it is a virtual certainty that UFOs are extraordinary objects. Therefore it is reasonable to pursue further knowledge about them, and in doing so propose possible explanations. Because there is nothing scientifically impossible about alien craft visiting planet Earth and because it is a virtual certainty that the phenomenon is real, the ETH offers a perfectly reasonable direction for further investigation. Beyond that we have our personal opinions and many of those, including mine, are based on firsthand experience and observation.
So please review ... I have never claimed to possess demonstrable proof of alien craft, only that I and many other people have a personal belief in them, and that the significant number of people who have had a UFO experience constitutes enough evidence to warrant further investigation. In this effort there are surely many other explanations for UFO reports other than alien craft, and what I was hoping to do here is network with skeptics who can supply mundane explanations for UFO reports without resorting to ridicule, mockery and changing stories to suit themselves. Such would involve pointing out logical inconsistencies, mistakes, faulty reasoning, serious and applicable credibility flaws of those who make or provide reports ... and so on, and lastly to keep those evaluations in proper focus and context. If anyone here is interested in actually doing that by all means please let me know.
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