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UFOs: The Research, the Evidence

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Resume said:
How could you possibly assess the proper scale from a 40-year old memory of an extremely brief event? Unless you would like to retrofit more information into your tale.
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Resume,

First off, my sighting involved three people over the course of several hours and multiple sightings. So as an entire event over the course of an evening, it was neither brief nor easily forgotten. As for "proper scale" the landmarks that were used to assess the distances have not changed that much ( lake, mountains, highway ), and no "retrofitting" has been done that detracts from the accuracy of the report. For example Google maps have been used to better illustrate and measure the distances ... but that in no way affects the integrity of the account.
 
ufology said:
And if we go back before the invention of the telescope, comets seemed to appear out of nowhere in the sky and gradually vanish out of sight. They were usually considered bad omens of deaths of kings or noble men, or coming catastrophes, or even interpreted as attacks by heavenly beings against terrestrial inhabitants. By your logic we would have never learned anything more than this.
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my bolding

By your logic, you still haven't.
 
ufology said:
Tauri,

Actually I'd say that the ufology bashers here bear a striking resemblance to witch hunters. Fortunately for me they've banned public executions ( at least in Canada where I live ), so you'll have to continue the ritual here on the holy back-lot of pseudoskepticism ... the JREF forum ... by continuing to fling mockery and ridicule instead of rocks, and by throwing flames instead of burning me at the stake.
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ufology said:
Resume,

First off, my sighting involved three people over the course of several hours and multiple sightings.
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How many rabbits?


ufology said:
So as an entire event over the course of an evening, it was neither brief nor easily forgotten.
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And yet, in the course of this very thread you've had to amend the story because of misremembered details.


ufology said:
As for "proper scale" the landmarks that were used to assess the distances have not changed that much ( lake, mountains, highway ), and no "retrofitting" has been done that detracts from the accuracy of the report.
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Nobody has questioned the details of the landmarks, fo. The part of the story that beggars belief is the volksblimp that you've retrofitted into that landscape.


ufology said:
For example Google maps have been used to better illustrate and measure the distances ... but that in no way affects the integrity of the account.
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Google, schmoogle. What affects the integrity of the account is the complete and utter lack of objectivity on the part of the person giving the account, the total lack of any corroborating evidence and the nature of the silly story itself.
 
ufology said:
Stray ...

So what if their stupid PDF reader plugin is free. It's a lousy way to publish on the web. And have you ever tried to buy the Acrobat authoring software ... it's a pile of garbage and costs hundreds of dollars. BTW ... I use the Foxit PDF Reader because it's better than Adobe's crap reader and it's also free. You should try it ... you'll like it.
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Reminds me of Annie Hall.

Alvy Singer: [addressing the camera] There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions."
 
ufology said:
mike,

Good points in theory, except not all scientific experiments and/or observations are completely controlled, especially those involving transient phenomena like meteors, lightning, earthquakes, anything to do with the weather and a number of others. Of course the idea is still to have as much control as is possible, but in the absence of such control, we can only study what information is available.
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You appear to be unable to tell the difference between putting controls in place when making observations of phenomena and controlling the phenomena itself.

What a surprise.
 
Akhenaten said:
You appear to be unable to tell the difference between putting controls in place when making observations of phenomena and controlling the phenomena itself.

What a surprise.
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You obviously don't know the difference between a controlled experiment and one that isn't. Maybe you should learn it before beaking off. We call experiments where there is complete control over the conditions a controlled experiment ... for example in many engineering and earth science experiments. But when the problem or conditions do not permit a controlled experiment, such as in astronomical research, observational studies can be useful.
 
John Albert said:
The point she made—the one you completely ignored—is that thousands of people over the course of hundreds of years used anecdotes, perceptions and memories as the evidence for believing witches and their spells were real.

If all those people could have been wrong about something as well-storied as that, then how can you say that the anecdotes, perceptions and memories about UFOs aren't just as faulty?

The magnitude of your willful ignorance is astounding.
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Not only astounding, but I would go so far as to say downright insulting. Mister Uf, everyone else on this thread understood my analogy and question. I can only conclude that you understood it too, because no-one is that stupid that they wouldn’t comprehend what I was saying. Prior to this recent exchange I gave you the benefit of the doubt, thinking you were just a bit dim, but actually you display arrogance and unshakeable blind faith belief through your posts.

In choosing to ignore my question and think that I would be sufficiently bamboozled to accept your strawmen about science and observation (see post #15480 of this thread) you insult my intelligence.

By saying (and I quote from #15480):

ufology said:
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.
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In so writing, you align yourself squarely with the witch-hunters of old. They too were happy to accept thousands and thousands of pieces of anecdotal evidence as proof of witchcraft and on the strength of that they sent 60,000 innocent people to a slow and painful death.

Well done, Mr J Randall Murphy, you would have made an extremely successful Witchmaster General back in the day. Pity you weren’t around, the Catholic Church would have been very proud of you and no doubt given you a nice fat reward for believing in anecdotes.
 
ufology said:
carlitos,

Thanks for the FYI ... I checked the link here on a real computer and it works, but because it's a PDF download, you have to allow the download, or you won't get the PDF ( another reason to avoid PDFs and anything else Adobe for that matter ... ourageously overpriced elitist software ). At least you aren't using a Mac or an iPad ... those little android tablets are pretty cool.
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Adobe Acrobat = elitist software :sdl:

Wow, I really have heard everything now.
 
ufology said:
Stray ...

So what if their stupid PDF reader plugin is free. It's a lousy way to publish on the web. And have you ever tried to buy the Acrobat authoring software ... it's a pile of garbage and costs hundreds of dollars. BTW ... I use the Foxit PDF Reader because it's better than Adobe's crap reader and it's also free. You should try it ... you'll like it.
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If you want to buy the software from adboe to build native PDF directely, it indeed cost. Just like until recentely if you wanted to make an document you had to buy either word from microsoft, or wordperfect, or suchlike.

But nowaday we have actually printer driver and similar conversion software which are *FREE* and allow you to create pdf document on the fly.

So.... you are wrong. As usual.
 
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ufology said:
We call experiments where there is complete control over the conditions a controlled experiment ... for example in many engineering and earth science experiments.
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Yes, like the complete control we have over the conditions in earthquake and volcano experiments for example.

But when the problem or conditions do not permit a controlled experiment, such as in astronomical research, observational studies can be useful.
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Yes, like how we can't do controlled experiments to determine the mechanics of solar flares and the and physical composition of a nebula for example.

Or maybe this is just nonsense...

ufology said:
You obviously don't know the difference between a controlled experiment and one that isn't. Maybe you should learn it before beaking off.
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ufology said:
You obviously don't know the difference between a controlled experiment and one that isn't. Maybe you should learn it before beaking off. We call experiments where there is complete control over the conditions a controlled experiment ... for example in many engineering and earth science experiments. But when the problem or conditions do not permit a controlled experiment, such as in astronomical research, observational studies can be useful.
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If you're going to quote Wikipedia you should credit it.

Would you care to describe it in your own words, so that we can see that you actually understand what it means?
 
ufology said:
Of recent, I've taken a liking to being addressed as "Mr. Ufology" ... there's a nice ring there.
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The-Mr-Men.jpg
 
Stray Cat, that is hilarious.

200px-Little_Miss_Giggles.jpg


And Ahkenaten, your spell checker didn't 'alf tickle me too. :D
 
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ufology said:
You obviously don't know the difference between a controlled experiment and one that isn't. Maybe you should learn it before beaking off. We call experiments where there is complete control over the conditions a controlled experiment ... for example in many engineering and earth science experiments. But when the problem or conditions do not permit a controlled experiment, such as in astronomical research, observational studies can be useful.
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More dishonesty from a hoaxer. Will wonders never cease. Maybe you could quote Wikipedia on the null hypothesis also.

Can you give an example of a null hypothesis from everyday life so that we may see that you do comprehend it? So far, your comprehension hasn't been demonstrated.
 
ufology said:
I checked the link here on a real computer and it works, but because it's a PDF download, you have to allow the download, or you won't get the PDF ( another reason to avoid PDFs and anything else Adobe for that matter ... ourageously overpriced elitist software ).
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Of course you have to allow the download or you won't get the PDF. That's how downloads work. :p

As for your allegations about PDF, it is not "elitist software." It's a free, open source, and cross-platform standard. Though it was originally created by Adobe as a proprietary standard, the Adobe Reader software has always been free. The PDF creator and reader libraries have been licensed to developers for free for over 6 years, and the entire standard was completely opened up over 3 years ago.

It's kind of funny that you accuse an open standard like PDF of being "elitist, overpriced software," while at the same time using the Microsoft Windows operating system. I use a free and open source operating system running only free, open source applications, and my system came with built-in support for viewing and generating PDF files. On the other hand, Microsoft is notorious for hand-waving open standards. Even Internet Explorer never provides full support for the W3C standards for HTML and CSS, making it a chore to develop websites for.

Contrary to your cranky allegations, PDF's openness and portability make it an excellent way to publish on the Web. The reason why PDF is so widely used is because it's sufficiently portable and full-featured that a text document containing graphics, URL links, editable fields, etc. can be rendered into a small, searchable file that's viewable on pretty much any computer or smartphone. Compare that with a proprietary format like the Microsoft Word document. The Word format has limited functionality in any application besides Word, and Microsoft keeps changing the standard without providing forward compatibility, thus forcing users to keep purchasing Microsoft Office upgrades to keep compatibility. If I want to open Word docs on, say, my phone (unless it's a Windows Mobile phone) I have to pay a license fee for the plugin to do so.

Now if you'd cited security concerns as a reason for not wanting to open an unknown PDF file, I'd say you might be paranoid but technically do have a valid point. But judging by the objections you raised, it's clear you don't have a clue what you're talking about and your knowledge of Web-related technologies seems at least several years out of date.

What I don't get is why you presented a link to a PDF document as a piece of evidence in your very own post, then proceeded to rant about the evils of Adobe PDFs and how nobody should use them. Does this mean you posted that link to the "Photo Analysis" of the flying hubcap picture without even bothering to download, open, and read it yourself? Why would you do a thing like that?
 
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