Most interesting UFO incidents thread

[RoboTimbo]

The man in the warehouse might as well be the posters here claiming "there's no evidence of aliens, so we should assume they don't exist".

Have you looked up what a strawman argument is?

 

[RoboTimbo]

We've done exhaustive searches for ghosts and paranormal activities Alien Space Ships and come up empty every time. Also, claims of ghost sightings Alien Space Ships are never reproducible and often fraudulent. Therefore, we have good reason to reject the existence of ghosts Alien Space Ships.

Does the sentence still work for you?

 

[TjW]

Uhhh... did you miss these?
There's no evidence for the existence of alien life (or alien craft). Therefore...the default position is intelligent alien life doesn't exist???

Do you agree with this or not? ^^

There is weak evidence, of a sort, for the possibility of existence of extraterrestrial life: all the evidence we have for the origin of life points to natural processes. Since the universe is a big place, with many opportunities for life to emerge, it's possible that life exists elsewhere.

On the other hand, if that same knowledge of how things work in this universe is weak evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life, it is also evidence against the idea that intelligent aliens are visiting in interstellar spacecraft. Because the universe is large enough to allow the possibility of extraterrestrial life, we know that travel times in the universe are very long. We know that object with mass, like spacecraft, can't go faster than C.
We have quite precise methods of calculating how much energy it would take to accelerate a spacecraft to a substantial fraction of C. It's very large. It takes an equal amount to decelerate it on arrival.
We know of many, many problems with realizing physical interstellar travel, and have zero actual, buildable solutions to those problems.
This is not an argument from ignorance; these problems really exist, and really do need to be solved to have an interstellar spacecraft.
Neither am I saying absolutely there can be no solutions, and that an interstellar spacecraft can't exist. I am saying that what we know is enough to make "There are no interstellar spacecraft" a reasonable default position absent compelling evidence to the contrary.

Two different questions, two different answers.

As for intelligent life somewhere out in space, as Eric Idle put it, "There's bugger-all here on Earth"

 

[tsig]

No.

"As an example scenario is of a man sitting in a warehouse with a tin roof and when he hears no sound of raindrops, he assumes that it is not raining, without looking outside for any evidence of rain.[5] Here ignorance about a particular form of evidence for rain (the noise) is used to assume a lack of rain; but the conclusion may fail if it is raining so softly that no noise is heard by the man.[5]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

The man in the warehouse might as well be the posters here claiming "there's no evidence of aliens, so we should assume they don't exist".

Also: "science is saying in the absence of evidence, we must withhold judgment"- Carl Sagan.





LOL, for the sake of argument? Seriously?





We've done exhaustive searches for ghosts and paranormal activities and come up empty every time. Also, claims of ghost sightings are never reproducible and often fraudulent. Therefore, we have good reason to reject the existence of ghosts.




Are the programs doing the postings? If so, the claim can be rejected because that would exceed the limits of where computers are at, at the moment.

However, I wouldn't put it past someone to create just such a program as the one you describe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_poker_players

If you claimed that Tsig was one of the programs in question, I would actually find that somewhat believable.





That doesn't follow. At best, they "must be assumed to POSSIBLY exist".

I guess that makes my posts easier to ignore.

 

[Fudbucker]

Does the sentence still work for you?

Hmmm....

It might work if you're confining it to alien ships flying around the Earth. Maybe we should have seen something by now. But there's also an argument to be made that our detection devices are still technologically very crude, and nothing we've done so far counts as an "exhaustive search".

Alien ships in general? No. We can't conclude there are no alien ships in the Andromeda Galaxy, for example.

I think a lot of the problem here is that some of the comments were vague and I assumed you guys were talking about aliens in general and you guys assumed I believed UFO sightings are real because I claimed they count as evidence. They do, but it's not good evidence, and not enough for anyone to conclude alien ships are buzzing around Earth.

 

[Fudbucker]

I guess that makes my posts easier to ignore.

I stopped ignoring you awhile back. Sometimes, you're pretty humorous.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Hmmm....

It might work if you're confining it to alien ships flying around the Earth. Maybe we should have seen something by now. But there's also an argument to be made that our detection devices are still technologically very crude, and nothing we've done so far counts as an "exhaustive search".

Alien ships in general? No. We can't conclude there are no alien ships in the Andromeda Galaxy, for example.

I think a lot of the problem here is that some of the comments were vague and I assumed you guys were talking about aliens in general and you guys assumed I believed UFO sightings are real because I claimed they count as evidence. They do, but it's not good evidence, and not enough for anyone to conclude alien ships are buzzing around Earth.

Yes, I think we were talking past each other for a while. We seem to be on the right track now.

Other life in the universe? Virtually 100% dead cert.

 

[Stray Cat]

Hmmm....

It might work if you're confining it to alien ships flying around the Earth.

I'm guessing you know what a UFO is and that you've read the thread title which denotes the topic under discussion?

Maybe we should have seen something by now. But there's also an argument to be made that our detection devices are still technologically very crude, and nothing we've done so far counts as an "exhaustive search".

How can you say that after you've already admitted your knowledge of ufology isn't very good?
You have become that man sat in the warehouse.

Alien ships in general? No. We can't conclude there are no alien ships in the Andromeda Galaxy, for example.

No, but we can conclude we've never seen any.
But again that's your strawman, we're talking about UFOs seen and reported on this planet.

I think a lot of the problem here is that some of the comments were vague and I assumed you guys were talking about aliens in general and you guys assumed I believed UFO sightings are real because I claimed they count as evidence. They do, but it's not good evidence,

No, they are very good evidence... very good evidence that people see stuff they can't identify. Not evidence at all in relation to alien space ships as not a single one of them has ever been even near to being confirmed as an alien space ship.

 

[Stray Cat]

OK, here's what you do. Go to the science forum and post: "Since there's zero evidence of intelligent aliens, we should assume they don't exist".

Strawman.

 

[Stray Cat]

No, it's not a strawman when you directly quote a person. A general espitemological point was being made:

Where in my post that you quoted directly did I say there was no intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?
Yes, it's another strawman.

 

[Tomtomkent]

No.

"As an example scenario is of a man sitting in a warehouse with a tin roof and when he hears no sound of raindrops, he assumes that it is not raining, without looking outside for any evidence of rain.[5] Here ignorance about a particular form of evidence for rain (the noise) is used to assume a lack of rain; but the conclusion may fail if it is raining so softly that no noise is heard by the man.[5]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

I counter your example with something else:

A man is sitting in a shed with a tin roof and hears no sounds of rain. He walks outside and sees no rain. No clouds. No dip in his barrometer. He sees no reason from this current evidence to suggest it is raining. He has no reason to assume it is raining until he is shown some form of evidence of rain drops. Her certainly will not believe that it is raining skittles here, or in any other location until he recieves evidence.

The man in the warehouse might as well be the posters here claiming "there's no evidence of aliens, so we should assume they don't exist".

And who exactly are you attributing that quote to? Nobody is making your strawman argument. Please stop repeating it and try instead to counter the actual argument being made.

LOL, for the sake of argument? Seriously?

Yes. For the sake of argument let's pretend your strawman fallacy were correct and people were not trying to explain the need to overcome a null hypothosis and were in fact making an argument from ignorance. Seriously. Where is the joke?

We've done exhaustive searches for ghosts and paranormal activities and come up empty every time. Also, claims of ghost sightings are never reproducible and often fraudulent. Therefore, we have good reason to reject the existence of ghosts.

So now allow me to reflect your own arguments about alien life back at you:
But are the searches exhaustive enough? You have only looked at the evidence you know to look for. You are, by your definition ignorant of those you are yet to know exist. They may not be reproducible because we don't have the right technology, yet the denzines of alternate realities may well have advanced technology capable of doing so.
Because they are alien and who knows what advanced technology could do...

And then the leap to the strawman argument you are making against Stray Cat: . Are you really going to complain that no other reality could possibly hold life over than our own JUST because you have not found evidence of it?


On to example two:

Are the programs doing the postings? If so, the claim can be rejected because that would exceed the limits of where computers are at, at the moment.

How do you know this? You can say that it is beyond the realms of commercially available computers. I know you said it was "quite believable" and that somebody might do it if they could, but the key point here is the reason you state this is not likely is because we don't have the technology to run such complex all encompassing calculations.

But this is a fraction of the issue with your blithe statements that aliens could quite easily colonise universes in relatively short times. You are not only assuming technology will grow more powerful as it developes you are assuming (for the aliens) it will be able to solve problems that we have good reason to suggest there may be no solution to.


So no answer for problem number three? I assume you have no viable answer other than "I have no reason to believe this is in any way possible" which by your terms would be an argument from ignorance.

That doesn't follow. At best, they "must be assumed to POSSIBLY exist".

Then why do you keep trying to alter the arguments others have made?

Nobody has said that aliens do not exist. Nobody assumes they do not exist. Nobody has said they are not possible. They have been called improbable, and the possibility of our ever meeting them incredibly unlikely.

 

[Tomtomkent]

Where in my post that you quoted directly did I say there was no intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?
Yes, it's another strawman.

No.

It's the EXACT SAME strawman.

Of course at any point he can retract his arguments and admit that nobody has commented that aliens existing, or even their ever being discovered, is not a possibility, but have only stated they have no reason to assume a possitive unless the null is overcome, and have thus considered the possibility of making contact to be low, especially in terms of the topic of this thread which is UFOs.

It may, or may not, be of interest that he continues with the exact same strawman in a thread I created, at his suggestion, for this Thread-Drift.

 

[Stray Cat]

No.

It's the EXACT SAME strawman.

Of course at any point he can retract his arguments and admit that nobody has commented that aliens existing, or even their ever being discovered, is not a possibility, but have only stated they have no reason to assume a possitive unless the null is overcome, and have thus considered the possibility of making contact to be low, especially in terms of the topic of this thread which is UFOs.

Indeed and agreed.
The fact that we regularly refer to it as the null hypothesis automatically builds into it the fact that it can be falsified. A hypothesis that is unfalsifiable is not a hypothesis at all. So when we project into the future, (I'm sure) we all understand that some alien may come along eventually regardless of how improbable it is.
At present however, we are using the available evidence to formulate the null... which is 0 alien space craft have ever been shown to exist. Theoretically, they could exist but to date all UFOs that have been conclusively identified have been identified to be not alien space ships, so an Earth with no alien space ships looks exactly like an Earth with hypothetical alien space ships. So we can continue in our lives and scientific research exactly as if alien space ships don't exist because as there is no evidence of them, there is no need to build systems that take account of their hypothetical presence. Which is why when I park my car in an open car park, I don't worry that it will be crushed by a carelessly landing or crashing flying saucer from the Andromeda Galaxy and I don't have to take insurance against that happening.

 

[Garrison]

My basic position would be it's possible intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe; it's possible such a species might find some means of interstellar travel and it's possible that somewhere in the history of the Earth such aliens might have visited our planet.

BUT

Nowhere in all the 'ancient astronaut' literature or reports of UFO sightings has anyone offered any meaningful evidence that such a visitation has taken place. Proof of such an event would be an epic and astonishing moment in human history but so far I'm still waiting for some evidence that rises above the level of unverifiable anecdotes and blurry photos.