Scientific Research on Crop Circles

[GreyICE]

This is the perfect example of the difference between the scientist and the woo monger. Scientists test theories. This means you develop several theories, and test them. Alternatively, you take an existing theory, and derive logical consequences. Then you see if those consequences occur.

To affirm woo, you take your existing theory, and examine the facts. You then perform whatever "experiments" you need to do to satisfy yourself that the theory fits the facts.

While this resembles science, in actuality it has nothing to do with it. The theories have no predictive power. They merely amorphously fit themselves to whatever facts.

Real theories have predictive power. They can tell you what will happen. Woo theories have none. They tell you nothing. Alternatively, they tell you something and are wrong, at which point the people still believing in something proved wrong are idiots (see: homeopathy).

 

[gs21stc]

No, they're not. In fact, the vast majority of EM radiation that reaches Earth is non-visible radiation. EM radiation that penetrates through the atmosphere to sea level consists of about 50% Infrared and Ultraviolet, and about 50% visible light. Infrared is felt as heat, and Ultraviolet is the high-energy portion of the sea-level EM penetration that causes sunburns and degradation of plastics and biological substances.

That is correct. The majority of the Sun's radiation that reaches the Earth are from near-infrared to ultraviolet. The amount of microwave radiation is much lower if compared to them. If you say that UV radiation can cause those expulsion cavities, that's fine by me. I will need to test it myself to be absolutely sure though.

Prove that such phenomenon actually exists, first, and then we'll explain it.

The Sun cannot explain it. See post #68 and Ball_of_Light.pdf.

 

[gs21stc]

This is the perfect example of the difference between the scientist and the woo monger. Scientists test theories. This means you develop several theories, and test them. Alternatively, you take an existing theory, and derive logical consequences. Then you see if those consequences occur.

Science can also work the other way round. A phenomena is observed, then theories are developed to explain it. The theory that ultimately be accepted should be consistent, and have strong predictive power. Then this theory will be rigorously tested to confirm its validity. Historical examples include X-rays and radioactivity.

To affirm woo, you take your existing theory, and examine the facts. You then perform whatever "experiments" you need to do to satisfy yourself that the theory fits the facts.

While this resembles science, in actuality it has nothing to do with it. The theories have no predictive power. They merely amorphously fit themselves to whatever facts.

That is a bad way to do science. Please don't intentionally try and fit your experimental data to whatever theory you are supporting. If it doesn't fit, then it doesn't. You can't manipulate your data to fit your theory and call it proven. That is cheating.

Real theories have predictive power. They can tell you what will happen. Woo theories have none. They tell you nothing. Alternatively, they tell you something and are wrong, at which point the people still believing in something proved wrong are idiots (see: homeopathy).

I think that this crop circle case is not the same as what you were talking about. The plasma vortex have absolutely no predictive power to explain Levengood's data. He is merely proposing it as a possible mechanism.

Then, came Haselhoff. He successfully proposed a simple equation which fits Levengood's data perfectly for three of the circles Levengood studied. This same equation does not fit the data from a man-made crop circle. See Ball_of_Light.pdf. There is even a stronger support for Haselhoff's hypothesis compared to Levengood's. The real, enigmatic Ball Lightning phenomena is a very good candidate for his proposed Ball of Light.

If there is something that is truly real about Levengood's data, it will be his measurements of the node length expansion. He might have a tendency to propose wild theories, but in the end, his own data betrayed him.

Data is real. Theory is imaginary. When data fits theory, theory is real. If data does not fit theory, theory remains imaginary.

 

[gs21stc]

Who knows? Who cares? Crop circles are made by humans.

So, I see that you don't agree with mhaze that the simple circular ones have a non-manmade explanation. I am still waiting for mhaze to provide me with more information on this matter.

 

[gs21stc]

Just as we would have to take other intelligent beings into account as possibly being responsible for publishing the New York Times... And then immediately discard that hypothesis as being stupid beyond measure.

That is not a valid analogy. There is ample evidence that the New York Times is created by humans. There exist a human company, numerous human offices and staff members, the newspaper is made by human technology, and most importantly there is a human corporation which claims that it has published each and every single edition of the New York Times.

The last evidence highlighted in bold is absent in the crop circle phenomena. That is why I cannot confidently accept with absolute certainty that all crop circles are made by human beings. There have been thousands of crop circles discovered since the 1970s. How many of them have been claimed by human beings? Why don't the rest of them come out and admit it? I really want to go out there to catch these evil pranksters who did not reveal their work and put them into jail.

 

[GreyICE]

Science can also work the other way round. A phenomena is observed, then theories are developed to explain it. The theory that ultimately be accepted should be consistent, and have strong predictive power. Then this theory will be rigorously tested to confirm its validity. Historical examples include X-rays and radioactivity.

I like how you take what I post and then post the exact same thing, with examples.

That is a bad way to do science. Please don't intentionally try and fit your experimental data to whatever theory you are supporting. If it doesn't fit, then it doesn't. You can't manipulate your data to fit your theory and call it proven. That is cheating.

Um... exactly?

I think that this crop circle case is not the same as what you were talking about. The plasma vortex have absolutely no predictive power to explain Levengood's data. He is merely proposing it as a possible mechanism.

Then, came Haselhoff. He successfully proposed a simple equation which fits Levengood's data perfectly for three of the circles Levengood studied. This same equation does not fit the data from a man-made crop circle. See Ball_of_Light.pdf. There is even a stronger support for Haselhoff's hypothesis compared to Levengood's. The real, enigmatic Ball Lightning phenomena is a very good candidate for his proposed Ball of Light.

If there is something that is truly real about Levengood's data, it will be his measurements of the node length expansion. He might have a tendency to propose wild theories, but in the end, his own data betrayed him.

This is the longest series of words with no actual meaning this week. You should get a prize.

 

[Cuddles]

Why don't the rest of them come out and admit it? I really want to go out there to catch these evil pranksters who did not reveal their work and put them into jail.

Exactly. Do you even read your own posts? People don't admit to all of them because they don't want to go to jail.

I've been to one of the two spaceship landing sites on the planet.

You do know there are a lot more than two spaceship landing sites?

Have any crop circles ever been in the middle of undisturbed fields, where the approach by a party of pranksters would have had to have left at least some traces?

No. It was a popular claim when crop circles first became popular, but it has been endlessly demsonstrated that it is very easy to get to the middle of a field without leaving tracks, as anyone with any experience of hiking or farming already knows.

However, if we were ever to discover other intelligence, we will have to take them into account when postulating the origin of those big fancy crop circles.

Yes. There are aliens. I think they're trying to sell us some kind of whole-grain breakfast cereal. However, there appear to be at least two rival factions. I suggest everyone cower in their underground bunkers before infighting among the aliens destroys us all.

 

[I Ratant]

...
You do know there are a lot more than two spaceship landing sites?l...

Real space ships... Edwards and Kennedy.
Burlap and library paste spaceship landed at Mohave. Been there too.

 

[gs21stc]

The Sun cannot explain it. See post #68 and Ball_of_Light.pdf.

See also the gravitropism study in the third link. The tendency of the plants to bend towards the sunlight does not show an ordered character in the node length changes like the ones seen in the 'genuine' crop circles.

 

[gs21stc]

I would personally be astonished if there weren't many other planets or moons in the universe with life forms on them.

Are any of them intelligent? Impossible to know, but I look at it like this:

The time since the industrial revolution spans 0.00000005% of the time since life arose, the chances of us meeting another species with even greater intelligence than ours is very, very small. Even if 1,000,000,000 planets with life forms exist, then the odds are still only 50:50 that one of them is at the same technological stage or better than we are.

But even if that happened, there is then the need to overcome the vast distances involved - a technology far in advance of ours.

If that kind of technology exists, it makes no sense at all that they'd come all the way here, expending vast amounts of energy, alien-power (as opposed to man-power) and whatever passes for money, just to carve up some fillet steak and make pretty patterns in cornfields.

Taking the astronomical odds against it being aliens, then multiplying by the illogic of them doing it, aliens seem incredibly unlikely. Then if we subtract the fact that we know for sure that humans make crop circles, harbouring a belief that it's aliens isn't just unlikely, but insane.

This is postulating whether or not an alternative intelligence can and will make crop circles when we are not sure of their existence, let alone their social behaviour. Why would you do that?

The comment on the existence, intentions, and capabilities of an alternative intelligence is very speculative and has no predictive power.

Please read mhaze's first post on this thread before you say that "we know for sure that humans make crop circles". I am still trying to find more information on that claim.

 

[gs21stc]

"Science can also work the other way round. A phenomena is observed, then theories are developed to explain it. The theory that ultimately be accepted should be consistent, and have strong predictive power. Then this theory will be rigorously tested to confirm its validity. Historical examples include X-rays and radioactivity."

I like how you take what I post and then post the exact same thing, with examples.

Really? Are you saying the same thing? I thought you said that in science, theory must come first before an interesting phenomena is observed. I am sorry if I misunderstood you.

"That is a bad way to do science. Please don't intentionally try and fit your experimental data to whatever theory you are supporting. If it doesn't fit, then it doesn't. You can't manipulate your data to fit your theory and call it proven. That is cheating."

Um... exactly?

I am not a pseudoscientist.

This is the longest series of words with no actual meaning this week. You should get a prize.

Really? Please nominate me for that prize! I am just saying that Levengood did not manipulate his data to fit the plasma vortex hypothesis.

 

[PixyMisa]

That is not a valid analogy. There is ample evidence that the New York Times is created by humans. There exist a human company, numerous human offices and staff members, the newspaper is made by human technology, and most importantly there is a human corporation which claims that it has published each and every single edition of the New York Times.

How do you know they're not aliens pretending to be humans? Huh? Huh?

Because that would be absurd. There's no evidence of aliens, no evidence of aliens living on Earth, no evidence of aliens masquerading as humans.

You don't hypothesize causes for which you have no evidence to explain effects for which you already have a natural explanation.

The last evidence highlighted in bold is absent in the crop circle phenomena.

Some items in the NYT don't have a person's name attached to them. Does that mean they were written by aliens?

That is why I cannot confidently accept with absolute certainty that all crop circles are made by human beings.

You don't get absolute certainty. Deal with it.

There have been thousands of crop circles discovered since the 1970s. How many of them have been claimed by human beings?

Some. Why does it matter? Show me one that couldn't have been made by humans.

Why don't the rest of them come out and admit it?

Because you want to throw them in jail?

really want to go out there to catch these evil pranksters who did not reveal their work and put them into jail.

Statute of limitations, dude.

 

[gs21stc]

Exactly. Do you even read your own posts? People don't admit to all of them because they don't want to go to jail.

That is definitely true, I think. However, that makes me wonder why they let Gerald Hawkins take the honour for discovering the fifth fundamental theorem of geometry.

 

[gs21stc]

Some. Why does it matter? Show me one that couldn't have been made by humans.

See the first post by mhaze in this thread.

 

[The Atheist]

This is postulating whether or not an alternative intelligence can and will make crop circles when we are not sure of their existence, let alone their social behaviour. Why would you do that?

You what?

You're claiming aliens come here and do it - I'm postulating on your hypothesis that aliens use astoundingly superior technology to ours to come here and make patterns in the corn. Please, can you at least follow your own craziness?

The comment on the existence, intentions, and capabilities of an alternative intelligence is very speculative and has no predictive power.

Of course it does! You posit an intellect far above humans and I'm positing that they will have a morality and social structure which makes your and the Mad Doctor's hypothesis very stupid indeed. If those aliens came to earth, I could see them coming to conquer, feed, befriend or just to say hi. Make circles in cornfields and dissect cows? No.

Please read mhaze's first post on this thread before you say that "we know for sure that humans make crop circles". I am still trying to find more information on that claim.

Go ahead. Whether or not Mhaze is right is irrelevant - he may well be right; he is talking about a natural phenomenon. My comment about knowledge of human crop circles is that we know for a fact that humans make them. Some crop-circle makers have been careful enough to include footage of them making the circles, so people like you and your pals can be in no doubt whatsoever. (Doesn't work)

 

[PixyMisa]

See the first post by mhaze in this thread.

Aaand?

I see no mention of aliens or plasma vortexes. Nor any evidence that these circles couldn't have been made by humans (though in the case of simple crop flattenings, humans may not be required at all).

If you want to propose plasma vortexes or aliens as an explanation for something, you need to show that this is a better explanation than we already have. And the first step in that is to show that plasma vortexes or aliens exist.

 

[mhaze]

Aaand?

I see no mention of aliens or plasma vortexes. Nor any evidence that these circles couldn't have been made by humans (though in the case of simple crop flattenings, humans may not be required at all).

If you want to propose plasma vortexes or aliens as an explanation for something, you need to show that this is a better explanation than we already have. And the first step in that is to show that plasma vortexes or aliens exist.

Somewhere I've got pictures of these natural, "simple" crop circles.

I'll look around.

It was a bit weird to get up in the morning and see them out in the field, but nobody thought it was anything more than a row of dominos falling over.

 

[Lothian]

Why even bother pondering it based on "evidence" of crop circles.

Fact.
When the foot and mouth crisis in the UK in 2001 closed all pathways and other access routes to/from farms and fields no crop circles were created.

Fact.
In each of the first three counties that re-opened pathways, the very next day a crop circle was found in a field in those counties.

Question(s).
Do plasma, ball lighting or vortices obey DEFRA access notices.

Alternatively, how is it that aliens not only read English, but bother to read posted DEFRA access notices and also obey them.

What's the probability that local people living in farming communities are very likely to obey DEFRA access notices and include in their number crop circle "hoaxers"?

It just shows that the Aliens who make these circles care deeply about us. For further evidence consider that in poor countires where grain is in short supply and starvation is rife the aliens never ever land in the fields.

 

[rats]

Real space ships... Edwards and Kennedy.
Burlap and library paste spaceship landed at Mohave. Been there too.

What's your definition of a spaceship?

 

[gs21stc]

That is definitely true, I think. However, that makes me wonder why they let Gerald Hawkins take the honour for discovering the fifth fundamental theorem of geometry.

I have just thought about this after I made this post. Gerald Hawkins could be the one who made or have directed the creation of those crop circles.