I realize that most of what I'm responding to below is not from you but rather from a person you are quoting. Presumably though you agree with what you've quoted or you wouldn't have included the sections in question. From here on in I'm directing my questions/comments at you, not from this other person and his impossible to locate post.
Except for that approx. 5%-10% that can't be explained.
And
I can't explain why 20 socks in my sock drawer have no partners. Should I blame the sock gnomes?
If this subject is all nonsense, then why do so many people spend so much time and energy trying to disprove it.
Ahhhh, touché! Wait, what? Would our time be more usefully spent in trying to disprove things that
aren't nonsense?
You, like most believers have it
backwards.
You are making the extraordinary claim, the onus is on
you to prove your claim. Or are we expected to also "disprove" that Elvis is alive, Paul is dead, unicorns exist, Zeus rules the world and we're living in "The Matrix"? Frankly, I'd prefer that the world's skeptics and scientists concentrate their investigations on things for which there is actual evidence. Along similar lines, I also believe firefighters should be sent on calls to
actual fires, rather than be diverted from actual fires by a call from the psychic cat lady who claims that her Mr. Tibbles dreamt that her house was on fire. Just seems like a better use of the firefighters' time, is all I'm saying.
This is really strange since for one, the subject never can be disproved.
Yes, like God cannot be disproved, either, which is probably why you don't see a lot of scientists making a career out of trying to disprove God. You do however see some scientists pointing out to believers that evidence for God isn't nearly as ironclad as they seem to believe and that for many a belief in God is fueled in large part by a fear of death and/or a revulsion at the idea that the universe is devoid of some ultimate justice and comforting meaning. "Credo consolans" and all that.
This would violate basic logic. We can never prove that some elusive visitor is not here. Any good skeptic would know this so this begs the question: Why do they try so hard? Some might say they dedicate their time to help free the world of its nonsense notions? Nonsense! If they have half a clue about human nature they know this is not possible.
So humans are inherently irrational and therefore it's pointless to try to talk them out of their irrational beliefs. Got it.
It's certainly pointless to try to talk some humans out of their irrational beliefs.
Also, given that any good skeptic must know this, one must wonder why they don’t have something better to do? Of all the things that one might do with their time, why spend so much effort trying to show everyone else how silly they are? Even if this results from plain old meanness, or unfulfilled potential, failed dreams, boredom, or even if dad or mom didn’t love them enough, even if some reason like this exists, why attack the UFO crowd?
Less ad homs, more evidence, please.
I have considered this question a bit, and it seems to me that the answer is fear.
Fear is the mind-killer, no arguments, here. Funny how many of the people who read and write good (and even not so good) science fiction are often the same people who don't believe that planet Earth is being visited by alien spaceships.
You are projecting. I've been fascinated by the subject of UFOs all my life and many of my favorite books, movies and TV shows are about aliens. I love Yoda, Mr. Spock and Superman, and I'd love to meet them but I can't, you see because
they aren't real. "Fear" doesn't factor into it.
I know what evidence it would take to make me reverse my beliefs regarding UFOs. What would it take to make you reverse your beliefs? Who has the unreasonable standards of evidence now?
Of course, as for our TV skeptics, it’s about the money.
Riiiight, dat sweet, sweet debunking moolah. Tell you what, why don't you contact The Discovery Channel, NatGeo, TLC, etc. and ask them which UFO programs are more profitable for them? The shows with a believer-centric approach or the shows with a debunker-centric slant? Go ahead. I'll wait...
Of course, we do still have to account for the insincere attackers: These are mostly people with personality disorders. They know that since UFOs are so elusive and controversial, the UFO buffs are easy targets. This allows them to be mean and lazy, which is usually all they really want.
To those who attack but have not studied the subject, I can understand your misguided malice. I once felt the same way about much this stuff.
Studying the subject involves a lot more than reading 10 books that support your view. You need to keep on reading and studying and thinking and taking in views that are contrary to your own.
Quick(ish) story: I first learned about the Loch Ness Monster as a young kid and from that moment I was
obsessed. Nessie was one of the coolest things I'd ever heard of. Cooler even than dinosaurs, because dinosaurs were extinct, but Nessie was alive
right now. Aside from the Bible, the first book written for adults that I ever read was "In Search of Lake Monsters" by Peter Costello. 40+ years later I still have that book. I loved that book and still love it now (though for different reasons), but I was a little unsatisfied as a kid by Costello's theory that Nessie was a long-necked seal. I wanted
plesiosaurs, dammit, not some freaking mutant seal. Still, Costello's book was chock-full of photographs (including my favorite, "The Surgeon's Photo") and illustrations of lake monsters from around the world. Somehow, I was far less interested in the non-Nessie lake monsters. Nessie seemed far more plausible to me, if only because so many other people seemed to believe in her, too.
Anyway, my belief and fascination with Nessie continued on for years and years. My Grandmother even kidded me about it, but I didn't care. I figured that she'd believe, too
if only she knew what I knew. I was however increasingly disconcerted that there had been no definitive evidence of my favorite monster. No live specimen or body to be examined, no unambiguous film/photos, but I still believed...mostly. It continued to nag at me, though. Something that told me that I needed more evidence, even if other believers did not. So, I was elated to find that my library had added a book to their collection called "The Loch Ness Mystery Solved" by Ronald Binns. The mystery has been
solved?? This was wonderful! I checked out the book immediately and took it home to read. Finally, those growing doubts I had would be put to rest!
I don't remember how long it took me to actually read, but I practically inhaled the book. Let's just say that it wasn't what I had hoped or expected. It was a decidedly skeptical approach on the subject from a former believer who had actually spent time at the Loch as an investigator. Chapter by chapter, he clearly and systematically dismantled the lore, legend and (pseudo)science of the monster and dared even to question "The Surgeon's Photo".
By the time I finished the book, I was heartbroken and yet I suspected that Binns was probably right (damn him). He had made a far better case for Nessie's
nonexistence that anyone had ever made for her existence. I reread the book several times and eventually bought a copy. Costello's book fueled my dreams and Binns' book dashed them, but it also opened up a new world of science, rather than pseudoscience, of zoology, rather than cryptozoology and skepticism rather than bottomless credulity.
Even so, I admit that there was still a part of me that hoped Binns was wrong. Several years later, when I first gained access to the internet, one of the very first things I searched for was a debunking of the debunker Binns. All I found was one claim that Binns had made some false claims. I contacted the person, asking for details. I never heard back. I found another person online and the only thing they could say against Binns was that he was "mean". I could find no evidence of meanness in Binns' book. If anything what the last chapter of his book emphasizes is his compassion and sympathy for the group of believers of which he was once a part.
Flashforward a few decades and I'm involved with a woman in an online debate about Bigfoot. I try to keep my end of the conversation polite and friendly and stick to the cold hard facts. After several weeks and hundreds, perhaps thousands of words exchanged between us, the believer says that I'm "mean" and ends the debate. I never heard back from her after that. Of course, this being the internet the "woman" might well have been a 10 year old girl, or an 80 year old man, but the "mean" comment reminded me of one of the only critiques I ever ran across of Binns and his heartbreaking yet eyeopening book. In any case, dismissing a critique merely because it is perceived as being "mean" is, well, nonsense. Adults understand this, children and believers do not.
BTW I'm still waiting for a response to my questions regarding your claims about UFO reports from "the dawn of man":
"the dawn of man" took place long before recorded history, so how can you even know about the incident(s) you allude to?
Or are you referring to unidentified objects seen in cave paintings? If so, how do you know the image represents an extraterrestrial spacecraft?
So, why haven't you responded to my perfectly reasonable questions? Fear? Meanness? Some sort of profit motive? Or a perhaps a personality disorder? It must be one of those things, right?
