Debunkers....roll up...roll up....

[ProphetofOccam]

Saying something is unknowable because humanity has been bashing it's head into the same brick wall for 60 years is like saying we'll never know what the dark side of the moon looks like because humanity hasn't seen it for all of recorded history.

I don't really agree with that. Can you name another field in which we've made zero headway in understanding the nature, cause, or predictability of a phenomenon? Even with constructs of deep space, most of the math and deduction is based on observable, measurable factors.

Someone said, "hey, we observe this phenomenon, what might be going on?" A few folks use numbers and other knowns to create a (or several) hypothesis. Then, work is put into using the knowns to design tools or procedures for observing the unknown factor associated with the original observation. For instance, we can now detect the presence of blackholes, where they had previously just been an idea based on physical and objective observation, as we've developed tools and procedures for doing that based on those observations, built around a hypothesis.

With UFO's, no honest hypothesis is possible, as of yet, as we don't really have anything to observe with any level of reliability or predictability. Even if we did, we have no way of knowing if one UFO we see in the night is an identical phenomenon to another. We can make assertions, but what would they be based on? "Ok, so this particular UFO isn't behaving like the other UFO I also didn't know anything about, so I have decided that it is a different phenomenon." In science, and general objective thinking, that's not Kosher.

We may one day have a UFO to observe (be it a spaceship, a plasma ball, or some kind of interstellar whale), but as of now there isn't even the slightest inkling of how to gather that type of necessary data, generate evidence, or even make reliable, confirmable observations. In that way, UFO's might as well be a deity. People are just asserting about factors for which we don't have any objective information. It's fun, sure, but it doesn't have a great deal of value beyond that.

I assert that it is probably unknowable, because it's the only field in which people have made no advancement. Advancement is impossible without objectivity and specific corroboration. UFOlogy uses semantics and philosophical notions to dance around that fact, but nobody who might be able to provide answers is really interested in word games -- they're interested in results.

 

[marduk]

I don't really agree with that. Can you name another field in which we've made zero headway in understanding the nature, cause, or predictability of a phenomenon? Even with constructs of deep space, most of the math and deduction is based on observable, measurable factors.

Sure.

String theory.

Dark energy.

Dark matter.

Why bipedalism developed.

Why religion developed.

Why the accretion disk happened to form planets the way it did.

Why we have a moon so big.

Why we suddenly doubled our cranial size.

Why all proteins on earth are left handed.

Why the universe isn't half antimatter.

Does God exist?

Want more?

 

[marduk]

With UFO's, no honest hypothesis is possible, as of yet, as we don't really have anything to observe with any level of reliability or predictability. Even if we did, we have no way of knowing if one UFO we see in the night is an identical phenomenon to another. We can make assertions, but what would they be based on? "Ok, so this particular UFO isn't behaving like the other UFO I also didn't know anything about, so I have decided that it is a different phenomenon." In science, and general objective thinking, that's not Kosher.

We also didn't know until recently that thunder and lighting were causally related, just that they were related in time and space, therefore probably related.

The problem with this field is that it isn't repeatable, and has been largely ignored by all but the most marginal of society... who then largely become more interested in their opinions, or politics between themselves.

There's a whole giant field of study sitting out there, just waiting. Ignored.

And no one has yet refuted the ETH hypothesis. It's just that no one has verified it either.

That's why I suggest we focus less on the past, focus less on the investigators, and focus less on the why, and more on the how.

Because some of them are obviously some kind of structured, metallic, thing in the sky. If we can duplicate that, we can go get 'em on our own terms, defend our turf, and generally make the earth a nicer place.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

String theory.

String theory model is based on observable phenomenon, and has advanced, simultaneously, with other competing theories. The model of string theory progresses based on information. Where are you getting that it doesn't? Though, this is a subject; the field is quantum physics, and it makes regular advancement.

Dark energy.

Both sides of that argument advance new information based on observable data. Again, i'm not sure why you think nothing happens in that department. This is a subject; the field is astrophysics.

Dark matter.

There is a ton of legitimate science regarding dark matter. What? Anyway, again, not a field. The related fields are astrophysics and quantum physics.

Why bipedalism developed.

I don't even understand this one. Are these things you actually keep up with? I'm guessing not. Regardless, this is a subject, not a field. The field is Biology, the sub-field is human evolution, and both make advancements on a daily basis.

Why religion developed.

We are capable of making new observable discoveries, and do, regarding why and how particular religions developed. If you've got the time, I can give you the complete history of organized religious practice, from Vedicism through to new age occultism; it's kind of an interest of mine. This is a subject; the field is Anthropology, and it's not a science.

Why the accretion disk happened to form planets the way it did.

Now you're starting to sound a little bit like creationist folks who try to poke holes in scientific understanding through the application of the lack of knowledge and absence of understanding. For everything you listed, there are working models that develop all the time. There are observable factors and the reliable means to locate more through existing procedure and the development of future procedures. This is a subject, not a field, the fields are astronomy and astrophysics, and they advance on a daily basis.

Why we suddenly doubled our cranial size.

Define "suddenly." Secondly, this is pretty well covered by the existing model. There is no certainty, but we have pretty good models for reasonable causes for this and we are also capable of continuing to make discoveries. This is a subject, not a field. The fields are paleontology and archeology and they advance on a daily basis.

Why all proteins on earth are left handed.

I'd like to point out that most of these are subjects, not fields. The field is astrobiology, and the fact you know that about amino acids runs contrary to an assertion that the field hasn't advanced. To say, though, that continued, reliable observation regarding one of these things isn't being down, today, is wrong. But, again, not a field.

Want more?

I'm still waiting for one.

Some of these are seemingly subjects for which there is definitely a ton of legitimate science, but my guess is that you seemingly reject it given your own expertise, or are unaware of the current models and the work down to progress them.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

The problem with this field is that it isn't repeatable

That's not your problem with it, but it is the problem the scientific community has.

The field of Ufology is entirely separate from every field you kind of listed in your other post in that none of the steps taken to advance those fields, or even get them to where they occasionally stagnate, are possible. The farthest Ufology has gotten, within the realms of legitimate science and objective understanding is that it is a thing that happens. Zero advancement has been made within the field, as a whole, in understanding the nature, cause or state of the phenomenon.

You attempted to point out subjects in science that have "made no advancement," but really only listed a bunch of subjects for which all the information we have came from observation and scientific advancement. We know more about string theory than "it's a possible thing." We know more about cranial development than "it's a thing that happened."We have models for these things based on objective, observable data -- evidence for a theory.

In Ufology, that's not possible. Everything we know is second hand and impossible to corroborate. Science isn't interested in subjects for which there is no evidence and no possibility for the development of theory or models. "Theory" isn't a guess, nor is hypothesis. In science, you need hard evidence for these things, in one form or another.

If a scientist wrote a paper to the tune of, "Ok, so dark matter, guys. Seriously, I saw it. It happened too fast and left no certifiable data behind for me to show you anything about it of any substance, but trust me; it's totally there. I propose that it is the opposite of existing matter," it wouldn't be taken very seriously, or taken at all. There wouldn't be anything to study. That's what Ufology is.

We don't have anything legitimate to study. We have stories and those stories spin off into whole branches of mythology that are then treated as "theories."

Ufology has generated as many useful "theories" regarding the nature of UFO's as the Talmud has generated useful "theories" regarding the nature of deities and the universe. We're just throwing around ideas, based on mythology, with no quantifiable information. The types of guesses and creative conjectures tossed around by ufology are the farthest thing from a scientific theory one can create without actually trying to do it.

EDIT:

Again, I'd like to clarify that we're talking about the nature of the UFO phenomenon. We have evidence of the phenomenon in the form of photographs and videos of light formations and such witnessed in the skies. Occasionally, we have explanations for these things that are very terrestrial, but sometimes we don't.

Pretty much 100% of all the footage and photographic evidence that suggests UFO's are any one thing in particular are always shown, within reason, to be hoaxes or misinterpretations of knowns. However, the same can't be said about the legitimate evidence for the vaguer light phenomena that people report seeing in the skies.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

I think some of the language gets muddled, here, because these types of discussions become more about me and less about the scientific community, when people are firing back. I just happen to agree with the general scientific consensus that there isn't really a whole lot to study, so there isn't any opportunity for models, which means there's no opportunity for theory, which means there's nothing for science to do.

I've seen several things in the sky that I would classify as "unidentified," as I have no idea what they were. Well, I have ideas, but they're based on pretty much nothing or next to nothing.

My girlfriend and I were walking home on the 4th of July from the fireworks display that our city holds at the lake every year when we saw something we couldn't identify in the sky. It was an orange light that lasted anywhere between 45 seconds and two minutes (it's difficult to say how long we watched it). It moved across the sky in a straight line, occasionally seeming to stutter in its movement. At one point it started a cycle of flickering and brightening (but not dramatically, like the planet Mars does) before it eventually stopped moving and slowly faded out. It seemed to be very high in the sky, and it made no noise.

As a reasonable person, I'm capable of entertaining the idea that what we saw was some kind of firework launched by someone to the south. It wasn't like any firework I'd ever seen, but that doesn't really mean a whole lot. It was certainly an uninteresting firework, if that's what it was, but, again, that doesn't mean a lot.

We kept waiting for the flashing red and blue lights of a plane to become evident over the orange glow, but when it never came, that's when we were really intrigued. It basically just resembled a slow moving, orange star that eventually stopped moving and faded out.

Could have been a firework? Sure. Could it have been a plasma ball? Sure. It also could have been a spaceship, a satellite, or Jesus Christ; I have no reason to think that I have any idea what it was. Even if it had demonstrated a movement pattern, I wouldn't be able to say it was a piloted craft. Lightning bugs and flies also have guided movement patterns, and I'm fairly certain they aren't internally piloted.

My point, here, is that the farthest we can actually take what the two of us saw was, "welp, that happened." We could try to figure out what it wasn't by doing an unreasonable amount of work to find out if there were any weird aircraft in the sky, that night, or if anyone could identify that type of firework, but that still wouldn't bring us any closer to figuring out what it was. In cases were things like burn marks and radiation are added to the narrative, those things can't be corroborated as connected to the actual experience without question (if there was one), so they are just another part of the narrative.

I can't go get a panel of experts and show them the thing that we saw; it's gone. All we have is my word and my experience, neither of which are very valuable to objective thought or science.

EDIT:

By the way, this is what made me remember these forums, and prompted me to come back and check out what's going on. I was originally going to post in the experiences section, but never got around to it.

 

[Randall]

Ah, the Prophet has been back less than half a day and already you two have found yourselves in the eternal dance of the spheres, like a binary star you two continue to flash out contradictory positions of the phenomenon.

It's all good. Considering different viewpoints helps to widen one's perspective.

Most salient point: we have no idea what an alien craft looks like & most of ufology is predicated upon loose assumptions and guess work.

Actually, observations indicate that alien craft come in a variety on configurations, the most common being sphere's, disks. and more recently triangles. So saying we have "no idea" isn't accurate.

While there is a history of hard science that suggests everything from strange balls of light to metallic, craft there still has been confirmation of not much.

I guess that depends on what you mean by "confirmation". If a radar station picks up an unknown target, and a jet interceptor is dispatched and the pilot gets visual confirmation, it seems rather apparent that confirmation has been made. According to Ruppelt, that scenario played out more than once during Project Book Investigations, and at least in one case, the pilot also had airborne radar contact in conjunction with a ground radar contact and pilot visual confirmation.

 

[Randall]

Agree to disagree, I guess. We're not going to agree that someone saying something is legitimate evidence. Evidence can be corroborated.

And the evidence that can be corroborated is that the meaning of the word "evidence" isn't restricted to your narrow view.

We can corroborate elements of a story, like a burn mark on the ground. You can go to the place and say, "yep, there it is." That doesn't corroborate that a UFO made the mark, let alone anything about the nature of the UFO. It can't be corroborated because we don't know that UFO's actually do that, as we don't have one to observe. You're OK with that, science and I aren't. That's kind of where that discussion ends.

Again, you're making reference to a specific type of evidence, not evidence in general. If we were to limit all allowed evidence to only that which suits our purpose, and dismiss everything else, then that is essentially rigging the debate from the start. We all know that the public has no access to verifiable scientifically valid material evidence sufficient to prove the reality of UFOs ( alien craft ) to hardened skeptics. So what? That doesn't make the rest of the evidence suddenly disappear or irrelevant.

 

[Randall]

I think some of the language gets muddled, here ...

Very true. Thanks for sharing your observation. Regarding language: You already know most of this, but for the sake of discussion for any new readers, given the information in your post, in the days of Blue Book, the report would have been dropped into the "Insufficient Information" pile. The reports that were of real interest however, were the ones that did contain enough information to rule out all mundane objects and phenomena with reasonable certainty, leaving what were called "Unknowns".

However because some of those Unknowns were seen clearly enough to be reasonably certain that they were some sort of craft, the word "unknown" is misleading. If you're observing some sort of flying craft, you're not observing something "unknown". You're observing a flying craft, and if that craft isn't of any known type, then the a more accurate term is the word "alien". It is synonymous with the word "unknown", but more specific to what we are actually talking about, and that's why today the word UFO is used to convey the idea of an alien craft.

 

[marduk]

String theory model is based on observable phenomenon, and has advanced, simultaneously, with other competing theories. The model of string theory progresses based on information. Where are you getting that it doesn't? Though, this is a subject; the field is quantum physics, and it makes regular advancement.

Are we now arguing over whether this area is a subject or a field? I don't get the game with semantics.

My point with string theory is that we've been banging our mathematical head against this for decades, and very little has come of it.

Both sides of that argument advance new information based on observable data. Again, i'm not sure why you think nothing happens in that department. This is a subject; the field is astrophysics.

I'm advocating exactly the same thing here. New information based on observable data.

There is a ton of legitimate science regarding dark matter. What? Anyway, again, not a field. The related fields are astrophysics and quantum physics.

Again, I'm not interested in a verbal dance here. Dark matter has been posited to explain gravitational anomalies (i.e. galaxies and large structures shouldn't exist or move the way they do based on observable matter.

My point is there are lots of hypothesis for what it is; none have been tested or verified to my knowledge.

Kind of like this field (or subject, again I'm not sure what your point is).

I don't even understand this one. Are these things you actually keep up with? I'm guessing not. Regardless, this is a subject, not a field. The field is Biology, the sub-field is human evolution, and both make advancements on a daily basis.

Now, don't make this personal. Yes, it's something I do keep up with.

We are capable of making new observable discoveries, and do, regarding why and how particular religions developed. If you've got the time, I can give you the complete history of organized religious practice, from Vedicism through to new age occultism; it's kind of an interest of mine. This is a subject; the field is Anthropology, and it's not a science.

Cool, as it is of mine.

One of the conundrums in social sciences is why. Religion is pretty much universal; why is it evolutionarily advantageous? Group cohesion? Stress reduction? Some facet of our mind that evolved randomly?

That's a great question. Again, lots of hypothesis. No firm answer.

Now you're starting to sound a little bit like creationist folks who try to poke holes in scientific understanding through the application of the lack of knowledge and absence of understanding. For everything you listed, there are working models that develop all the time. There are observable factors and the reliable means to locate more through existing procedure and the development of future procedures. This is a subject, not a field, the fields are astronomy and astrophysics, and they advance on a daily basis.

Not at all. I'm not a creationist, quite the opposite.

However, how nebulae go from gas to accretion disk to stars and planets is far, far from nailed. Something interesting happens that accelerates the whole process and leads to clumping a lot earlier than a lot of models predict.

Again, a great chin scratcher, this one is.

Define "suddenly." Secondly, this is pretty well covered by the existing model. There is no certainty, but we have pretty good models for reasonable causes for this and we are also capable of continuing to make discoveries. This is a subject, not a field. The fields are paleontology and archeology and they advance on a daily basis.

There was a well known event somewhere between 500K and 200K years ago that caused a sudden spike in cranial size. There are lots of hypothesis for why this is the case; but nothing proven. I'm not suggesting zeta reticulans came down and tinkered with our DNA; I'm saying it's one of the chin scratchers in science.

I'd like to point out that most of these are subjects, not fields. The field is astrobiology, and the fact you know that about amino acids runs contrary to an assertion that the field hasn't advanced. To say, though, that continued, reliable observation regarding one of these things isn't being down, today, is wrong. But, again, not a field.

I'm obviously missing your point. A field is typically a broad range of topics, i.e. anthropology. A subject is a specific area of interest. The debate between the two is a bit subjective, and to my mind boring. Why are we debating this?

Some of these are seemingly subjects for which there is definitely a ton of legitimate science, but my guess is that you seemingly reject it given your own expertise, or are unaware of the current models and the work down to progress them.

Not at all.

I'm not saying these aren't legitimate scientific questions, just that there are legitimate scientific questions that can take longer than 60 years to figure out; especially given that the area (or field or subject or whatever) of UFOs currently has a bunch of well-intentioned amateurs running around.

 

[marduk]

I think some of the language gets muddled, here, because these types of discussions become more about me and less about the scientific community, when people are firing back. I just happen to agree with the general scientific consensus that there isn't really a whole lot to study, so there isn't any opportunity for models, which means there's no opportunity for theory, which means there's nothing for science to do.

I would say that there's little for science to currently do.

We could, for example, make things like Chris' continuous monitoring project more wide-scale to gather more data.

We could, for example, try to come up with working, testable, hypothesis for propulsion mechanisms to replicate reports.

There's lots of things we could do. In it's current state, I would agree. Where I perhaps disagree is it's potential.

 

[marduk]

That's not your problem with it, but it is the problem the scientific community has.

No, it's a problem in science.

Replication is a key step in the process.

The field of Ufology is entirely separate from every field you kind of listed in your other post in that none of the steps taken to advance those fields, or even get them to where they occasionally stagnate, are possible. The farthest Ufology has gotten, within the realms of legitimate science and objective understanding is that it is a thing that happens. Zero advancement has been made within the field, as a whole, in understanding the nature, cause or state of the phenomenon.

I agree with this whole statement except the word "possible." I'm an optimist, I would like to think that we are capable of figuring this out, but just haven't yet.

You attempted to point out subjects in science that have "made no advancement," but really only listed a bunch of subjects for which all the information we have came from observation and scientific advancement. We know more about string theory than "it's a possible thing." We know more about cranial development than "it's a thing that happened."We have models for these things based on objective, observable data -- evidence for a theory.

I agree with this whole thing except I didn't say that we've made no advancements. I've said that they're difficult. Decades-long difficult.

In Ufology, that's not possible. Everything we know is second hand and impossible to corroborate. Science isn't interested in subjects for which there is no evidence and no possibility for the development of theory or models. "Theory" isn't a guess, nor is hypothesis. In science, you need hard evidence for these things, in one form or another.

Except that isn't true.

However small the data set, there are examples of documented, recorded, visual and radar data from multiple angles and sites.

The fact that the field currently focuses on the "he said, she said" game doesn't mean that's all there is. What I'd like to see is to go get more of this kind of data.

If a scientist wrote a paper to the tune of, "Ok, so dark matter, guys. Seriously, I saw it. It happened too fast and left no certifiable data behind for me to show you anything about it of any substance, but trust me; it's totally there. I propose that it is the opposite of existing matter," it wouldn't be taken very seriously, or taken at all. There wouldn't be anything to study. That's what Ufology is.

We don't have anything legitimate to study. We have stories and those stories spin off into whole branches of mythology that are then treated as "theories."

Ufology has generated as many useful "theories" regarding the nature of UFO's as the Talmud has generated useful "theories" regarding the nature of deities and the universe. We're just throwing around ideas, based on mythology, with no quantifiable information. The types of guesses and creative conjectures tossed around by ufology are the farthest thing from a scientific theory one can create without actually trying to do it.

Got a better idea than "there's nothing to see here, move along?"

EDIT:

Again, I'd like to clarify that we're talking about the nature of the UFO phenomenon. We have evidence of the phenomenon in the form of photographs and videos of light formations and such witnessed in the skies. Occasionally, we have explanations for these things that are very terrestrial, but sometimes we don't.

Pretty much 100% of all the footage and photographic evidence that suggests UFO's are any one thing in particular are always shown, within reason, to be hoaxes or misinterpretations of knowns. However, the same can't be said about the legitimate evidence for the vaguer light phenomena that people report seeing in the skies.

Groovy. I'm with you there.

I, for one, have seen these things close up, so I'm less interested in proof and more interested in figuring them out.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

Are we now arguing over whether this area is a subject or a field? I don't get the game with semantics.

My point with string theory is that we've been banging our mathematical head against this for decades, and very little has come of it.

Well, I asked for fields that have experienced no advancement. You gave me subjects with in fields that have either stagnated or actually have advanced recently, but just not to an absolute conclusion. In a way, i felt what you did was "cheating." That's not semantics, you answered the wrong question, as it were.

Ufology, as a field, hasn't advanced. So, none of the examples could be comparable. You can't even really have subjects within the field of Ufology, because there isn't anything to study other than generic data.

With the radar thing, again, things are getting muddled and the scope of the discussion is headed in the wrong direction. Not even the majority of the scientific community denies that UFO's are a thing that people see or that they occur. The issue here is that there isn't any way to propose to know what they are, or anything else beyond "that happened," based on that information. Radar data doesn't advance the discussion, because all they evidence is that UFO's are a thing. Well, that was where we started; that's why there is a discussion. Radar data, however, doesn't tell us much about the nature of UFO's, as weather anomalies, which aren't solid masses, can also produce radar pings. All we know is that someone saw a strange thing but also so did a machine. As nobody is denying that UFO's are a phenomenon, nothing's been moved forward by that kind of data -- just more, "yep, there it is."

 

[ProphetofOccam]

the word "evidence" isn't restricted to your narrow view.

Right. It's restricted to the narrow view of science.

Science doesn't refrain from taking UFO's seriously because they're silly, it doesn't take them seriously because there's nothing to do with regards to serious science. What people do think is silly is wild conjecture, and, yes, they will sometimes mock it. That might make it look like the whole idea is silly to science, but it's not; the majority of the community recognize the phenomenon.

As far as someone knowing they saw a "craft," it's completely impossible. You can't know you saw something for which you have basically no reference. You can know that you believe that what you saw looked like a craft, but your perceptions don't dictate the reality of the situation. Until we can get one to observer, what you have is a belief. From beliefs, we grow mythologies.

The actual, genuine data is the precise, un-muddied by opinion and conjecture, description of the phenomenon you experienced. However, with nothing to weigh that data against, it's not serving as a proof that something exists (other than the base phenomenon, which few people outright deny). All it becomes, at that point, is another story that advances the conversation in no way.

It's not fair to say these are my rules. They aren't. This is the primary reason that majority of the scientific community stopped caring, as per the mouths of the scientists who are most relevant.

 

[marduk]

Well, I asked for fields that have experienced no advancement. You gave me subjects with in fields that have either stagnated or actually have advanced recently, but just not to an absolute conclusion. In a way, i felt what you did was "cheating." That's not semantics, you answered the wrong question, as it were.

Sigh.

Again with another debate over words. Listen, I didn't mean to "cheat." My intention was to show that just because something isn't currently understood by mankind, or isn't easy, doesn't mean that it can't be.

There's a lot of fatalism around here recently... like this problem is so big and so weird that it's beyond human comprehension or science.

I really disagree with this.

Ufology, as a field, hasn't advanced.

Sadly, I agree with you.

So, none of the examples could be comparable. You can't even really have subjects within the field of Ufology, because there isn't anything to study other than generic data.

Ah, but yes they are and there is something obvious you can do about just having generic data.

Go and get better data.

With the radar thing, again, things are getting muddled and the scope of the discussion is headed in the wrong direction.

No, it's going in a direction that goes against what you are saying. And the debate's a good thing.

Not even the majority of the scientific community denies that UFO's are a thing that people see or that they occur. The issue here is that there isn't any way to propose to know what they are, or anything else beyond "that happened," based on that information.

Yes.

Presently.

Radar data doesn't advance the discussion, because all they evidence is that UFO's are a thing.

No.
It can give range, velocity, rate of climb, and sometimes size.
I.e. performance envelope data.

Well, that was where we started; that's why there is a discussion. Radar data, however, doesn't tell us much about the nature of UFO's, as weather anomalies, which aren't solid masses, can also produce radar pings. All we know is that someone saw a strange thing but also so did a machine. As nobody is denying that UFO's are a phenomenon, nothing's been moved forward by that kind of data -- just more, "yep, there it is."

So what evidence would work for you?

 

[marduk]

Right. It's restricted to the narrow view of science.

Science doesn't refrain from taking UFO's seriously because they're silly, it doesn't take them seriously because there's nothing to do with regards to serious science. What people do think is silly is wild conjecture, and, yes, they will sometimes mock it. That might make it look like the whole idea is silly to science, but it's not; the majority of the community recognize the phenomenon.

As far as someone knowing they saw a "craft," it's completely impossible. You can't know you saw something for which you have basically no reference. You can know that you believe that what you saw looked like a craft, but your perceptions don't dictate the reality of the situation. Until we can get one to observer, what you have is a belief. From beliefs, we grow mythologies.

The actual, genuine data is the precise, un-muddied by opinion and conjecture, description of the phenomenon you experienced. However, with nothing to weigh that data against, it's not serving as a proof that something exists (other than the base phenomenon, which few people outright deny). All it becomes, at that point, is another story that advances the conversation in no way.

It's not fair to say these are my rules. They aren't. This is the primary reason that majority of the scientific community stopped caring, as per the mouths of the scientists who are most relevant.

Now we're talking in circles.

Evidence gathered mechanically (i.e. radar tracks) isn't interesting to you even though by it's very nature it's objective.

Epistemological arguments over interpretation of visual evidence also doesn't get us out of the realm of science.

Empirical evidence is what drives science -- evidence that adds or subtracts credence to a hypothesis, and that follows sufficient rigour that it can usually be replicated by others.

Now, data replication could be an interesting facet to this area.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

No, it's going in a direction that goes against what you are saying.

How so?

Knowing that UFOs are things, but also things that can go very fast and very high, which are also already reported by eye witnesses, and also features shared by thousands of phenomena, doesn't get us any closer to new information. Does it confirm a sighting? Yeah. Does that ultimately matter in the scope of developing a better, advancing understanding or improved data set? No. A person said, "Look, i see it," and a computer said, "yeah, man, me too. Weird, huh?"

You seem to not understand what I'm getting at, which is entirely my fault.

New information is information that advances the discussion. By that, i mean it allows us to move from the current point of "they exist and have some attributes," to "based on this new information that we can objectively weight, here's a new, testable idea." All evidence for UFO's boils down to the fact that there is evidence that UFO's, as a phenomenon (not spaceships), exist.

The discussion isn't legitimately advanced by creating ideas, full of anecdotal conjecture, which can't be weighed or tested against anything. That's not an advancement or theory, it's just an idea.

Ideas are fun, but in this context, they aren't actually helping.

 

[marduk]

OK, let me take another stab at it. I think I get what you're getting at.

You're perhaps trying to distinguish between the argument "there's something there" with the argument "there's an extraterrestrial craft there."

The former means that there's something there, but it's unknown, and therefore there's little for science to grab on to do do anything with.

Which I would agree with.

My argument is that I agree with the statement and want to change the rules of the game. Rather than chase after cases and conjecture from the depths of time and memory, go out and get new, better data.

Because whatever this is, is still happening.

 

[Randall]

Right. It's restricted to the narrow view of science.

I've acknowledged more than once that scientifically valid material evidence for the reality of UFOs ( alien craft ) isn't something that we ( at least we civilians ) have possession of. So why do you seem to be restating that particular point as if there's something I'm missing? Is there some other point you're having a hard time expressing, or a particular reaction are you hoping to elicit? Help me understand your motive for these posts.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

I've acknowledged more than once that scientifically valid material evidence for the reality of UFOs ( alien craft ) isn't something that we ( at least we civilians ) have possession of. So why do you seem to be restating that particular point as if there's something I'm missing? Is there some other point you're having a hard time expressing, or a particular reaction are you hoping to elicit? Help me understand your motive for these posts.

Answering in reverse:

2. Other people exist in the forums with whom i've not had the discussion.


1. Yet, without that information, you postulate. To me that's weird, but it isn't to you. I al;ready said we just disagree.

However, if you keep asking me the same questions, I'm going to keep giving you the same answers. That seems pretty fair, to me.