New Show Topic: Calling all Skeptics & Part-Time Skeptics

[PCarr]

Forgive me but I don't think that your calculation of the liklihood ratio to a value "close to 1" is based on any objective set of data. If so, then by all means point me to the calculations.

Well, if you have a real hypothesis, you should be able to at least make a bounding argument for the likelihood ratio. Those calculations are done all the time in all sorts of fields. The problem you have is, the ratio needs to be much greater than 1 or the evidence isn't really evidence.

Now, the problem with most (all?) paranormal claims is that we don't have anything like a good hypothesis. In fact, I would define a bad hypothesis as one that does not give you any idea how to calculate, or at least bound, the likelihood ratio.

Now imagine we had an instrument that we knew from time to time spits out really bad data (not just white noise), and the errors are difficult to characterize statistically. Could you use that instrument to detect anomalies? Maybe, but it would be very difficult and you would probably not convince anyone that a given anomaly was real. Now, if you had a second instrument, also with lots of data outliers, but the two instruments corroborate each other more often than chance would support. Could then use the two in tandem to detect anomalies? ONLY if you could show that the errors were independent, and the onus would be on you to show that.

Human perception and memory are instruments subject to massive biases and errors and are of course easily spoofed - ask any good magician. So, the memory of a single human is not a scientifically valid anomaly detector. It doesn't mean that the memories are wrong, just that they are not evidence. And no, we're not just talking details here. People remember things that never happened at all. Probably all of us do - I know I have, and have only found out by my efforts to corroborate.

 

[Jeff Davis]

I think that the number one reason that I choose not to participate on most Fortean phenomena forums is the utterly false notion that there are simply two camps one can be in. Skeptic, or Believer. Both are ridiculous titles to begin with. More like philosophically moronic entitlements if you ask me. What both are, when laid bare, (canned laughter please) are in fact the cloaks of specific psychological deficiencies and phobias. I just have no time for what I have come to refer to as The Big Time Wrestling of Fortean Phenomena. It's just all so fake and based upon the origins of failure that one finds oneself wondering if there's not some altruistic religious component at work.

Fortean is Fortean by nature not by some self aggrandizing judgement of one camp or another. It (read: all cool unexplained phenomena as observed by multiple sources within a specific social context) is Fortean by the very nature of the which mandates a lack of proof, but that which simultaneously bears out a catalog of multiple observations. Who needs a checks and balances system when there is no balance to maintain to begin with? Would you sell me a doubting snake's venomous antidote just so that I can proclaim victory over my own self inflicted wounds? Or perhaps you might feign a shimmering shiny snake's brand of self proclaimed enlightenment that I might do best to align myself with thee. Either way, Skeptics vs. Believers is laughable, if not a direct insult to the intelligence of all those with a sincere interest into the vast realms of Fortean REALITY. Speaking of laughable, how about a slightly different take on just how much sense it makes to dawn those special hats/badges of divine proclamation.

and curly said, "why certinee"

 

[Michael Allen]

PCarr,

In your very interesting blog, you write

1. All UFOs reports are caused by classes of things science already knows about.
2. (1) is false
3. We don't know enough to decide between (1) and (2).

(mental scratchpad)
For all x in {UFO reports}, there exists a known scientific principle y, such that x is explained by y
There exists at least one x in {UFO reports}, such that for all known scientific principles y, x is not explained by y
(end mental scratchpad)

Just a thought--it might be helpful to indicate that the negation of (2) is "Some UFO reports are not caused by classes of things science already knows about"

I am tempted to throw in Friedman's

"SOME underlined [fill Stanton's favorite number of the day] times!!!"

Deciding between (1) and (2) at this point is trivial, since by expanding the set {UFO Reports} to its wider superset (or union of supersets) gives us other mundane phenomena that were at one period of history that moved from category (1) to (2). In this case we can add the history of our understanding on any currently better-known set of phenomena. Some examples: meteors and meteorites, electrical and magnetic phenomenon, etc. So position (2) must is fundamentally the correct path, as (1) is a dogmatic and absolutist declaration. As you rightly point out later, none of these points are hypotheses--but since one of them is really a negation of the other and the third is simply a reset button, it would seem that ETH, if it were to survive would need to be an expansion of the primitive (2).

The philosopher Daniel Dennett in his Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life speaks of "forced moves" in the game of design (he talks about Natural Selection as an "algorithmic process") that may bottleneck the evolution of life, suggesting that our own forms may not be as unique as we might imagine(regardless of the vastness of design space of which our own forms and its antecedents are a vanishing subset).

There are other processes (stellar nucleosythesis) which lay the foundations of this game that are ubiquitous--if we are here and this entire universe system brought us here, then the most mundane activity of the cosmos (creating and destroying the elements in the periodic table--mostly creating) is the basis for another activity that may be just as mundane: the formation of molecular replicators that eventually evolve into quadrupedal or bipedal life forms.

I am currently reading Vallee's "Passport to Magonia" and find it hard to put down by the sheer volume of parallels between stories, it has brought my attention to a particular element of modern UFO reports of electromagnetic interference wondering if they too have an element. At some point I hope to read about an Ox cart that suddenly stopped working when a fairy basket came overhead, but alas I am only about 1/4 of the way through the book. However it does offer some insight on a possible thread of investigation, we really should look at reports where the witness experiences something that is not known to them, but is scientifically plausible. This is where one of Vallee's points breaks down, as how would a witness apply an element of scientific understanding which is not yet known to them within the confines of their experience?


---ASIDE--
We could add time to the position statements and draw out some even neater absurd gems (which are still interesting to think about!)

(1) All UFO reports are fundamentally scientific and a corresponding explanation can be drawn from known or future scientific principles.
(2) (1) is false --> There are UFO reports that are forever outside any known or future known scientific principles (roughly speaking).
(3) We will never have enough information to determine the truth (or falsity) of (1) (or (2) )

 

[Michael Allen]

Also, when speaking of hypotheses -- we should make a distinction between statistical and scientific hypotheses.

I've often wanted to write something on this topic, but fortunately my laziness wins again:

One frequent problem is the confusion of good statistical null hypotheses with good ecological hypotheses. There is no mapping between the two, just as there is no equation of statistical significance with ecological importance; it is very easy to have one without the other. Statistical hypotheses are not evaluated on criteria 1-3 above, whereas scientific hypotheses are. A prime criterion for statistical null hypotheses is that they can be rejected with data that have been or can be collected and with the statistical tests in hand (sufficient statistical power). It is easy to confuse the ability to reject statistical null hypotheses with falsifiability in scientific hypotheses, [emphasis not in original] which supersedes criteria 1-3 above in "naive" methodological falsificationism (Lakatos' [1970] somewhat pejorative term). Naive falsification is the outdated philosophy of science that associated the most rapid scientific progress with the most rapid rejection of hypotheses or theories (whether or not there were any hypotheses or theories remaining after such rejection). Lakatos (1970) convincingly demonstrates by historical evaluation of many examples that in a progressing science theories or hypotheses are not rejected until better ones comes along.

Taken from Telling Good Hypotheses from Bad

 

[ProphetofOccam]

Other than,

1. People sometimes witness phenomena that they can't personally identify within the context of their experience and knowledge
2. These phenomena are sometimes in the sky. They are often not (underground, on the ground, underwater, on the water, etc).
3. On occasion, people who see these relatively inexplicable phenomena believe that the phenomena exhibit behaviour or aesthetic/physical traits that they perceive to be indicative of a type of vessel -- very often assumed to have some relationship to aliens(of various type and origin) or outer space, despite the fact that extraordinarily few reports of such phenomena include any contact, visual perception or immediate association between the perceived phenomena and either outer space or aliens.

What is known about "UFO's?"

What people tend not to understand about why pragmatically inclined people dismiss testimony as evidence is that testimony can't be tested, repeatedly, in a controlled environment. It can seldom be tested once in a contaminated environment. It is just an idea. It's an expression. It carries the same knowledge value as a work of fiction, as it's just as verifiable.

As of this moment, everyone (relatively) understand that Star Trek is an ongoing work of fiction. We know it's a piece of art. The tales on the screen aren't transcriptions of witnessed events. Everyone relevant accepts and understands this. Nothing, outside of the story unfolding in the narrative, leads us to believe that Spock is a living being. No tangible data exists to verify Spock's existence outside of the narrative. Aside from the lack of evidence for Spock's real-world existence, the creator of the story, and the character, proclaims that the narrative and the character are fiction (false).

We don't just take Roddenberry at his word. The lack of any and all reasonable pieces of data to support the contrary is reason enough to automatically understand that the universe of Star Trek is fiction. Roddenberry didn't have to tell us that information, we just know.

There is equal evidence to support the hypothesis that experiences with UFO phenomena are encounters with spacecraft as there is to support the hypothesis that Spock is a real world being. We can point to just as many tangible factors to support our idea -- zero.

The automatic reaction to that is to mention things like burnt grass, implants, crop circles, etc. The very idea that these things should be considered evidence for the verification of a witnessed spacecraft speaks to the perception bias I mentioned in another thread (caused by the sociologically accepted maxim that UFO phenomena are automatically and primarily tied to aliens and spaceships). These things could only be evidence for a spacecraft if we already knew that the craft in question was a known cause for these types of conditions. We don't know that the craft in question even exists outside of a narrative, much less how it interacts with the known world. You can't circularly argue that a physical condition of the known environment is caused by the possible, speculated interaction with an unknown phenomena, because the unknown phenomena exists and causes the environmental condition. Those kinds or arguments are biased and hopeful; they've got nothing to do with reality or investigation.

So, knowing that we have similar evidence for Spock as we do any random alien spaceship, the only difference between the two concepts is the classification of the narrative offered by the originator. It is more likely that the alien spaceship exists, because the person who delivered the narrative declared that the narrative was truth. So, then, it follows that if, tomorrow, be he still alive, Roddenberry declared that Star Trek was actually the factual account of his experiences on the Starship Enterprise, the likely truth factor of his narrative changes -- we count his declaration amongst our evidence. Does that sound sane?

It's not sane, and no rational person would change their understanding of the truth factor of Star Trek simply because Roddenberry declared he had experienced the narrative first hand. An investigator could follow up on Roddenberry's report, taking the time to search for evidence that would allow them to test the hypothesis that his report has a specific likelihood for truthfulness. To do this, though, the investigator has to know the difference between a report and evidence and how those two things impact the testability of a hypothesis.

In an investigation into the truth factor of a narrative report, the report is the hypothesis. You can't test a hypothesis with itself. It's an abstraction. You have to find concrete evidence that can be used to test the hypothesis (to test the probability that the narrative, the report, is truthful). The plain fact that the hypothesis exists doesn't automatically substantiate it, or even affect its probability one way or the other.

It has nothing to do with lies, inaccuracies, memory mutations, ignorance or fabrication, it has to do with the simple fact that the report is the only reason you're conducting an investigation. That means that the report is what you are investigating. That means the report is the working hypothesis. Whatever is included in the report is what you are attempting to test the likelihood of. In that way, it isn't possible for the report (the working hypothesis) to be considered evidence of itself.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

To put that into an example using the burnt grass idea, consider this.

If a UFO witness reports that he/she saw a UFO fly from the sky, land on the ground, and leave a ring of burnt grass in its wake, there is a problem with using the grass as evidence.

The only thing connecting the burnt grass to a spacecraft is the narrative given by the witness. So, our working hypothesis is that the witness saw a spacecraft of unidentified origin burn the grass. We can test the likelihood of that hypothesis, but what data do we use to do that? We can't substantiate that the grass was actually burnt by a spacecraft; if we could, there'd be no need for an investigation. The hypothesis doesn't substantiate itself.

The mistake is to accept the hypothesis as true without testing and then count the burnt grass as a data point to be used in future investigations. I.E., numerous UFO reports include reports of burnt grass, so we know that spacecraft burn grass. The burnt grass hypothesis was never substantiated in the first place, so it's not a valid data point. Similarity between the cases isn't indicative of anything in particular. You can't claim to know that UFO's burn grass when you never validated that hypothesis the first time it was put forth with any physical evidence. All that's been done here is that the existence of the hypothesis has been used as evidence of itself, erroneously validating the idea that burnt grass is an acceptable data point that can be used as evidence in an argument for the presence of an unknown craft.

Given these things, how would you test the hypothesis of the original narrative report? What data point can be referenced that wasn't erroneously acquired through the methodology of self-validating hypotheses?

 

[Michael Allen]

In an investigation into the truth factor of a narrative report, the report is the hypothesis. You can't test a hypothesis with itself. It's an abstraction. You have to find concrete evidence that can be used to test the hypothesis (to test the probability that the narrative, the report, is truthful). The plain fact that the hypothesis exists doesn't automatically substantiate it, or even affect its probability one way or the other.

Your emphasis on report as a singular is telling. A report is not a hypothesis anymore than a statement made by a witness to a trial is a hypothesis--it is a statement that is weighed among a body of other reports from other witnesses. While courtroom procedures do not map 1-1 to scientific procedures in the field, certainly no judge would throw out a witness testimony because he thought it was just a hypothesis that could only be tested with itself. Obviously you are missing the point that a combined body of corroborating reports can be studied and a hypothesis presented as to the causes of those reports (again, not necessarily stepping directly into theorizing on the content of the reports, just the fact that they exist).

Where those reports speak of things that are corroborated by other mechanisms uncovered in other scientific investigations, that increases the probability that something behind the reports is a real entity worth investigating further.

A report isn't considered evidence of itself, but a body of reports may present some patterns for which the investigator can start to form a hypothesis. This is not laboratory science where the evidence can be coaxed out of experimentation (easily), nor can we draw conclusions that there is nothing worth investigating because we cannot reproduce the crime scene. A judge doesn't ask a witness to carry out a murder in order to prove a murder happened by so-and-so method.

---ASIDE---
Thought I might add an interesting little bit for your namesake, Prophet

Use Occam's razor, but not as a blinder

William of Occam, a British theologian of the middle ages, also made a useful suggestion that is and should be followed by most scientists most of the time. Note that it was not developed for science or by a scientist or philosopher of science and is not necessarily a good criterion to apply to science. The gist of Occam's razor is to avoid a more complicated model or explanation when the data can be fitted equally well or better by a less complicated model or explanation. In statistical regression, for example, one can exactly fit an nth order polynomial through n + 1 points, so why would one ever draw a polynomial of higher order through n + 1 points? A scientist might do so usefully if she or he had a mechanism in mind that yielded a higher-order polynomial. Occam's razor is very useful for preventing the complexity of theory from growing at a rate greater than is justified by the data, but it is not any absolute guide to scientific truth. A more complicated theory may be better and can be suggested, but there is no reason to adopt it unless it makes testable predictions that the simpler one did not and at least some of those predictions are fulfilled. Hypothesis generation requires suspension of Occam's razor, since a good hypothesis will fit not only existing observations but will anticipate uncollected ones. Using Occam's razor slavishly would lead to hypotheses that explained existing data and nothing more.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls in the Practice of Science

 

[ProphetofOccam]

If you're going to have this discussion with me, it's going to be within the bounds of the way science is collected and processed. Court cases have no place in that discussion. The legal system uses a subjective parameter to determine "truth." Science isn't decided by jury, and physical evidence is mandatory in that system. If you'd read the rest of my post, you'd also understand why the number of cases has no baring on the likelihood that those cases are truthful. You still have a null data set with no validation.

I'm not going to argue the validity of the scientific method. So, if that's where this is going, you're going there alone.

Hypothesis generation requires suspension of Occam's razor, since a good hypothesis will fit not only existing observations but will anticipate uncollected ones. Using Occam's razor slavishly would lead to hypotheses that explained existing data and nothing more.

That seems to be a misunderstanding of what Occam's Razor is as an idea. None of that is remotely true.

All scientific hypothesis are built around known data. The only unknown is whether or not the working hypothesis can be verified. Science doesn't start with a conclusion and work backwards, which would require the insertion of assumed data points; it starts with data and works forwards, predicting the collection of similar data points.

You concept here, of the razor, would suggest that Darwin presupposed evolution, then went about collective evidence to support his predetermined conclusion. Darwin collected data that was suggestive of a concept. That concept became his hypothesis, his report, and the evidence it predicted was the further discovery of similar data.

What you're talking about isn't science. That's outside my wheelhouse.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

To draw a connection between my Darwin example and my grass example, in Darwin's case, the fossils and species he observed were observable and verifiable in a laboratory environment. He was capable of taking these physical pieces and submitting them to others for review. His hypothesis grew out of these observations of physical phenomena, and his ability to test nd share them made them much more objective observations.

You can't test or verify whether or not a spaceship burnt a patch of grass, no matter how many times people report having seen it. If you can't test your hypothesis, in any conceivable way, you're not doing science. Period.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

My whole point here is to illustrate why "mainstream" science doesn't care. There just isn't any science to be done, really. What little science there is to be done has been heavily tainted. Researchers don't know the difference between evidence and report, so they think it's ok to assert evidence. In fact, many see no difference, even when explained, between the assertion of data and the collection of data.

You literally just told me that it's pragmatically kosher to build a scientific hypothesis around the idea that phantom data COULD be found to validate your original idea. Where the hell does someone even GET the original idea without physical data leading them to its formation?

There is no scientific data. Zero. Researchers seem unfazed by this; therefore, science doesn't give a shit. The only chance this field has for scientific interest is to drop the nonscientific bullshit that passes as investigation.

That's my only point. That's always my only point. I couldn't given any less of a shit what anyone chooses to believe or disbelieve.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

And, yes, I generalized researchers in that comment, and that's unfair. I think reasonable people would know what I mean.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

I read the entirety of your selection, which I should have done originally, and it is a reiteration of everything I've been saying. You kind of cherry-picked the final sentence, apparently not caring what the rest of the selection read.

There are no testable hypotheses in the paranormal field. You can't even validate the report as a working hypothesis. You have no data. You can't get beyond the lack of verifiable data to make any predictions. Any predictions made from countless sets of unverifiable data are incoherent and speculative. On top of that, then THOSE hypotheses are untestable to an even GREATER degree, because they are buried under multiple levels of unverified data sets and untested hypotheses.

At that point, you're just role-playing in an invented universe.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

Again, i'm not telling anyone what to do with their time.

If a person wants to collect reports, tally them, and decide on some number with which they will be satisfied in declaring the reports indicative of any particular idea, that's fine. People can and should do as they please. As long as they don't suggest that what they are doing is in any way scientific, and attempt to argue as much, there's nothing wrong with it.

Once a person does suggest that that kind of data assertion is grounds for coherent hypothesis, however, they're challenging the scientific method as a model.

If scientific probability were voted on, as is the case in a court of law, then that would be accepted practice. You could assert all you wanted to, so long as you had enough evidence, no matter how weak or intangible, to convince a panel of laymen that you'd built a solid argument (Judges don't often decide the types of cases wherein the kind of evidence you're talking about is relevant, but, even then, they would be "voting" on the likelihood of truth of a given situation while reviewing testimony from experts of fields for which the Judge has no qualification to examine outside of the courtroom). Unfortunately for that mindset, scientific probability isn't voted on -- it's inferred from a suggestive collection of physical data, tested in a controlled environment, submitted for review, retested in an unbiased arena and the collection of results from those tests are used to validate or disqualify the initial inference.

The problem with the paranormal field is that there are no verifiable data sets and there are no testable hypotheses. Without the data there isn't even a reason to HAVE a hypothesis regarding any specific phenomenon. One's hypothesis is built out of the speculative hypotheses and asserted data sets of the unvalidated work of the researchers before them. It's a bottomless pit.

The only way to change it is to keep it at its simplest terms, only investigate that which can be physically studied, and make no assertions. I think it would just be too boring for a lot of folks at that point.

 

[Burnt State]

The problem with the paranormal field is that there are no verifiable data sets and there are no testable hypotheses. Without the data there isn't even a reason to HAVE a hypothesis regarding any specific phenomenon. One's hypothesis is built out of the speculative hypotheses and asserted data sets of the unvalidated work of the researchers before them. It's a bottomless pit.

The only way to change it is to keep it at its simplest terms, only investigate that which can be physically studied, and make no assertions. I think it would just be too boring for a lot of folks at that point.

Ok, I actually read through this entire exchange and the part I'm most bonded with is the role of the narrative. Jerome Clark also sees these anomalous experiences as only existing in the minds and memories of the teller of the tale. I was also greatly saddened by your dissolution of the burnt grass as evidence as I've always held on to the image of the radial arc of burnt and upturned shingles, alongside the huge slanted bunt upper portion of the tree beside the garage where I saw one of the two 'craft' hovering, as confirmation of what we saw the previous winter. Talk about wrecking my day. I'm going to go outside now, dig out my quinzee, sit inside there and have a long think.

I also am going to relish in the irony that this, my century post, is the signpost of some kind of nullification of the incident that led me to this forum in the first place.

 

[Michael Allen]

I need to summarize the Prophet's points

(1) Reports of UFOs are hypotheses that cannot be tested

Ans: False, you are confusing the meaning of the term "report" -- a report as a narrative or witness testimony or a report as in a kind of executive summary or analysis of the former.
No serious investigator (paranormal or otherwise) considers the "reports" (former meaning) as a hypothesis for which to base further investigations.

(2) "The problem with the paranormal field is that there are no verifiable data sets and there are no testable hypotheses."

Ans: False, there are data sets representing reports given by reliable sources. Again, the body of reports may show patterns of behavior (of either the individuals or the phenomenon) that can be used to formulate alternative explanation sets for testing with other reports. Far from being a bottomless pit, a good investigator can (and does) weed out the nonsense by holding onto a given pattern based on a tentative hypothesis (again, the report is not that hypothesis)

(3) Paranormal investigators do not see a difference between "evidence" and "report"

Ans: Again, a strawman--you don't distinguish "report" as testimony or as an executive summary or analysis of the former.

(4) "Unfortunately for that mindset, scientific probability isn't voted on -- it's inferred from a suggestive collection of physical data, tested in a controlled environment, submitted for review, retested in an unbiased arena and the collection of results from those tests are used to validate or disqualify the initial inference."

Ans: Then what of the submission for review? Who's the authority on whether or not a given finding is validated. Certainly not the re-testing, unless you want to then turn to present that body for review....you can claim science doesn't follow similar processes as in a democracy or a courtroom, but in the end of the line is a group of human agents who either accept or reject the finding based on their own analysis. While certainly science isn't a democracy, it does not follow that democratic and scientific processes are mutually exclusive. The same can be said of courtrooms.

(5) You can't test or verify whether or not a spaceship burnt a patch of grass, no matter how many times people report having seen it.

Ans: Again, no one is trying to do that -- another strawman. However you can correlate other stories from other sightings with similarities (i.e. like a burnt patch of grass). As for reproducing the phenomena in some kind of controlled laboratory: to suggest such is like saying a geologist needs to recreate the asteroid event that supposedly caused the iridium layer to form around the earth. In addition, you probably wouldn't make such an argument against astrophysicists who make claims about the generation of elements by s and p processes when stellar cores hundreds or millions of light-years away go supernova--just because they couldn't reproduce the collapse of a star somewhere here on earth. There are plenty of examples in science where rare events occur and investigators develop hypotheses and continue their collection of observations. And when an event is not reproducible in the laboratory (again referencing your naive laboratory-centrism) they wait for another event to either corroborate or disrupt their previous observations.

Again you seem to confuse scientific investigation with laboratory science, as if such investigations sat comfortably within the domain of controlled setups that spit out reams of data neatly prepped and ready to be inserted into some paper. But this is not reality, Prophet--this is a fantasy. In the real world, the laboratory is a tool to assist investigation and hypothesis testing lies in this sense within the superset of science for which the tools of investigation are aids to extend our reach to better understanding.

In vogue these days are statistical methods, probability formulas and reams (or rolls, or databases) placed in the laps of researchers who dare not take any risks that go beyond the reach of what they can solidly reproduce in the lab. This is due to the fact that the world is filled with trolls who aren't comfortable with uncertainty in science culture.

 

[marduk]

An interesting conversation that's all well and good from a philosophical (maybe epistomological) point of view... not sure how it drives the conversation forward though.

I view it more pragmatically: I'm a pretty skeptical guy with some base training in science, but with some truely anomalous experiences. How does a guy like me put these pieces together in a rational way? Not interested in the "woo-woo", not interested in the interpersonal infighting histories of the researchers, just want to know what's actually going on?

 

[starise]

Hey guys this is good stuff. Save some wind for the show.

 

[Burnt State]

An interesting conversation that's all well and good from a philosophical (maybe epistomological) point of view... not sure how it drives the conversation forward though.

I view it more pragmatically: I'm a pretty skeptical guy with some base training in science, but with some truely anomalous experiences. How does a guy like me put these pieces together in a rational way? Not interested in the "woo-woo", not interested in the interpersonal infighting histories of the researchers, just want to know what's actually going on?

It always seems to come down to people arguing over semantics at the end of the day. I agree the conversation has not been driven forward either, but there are interesting observations.For some, patterns are tabulated, calculated and meaning is ascribed. For others the pattern is the mythology we make for ourselves and it is mistaken as scientific reality.

Certainly one always reserves the right to believe in magic, faeries, Bigfoot and mermaids. Rationalism has its place, so do dreams have theirs. What is undeniable is how much the story continues to fascinate, especially the ones we had ourselves.

 

[Randall]

Human perception and memory are instruments subject to massive biases and errors and are of course easily spoofed - ask any good magician. So, the memory of a single human is not a scientifically valid anomaly detector. It doesn't mean that the memories are wrong, just that they are not evidence.

Based on your example, your evaluation is flawed. A magician spends years perfecting ways to exploit the limitations of human perception and intelligence. The spoofing may look easy, but it's not nearly as easy as it looks, and when we apply the same logic to the alternatives, we find that intentional highly skilled focus on exploiting the limitations of machines and/or other processes also reveals there are flaws and weaknesses in them as well. Also, you've glossed over the information in my previous response regarding how accurate, reliable and sophisticated human intelligence and perception is. You're comparing an idealized view of skepticism and science to the worst possible case scenarios for the alternatives. That isn't how the real world works.

Science also has its own share of frauds and exploits and failures and mistakes and weaknesses. I've pointed to the reports on the incidence of fraud in medicine so many times it's getting tiresome, not to mention that other fields also have their shares. And contrary to claims that science is responsible and welcomes corrections, the owner of Science Fraud has been suspended because the name ruffled too many feathers: Owner of Science Fraud site, suspended for legal threats, identifies himself, talks about next steps « Retraction Watch

Also, because I acknowledge that there are weaknesses and exploits in human perception and intelligence, I'm better prepared for them. In contrast, you seem to be willfully ignoring the flip-side simply to prop up your opinion that the information provided by human perception and intelligence doesn't qualify as evidence. It most certainly does, and it has a long history of doing so. Let's use your phrase "anomaly detector" and a couple of historical examples: Consider a ship's watch, the person who is traditionally up in the crow's nest keeping lookout for anomalies ( ice bergs, strange sea conditions, whatever ). Let's also use the example of scrambling jets to obtain visual confirmation of unidentified ( anomalous ) radar targets. Do you not think there was (is) a reason for those things? Please be realistic. It's precisely because humans are such good anomaly detectors that we employ people to do those things.

Now let's compare a human guided system to the most sophisticated automated systems. Recently a high tech US Navy ship ran aground because its digital navigation system was flawed and the captain ignore human warnings to stay clear of the area. Digital map error may have led to grounding - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

You might be tempted to counter that the digital map errors were caused by humans, but that logic doesn't apply to our issue. We're comparing direct human perception and intelligence to the alternatives ( in this case a high tech scientific digital navigation system ), the accident could have been avoided by ignoring the high-tech digital scientific system and heeding the human warnings, not to mention that having a sharp lookout on duty could also have prevented the accident.

Lastly, to emphasize once again, none of this implies that I don't think science and skepticism aren't valuable. They are very valuable and the last thing I would want to do is promote superstition over science. Just bear in mind that human perception and intelligence aren't superstition. They are phenomena well founded in reality that operate on accepted scientifically recognized principles.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

We definitely will end up just disagreeing over semantics, then over whether or not science is good for detecting truth. I think we've got one more round until then, though.

(1) Reports of UFOs are hypotheses that cannot be tested

Ans: False, you are confusing the meaning of the term "report" -- a report as a narrative or witness testimony or a report as in a kind of executive summary or analysis of the former.
No serious investigator (paranormal or otherwise) considers the "reports" (former meaning) as a hypothesis for which to base further investigations.

Regardless of what they would verbally or textually consider it, it's exactly what happens. Everything you "know" about UFOs comes from unverified stories from previous sightings. If that wasn't the case, you'd actually know nothing, at all.

My position is that you don't. Maybe we agree there, but it doesn't sound like it.

A report, in the strictest sense of the word, does become the working hypothesis for your investigation. There's no real way to argue around that. You are attempting, as part of your investigation, to use that hypothesis, that a particular sighting with particular details may have taken place, to "collect data" and guide your research into the incident.

In journalism, that is exactly how a "report" is treated. it must be validated or invalidated, but the basic concept of a report is the hypothesis around which all investigation and fact checking is done.

2) "The problem with the paranormal field is that there are no verifiable data sets and there are no testable hypotheses."

Ans: False, there are data sets representing reports given by reliable sources. Again, the body of reports may show patterns of behavior (of either the individuals or the phenomenon) that can be used to formulate alternative explanation sets for testing with other reports. Far from being a bottomless pit, a good investigator can (and does) weed out the nonsense by holding onto a given pattern based on a tentative hypothesis (again, the report is not that hypothesis)

That isn't verified data. "Reliable sources" doesn't mean anything in science. Review means something. If your data can't be reviewed, because it doesn't actually exist as a verified set, then it isn't data. You have no data.

You just said that "

No serious investigator (paranormal or otherwise) considers the "reports" (former meaning) as a hypothesis for which to base further investigations,

" but here you say the opposite. The "patterns of behavior" you're talking about are just a bunch of report investigations, narratives, being used as actual data. A reliable source doesn't substantiate a claim by being reliable -- that's appeal to authority (which applies when someone's authority doesn't actually prove a statement or idea).

You are saying paradoxical things. Do you not realize that all the data that you "know" about UFOs and the paranormal come from the narratives of reports? You do realize there is no physical evidence anyone takes seriously for a reason?

(5) You can't test or verify whether or not a spaceship burnt a patch of grass, no matter how many times people report having seen it.

Ans: Again, no one is trying to do that -- another strawman. However you can correlate other stories from other sightings with similarities (i.e. like a burnt patch of grass).

It would be a straw man if your previous statement didn't invalidate your other previous statement. While noticing that, occasionally, there are patches of burnt materials at UFO siting locations would constitute a pattern, albeit a sloppy one, it would be essentially insgnificant without being able to verify that the burns were caused by a UFO. You can't verify that. There isn't even any reason to assume that's what happened, unless the current report your working has become you're working hypothesis for that particular investigation.

As for reproducing the phenomena in some kind of controlled laboratory: to suggest such is like saying a geologist needs to recreate the asteroid event that supposedly caused the iridium layer to form around the earth. In addition, you probably wouldn't make such an argument against astrophysicists who make claims about the generation of elements by s and p processes when stellar cores hundreds or millions of light-years away go supernova--just because they couldn't reproduce the collapse of a star somewhere here on earth.

Uh... they have to support those kinds of hypotheses with previously collected verified data and literal models, either mathematical or physical (computer), based on known data (new and old). Nobody just makes shit up off the top of their head and calls it a day. That was a strange statement on your end. Do you really think those people aren't required to substantiate their hypotheses?

There are plenty of examples in science where rare events occur and investigators develop hypotheses and continue their collection of observations. And when an event is not reproducible in the laboratory (again referencing your naive laboratory-centrism) they wait for another event to either corroborate or disrupt their previous observations

There is nothing that can't be modeled in a laboratory based on known data -- again, either mathematically or literally. When something is so anomalous that there is no previous data available, and data collection is otherwise impossible, nobody develops a real hypothesis. They record the information and wait for more data -- they can't even be sure that the occurrence was properly perceived without verifiable data, let along craft hypotheses regarding its nature.

Again you seem to confuse scientific investigation with laboratory science, as if such investigations sat comfortably within the domain of controlled setups that spit out reams of data neatly prepped and ready to be inserted into some paper.

And you seem to confuse scientific investigation with fiction writing and postulation. You seem to think people form hypotheses with no legitimate basis, like the example you provided, they don't. You seem to think that astrophysicists and geologists aren't required to substantiate their hypotheses with known data and models, but they are. You basically just seem to think science is this big speculation orgy that, occasionally, in certain fields, requires validation and experimentation, but it's not.