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

[Burnt State]

I think fear is responsible for a lot of distortion in our lives. I loved the image you rendered of what you saw and will reply to that there because of some of the similar themes we share. Very interesting - I really like childhood history and related visions. Seems like the imagination tap gets turned down faster the older we get.

 

[Randall]

Like I said, I'm aware of the ins and outs of the Sagan conspiracy. There's no legitimate evidence to suggest that Sagan believed that UFO's were the product of alien visitation beyond word of mouth and the examination of correspondence he had had with certain figures and colleagues that avoids the application of everything he's ever said, ever ...

Your comment is the first I've heard of any "Sagan Conspiracy". But since you're all aware of the "ins and outs" and don't think the authors of his biography provided "legitimate evidence", please provide the references that you believe provide sufficient evidence to dispute the author's claims ... something beyond beyond your mere opinion. Otherwise there isn't enough reason for anyone to believe you instead of them.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

Actually, screw my original reply. I don't care.

Think what you will. Read how you will.

I realized I don't really care as much as I originally thought.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

Very interesting - I really like childhood history and related visions. Seems like the imagination tap gets turned down faster the older we get.

Responsibility ends up using up a lot of your deliberate thinking as you get older. I still yield to flights of fancy for the things I have decided to do as a career(s), which includes speaking as characters through dialogue to see how it sounds, but I don't spend all day running in circles acting out the cartoons in my head, sadly. I am, however, still a fan of the Ninja Turtles and am thoroughly enjoying the new CG show.

The pueblo church wall memory was somewhat more mundane. There was a circular crack in the clay wall. It pounded like a heart beat. There were voices behind it. I just stared at it for a minute or so until my mom came to see where the hell I was (I wondered off a lot as a kid). I remember trying to tell her what I was looking at, but the crack in the wall was less impressive and it wasn't pounding. She said we weren't allowed where I was, and then we went back to everyone else.

I vaguely remember having the impression that there was possibly construction being done at the site, but I don't have a very clear memory of whether or not I actually saw that or if that was my first impression of seeing a pounding wall.

 

[Burnt State]

Responsibility ends up using up a lot of your deliberate thinking as you get older. I still yield to flights of fancy for the things I have decided to do as a career(s)...(I wondered off a lot as a kid). I remember trying to tell her what I was looking at...

To quote Biedni, "Here's the thing...," divergent thinking is educated right out of us a la Pink Floyd meat grinder approach to education. I know; as an educator who tries to employ creative and dynamic ways to engage youth, you can see how imagination has been bled dry out of many of them. Consumerism certainly doesn't help, neither does technology.

I remember as a child having many more magical moments, with peers (shared visions) and alone. I remember in nursery school sitting alone outside on a large concrete sewage pipe section. All the other kids were inside or heading there. Behind me was a twenty foot deep field backed by a marginal forest. From across the field someone was calling me by name, beckoning me to the forest. I stayed there entranced listening to something calling my name in an unfamiliar voice. I was scared and riveted. An adult came to get me. There was no one behind me. I remember growing up with a fascination for the 'unreal' experience with the majority of them happening before 11. There were some surreal oujia experiences in the late teens, but after that, unnatural phenomenon would rarely visit my senses ever again.

I still remember bursting into the front door, 11 years old, messed with snow from racing across the front yard's deep drifts, with my hockey stick in hand, screaming, "Mom! Mom! I just saw a UFO, two of them!"

I miss those days.

 

[PCarr]

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.

I'm not willfully ignoring anything. I alos didn't gloss over your previous posts - just failed to find them at all persuasive.

Science fraud is a red herring. Science is a human endeavor and there will always problems in the short term. No one is more outspoken about these issues (publication bias, replication failure, etc.) than the scientists themselves, and we wouldn't even KNOW about these problems if weren;t for scientists speaking up. Whatever problems science has, it doesn't mean there is another way of knowing that is superior or even equal to science. We have to work with the best we have, warts and and all.

 

[Michael Allen]

There can never be anything better than science; because scientific methods will sift out the best available explanation for a given phenomena at a given moment and when wrong will declare its ignorance and begin the process for looking for a better explanation. Thusthe only way to deter science is to become clinically insane and fall into obscurity. There is no other option.

Anyhow, back to what Pcarr said...I don't think Ufology was implying there were alternative methods for obtaining knowledge over science.

 

[Randall]

I'm not willfully ignoring anything. I alos didn't gloss over your previous posts - just failed to find them at all persuasive.

Science fraud is a red herring. Science is a human endeavor and there will always problems in the short term. No one is more outspoken about these issues (publication bias, replication failure, etc.) than the scientists themselves, and we wouldn't even KNOW about these problems if weren;t for scientists speaking up. Whatever problems science has, it doesn't mean there is another way of knowing that is superior or even equal to science. We have to work with the best we have, warts and and all.

There's no "red herring" here. If "No one is more outspoken about these issues [fraud in science] than the scientists", then why did they try to suppress the owner of the Science Fraud website with legal threats? It's a simple fact that skeptics have a habit of portraying science as infallible when it's not, while at the same time portraying everything else as illegitimate when it's not. Also, the assertion that we "wouldn't even know about the frauds in science if it weren't for the scientists" is erroneous. Often we only learn about the frauds after people have suffered as a result of their fraudulent work and had to hire lawyers to get compensation, and in those cases the "scientists" are typically far from accommodating.

Lastly, when you say, "Whatever problems science has, it doesn't mean there is another way of knowing that is superior or even equal to science." you're missing the point entirely. It is not a rational argument that because the "ideal of science" is better than the "frauds of the alternative" that everything else besides science is wrong. It's not. It's time to admit that there are other rational methods besides science, particularly critical thinking, that can help us determine how reasonable something is to believe, and that when we apply critical thinking to some of these topics, there are very good reasons to grant validity to many of the firsthand experiences of people who we have little or no reason to believe are frauds.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

And now, you guys have reached the end of the paranormal debate rainbow; the point to which all such debates lead -- science vs. whatever else.

Ufology has a personal belief regarding science. Before this moves into the next phase, ask yourselves how sane it is to debate personal beliefs. If it sounds sane, then have fun.

Personally, I don't see why anyone would care, outside of a simple sharing of views. A debate isn't that.

I was somewhat tricked into such a debate, though not intentionally (I don't think). It's a very stupid, tedious debate. Arguing worldview is the worst thing you can do in this space.

 

[Burnt State]

Worldviews are the only thing that gets argued around here. Linguistic poop throwing only serves to hyperinflate the debates. Science as a primary way of knowing so quickly aims to defeat the many other ways of knowing and becomes boring almost as fast. What we really need is more clinically insane people providing imaginative alternatives. Where's Antonin Artaud when you need him?

Probably busy sniffing up all that afterlife cocaine.

 

[Randall]

... Ufology has a personal belief regarding science. Before this moves into the next phase, ask yourselves how sane it is to debate personal beliefs. If it sounds sane, then have fun ...

Implying that "personal beliefs" lack substance, and compounding the problem by posing innuendos about mental health, is not valid counterpoint. At best it just another one of those passive aggressive flames that serves as a weak attempt to derail the line of reasoning. Unfortunately it didn't work. Everyone has "personal beliefs" ... so what? That's not the problem. The problem is when those beliefs aren't supported by reasonable evidence.

 

[Burnt State]

Implying that "personal beliefs" lack substance, and compounding the problem by posing innuendos about mental health, is not valid counterpoint. At best it just another one of those passive aggressive flames that serves as a weak attempt to derail the line of reasoning. Unfortunately it didn't work. Everyone has "personal beliefs" ... so what? That's not the problem. The problem is when those beliefs aren't supported by reasonable evidence.

For the record, my own firm personal belief is that we need to stop interfering with highly unique mental experiences by drugging people into 'sanity' or even health. I would much rather see society treat each other with more compassion and less labeling of alternative states of mental experience. Recent studies show one in five children experience auditory hallucinations, though the generally accepted stat is 1 in 10. Is that abnormal or just normal? So I would rather see creative thought be given an opportunity to participate in society and in the debate that is humanity working to define reality.

As for that thing we call science, I agree with this part of Michael Allen's thinking: science does readily declare its ignorance but only when it's not busy declaring what it arrogantly knows. What's that turn of the century quote fom the patent office? "Everything that's been invented is all there is - there's nothing more to discover." I paraphrase here but you get the gist.

On this forum there's no real agreed objective reality, except for one that is about shared belief. And when in debate it's my science vs. your science vs. my ontology etc. And in this way it really is about belief and rhetoric. Science, can't prove or disprove anthropomorphic global warming any more than you can prove the ETH. You bring your scientists and I'll bring mine, but all they can do is rock and roll. Reasonable evidence is just something that exists in the eye of the beholder, unless we are going to go into the lab together.

While I woud like nothing better than for science to explain this whole UFO thing, it seems that decades later all we have to show for it is James E. McDonald's suicide, some creative theories from Vallee and Clark's analysis of experience anomalies. The rest is silence.

 

[Randall]

... While I woud like nothing better than for science to explain this whole UFO thing, it seems that decades later all we have to show for it is James E. McDonald's suicide, some creative theories from Vallee and Clark's analysis of experience anomalies. The rest is silence.

Some thoughtful commentary in the rest of that post as well. The scientific community remains silent largely out of fear for their reputations and more pressing paying tasks. But outside the scientific community, it's anything but silent. I just saw that Discovery channel is broadcasting yet another alien docufiction/docudrama/whatever. This time it looks like the focus is on abductions. Let's just hope the nose-cams don't get any closer than they already are or the audience will be the ones who find the implants first.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

Implying that "personal beliefs" lack substance, and compounding the problem by posing innuendos about mental health, is not valid counterpoint. At best it just another one of those passive aggressive flames that serves as a weak attempt to derail the line of reasoning. Unfortunately it didn't work. Everyone has "personal beliefs" ... so what? That's not the problem. The problem is when those beliefs aren't supported by reasonable evidence.

Like often, I haven't a clue what you're talking about. My assumption is that this is the result of some kind of misunderstanding.

I'll try again.

I think it's insane to argue worldview -- to argue a subjective concept, as if it were objectively quantifiable. I think it is stupid and empty to do it.

Your specific view is not insane. I don't really see how you arrived at the conclusion that that is what I was saying. Someone arguing with you regarding the validity of your personal beliefs vs the validity of their own is insane.

Personal beliefs are, by definition and grammatical context, subjective in nature. You can't argue the subjective, as there's no point of reference for emotional or intellectual context. You can share personal belieffs, and those conversations can have tremendous value. You can only argue items and ideas with objective frame of reference.

If you guys disagree that arguing the subjective as if it were objective is insane, then, as I said, have fun.

 

[Burnt State]

Some thoughtful commentary in the rest of that post as well. The scientific community remains silent largely out of fear for their reputations and more pressing paying tasks. But outside the scientific community, it's anything but silent. I just saw that Discovery channel is broadcasting yet another alien docufiction/docudrama/whatever. This time it looks like the focus is on abductions. Let's just hope the nose-cams don't get any closer than they already are or the audience will be the ones who find the implants first.

Perhaps I was letting the closing quote to Hamlet out of the bag too early. I find the majority of the writers and researchers and field workers to be too filled with the noise and chaos of unfounded speculation and bunk. It seems to me that my own affinity for Ufology to be more rooted in the writings, theories and research of previous eras. It's part nostalgia and part obscure tales that combined with the raw arguing of investigation in a cold war/post cold war era to produce some fascinating stories and ideas. I find a lot of what's on tv to only confirm our collective social desire for paranormal narratives, hence a lot of the noisy crap you have to wade through to get to those gems of researched stories.

 

[Randall]

Like often, I haven't a clue what you're talking about. My assumption is that this is the result of some kind of misunderstanding.

I'll try again.

I think it's insane to argue worldview -- to argue a subjective concept, as if it were objectively quantifiable. I think it is stupid and empty to do it.

Your specific view is not insane. I don't really see how you arrived at the conclusion that that is what I was saying. Someone arguing with you regarding the validity of your personal beliefs vs the validity of their own is insane.

Personal beliefs are, by definition and grammatical context, subjective in nature. You can't argue the subjective, as there's no point of reference for emotional or intellectual context. You can share personal belieffs, and those conversations can have tremendous value. You can only argue items and ideas with objective frame of reference.

If you guys disagree that arguing the subjective as if it were objective is insane, then, as I said, have fun.

So, if we don't agree with you then we can all go have fun being insane. Gee thanks. Glad you cleared that up. While I'm doing that ( having fun being insane ), perhaps you might want to reflect on the personal belief someone once had that it would be possible to build machines that could travel under the water, or through the air. Consider how that personal belief affected their worldview, especially of the future. Consider how it seemed "insane" to some people, but that in reality, it was those who lacked the vision to see that worldview who held the most subjective and unconstructive opinions of all.

 

[ProphetofOccam]

No, I'd much rather pat you on the head and walk away.

Have fun -- submarines and such.

 

[Burnt State]

One of the more interesting rhythms of this forum is the wonderful reparte that Prophet and ufology have with one another. Sometimes when I read through your exchanges I feel like you're an old married couple, just repeating those old familiar conversational rhythms. Then at other times you remind me of Statler and Waldorf, those two old guys from the muppet show up in the balcony box. I always thought that they stole the show with their biting sarcasm, general wit and sense of invention.

Thanks.

I tried hard to find the, "Boo! Boo! Worst Apocalypse Ever!" meme but I could not scrape it off the net anywhere.

 

[manxman]

this was a great thread ta.

warra plumb that geezer occam is tho.

 

[Burnt State]

Sometimes I feel like I need my Isle of Man Slang Handbook guide in order to translate Manxman, but then I just remember to channel Gef, and it all makes sense.