Scientist Explains Why UFO's Are Not Investigated

[Steve Zalewski]

Thank you Ufology,

Notice how Lance shut up when he could not refute what was stated to him. I spoke at Cornell and my data gathering started in 1975 and ended in 1994. If Lance read the letters Thompson wrote I know they would have shaken him up really hard. It took a while, but notice how your comments, and biography reference and my data references eventually did shutup another UFO Debunker, so I guess doing extremely, extremely high quality research does work. Thank You again. Note, NO debunker has adequately refuted any of my posting titled Shutting Up UFO Debunkers. Go to google and punch in the title in the search field. It should come up. Today, I added a section to the posting on Thompson's professional and scientific accomplishments.

Steve Zalewski, Syracuse, NY

 

[Michael Allen]

This is such a dumb argument (which is why I am out). It's like saying that Sagan believed in Santa Claus. Maybe he did when he was 4

Funny bit of self-deprecating humor there, Lance*. Those two are not equivalent...and at any rate Steve isn't presenting an argument--but a (as it appears to him) a fact. An argument is what you are proposing -- and a bad one at that**, because it appears to dwell on associations that were made up by the very same group of individuals who continue to tar UFO with the same brush as they do with religious superstition, occult, spiritualism, and magic. Well, if you are going to go that route, at least do it intelligently and familiarize yourself some of Vallee's works (I suspect you have) beginning with his Passport to Magonia (actually come to think of it, you've probably already read it...since I think you're the kind of person who actually spends time looking over the materials you are going to debunk).

Actually, I've done the same. For instance, I find Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World to be quite fascinating (in a good way) and perhaps everyone in this forum should read it and internalize the differences between good and bad science and perhaps familiarize themselves with Sagan's own fallacies when he throws the baby out with the bathwater. One quote I like in particular--my commentary in brackets:

Now the idea of higher dimensions did not arise from the brow of UFOlogy or the New Age [he can't help himself, he has to set the jurors up to tar everything via guilt by association, but nevertheless, its a good point!] . Instead, it is part and parcel of the physics of the twentieth century. Since Einstein's general relativity, a truism of cosmology is that space-time is bent or curved through a higher physical dimension. Kaluza-Klein theory posits an eleven-dimensional universe. Mack [the late American psychiatrist who studied patients who claimed to be abductees] presents a thoroughly scientific idea as the key to "phenomena" beyond the reach of science. . . [skipping ahead] What Mack really means when he talks about beings from other dimensions is that--despite his patients' occasional descriptions of their experiences as dreams and hallucinations [this is false, but Sagan has a point coming up]--he hasn't the foggiest notion of what they are. But, tellingly, when he tries to describe them, he reaches for physics and mathematics [I have several of Mack's books, I'd like to see where this is...but I would cede it anyhow, since it would be natural to point out the similarities in the experiences as such, even if one is not an expert in the field in question] ​

This is a good point--too many people in the UFO community throw around the word "dimensions" like a semiotic tramp, attaching it to notions which are as far from removed from the scientific and mathematical understanding as the notion of Santa Claus and possible ET visitors from other worlds are from each other (well, again if you want to go that route, Vallee has pretty much set the standard on that effort--good luck).

That being said, I won't make any claims about Sagan and his supposed "beliefs" in UFOs, since his own works (the one I quoted above) show outright where he's placed his bets.


Footnote:
* Ok, I said "self-deprecating" -- what on earth could I mean, right? Well it sounded like the famous Mike Myers line: "There are two things I cannot stand in the world: (1) Intolerance (2) ... and the Dutch!!"

**Which one is it by the way? equivocation? Bad metaphor or simile?----I don't know...you're supposed to be the brilliant mind that knows all the latin fallacies by heart.

 

[Michael Allen]

That must be why he is "out of this thread". Lance and I have had more than one exchange in the past and his tactic when faced with solid information that contradicts his position has been to withdraw, usually after making some flippant comment. His response to my comment on Sagan is yet another example. Sagan was an adult in College at the time he expressed his pro UFO views, not child who naively believed in Santa Claus.

Yeah well I cannot for one think that anyone "coming out" is going to change any minds...if they had to admit that Sagan (for whatever reason in his youth) entertained the notion of ET visitation or equivalently the pro-UFO views which may have amounted to simply taking the stance that the phenomenon was in dire need of more study--even such admissions or revelations wouldn't necessarily mean anything to a stauch skeptic who may have other (probably personal--i.e. chip on their shoulders or some axe to grind) reasons for continuing their cavalier dismissals of the same. More likely they would move on to say something like "well then you are arguing from authority" which would also have the irony of attenuating the effect of their former repeated cackles demanding "proof" from peer-reviewed scientific journals.

I think they are dead set against the notion--and there may be good evolutionary reasons to suppose this; as the very beings underlying this discussion of anomalous aerial phenomena under possible intelligent control--taking the ETH stance for the moment if they exist--may think of us as nothing more than food.

 

[Michael Allen]

I didn't listen to the videos but from what I read - and on first blush - I can see the point. It makes sense. Science is about natural phenomena and the replication of that phenomena - and if UFOs are artificial why would one 'study' them.
.

Well, Tyger, if that's what "they" said, then I must say they are completely out of touch with reality. There are scientific fields that study artificial phenomena--archeology and ethnography for instance.

 

[Steve Zalewski]

September 4, 2013

To Paracast Members,

I made an updated section about Dr. W. Reid Thompson's scientific and professional background, it should be on page 3 of this series of postings. I also added a section on his professional and scientific accomplishments on the Shutting Up UFO Debunkers posting.
Steve Zalewski,
Syracuse, NY

 

[Goggs Mackay]

To Ufology,

I forgot to mention that debunkers, skeptics, and pseudoskeptics attack the people when they can't refute the data. It has been an hour or more and now Lance has not responded. It is also interesting, how debunkers, pseudoskeptics and skeptics view science as a type of religion. Some people who are skeptics have also developed a "scientific thought police" mentality and that they act like they know what is best for everyone else. Thank you again, for your great rebuttal about Sagan in that biography. Maybe your comments shook him up.
Steve Zalewski, Syracuse, NY

I like bringing up the cases that the debunkers avoid outright. They find it hard to accept any case without an obvious mundane explanation. They will pounce onto any case with a weak link but we all know there are cases that seem to have none. They aren't shouting from the rafters about those cases are they? (or when they do, they use the 'any explanation will do in the absence of an obvious one' line).

 

[Steve Zalewski]

September 4, 2013

When J. Allen Hynek spoke in Syracuse, in April 1980, some members of the local astronomy club called him a fraud.

His response was this:
"We are so far from knowing all the forces of nature, and the various modes of their actions, that it is not worthy of a philosopher to deny the existence of a phenomena only because they are inexplicable in the present state of our knowlege, the harder it to acknowlege the existence of phenomena the more we are obligated to investigate them with increasing care."
J. Allen Hynek, morning
lecture, Onondaga Community College,
Syracuse, NY 4/9/80

 

[Michael Allen]

September 4, 2013

When J. Allen Hynek spoke in Syracuse, in April 1980, some members of the local astronomy club called him a fraud.

His response was this:
"We are so far from knowing all the forces of nature, and the various modes of their actions, that it is not worthy of a philosopher to deny the existence of a phenomena only because they are inexplicable in the present state of our knowlege, the harder it to acknowlege the existence of phenomena the more we are obligated to investigate them with increasing care."
J. Allen Hynek, morning
lecture, Onondaga Community College,
Syracuse, NY 4/9/80

Well, as far as they were concerned he was a fraud...

Anyone who shows that science is really looking into phenomenon and doing investigative (i.e. real) work will appear to be "fraudulently passing science as some kind of subversive mechanism against established know-how(!!)" To a club member, anything as subversive as real open-minded investigation was a monstrosity that needed to be put down--clubs, by definition are groups of people who think they've figured everything out. You'd do well to avoid them.

 

[Steve Zalewski]

September 4, 2013

To Michael Allen,

Hynek back then told the Syracuse Astronomical Society members who called him a fraud, he stated that he studied UFOs scientifically and that their criticisms were based on their own ignorance, and he made the statement I quoted above. Some UFO debunkers, pseudoskeptics, and skeptics manage to "explain" many UFO reports without interviewing witnesses or doing any case investigations. These people "rant and rave" about how science is SUPPOSED to operate, but they don't practice what they preach.

Thank you for your comments. Is it just me or do some "debunkers, pseudoskeptics, and skeptics" act like know it alls, who are NEVER WRONG ABOUT ANYTHING? Thank you again for your comments.

Steve Zalewski,
Syracuse, NY

 

[Ezechiel]

Great quote from Leslie Kean facebook wall :

"The main purpose of science is to investigate the unexplained, not to explain the uninvestigated."
(Frank Friedrich Kling).

 

[flipper]

Adnan Zuberi I believe has some very interesting insights for those interested in talking to scientists about UFOs. Some will need to get by the subject that Adnan Zuberi discussed with the professors in his films which is 911. Nevertheless he tells the story of how hard facts were rejected by the professors. He suggests another approach on how we might get people to listen to us, on any subject, including scientists:

 

[flipper]

Adnan Zuberi I believe has some very interesting insights for those interested in talking to scientists about UFOs. Some will need to get by the subject that Adnan Zuberi discussed with the professors in his films which is 911. Nevertheless he tells the story of how hard facts were rejected by the professors. He suggests another approach on how we might get people to listen to us, on any subject, including scientists:

The film itself:

 

[darka1404]

Ok not sure about this the film seems to be abit off or am I missing some thing.

 

[flipper]

Ok not sure about this the film seems to be abit off or am I missing some thing.

Off in what way?

 

[darka1404]

I don't think the facts so called line up

 

[flipper]

I don't think the facts so called line up

There used to be a TVO program called The Polk Dot Door. Children liked it because rather than than the flashy pizazz of Sesame Street which excited children, it relaxed and calmed them. They learned in the calm atmosphere. The point of the original post with Adnan Zuberi by professor Tracy, for our purposes, was how to reach scientist about UFOs. The most important part of the interview was that academics were resistant to hard facts. Therefore he made a quiet film that professors could consider in the privacy or their homes. As we try to think how to reach scientist about studying UFOs we might listen to him Adnan Zuberi about how to approach them, or make a film like his.

 

[flipper]

There used to be a TVO program called The Polk Dot Door. Children liked it because rather than than the flashy pizazz of Sesame Street which excited children, it relaxed and calmed them. They learned in the calm atmosphere. The point of the original post with Adnan Zuberi by professor Tracy, for our purposes, was how to reach scientist about UFOs. The most important part of the interview was that academics were resistant to hard facts. Therefore he made a quiet film that professors could consider in the privacy or their homes. As we try to think how to reach scientist about studying UFOs we might listen to him Adnan Zuberi about how to approach them, or make a film like his.

 

[dyingsun]