Shostak is truly Ignorant

[Tommy Allison]

Yes, you can. I have always given honest answers. I cannot help it if you do not agree with my answers.

David, what Shostak (and others) have said is technically correct, although it is very clumsily worded.

Pilots can be mistaken about what they see. Physicists can be mistaken about what they see. Photographers can be mistaken about what they see. Television Post Production Producers can be mistaken about what they see, etc., etc.

Everyone can be mistaken about what they see. That is just the way it goes. I believe that is what Seth was trying to say, but it is difficult to present that concept in a quick soundbite and when someone does it always appears as though the critic is attacking the credibility and experience of the observer and that makes the statement appear ridiculous.

-Derek

Essentially, there are no reliable witnesses.

Everyone can be mistaken. Everyone is fallible. Everyone could be potentially full of shit, it's simply a matter of timing that separates honesty, from dishonesty, fact from fiction.

Like if I tell David that I saw a UFO out the window of my house. It's dark, there's lights in the sky, it could be an airplane. Just like if I'm outside in broad daylight, with 50 other people looking up at a big large black triangle or disc shaped craft floating in the air, it could be anything.

Depending on who's telling you what they saw that is. I've come to the conclusion that so long as there is only a certain amount of truth that is allowed to hit the public's ears and eyes. 99 percent of the stuff we see and hear is utter bullshit. That one percent that we do hear, doesn't really create the wave of disgust or elation that it should, because we'd be all on an emotional roller coaster if every minute of the day we were bombarded by truth.

Truth about what government does. Truth about what people see in the sky. Truth about what is happening to the disappearing children of the world. The truth about so called man made Global Warming. The Fraudulent Banking and Mortgage crises, and of course, big oil's redistribution of American Wealth.

These are just a few things that we're never told the truth on. How are we supposed to believe in Conspiracy Theories, JFK, RFK, MLK, and of course Aliens From Another World?

When there are so many people in the media telling us all what to think every goddamned day of our lives, how are we supposed to draw our own conclusions if the truth never gets to us at all?

It's not important that we are told the truth, so long as we the people of the planet believe the truth that is given to us by so called experts, and authorities. Knowing the complete truth about something takes the magic and power away from it. Would you want to buy a book on Alien Abduction if people were telling the truth about it every day?

You can go to a book store, and all manner of alternative knowledge is right there for you to purchase, right beside the same authoratative bullshit that we see coming from the mainstream. Jesus Christ how many times have you seen the latest Ann Coulter, or Bill O'Reilly Book, right next to the same fucking Obama Hope Book, and various other propaganda books out there written to convolute your knowledge and turn you into a mouth-breathing troglodyte parrot?

I'm writing this, because seeing people talk about how people can be mistaken, is the same thing as saying that NOBODY can be right. If a witness says they saw something, and some fuckstick jackass like James McGaha says that it's military flares, then if the witness can be or is considered wrong, then the debunker must ALSO concede that they are wrong, or can be wrong.

Selective truth is what is wrong with the world. People say that we do not live in a black and white world, YES WE DO.

It's either true, or not true. Real or NOT REAL. It cannot be both, because if it is both, then it is NEITHER. Everything in this 2 dimensional world, is binary. It either is, or it is not.

People like Seth Shostak, for all their brilliance, are selective in their truths. They are, because their livelihoods depend on a certain amount of ambiguity, and that ambiguity is why they are paid to search for the truth. The same way that researchers are paid to search for a cure for Cancer. A disease that has been studied for how many 100's of years?

We will sooner find out if Jesus is coming back to redeem the faithful, than we will ever know the truth about Extra-Terrestrial Beings.

 

[Gareth]

Yes, you can. I have always given honest answers. I cannot help it if you do not agree with my answers.

David, what Shostak (and others) have said is technically correct, although it is very clumsily worded.

Pilots can be mistaken about what they see. Physicists can be mistaken about what they see. Photographers can be mistaken about what they see. Television Post Production Producers can be mistaken about what they see, etc., etc.

Everyone can be mistaken about what they see. That is just the way it goes. I believe that is what Seth was trying to say, but it is difficult to present that concept in a quick soundbite and when someone does it always appears as though the critic is attacking the credibility and experience of the observer and that makes the statement appear ridiculous.

-Derek

Errr, what?

Whats so hard about saying "Pilots, like all humans, are fallible. They sometimes make mistakes"?

When Shostak said "Pilots are not more qualified as a visual witness than Joe Blog", he was not saying what you tried to imply he was saying there.

Sorry.

 

[David Biedny]

Errr, what?

Whats so hard about saying "Pilots, like all humans, are fallible. They sometimes make mistakes"?

When Shostak said "Pilots are not more qualified as a visual witness than Joe Blog", he was not saying what you tried to imply he was saying there.

Sorry.

Gareth is exactly correct, Derek. You're making quite a leap, going from what Shostak has publicly stated to what you've just presented.

You better fucking HOPE that a pilot is a better observer of visual phenomena than an average citizen, especially if you're one of those kind of people that likes to fly and not die in the process. Get real.

dB

 

[derekcbart]

Gareth is exactly correct, Derek. You're making quite a leap, going from what Shostak has publicly stated to what you've just presented.

You better fucking HOPE that a pilot is a better observer of visual phenomena than an average citizen, especially if you're one of those kind of people that likes to fly and not die in the process. Get real.

dB

A better observer of natural phenomena perhaps, but a better observer of unnatural phenomena, perhaps not. There are pilots in the IIG and when this topic has come up in the past they have mentioned that most pilots of modern aircraft primarily fly by instrumentation and not by looking out the cockpit window. It is this disconnect that leads people to assume that pilots are better observers of all aerial phenomena when that is actually not the case.

Please understand that I am not saying that all pilots are mistaken in their observations, only that people are mistaken when believing that pilots are better observers of unnatural phenomena than non-pilots.

-Derek

 

[dhatz]

Arguing with any "dyed-in-the-wool" skeptic about UFOs, armed with the evidence which is available to the public today, is an exercise in futility.

What puzzles me the most however, is all those public opinion polls which show that about 50% of the people (ranges between 45% and 55% and is much higher among men) in USA think UFOs are real. If these numbers are anywhere close to being true, just can't explain today's sad state of UFO research and total lack of funding.

 

[Gareth]

Actually thats a good point Derekc. I wonder how much pilots DO just rely almost completely on instrumentation without looking out the window much.

Still, the fact remains they are up there in the air all the time. I still say they would be better observers of anything in the sky than the average person who isnt a pilot.

 

[AnnetteMarie]

...
What puzzles me the most however, is all those public opinion polls which show that about 50% of the people (ranges between 45% and 55% and is much higher among men) in USA think UFOs are real. If these numbers are anywhere close to being true, just can't explain today's sad state of UFO research and total lack of funding.

Think it might have something to do with the way media seems to pick the dumbest-sounding or weirdest-looking humans they can find and interview them on the sighting in question?

yu-huh, thar she was, over theren, jast lak I tol my wawf 'n the hounds they was howlin then jest ran scairt unner the shet... pause to spit out the hayseed here...

okay, I am exaggerating quite a bit, but I wonder why it is always the folks nobody else wants to be identified with that get the most media play, when the sober, upstanding citizen who looks like they have a normal psychological, educational or intellectual profile gets glossed over.

Or is it just me who thinks that?

 

[David Biedny]

A better observer of natural phenomena perhaps, but a better observer of unnatural phenomena, perhaps not. There are pilots in the IIG and when this topic has come up in the past they have mentioned that most pilots of modern aircraft primarily fly by instrumentation and not by looking out the cockpit window. It is this disconnect that leads people to assume that pilots are better observers of all aerial phenomena when that is actually not the case.

Please understand that I am not saying that all pilots are mistaken in their observations, only that people are mistaken when believing that pilots are better observers of unnatural phenomena than non-pilots.

-Derek

Huh? Exactly WHO is a qualified observer of unnatural phenomena? And what does that term mean, unnatural? NOT part of nature? Are you for real, Derek? I mean, I like you, you're a decent guy, but methinks that you're really, truly stretching the limits of credulity on this point. Are all the undiscovered species living on this planet unnatural, or simply a part of the natural world that we haven't discovered yet? When Kelly Johnson, the guy who was responsible for the development of many of the world's top secret aircraft, sees something that he states is beyond our technology, are you seriously going to try and claim that he was not qualified to make that statement? Because if so, you're every bit as bad as the doe-eyed space brother believers. Fundamentalism of any color is a sad thing.

dB

 

[derekcbart]

Huh? Exactly WHO is a qualified observer of unnatural phenomena? And what does that term mean, unnatural? NOT part of nature? Are you for real, Derek? I mean, I like you, you're a decent guy, but methinks that you're really, truly stretching the limits of credulity on this point. Are all the undiscovered species living on this planet unnatural, or simply a part of the natural world that we haven't discovered yet? When Kelly Johnson, the guy who was responsible for the development of many of the world's top secret aircraft, sees something that he states is beyond our technology, are you seriously going to try and claim that he was not qualified to make that statement? Because if so, you're every bit as bad as the doe-eyed space brother believers. Fundamentalism of any color is a sad thing.

dB

Well, here I've gone and done the thing I was trying to explain how to avoid. I have made this more muddled than I meant to. I think part of the problem is that due to my researching the Billy Meier case some people may think of me as a UFO investigator. I am not. The only UFO case that I have examined is the Meier case. I have only heard of some other cases and have never looked into them. Honestly, UFOs are not very interesting to me. I don't know who Kelly Johnson is, so I have no idea if he would be qualified or not and it is irresponsible of me to state something one way or the other because I have no details concerning the case.

All I was trying to say when I started replying to this thread is that everyone can make identification mistakes no matter what their experience or training and that people should not automatically put more weight to one person's statements just because of who that person is or what that person does. This is known as the Argument From Authority logical fallacy.

I think I will stop trying to explain this because I seem to just be making more and more foot in mouth mistakes.

Sorry.

-Derek

 

[CapnG]

All I was trying to say when I started replying to this thread is that everyone can make identification mistakes no matter what their experience or training and that people should not automatically put more weight to one person's statements just because of who that person is or what that person does. This is known as the Argument From Authority logical fallacy.

I get you Derek but what Shostak tends to do is present his own logical fallicy, namely the "if A=B then A ALWAYS =B" one (I forget the proper name at the moment). Yes, anyone can be mistaken in their observation but it doesn't always follow that they ARE. If someone sees a motionless metallic object nearby, floating silently in mid-air, then that's what see. The attempts of others to explain it away (and this is something I seem to be repeating lately) has no bearing on the reality of that occurance, it simply illustrates a preferencial bias for disbelief on the part of those skeptics.

 

[Gareth]

Kelly Johnson was Skunk Works, from Lockheed Martin I believe. Now THERES a guy id like to spend a day with on a long plane trip after the scotch had been flowing.

 

[dad2059]

Yup, ol' Uncle Seth knows which side his bread is buttered.

Nothing will change from his end because that's where the money is.

Ambiguity is essential for meme and monetary control.