Posted 17 December 2008 - 12:15 PM
'The Skeptologists' - have gone out of their way this week to pick on ufology
First things first: "pick on" makes it sound like the nasty ol' sceptics - sorry, skeptics - are bullying poor little ufology, the beastly people.
If ufology fancies itself a science - which I hope any reasonable ufologist would agree that it's not, despite its label - then it's expected to be able to take care of itself. Like all science, if it's challenged, it should have ways to rebut those challenges. The main way in which ufology can do this is by pointing out that, regardless of what sceptics think, people have always seen, and I suspect will continue to see, UFOs. By which is meant 'Unidentified Flying Objects'.
Of course, many ufologists don't see them as mere 'unidentified objects'. They see them instead as alien spacecraft - and
that's why ufology has a problem with sceptics. Sceptics can't honestly deny that these things are seen - although many try - but after that, it's presumptions all round. Advocates of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis
presume that they're aliens, and build all their subsequent reasoning and actions on that premise ("Million Fax on Washington", anyone?). Sceptics
presume that they're all weather balloons, or the Moon reflecting off ducks; and based on that presumption they form their assessment of the loonies and nutballs who don't share their supposed 'rationalism'. Rationalism that all too often consists of dismissing possibilities out of hand simply because they're unknown or unrecognised by existing scientific models.
Each side has its dogma, and it's the conflict of that dogma that causes the trouble. Even the arguments used are contrived. Ufologists love to compare themselves with Galileo, or other misunderstood geniuses, based on a spectacularly bad leap of logic: "They persecuted and mocked Galileo, and he was right. So because they laugh at us, we must also be right."
Sceptics laugh at ufology for many reasons. Key amongst those reasons is the fact that a sceptic is a stubborn creature, prone to disbelief, while the ufologist is more credulous (or, as they prefer to say, 'open-minded'), and prone to belief. That's simple enough. A sceptic often won't entertain a notion until there's evidence. That in itself isn't unreasonable - in fact, it's very reasonable. That approach is the reason we no longer live in a superstitious dark age, so hurray for it. But the problem is often that despite the sceptic's demand for 'objective evidence', what s/he's really looking for is evidence that s/he finds
personally convincing. That often goes with an iron-hard conviction that their approach makes them more intelligent than deluded or stupid believers; and that in turn can feed an arrogance that alienates the very people the sceptic should surely find most valuable: the people who've experienced these things and who can provide evidence, albeit probably anecdotal.
Not that ufologists are squeaky-clean in the arrogance department either: I've seen too many put themselves on a pedestal, convinced that they're the intellectual elite, and that everyone else seems to be sleepwalking through life oblivious to the conspiracies going on around them. How many times have I seen UFO enthusiasts telling people to "WAKE UP" (or, worse, using the worn-out word "sheeple")?
I think the key to mutual understanding would be to have sceptics loosen up a little and at least consider the possibility that their methods might not be the be-all and end-all of knowledge; and for ufologists to start asking a few more questions before buying eagerly into every piece of tenuous 'evidence' that someone presents them with. (And if you , said:
'The Skeptologists' - have gone out of their way this week to pick on ufology
First things first: "pick on" makes it sound like the nasty ol' sceptics - sorry, skeptics - are bullying poor little ufology, the beastly people.
If ufology fancies itself a science - which I hope any reasonable ufologist would agree that it's not, despite its label - then it's expected to be able to take care of itself. Like all science, if it's challenged, it should have ways to rebut those challenges. The main way in which ufology can do this is by pointing out that, regardless of what sceptics think, people have always seen, and I suspect will continue to see, UFOs. By which is meant 'Unidentified Flying Objects'.
Of course, many ufologists don't see them as mere 'unidentified objects'. They see them instead as alien spacecraft - and
that's why ufology has a problem with sceptics. Sceptics can't honestly deny that these things are seen - although many try - but after that, it's presumptions all round. Advocates of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis
presume that they're aliens, and build all their subsequent reasoning and actions on that premise ("Million Fax on Washington", anyone?). Sceptics
presume that they're all weather balloons, or the Moon reflecting off ducks; and based on that presumption they form their assessment of the loonies and nutballs who don't share their supposed 'rationalism'. Rationalism that all too often consists of dismissing possibilities out of hand simply because they're unknown or unrecognised by existing scientific models.
Each side has its dogma, and it's the conflict of that dogma that causes the trouble. Even the arguments used are contrived. Ufologists love to compare themselves with Galileo, or other misunderstood geniuses, based on a spectacularly bad leap of logic: "They persecuted and mocked Galileo, and he was right. So because they laugh at us, we must also be right."
Sceptics laugh at ufology for many reasons. Key amongst those reasons is the fact that a sceptic is a stubborn creature, prone to disbelief, while the ufologist is more credulous (or, as they prefer to say, 'open-minded'), and prone to belief. That's simple enough. A sceptic often won't entertain a notion until there's evidence. That in itself isn't unreasonable - in fact, it's very reasonable. That approach is the reason we no longer live in a superstitious dark age, so hurray for it. But the problem is often that despite the sceptic's demand for 'objective evidence', what s/he's really looking for is evidence that s/he finds
personally convincing. That often goes with an iron-hard conviction that their approach makes them more intelligent than deluded or stupid believers; and that in turn can feed an arrogance that alienates the very people the sceptic should surely find most valuable: the people who've experienced these things and who can provide evidence, albeit probably anecdotal.
Not that ufologists are squeaky-clean in the arrogance department either: I've seen too many put themselves on a pedestal, convinced that they're the intellectual elite, and that everyone else seems to be sleepwalking through life oblivious to the conspiracies going on around them. How many times have I seen UFO enthusiasts telling people to "WAKE UP" (or, worse, using the worn-out word "sheeple")?
I think the key to mutual understanding would be to have sceptics loosen up a little and at least consider the possibility that their methods might not be the be-all and end-all of knowledge; and for ufologists to start asking a few more questions before buying eagerly into every piece of tenuous 'evidence' that someone presents them with. (And if you think that last is unfair, just do a search on 'Penetrating Photographic Process'. I rest my case.)
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exsqueeze me??
Extreme skepticism is not a new phenomenon. Galileo could not get a single one of his fellow faculty members from the
