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bison, on 08 February 2013 - 07:44 PM, said:
Other possible explanations? To be sure! It's their relative probability, based on our best knowledge, that appears to be of the essence.
I do not believe that for one second. You have made your mind up already, as is illustrated in the last line of this very post. It is easier to make a short wormhole than a larger one, and that being the case, if we ever could make a wormhole, then it seem likely we woud start with simpler solutions.
bison, on 08 February 2013 - 07:44 PM, said:
Noting the high improbability of the technological explanations, other than an ET space craft, it seems to boil down to this, or the witnesses were lying.
It does not boil down to that at all. Serious questions have been raised about the practicality of ET as an answer, but like the bodies you ETH'ers claim to despise, you do exactly the same thing, and consider alternate explanations an insult you your "undebunkable" case. Hell, that title say's more than enough!
You are offering Warp Hypothesis as an answer!
The main problem is that only exotic explanations have been considered at all. I guess it is in the ETH bloodline. The Prosaic has been dismissed, but on personal grounds, not one person has pointed out why it is impossible. If ET was indeed so much as a viable option here, then someone should be able to answer the question :
"What in Father Gill's Description can only be described as ET".
Until that can be answered, you are qualifying guesses with guesses, and pompously judging yourself to have found the answer.
bison, on 08 February 2013 - 07:44 PM, said:
Science seems to mistrust the eyewitness reports of unsanctioned observers from among the general public.
Not science, just results - actual proof. Science is a pursuit of knowledge, not the container of it.
The Innocence Project under the Global Griffith University has taken a sample of cases including Death Row candidates that were convicted by eyewitness testimony. Of these cases, 75% were overturned by DNA evidence. I am not sure how that is not seen as an alarming indicator that eyewitness testimony requires much more supportive evidence to be considered accurate. Some people had spent up to ten years in death row as a result of faulty testimony, I shudder to think how many have perished for the same.
It's all at the Griffith IP Website if you care to look.
They are real numbers, and dealing with real lives. Considering the results to date, it seems more than foolish to accept any testimony as entirely faultless.
bison, on 08 February 2013 - 07:44 PM, said:
It appears that meteorites were kept out of the scientific canon for some time, because it seemed more likely that the witnesses made it all up, than that rocks fell from the sky.
Same thing the Cryptozoologists say about the Gorilla. Such an arrogant stance, the above of course is not true at all, that is the view of Western Science only, ancient Greece recognised rocks as coming form the sky, and in fact worshiped them because of just that. Visitors to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, for example, reported that a stone, reputed to have fallen from the sky, was on display there and each day was anointed by the resident priests.
So the ancient Greeks knew that stones could, and did, fall from the sky. They used observation, common sense and the genuine power of reason to establish this. Rocks and stones that fell to the ground were not really falling stars they reasoned, because the celestial population of stars remained the same.
Aristotle, however, the great Greek philosopher, was one who thought he had debunked this concept. He thought that rocks could not fall from the sky because the heavens were perfect and could not possibly have loose pieces floating around to fall to Earth. Aristotle was forced to change his position somewhat after a meteorite fell at Thrace near Aegospotami. He reasoned that strong winds had lifted an earth rock into the sky, then dropped it. Other learned men of the time favoured an alternate theory. They held that meteorites somehow formed in the sky during violent thunderstorms, suggesting that particles inside the clouds consolidated because of the heat during a lighting flash. For this reason the rocks were sometimes referred to as thunderstones. Exotic explanations as a springboard back to an answer Greeks already had. This is where the refraction hypothesis again should be considered as opposed to immediately dismissed without reasoning.
Despite the varying views, a consensus was somehow arrived at. Being a temporary phenomenon, it was agreed, shooting stars had to be something within the atmosphere. These objects were therefore named Meteors meaning 'things in the air'. The idea that stones can fall out of the sky was also denounced by the Académie Française des Sciences, Europe's leading rational authority as an unscientific absurdity. This was a mindset that continued to propagate, and that is why we do not have hardly any meteorites that predate 1790.
But you lot do not see yourselves like the Académie, do you? But look at your last sentence in this post. You have the answer, whilst I admit to still guessing.
But even they had to succumb to Physical Evidence. It was not some fringe developer that unraveled the mystery, far from it, on the night of the 26th of April 1803 the people of L'Aigle were woken by the thunderous noise of more than 2000 rocks falling from the sky. This undeniable display of meteorites also woke up the Académie Française who were compelled to take notice. They appointed a commission to investigate the event, the result of which was finally a reluctant admission that stones could indeed fall from the sky. And thusly Western Science was brought up to speed. Many Ancient hypotheses managed to see the light of day, once one was allowed to consider such without the help of God, such as is the case here. If we are ever allowed to consider the case as not having ET as a component, who knows, maybe an answer might even be obtainable.
I see such ambiguous comments as purposefully trying to undermine science, and it's valuable results. I see such often from the ETH side of the fence. I do not feel such tactics are honorable. Such ambiguous prose however, does have a remarkable impact in the ignorant.
bison, on 08 February 2013 - 07:44 PM, said:
I wonder what our descendants will say about this sort of dismissal of extraterrestrial craft, having the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. hmm.
In November of 1492, a 280-pound meteorite fell in a wheat field near the village of Ensisheim, France. A young boy witnessed it and led the townspeople to a three-foot deep crater where it lay. The people thought the object to be of supernatural origin.
Indeed, however, I see it being a hallmark of the credulous. Those who could not think beyond ET. As we develop, and make contact, I expect many mirthful realisations as the current ETH comes undone. There are people with qualifications that actually are beneficial to such studies, and whom have a true insight that excludes the pop culture mindset propagated by 1950's novelists. They are pointing the way this will unfold, not the Frank Kimbler's of the world. I would pay money to time travel to see the current ETH in antiquity. I think it would be a wonderful and hearty belly laugh.
Good to know you have this one answered though, my arrogant approach has only resulted in many options. Which I completely believe the UFO phenomena to be, a number of things, and not just one explain all answer for every recorded event in antiquity.
Edited by psyche101, 11 February 2013 - 01:14 AM.
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