Science is there to Explore the unexplained, NOT to explain the unexplored.

Please keep that in mind people

A thread started from my sig! Well...kinda.

Cool.

you have a pretty awesome Sig then! haha

But seriously, i honestly think there are people on here that are prolly getting paid to spread dis info and piss all of us off.

I know this was happenening over abovetopsecret.com, so i dont doubt that happening here.

Isnt that what skeptics do when they are not assuming UFO's to be alien spacecrafts?

So if some of us don't take unsubstantiated claims, incomplete data and conjecture as proof of ET visition, that makes us paid Government Disinformation agents (sorry MID)?

Cheers,
Badeskov

That's OK Bade...

Welcome to the ranks of GDAs (some of us are paid!!!!!!)

I am still awaiting my first paycheck (albeit I was told when I signed up that the work carried the reward in itself...I should have known, sigh)...

Cheers,
Badeskov

Oh dear, did someone say something you didn't like?! Quick, close down all the fora lest midtown run across another idea he doesn't agree with!

--Jaylemurph

I shall assume (since the thread is titled so as to address "skeptics" (i.e. those who refuse to accept less than scientific rigor regarding the existence of Aliens)), that this implies that "skeptics" are attempting the latter (explaining the unexplored).


Not at all.
If you read carefully, "skeptics" by-and-large are insisting on the use of a particular method, based on actions instituted as the result of observations which serve to substantiate hypotheses.


This has nothing to do with belief. It has to do with science and its method. As pertains to UFOs and alien associations, there has been no such activity...only speculations without evidence...

Science is about exploring the unexplained. We'd love for the UFO enthusiast to illustrate that they are doing that. So far, what they are doing is exactly and precisely attemting to explain the unexplored...without evidence.

MID, I think this is the crux of the matter - so called believers (or the people selling DVDs/books) seem more than happy to label many UFOs as ET visitation, which is basically explaining the unexplored!!! "Skeptics", on the other hand, are content to call UFOs just that, unknown - they are well aware that we can neither explore nor explain nonrecurring UFOs sightings.

Some scientific rigor is required in this field - not conjecture.

Cheers,
Badeskov

You know bade, that is the crux!

UFOs are un-identified and thus unexplained...by definition.

...there is utterly no rational association with "aliens" implicit in the term (it's a cool idea...but little else). What it says is what it means...precisely.


Funny how us "skeptics" accept the definition of the term. Personally, I'm perfectly content with it.


I am wondering just how many people understand with scientific rigor actually is????

It is a cool idea for sure! Just a pity that there is still nothing to substantiate said cool idea...



It is rather strange, actually - I thought everybody would be rather skeptical towards anything one is told, and especially something as extraordinary as this.



Preciously few, I am afraid...treasure it when you encounter it

Cheers,
Badeskov

Make of it whatever ya like(?)... Clicky ->





I'm no CGI expert but it looks like...

Well the proof is in the eye witnesses. I happen to beleive the high ranking government and military officials. Just like a court of law would.

Willingness to believe isn't a mark of open mindedness (if it was, I'd have to revise my POV about quite a few foaming at the mouth religious types). IMO, the desire to objectively question the authority of the argument presented, is the sign of the open mind. And by obectively question, I mean question the how, what and why of the evidence of the argument.
It's interesting to see, as the debates draw out across the board, how often the skeptic is called closed minded simply for questioning either the argument or an authority figure within the believer's worldview, and when the inverse occurs we see this presented as open minded nd objective inquiry...

I definatly agree with you Evangium. But it seems like there are a lot of people out there who are eager about questioning the hard to beleive, but so quick to accept the official versions of things. theres two sides to this. if you are going to question the facts about ufos and them being of an et origin, thats fine with me, in fact i want you too cuz doing that seems to bring more facts and tidbits out into the limelight. But if your gonna be a hardnose skeptic on this issue, why not every issue? like 9/11, kennedy, and government wrong doings in general. IMO no one should just accept the thing the hear are "officail" wether it be from talking heads, or from a politician. Everyone is capable of lying.

I definatly agree with you Evangium. But it seems like there are a lot of people out there who are eager about questioning the hard to beleive, but so quick to accept the official versions of things. theres two sides to this. if you are going to question the facts about ufos and them being of an et origin, thats fine with me, in fact i want you too cuz doing that seems to bring more facts and tidbits out into the limelight. But if your gonna be a hardnose skeptic on this issue, why not every issue? like 9/11, kennedy, and government wrong doings in general. IMO no one should just accept the thing the hear are "officail" wether it be from talking heads, or from a politician. Everyone is capable of lying.

True. But it's an accepted fact that there is provision for the state to lie. In some cases they get very creative in their justification for doing so. But when it comes to ET, my belief is that, for the most part, the official explanation tends to be an effort by the authorities to provide an explanation (probably the most calming one they can resonabily come up with). In some cases this may not be an outright fabrication, though for UFOs and the US, there's still too many people who've seen the swamp gas and other Project Grudge debunking to let it go.
Unfortunately they're between a rock and a hard place on this. Either be convicted by silence or damned by providing a comment. At the end of the day, you can only hope your officials will behave in an ethical manner which puts the welfare of the citizens at the highest priority.

Now for a private citizen, we can expect him/her to behave ethically.
And for me, one part of this is being honest and open about what is presented.
If there is no conclusive proof, then it shouldn't be presented as incontrivertable evidence. There's nothing wrong with saying "I can't provide an explanation." as opposed to "...and this [blurry] object seen in these frames is a UFO [by which I infer to you as being an extraterrestrial spacecraft]" Personally, I don't mind having a figurative 'unexplained' basket.
And another part of behaving ethically is not exploiting those whose stories that a 'researcher' is publishing in his/her latest book (but that's another can of worms altogether).

To summarise, the state has provision to decieve it's citizens, but citizens don't have that same provision to decieve each other.

Listen, no one wants to see real proof of Bigfoot, Ghosts, UFOs' etc more than me. It would be fantastic, and may change the way we live our lives (well, not so much the Bigfoot part)...but there just has not been any definitive proof. There has been lots of interesting items, but just nothing that blows the lid off.

I'm thankful for the skeptics, they've kept the flim flam artists to a minimum. Critical thinking is extremely important, whether we are talking about politics, relationships, money, OR sasquatch.

It's always refreshing to hear from someone who actually appreciates skeptical critical thinking!

You have to be careful of those skeptics as well. They have been known to make a mockery of themselves in public.

For an example, "critical-thinker," Phil Klass, suggested that a UFO that flew near a satellite, which was sitting over 20,000 miles in space, was an SR-71, and that flying saucers that flew next to an airliner and tracked on radar in 1986, were Mars and Jupiter.

Thank goodness there are those who take a further look before giving their last buck to the debunkers.

yes but all of these little bits of unsubstantiated evidence would be thought of true. If president bush gave a press confrence and said look at this picture with a blurry thing in the sky, and if he said it was aliens. The whole world would believe it for the sole fact that it came out of the white house.

I would honestly hope not!!! Not without corraborating evidence. Many undoubtedly would believe, but I think you can trust the vast majority to harbor a healthy amount of skepticism and take it with a grain of salt - and scientist most certainly so.

And I will refrain from saying anything about the credibility of of the current administration .

Cheers,
Badeskov

I know this isnt the place to start this discussion, but how come everyone just bought into the official story about 9/11 and how anyone who questioned it got labeled by certain people as being un american?

You're probably right...it isn't the place to start that discussion.

However, I don't know that everyone bought the official story. I certainly didn't buy it.
I understand it, and I agree with it, especially from a technical / engineering viewpoint. The analysis has been professional, thorough, and clear as to what happened and why.

Those who don't accept that by and large are possessed of a distressing CT mentality and a complete lack of understanding regarding the science involved in such analyses.

The latter is completely understandable, especially perhaps today, when there are a lot less people who have a substantive background in the things that structural, mechanical, materials, metallurgical, and archetectural engineering involve.

It's the adherence to the CT mindset, and the abject lack of any desire to learn about what's actually involved that is really distressing...

Qualified technical people clearly explain the mechanics behind the WTC collapse. Yet, CT's come out with their complete lack of skills and say , "You expect me to believe that?"


...actually no, they don't expect anyone to believe it. They might hope people understand it, and likely welcome questions, since they're all pretty good at simplifying technical subjects for a general audience to grasp. But their profession is not about belief...it's about knowledge and science.

Of course, the typical CT will not ask the pertinent questions. They'll just say, "You're nothing but puppets of the government who orchestrated this thing. You'll say anything to support the conspiracy!"

That's where they lose me. Their own lack of knowledge, their willingness to "buy into" completely unsubstantiated nonsense, and to accuse their government of being complicit in a conspiracy to murder Americans, is beyond all reasonability.

Some people call them un-American. In a way, it certainly is, but I consider it a reflection on education...a negative reflection. It's sad more than anything else.

In the light of the present discussion, that is the point - not to believe, but to understand!!! Laymen might not understand all of it, but it should be blatantly obvious that when the collective engineering/scientific community acknowledged the report and wasn't up in an uproar, it was probably because it was basically a sound and thorough piece of work and not a Government cover-up...

Cheers,
Badeskov

Yep.
Agreed Bady.....

You should have seen some of the UFO files that went into the White House, thanks to the Department of Defense and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The UFO files presented by them, confirmed that the UFOs in question, were intelligently-controlled flying crafts, which dismantled the avionics of fighter aircraft.

Is it any wonder as to why Iranians military officials have gone on the record that the incident involved ET? Now, we have this:



You will note in the distribution list, that this incident went all the up to the White House.

http://www.ufocasebook.com/ufoiran1976.pdf