What is evidence?

Ophiolite,

http://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Related_work

http://www.closertotruth.com/

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Reported for being yet more off-topic, Langan CTMU shite.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

There is lots of evidence for Unidentified Flying Objects. The problem is not with the evidence per se. The problem is that UFO nuts identify them. Their conclusions are not supported by the evidence.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

The evidence is for intelligently operated craft that are beyond the technological capability of humans, that elude jet pursuit, that register on radar, that emit huge amounts of energy, that rarely make any sound, that have physical effects on vegetation, automobiles, and eyewitnesses, and that have been witnessed with occupants exiting them. While their identity remains in question, their existence is well confirmed by the evidence.

 

Nobody questions their existence. It's the conclusion of "intelligently operated craft" that's premature.

 

Flying objects that are lighted at night and appear metallic in daylight, that elude jets, that register on multiple radars, and that land with occupants leaving them ARE intelligently operated craft. There is no other conclusion.

 

Illusions, delusions, atmospheric phenomena, apparitions, mirages, etc.

 

Hoaxes, military aircraft, weather balloons, birds, astronomical phenomena, poor eyesight, meteors, noctilucent clouds, helicopters, etc.

 

Yep...just swamp gas or the planet Venus. lol!

 

So are all of these

otherworldly craft, or are only some of them otherworldly craft?

 

Only some. Many others appear to be some sort of plasma energy phenomena. Take the well-confirmed Hessdalen Lights for instance.

 

So what's your criteria for deciding whether a UFO has an otherworldly explanation or a mundane one?

 

You're a big boy now. Go study this field for yourself and draw your own conclusions. I'm not here to jump thru your hoops.

Start here:

http://www.ufoevidence.org/

 

No, I'm asking YOU for YOUR criteria.

 

You don't need to know my criteria. Develop your own and study the field for yourself. Unless you're not really interested in looking into it. But then you sure do talk about it alot. I wonder why?

 

It's fairly accepted that the Hessdalen lights are an entirely natural phenomena, whether it be due to a natural underground battery or "dusty plasma" that contains radon.
Scientists continue to investigate and some think it could lead to new means of storage, or even new power-generation methods.
But they're not alien, that much is fairly certain.

 

One of the reasons the internet has never lived up to its initial potential....

 

I get the impression that you like to use that phrase of yours when you can't think of anything better to say but feel that you should be saying something.

In his first post, Ophiolite wrote:

My response was this:

"But like I said, while an emphasis on reproducibility and verifiability certainly helps in enhancing (not necessarily ensuring) objectivity, I don't want to cram the entire theory of knowledge into that little box."

And I provided an example of a kind of case where it might not be appropriate even in physical science. I concluded:

"The possibility of one-offs can't just be excluded a-priori. If repeatability and verification become part of how we define evidence, then the implication would be that there can never be any evidence for totally unique events."

My thought is that while a formulation like the one highlighted in red does have some value (in emphasizing the need for objectivity), it probably isn't satisfactory as a general definition of 'evidence' applicable to anything that might justify the truth of a factual proposition.

 

​

That's just ignorant Fraggle, no matter how often you repeat it.

I'm not convinced that religious experiences are always unreproducible and unverifiable. The whole emphasis of Buddhist meditation is that the experiences of relevance to the Buddhist religion in fact are. That's why meditation practices are taught. (Otherwise they would be pointless.) Hindu and Jain yoga seems to produce what might arguably be repeatable results too (even if we don't always want to agree with the conclusions drawn from them). I'm not familiar enough with Western contemplative disciplines like Hesychasm, but I suspect that there's quite a bit of reproducibility and verifiability there too.

​

 

I don't understand this reaction. I thought I was making a serious point.

I agree with very much you have said, but I did not understand why you said you didn't want to "cram the entire theory of knowledge" into the box in question. I do not think anyone would suggest anything so extreme, that's all.

....Unless, perhaps, you are going to tell me I have misunderstood "theory of knowledge" - I have next to no philosophical training so that is certainly possible. I understand by that the ways of knowing about anything in experience, not just the way physical world works. I think it was implicit in Ophiolite's post that he was concerned with the latter, not the whole of experience. For instance, if we consider say music or literature, we do not proceed to understand these things in terms of "evidence" at all.

That's all I meant.