What evidence would work?

Discussion in 'UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters' started by Crcata, May 17, 2016.

  1. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    You don't know what "flaming" is, MR.
     
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    All humans do. The term for this is "confabulation across saccades." Our brains create "filler material" to avoid the jerks and blurs that occur when our eyes move rapidly from one point in a scene to another; we then believe this material even when experiments intentionally insert material that goes counter to that filler material. (Needless to say, since this is proven science, you will disregard it.)
    Of course UFO's happen. Looking out my window right now I can see two of them. There is merely no evidence that they are tricky alien spacecraft.
     
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  5. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Not seeing intentionally deceptive filler material isn't hallucinating something that isn't there. And it certainly has nothing to do with people seeing ufos. It might however explain why people wouldn't see a ufo it flew right in front of them. Try again?
     
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  7. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Never tried to.

    You and I and every one else are well aware of how you must choose your words to deliberately misrepresent what I proved to you.
    This is living proof that the thing I did show you is not falsifiable by you.

    Your brain hides things from - and shows things to - you, when it thinks it's helping you. Fact.


    The point here is that evidence will have to be compelling enough to override the low-reliability of "I saw" evidence.
     
  8. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Good. So this is entirely irrelevant to people seeing ufos. Moving on..
     
  9. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed. Because UFOs is not what this thread is about. Remember?

    It's about evidence, good and bad.

    Witnesses trying to describe things they don't recognize is - in the general case - not very good. The brain is a lousy recording device of reality; the memory, a lousy storage device.
     
  10. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Actually we've been talking about ufos starting at Russ's post #13. I know this because, unlike you, I was actually involved in the conversation.
     
  11. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    There is nothing to prevent you from making specious posts, simply that UFOs is not specifically the topic of this thread.

    The fact that human perception is known to be highly fallible is generally highly applicable to the thread subject, as well as specifically to your sub-subject. It is always factored in by mindful analysts.

    BTW, I've been participating since post 6. I know this because duh.
     
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, it is. Experiments have proven this. For example, if you are looking at screen with a pattern of five dots, and you move your eye (a saccade) and the computer removes one of the dots at the same time, then blanks the screen before your eye can move back, you will still see five dots - because the same mental machinery that is fabricating the scene across the saccade is still supplying the memory of the fifth dot.

    For that period of time you are seeing something fictional. In your language, you are "hallucinating something that isn't there."
    I didn't claim it did. I posted that to demonstrate that your statement was incorrect - you DO hallucinate things with your own eyes, and the science (which I know you have no use for) demonstrates that.
     
  13. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    This explains a great deal. For the most part scientists are trained in the scientific method through the practice of science in their under-graduate and post-graduate careers. If you are relying upon your recollection of the generic, simplified and codified "method" you were introduced to when you were twelve, it is hardly surprising you have such a dim view of it. It is equally unsurprising that your thesis is presented in such a haphazard manner, bereft of logic, substance and structure.

    Thank you for giving me this insight into the root cause of your intellectual blindness. Until now I held open the possibility that you had an argument of substance, but were presenting it badly. Now you have demonstrated the problem lies wholly with your approach, from which critical thinking is absent.
     
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  14. Edont Knoff Registered Senior Member

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    If it's in a zoo and can be watched regularly and by a lot of people, it will soon be accepted to actually exist. Better, if visitors can touch it, interact with it, and tell about their findings. Admitted, touching a ghost can be difficult, but in case of a mermaid it surely is possible. Touch can reveal more information about a thing in examination than looking at it can. Briefly said, the more channels there are to access the thing in examination, the more solid the results will be that "it actually exist" - it's not only a mirage, it has a weight, a temperature, a surface texture, a hardness, movable parts and likely more.

    All sort of media, text, photos even videos can be manipulated. So they are often seen insuficient as proof, unless there is a really high count of e.g. photos of the thing, taken by many independant photographers. While it's easy to manipulate one photo, manipulation 1000 photos is quite some effort and it becomes unlikely that all those are actually fake.
     
  15. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    And thus we have a huge number of excellent examples of the incoming Chelyabinsk bolide captured on phones. The data is was sufficiently dense to enable an accurate determination of its trajectory and velocity.

    One is then forced to ask, why is there nothing comparable for UFOs?
     
  16. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    "It’s probably best to get the bad news out of the way first. The so-called scientific method is a myth. That is not to say that scientists don’t do things that can be described and are unique to their fields of study. But to squeeze a diverse set of practices that span cultural anthropology, paleobotany, and theoretical physics into a handful of steps is an inevitable distortion and, to be blunt, displays a serious poverty of imagination. Easy to grasp, pocket-guide versions of the scientific method usually reduce to critical thinking, checking facts, or letting “nature speak for itself,” none of which is really all that uniquely scientific. If typical formulations were accurate, the only location true science would be taking place in would be grade-school classrooms.

    Scratch the surface of the scientific method and the messiness spills out. Even simplistic versions vary from three steps to eleven. Some start with hypothesis, others with observation. Some include imagination. Others confine themselves to facts. Question a simple linear recipe and the real fun begins. A website called Understanding Science offers an “interactive representation” of the scientific method that at first looks familiar. It includes circles labeled “Exploration and Discovery” and “Testing Ideas.” But there are others named “Benefits and Outcomes” and “Community Analysis and Feedback,” both rare birds in the world of the scientific method. To make matters worse, arrows point every which way. Mouse over each circle and you find another flowchart with multiple categories and a tangle of additional arrows.

    It’s also telling where invocations of the scientific method usually appear. A broadly conceived method receives virtually no attention in scientific papers or specialized postsecondary scientific training. The more “internal” a discussion — that is, the more insulated from nonscientists —the more likely it is to involve procedures, protocols, or techniques of interest to close colleagues.

    Meanwhile, the notion of a heavily abstracted scientific method has pulled public discussion of science into its orbit, like a rhetorical black hole. Educators, scientists, advertisers, popularizers, and journalists have all appealed to it. Its invocation has become routine in debates about topics that draw lay attention, from global warming to intelligent design. Standard formulations of the scientific method are important only insofar as nonscientists believe in them."===http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/10/28/scientific-method-myth/#.V0XEtvkrLIU
     
  17. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you for posting an extract that confirms and expands upon my point: "For the most part scientists are trained in the scientific method through the practice of science in their under-graduate and post-graduate careers."

    Your assertion was " What scientific method? You mean the one I learned in 7th grade general science class? That's my training in the so-called "scientific method". Same as modern day scientists."

    My post and your recent long extract both clearly state that your perception of the scientific method is simplistic nonsense. That simplistic nonsense is not what I mean when I talk of the scientific method. I doubt it is what others members have in mind when they talk of the scientific method. Yet you think that the simplistic nonsense is the scientific method. As noted earlier, that explains a great deal.
     
  18. river

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    The evidence that would work is the evidence that has been put forward ; for many , many , yrs.

    With objective ; eyes and ears ; and therefore thinking .
     
  19. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    You are missing the entire point of the thread.

    The point is: what evidence would be enough to convince the skeptics. So far, it hasn't been enough.
     
  20. Crcata Registered Senior Member

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    Been gone for a week, but have read some posts since then.

    I would like to post a few statements for my 2 cents, that relates to several of the posts since I've been gone.

    I don't believe it is unreasonable to require extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.

    Evidence that something is unexplained is not evidence that it's paranormal or alien.
    If you see the unexplained, and wish to say it is not of this world or any otherwise mundane explanation you need to show that it doesn't fit, the burden of proof isn't on the skeptic to prove that the unexplained is of this world. And upon him failing to do so, assuming it's alien or otherwise is ridiculous...and this seems to be an arguing point for some. That may be bias, but it's reasonable.

    Just my 2 cents.
     
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  21. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    It's River. I believe (s)he misses the entire point of the forum.
     
  22. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not convinced that it's true that "we have literally 0 evidence that holds up to scrutiny" if "we" means 'humans in general'. I'm more inclined to say that I haven't seen any evidence that convinces me that any of the more exotic claims about unfamiliar things appearing out there are true. (Things that seem unwelcome to many people. Why that is, is an interesting question.)

    I usually (but not always) tend to feel that way too. I say 'usually', because some 'monster' claims are cryptozoological, and not all cryptozoological claims are biologically outlandish. It's almost certain that there are many undiscovered species out there. On land, most unknown species are probably small, new species of insects and small creatures on that scale. (New bird species are still being catalogued.) But when we turn to the oceans, we can't really be sure what large and exotic creatures might exist down there in the depths, normally unseen by man.

    That being said, I give reports of most of these things (mermaids, demons, appearances of the 'blessed virgin', ghosts and so on) very low initial probabilities of being literally true, as reported. That's because they don't conform with my world view, they don't have any place in the world as I conceive of it. But I recognize that's a bias on my part and how I conceive of the world isn't a 100% reliable criterion as to what can and can't exist. I believe very strongly that reality has the power to surprise me. It's just that I think that the surprises are going to be less likely than the world continuing to behave as it typically does.

    I say 'as reported', since many of these things have a large interpretive component that makes what may initially be ambiguous anomalies into the things that they supposedly are. That's especially obvious with ghosts (spirits of the deceased), ufos (alien spacecraft) and religious miracles (signs from God).

    If the claim concerns monsters, capturing one live or acquiring the dead body of one would count. A zoological specimen. For mermaids (who seem biologically unlikely by their nature) there would need to be a living or deceased specimen too. I'm not sure what would convince me regarding ghosts. Evidence would be evidence of an apparition, leaving open what the apparition is.

    Regarding ufo aliens there would need to be some evidence that speaks not only to the existence of anomalous sky-sightings, but to what is causing them. Physical aliens and a physical space vehicle would be pretty convincing. Communicating with them and hearing their account would be good information, even if what they tell us isn't necessarily true. I still like my time-traveler hypothesis, and acquiring a crashed saucer and its deceased pilots, and subsequent examination of their biologies, the saucer's contents and the vehicle's drive mechanisms might help us distinguish space travelers from temporal travelers.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2016
  23. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    Considering the bordering on "pseudo-" reputation of the social sciences, the testing repeatability crisis in psychology, and the decade by decade flip-flopping conclusions of biomedical studies (or propaganda / advice issued by their "interfaces" to the public and practitioners).... Probably evidence well below the standards of hard physical sciences[*] would even suffice. The stigma of the subject might thus still be the best sentry for pre-empting its respectability in the institutional stratum. That is, today's infamous sloppiness "in the lab" might ironically allow passage or stamp of approval for a degree of _x_ fringe activity.

    - - - - - - -

    [*] But even with the latter, the glowing evaluations those disciplines receive is probably abstracted from the tinier amount of high-profile research rather than vaster, lesser-known work that may likewise suffer similar problems of inference from data, reliability, validation / falsification of hypotheses and ideas. The "publish or perish" epidemic and competitions over funding are encroaching there as well.
     

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