Are You A Quack?

But, the reason those eye witness accounts are not questioned and in turn people accusing you of hallucinating, is that all of those things can easily happen or have happened to all of us. That's the differentiation. I would say that there is a strong possibility that we are not the only life forms in the universe, but my claiming to see an alien walking off a spaceship in the middle of the night, isn't the same thing as saying that I saw a squirrel run up a tree this morning. I don't think you have anything to gain from sharing what you believe (other than you believe what you have read, seen, etc), and I'm open minded with lots of things, but ''eye witness'' accounts still need to show signs of credibility. We simply can't accept everyone's word for truth, when discussing things that only a very select few have ''witnessed.''

Crop circles are still a mystery to me, though.

 

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But the thing people claim to see with ufos ARE things that have happened to other people. There was the flap of silver discs landing in fields in France in the 1950's that nobody talks about. Identical descriptions of small beings walking around gathering plant samples. There were the thousands of accounts of triangular craft witnessed above Belgium in 1989-1990. You can't dismiss these experiences as hallucinations. They were repeated and show signs of being real events.

 

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Sure. I love his style and wit. Comparable to Carl Sagan imho.

 

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I will admit, I don't read much about occurrences and sightings like this, so I'm wondering why are these things so easily dismissed?

The paranormal realm though, some of those stories I've read about or watched on tv, seem believable. (remember that thread I started way back when lol) I'm going to a haunted house for fun with friends this Halloween, but if I come away feeling frightened and like I've had a ghost encounter, will people accuse me of confirmation bias? lol

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(if we are being told that the house is haunted before we enter it, will we have a more frightening experience because we were given information beforehand?)

 

Well said wegs....
It's interesting to note that with all those thousands of reported sightings, that such advanced creatures, who would not have any need to be afraid of us, continue to just flitter in then flitter out again, never making their presence officially known.

 

Maybe Earth is under galactic quarantine and those aliens are the equivalent of internet trolls.

 

You should train your mind that this is simply an abandoned house and nothing more. Then if anything unusual happens, it will not be a subjective expectation. That's how I'd try to do it at least. I commend you for researching this for yourself. Would that I had the same courage!

 

We all know the instant you hear the wind creaking through the rafters, you'll be all like "OMG! IT'S A GHOST YOU GUYS! SEE, I TOLD YOU GHOSTS WERE REAL!" and won't even consider any other explanation because it's not "ghosts".

 

Will I? How do you know how I will respond? The other night I had a motion sensor light in my kitchen go off about 7 times in 20 minutes. I could not understand how this happened. The sensor is facing the kitchen counter. There is no way it could go off without moving the apparatus. This went on for about 20 minutes and stopped. I have no idea what caused it. But I'm open to the paranormal.

 

Magical Realist, if I may be frank - you are not "open to the paranormal", you expect it. That's the problem, and the danger, with a biased observer. You reject the mundane and immediately cling to the most outrageous possible (often impossible) conclusion... and then you wonder why people don't take you seriously, claim nearly anyone who contradicts you a troll, and generally get super defensive.

Yes, aliens could very well exist. In fact, I'd be very surprised if we end up the only intelligent life in the universe (cause good God wouldn't that be sad to think we are the best the universe has to offer). I don't, however, think they routinely steal cattle, abduct people to probe them, or blow up rockets carrying satellites...mainly because, for a civilization capable of interstellar travel, what purpose would such actions serve? They are illogical and senseless.

Things like Bigfoot - sure, could have existed at one time - however, they either bred out of existence (cross breeding with a standard creature) or they died off (too small a breeding pool, etc). Claims that they are advanced enough to simply hide from us are silly - where and how could they hide the means to produce enough food to get by?

 

Which is why, as we all know, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 

THAT'S the problem, Magical Realist refuses to acknowledge that "aliens in flying saucers", "bigfoot", or "ghosts" is an extraordinary claim.

 

You are kind, like I remember when first posting here, MR.

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Regarding the haunted house, I just hope it's not a 'hoax,' meaning, that it's just a show. That would be disappointing. I'd like it to not feel like an amusement part ride. lol

 

Even though this thread is going South it seems to highlight the premise in the OP.
I am sorry but I get the impression MR is pulling our collective legs.
I read the Phoenix light jazz and fail to see how anyone could draw the conclusion they saw a space craft.
It was interesting to note that a young astronomer observed the lights with a telescope, and yet apparently at a public meeting he was howled down. Does this suggest the mob was open to a logical explanation. It suggests they wanted to believe they were on the brink of something big and were not interested in some simple and ordinary explanation.
Why would folk not for example conclude their sneaky government was testing a new weapon that seeds the clouds with poison... er perhaps some do.
One can analyse circumstances and draw an inescapable conclusion and be wrong.
Another short story. I bought a shack on the river it was empty bar a bed and three kitchen chairs.
I met a "river rat hippy" fishing and we hit it off as if we were old mates.
I took him to the shack where we talked and drank each sitting on a chair using the remaining chair as a table. Great fun.
The next day I could not find my watch in this near empty small shack.
I remember taking it off.
I thought that dog stole it.
I stewed on what I would do to him when I got my hands around his throat.
I went back to the city and returned about a week later. After working on the place I laid on the bed for a nap and was woken by the alarm on my lost time piece.
It had fallen on the floor but in a recess (angle iron) of one of the legs of the bed.
Mmmm it seems I was wrong.
Before the find it was clear I was a victim but no I was just a fool who drew a wrong conclusion with the solid facts before me.
Things "just are" they become what we say they are upon our personal qualification.
When one considers the crowds reaction to the young astronomer, with the best tool available to observe the mysterious lights, we see a reasonable explanation being cast aside because it did not fit the preformed determination that these poor folk had actually had something exciting in their lives to unit them and talk about...like football but new...and they were not going to let some geek with a telescope tell them they were mistaken.
And so I chose not to waste time looking at every claim about whatever unless something more than a mob claiming they all agree they have found something which they attach the most bizarre interpretation.
Further if all or any of these accounts point to whatever then would one not expect whatever to have left something physical..you know a screw fell off the hatch of the UFO or the plant sampler dropped some litter...something anything.
Personal conviction that one is right is great but one is a fool to think one can not be on the wrong track.
So I hold non mainstream ideas about stuff but find scientific method most reliable and no matter how strongly "I feel" science has it a little wrong I don't fall for becoming a crank because just maybe the folk who are professionals and work in the area full time may have a little better idea than me.
MR you may be right but never forget you may be wrong.
Alex

 

depending on where you live and the local populations, you can consider not only insects but also simple malfunction (a short can display periodic or one time malfunctions dependent upon the situation)
plus, there is known issues with mass production in that not every piece is thoroughly tested
and lets not forget that any technology is only as good as it's design (meaning: there can be inherent flaws - surely you didn't manufacture this piece or have it specifically designed and manufactured to only turn on when specific motion is detected?)

... so there is no reason to assume it's anything (especially paranormal anything) until you can exhaustively state you've investigated every potential reason and ruled it out

which is, i think, the point of Daecon, Kittamaru, myself and others.

 

I don't believe that "the scientific method" even exists. I believe that it's a modern myth. It's the myth that a single infallible epistemological method exists that will always lead mankind inexorably to the truth. (Kind of like a certain kind of person once conceived of reading the Bible, a familiar faith repackaged for post-enlightenment moderns.) Wouldn't it be great if such a infallible source of Truth really existed? I don't believe that it does.

In real life, I think that scientists use all kinds of methods, ranging from direct observation (eyewitness testimony) common in paleontology, biological surveys and field geology, to big-data number crunching in bioinformatics and particle physics, to mathematical modeling of physical systems that we see in engineering, to mathematical derivations of theory from other pieces of theory (the theoretical physicists' game). What matters isn't that they are slavishly following some cook-book procedure, but whether what they are doing makes sense and is defensible logically, epistemologically, mathematically and in scientific terms that are often specific to the science in question. (Laboratory chemists, theoretical cosmologists and field geologists probably use very few methods in common.)

If we try to characterize the Scientific Method by identifying elements common to all examples of scientific practice, we arrive at common sense. And as everyone knows, common sense can occasionally be exceedingly fallible, just like eye-witness testimony.

If an individual person's observations are "random and horrible" then how does multiplying them through replication and corroboration improve matters? (Bullshit x 10 is still bullshit.) If the idea is that consensus can be reached by some averaging or common-denominator process and outliers eliminated, then one would still seem to be assuming that there's a valuable observational signal embedded in all of the noise.

So eyewitness testimony isn't complete bullshit at all. In fact, when it comes to the physical world around us, the evidence of our senses is arguably the best evidence we have (however imperfect it might be). What's the alternative? Imagination? Revelation?

I don't want to argue against the idea that eye-witness testimony can be made more reliable by bringing in multiple witnesses, physical evidence, recordings, statistical analyses and whatnot. That's all true. What I want to argue against is the far too aggressive suggestion that eyewitness testimony is worthless, that it's the worst kind of evidence possible, along with the implication that it can always be rejected with a contemptuous sneer just because it's eyewitness testimony. That's just stupid, in my opinion. My assertion is that not only is personal experience valuable, it's the basis of ALL of our knowledge of the world around us.

I don't see how science can even occur if human beings and their awareness are removed from the process. I'm more inclined to perceive of science as fundamentally empirical, as being dependent on what human beings can observe of the universe around them through their senses. That includes scientists' eye-witness testimony of what their experimental apparatus indicate and the collected eye-witness testimony of a whole community of researchers ideally replicating each other's results.

My biggest objection to these jihad-threads is that people are being told not to believe what they experience for themselves, the evidence of their own eyes. Instead they should just unquestioningly accept whatever the designated authorities tell them. (Authorities who weren't even there.)

It's nothing new. There's an historically-familiar intolerance for perceived heresy in all of these threads, an implicit demand that everyone conform to orthodox belief, a strange missionary drive to somehow make everyone believe the same things, a demand that people reject the evidence of their own senses, stop thinking about the world around them for themselves, stop producing their own ideas about it, and simply have... faith.

It troubles me.

 

We can dismiss these as hallucinations and/or false memories because we have documented cases of communities creating false memories together. Additionally, every UFO story has gaping plausibility holes if we want to claim that aliens were behind the reports. So there is a real evidence challenge here for anyone claiming that UFO experiences are anything other than mistakes, hallucinations, or false memories.

 

Grok'd!!
Entirely too true, Yazata!
What is most troublesome is that the "intolerance" and the "implicit demand(s)" is most often manifest from those that have little to no proper education in, nor any experience working in, any of the Real Sciences.
Without having spent any time in actual Collegiate Academic Study of any of the Hard Sciences, and without exposure to, or practical application/utilization of, any of the myriad of Methods employed in Scientific Research, they :
"demand that everyone conform to orthodox belief, that they reject the evidence of their own senses, stop thinking about the world around them for themselves, stop trying to produce their own ideas about it, and simply have... faith."

In all actuality, Yazata, the "historically-familiar intolerance for perceived heresy in all of these threads" should honestly TROUBLE anyone and everyone that professes any true respect for Real Science.

Thank you, Yazata, for continuing to be a Voice Of Reason on this Site!

 

That doesn't seem to really speak to the truth or falsity of what's being reported. It speaks instead to other people's willingness to believe the report. I think that we can agree that if a report is of something that other people don't already believe in or perhaps dislike, that they are less likely to embrace its truth. But people's judgement of what they already believe in, what they find likely or unlikely, or what they personally favor, is probably even more subjective than eyewitness testimony.

If an alien really did walk off a spaceship in the middle of the night, and if an eyewitness reports 'I saw an alien walk off a spaceship in the middle of the night', then the proposition would be true whether or not anyone else believes it. What makes it T are the meaning of the proposition and the facts of the matter, not the opinions of the audience.

But... if the individual reporting the alien visitation wants me to agree that aliens have visited the Earth, based on his/her testimony, then I will exercise my own subjective judgement as to the claim's plausibility.

That's where I agree with you that claims of having seen aliens is less plausible (in my opinion) than claims of having seen a squirrel. For reasons of my own, I'm less willing to believe the former than the latter.

But that doesn't mean that the report of having seen aliens can't be true. Nor does it imply that the sighting report isn't evidence. It can hypothetically be true and the report of having observed it is evidence. It's just evidence that other people (including me at this point) for whatever reasons are unwilling to accept at face value or weight very highly.

 

Yeah... except.
Eyewitness reliability has been shown to be unreliable - that's why it's regarded as the least useful version of evidence in law.
Another problem (with regard to this specific topic) is that - for the most part - MR and his ilk rely on reported eyewitness testimony; i.e. said "evidence" isn't even their own. And has, in many cases, been "filtered" through, and presented by, sites/authors who have already made a selection based on their biases.

So are you advocating that we should accept what we see at face value every time?
Sure, we can (usually) accept what our senses tell us most of the time - for everyday occurrences.
Unusual/ irregular things simply can't be accepted at face value because they're unusual, they're not part of normal experience and therefore the interpretation isn't reliable.

From later post:

Um, sure it's evidence.
The thing is: evidence of what?
A sighting of an alien?
A mistaken interpretation of something else (that's natural and normal)?
A mistaken interpretation of something else (that's natural and unusual)?
A confabulation?
An outright lie?