FINALLY! Someone (the greatest Ufologist of all time) will expose the falsehood of pseudoscience and sarcastic scientist wannabes calling themselves "skeptics" when in reality... Where have I heard this before??? Take this, you entertaining, control mongering bunch of "I want my flying saucer now!" babies! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://www.theufochronicles.com/2009/05/pseudo-science-of-anti-ufology.html
You know the saying "The proof is in the pudding". You know that the proof they are referring too, is of the Alcoholic kind.
Not following you in the least. Are you referring to the case for Alcoholism being a genetic predisposition as opposed to a learned behavior? Please elaborate.
So, I am to take it that no one can, or is possibly willing, to refute Stanton's scientific perspective here as related to the pseudoscience of typical false skepticism as related to serious UFO studies and conjecture? I sure seems that way.
I know who he is and understand some of his claims. Is there a specific link within in the one that you provided which you are wanting to discuss ?
I see the link to the website, but is there a specific article within the site that we are looking for ?
At the very least, he does attempt to hold the scientific community to it's axioms regarding the topic.
This short paper, or treatment of topic, is directly on the page from the link. It takes about 15-20 seconds to load. Must be a slow server or whatever. There are many links off to thew sides of the page but the article in question is the main subject of the page itself. This paper underlines an incredibly important emphasis for the real need of serious scientific research into the UFO phenomenon. It begs for the dismissal of the routine knee jerk reactionary sarcasm that has become the norm within the scientific community at large with respect to this incredibly real phenomenon. Oli, I think that I HONESTLY look forward to your response the most. That's because I know you possess the mentality necessary to hold two strongly opposing view points, both based in conjecture, and way the evidence of reason offered by either. I would love to hear from James R. on this matter as well. He seems to be extremely high on the totem of reason and rigid scientific consideration. I think it's incredibly important to point out that not only is Stanton a very real accredited scientist himself, that has most definitely been scrutinizingly examined by his adversity, but he has done a GREAT deal to publicly denounce and illuminate fraud within the UFO research community itself. This guy is no "fence sitter" and I can good and guarantee that the term woo woo doesn't enter into *this* treatment whatsoever. I do look forward to everyone's response.
No, more to the fact that evidence of "Proof" can be mistaken while under the influence. Which you could possible suggest in some of the cases of posed witnesses. To be honest the start to the paper undermined the whole paper as far as I'm concerned. I mean come on it's been done to death, yes he complains that scientists... (And thats loosely because obviously he's probably never asked for any academic accreditation to be given and therefore just stereotypes with what he believes is accurate.) suggest that just because there are UFO's doesn't make it alien in origin. However this is a pretty standard reasoning, not a argument. It's the simplest explaination. I mean the argument I tend to draw on is the fact that us humans on this planet have done very little manned exploration of our own solar system let alone any others. The costs for the creation of the vessels and equipment to keep live alive on a voyage of such magnitude is expensive and labour consuming, So much so that it's only available to specific governmently funded projects. (It's not like every hick is flying around in a space caddy). This brings it to the point that if it was an alien race flying around the planet earth, they'd have to some how miraculously appear travelling extreme distances of space which you will find most lifeforms would never survive in one life time. (The oldest things on this planet that continue to live are trees and certain reptiles like tortoises. Gives reasoning to the Saucer shape... it's so they can fit their shell in it?!?) On top of that there is the already noted point that not everyone here on earth has a Space Caddy, the frequency of alleged visitations is mind numbingly over stated that it would suggest some alien race out there would have to be day tripping for picnics on Earth, which as mentioned with the distance is just infeasible. This is why you'll find to the most part such papers will be ignored rather than disputed because the argument really is a moot point. Now if only people could channel their efforts into actually doing something with all their creative talent... then we would really be getting somewhere... but while there are distractions, they'll be too busy being unbusy to do anything of real use.
Um, okay, initial thoughts. Firstly there are (at least) two levels of Ufology – those that do it professionally or “constantly” and those that get interested or involved from time to time. I’ll treat this from the viewpoint of the second-level (i.e. amateur) Ufologist & debunker, since few of us have access to primary sources. Agreed, and it applies both ways – the pro party constantly brings up successfully(?) debunked material and the con party hasn’t done quite as much background research, dealing (mainly) with things on a case-by-case basis. This I have to disagree with vehemently, as an engineer. If someone comes to me and says “Hey I’ve got a great idea, if we turn the widgets round it’ll pull instead of push” (or some other inanity) then they're likely to be wrong regardless of "specific details": if something is not possible under the laws of physics then it doesn’t matter about the details of a design – painting your motorbike red does not make it go faster. And “specific details” of a UFO are, to say the least, few and far between. Agreed again, note that he does say that the pro-UFO crowd do it also. But then goes on to accept that there’s a lot of garbage published – in other words he’s a debunker of the stuff HE doesn’t believe. The third point (about debunkers not debunking other debunkers) is more valid, but not entirely true: the general attitude is “if it’s been shown to be wrong then it’s wrong, why go further” but I have seen cases (even on SciForums) where one or more anti-posters have pointed out errors in another anti’s explanation. And I'm very much in two minds (or 1-1/2) about the "if certain things were true or certain technologies were real, these all-wise pseudo-scientists would know about them" - it's incredibly hard to keep everything secret, there are people who's jobs are finding out about new stuff (particularly aircraft) and ANY hint at all would send them off on a hunt. But no acknowledgement that both of those work both ways? Now he’s nit-picking: how is the above (RB-47) case NOT “a short account of an interesting incident or event, often biographical”? An hour-long event which was interesting (to say the least), recounted by those who were there (biographical). So maybe their accounts took a while to tell, but they remain anecdotal. Try this definition: “refers to evidence based on reports of specific individual cases rather than controlled clinical trials”. Long list of individuals (usually not in their own field) being wrong… We’ve been through most of those. No, this is deliberately dishonest of Friedman, he’s imputing (and knocking down) a meaning that was not in the original statement. Voyager, by definition, IS our fastest (yet) spacecraft. Simply because it has no propulsion system does not alter that. Strawman. More nit-picking. Okay, we all do that Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And when we do depend on them for identification it’s with corroborating evidence. Nearly a strawman. And now the bit supporting the “government secrecy” theory. Yup, we Brits did develop radar around 1938 – 27 years after the Germans had it service on a Rhine river boat. And no we most emphatically DID NOT fool the Germans into thinking we had no radar for the entire war (or for any significant period of it for that matter). There were bombing missions led against our radar stations, jamming tactics, even devices that let night-fighters find our bombers in the dark by homing in on the bombers’ own target-finding radar. Professor R. V. Jones documents much of the measure/ counter-measure/ counter-counter-measure war in his book Most Secret War. There are many other books on the radar war, but that’s one I re-read fairly often. So please Friedman, tell me again what defines a pseudo-scientist: Hmm, okay. One thing I will say (from a personal perspective) with regard to reading the “backlog” of evidence for a secondary-level !researcher": it’s notoriously flaky. We have to rely on pre-digested reports for the main part - websites and books that have already filtered the evidence to suit their own perspective. For example Timothy Good, supposedly the ex-MoD (UK Ministry of Defence) UFO man (slight exaggeration on his part, he overstates his actual duties on that score in all of his publicity), is, according to a lot of UFOlogists, a good source. I started (but didn’t finish) one his later books wherein he describes being in a café when he decided to test if the waitress was an alien. The words are mine – the anecdote is his - “I sent the question telepathically: are you an alien?” As she walked past me she nodded and smiled gently. Confirmation! I left immediately. Er, excuse me: first of all you have to confirm the existence of telepathy, then you have to confirm that these particular aliens use it and then… has no-one EVER been seated on their own in a café before and have the waitress nod and smile at them out of politeness as she walks past? Or does that only happen in the cafés I frequent? Having seen what Good accepts as “evidence”*, why bother reading any more? * Good is actually on my list for a thread on “Dishonesty or Gullibility in UFO Literature” – I’ve read a few of his books and he doesn’t seem to give any critical thought whatsoever to his accounts. He accepts them at face value and builds hypothesis after hypothesis on the strength of fabrications.
GREAT response Oli. I really appreciate you reading through the article carefully, as you obviously did, and responding via the quotes that you provided. So, thank you. It's a little sad to me that both sides of the proverbial UFO fence are lined with very intelligent people. Both seem to be motivated by a staunch sense of scientific curiosity. However, both sides seem as predisposed via precondition as the other. This being with respect for both the "how" and the "what" to think about the issue. Sometimes I wonder how infused our thinking processes are with our base instinctual survival responses as an animal human. I think what Friedman is doing is more so attempting to elaborate on the "woo woos taken for granted" attitude that so much of the "scientific" community seems conditioned to respond with. I know that you are well aware that I am inclined to come down on the Stanton's side of the issue, but that's REALLY not the point here. The point is more so the logical plea that he's making in utter dumbfounded bewilderment. There is no question that there is an abundant amount of evidence that logically adds up to a phenomenal mystery both in size and potential magnitude. If such a level of complete undeniability, that were based on strong multiple level observation based resources, existed within the field work of ANY of the known sciences, what stops would not be pulled in pursuit of total resolve? All Stanton did in this article was to forward an ironclad argument in an attempt to impress the fact that this issue DEMANDS scientific respect and thorough investigation. As opposed to the preconditioned pseudo scientific treatment it's presently given at a glance. Outside of a few technical indiscretions or possibly misinterpreted transcriptions, I personally think he succeeded completely.
