Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
I created a thread in UFO sf
Skeptics have already made their minds up about UAPs
- Thread starter Yazata
- Start date
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
You are making this up.
The individual sightings are not taken as factual, they are merely reportings - raw data. And the AARO report itself notes that its purpose is not to process those reports (let alone "arrive at some factual basis") but simply to provide a foundation for how to proceed with further investigation.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
You hate out-of-context quoting.
So let's provide the context:
Reports of UAPs sightings do not always contain facts. They are merely "reports". This term is deliberately explicit in the AARO document. Historically, most UAP reports turn out to be false-alarms; therefore we must not assume that any sightings are entirely factual.
As the introduction says:
"...a select number of UAP incidents may be attributable to sensor irregularities or variances, such as operator or equipment error..."
The purpose of the imaged section of the AARO document is not assign factuality to individual reports, simply to categorize them by apparent traits.
"Initial characterization does not mean positively resolved or unidentified. This initial characterization better enables AARO and ODNI to efficiently and effectively leverage resources against the remaining 171 uncharacterized and unattributed UAP reports. Some of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis."
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I think we’ve been over this before, but why do we take eyewitness accounts as facts when it comes to legal/criminal cases, but when it comes to the scientific method and these UAP sightings, we scoff at most of them? Having asked that, I know that we can’t just accept eyewitness sightings as fact in terms of what those eyewitnesses are suggesting they could be without examining the claims, but we should believe reputable sources that what they saw (think the navy pilots with the tic tac sightings) is out of the ordinary.
It’s just as much disingenuous imo, to dismiss these types of sightings as “it’s likely a bird, or balloon,” as it is for UAP enthusiasts to insist on the sightings being alien spacecraft. There has to be another way…
It’s just as much disingenuous imo, to dismiss these types of sightings as “it’s likely a bird, or balloon,” as it is for UAP enthusiasts to insist on the sightings being alien spacecraft. There has to be another way…
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
They do not take eyewitness accounts as fact in court. They are taken as evidence, that is why we have juries to decide if those accounts are enough, along with all the other evidence, to make a decision.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
1. Nobody "scoffs" at the eyewitness accounts. What gets scoffed at is the over-reach of enthusiasts in their conclusions.
2. Eyewitness accounts in court are not taken as fact. "It was late at night, you didn't have your glasses on. You cannot be certain it was the defendants blue BMW that ran over you."
Notice the critical difference even you acknowledge:
skeptics: "...it's likely to be..."
enthusiasts: "I insist it is..."
The former is a considered opinion.
The latter is a claim to truth.
I like this explanation. This is just a question, and you don’t need to respond here but it might be helpful to dig deeper to what motivates people to take the positions they do - does Mick West or UAP enthusiasts have respective agendas? If so, what are they?
I’ll answer that while Mick West pushes that he is all about getting people to think more critically before blindly believing events or claims that have no tangible evidence (and that’s a good thing, to be clear), I believe he has an agenda. I’m not sure yet what exactly that is, but that’s my take on him. My theory is he doesn’t like talking in concepts, and much of life is conceptual.
Some UAP enthusiasts have agendas too, from becoming internet famous to amassing wealth off of dramatic claims that attract a certain crowd. But, the navy pilots who witnessed the tic tac flying object, seem legit. Legitimacy is quite relevant, in these discussions, imo.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...-anomalous-phenomena-independent-study-report
"As a general principle, the data should support measurement that can rule out specific explanations or interpretations, leaving us with no choice but to embrace its opposite. In the case of UAP, the hypothesis we seek to reject (or “null hypothesis”) is that the UAP have phenomenology consistent with known natural or technological causes. "
What this is saying is NASA starts with the provisional assumption that UAPs have known natural or tech causes, and that the study is designed to attempt to rule them out, so that the only thing left is that which must be beyond our knowledge.
Only if we cannot rule out the null hypothesis are we warranted in tentatively concluding more exotic explanations.
And to bring this full circle back to Yazata's Big Lie. This is an analytical method, a process, a procedure - not a mind made-up, not a belief.
It's science, baby.
"As a general principle, the data should support measurement that can rule out specific explanations or interpretations, leaving us with no choice but to embrace its opposite. In the case of UAP, the hypothesis we seek to reject (or “null hypothesis”) is that the UAP have phenomenology consistent with known natural or technological causes. "
What this is saying is NASA starts with the provisional assumption that UAPs have known natural or tech causes, and that the study is designed to attempt to rule them out, so that the only thing left is that which must be beyond our knowledge.
Only if we cannot rule out the null hypothesis are we warranted in tentatively concluding more exotic explanations.
And to bring this full circle back to Yazata's Big Lie. This is an analytical method, a process, a procedure - not a mind made-up, not a belief.
It's science, baby.
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Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Sure. Mick obviously does, he wears it on his sleeve. He's a self-styled "debunker". What does he debunk? Whatever he believes is "Woo".
To the extent that whatever he does has any value, that's the value.
I think that we all know that whatever evidence Mick is presented, if he believes that it's evidence of "woo", then he will try as hard as he can to find fault with it. It's what he does, it's his stock in trade. Of course, the same thing can be done to any scientific result. All scientific results are probabilistic. They all depend on observations being correct and on countless auxiliary assumptions being correct as well (the physics of a detection instrument or the data analysis done on the data the instrument collects).
People, including scientists, tend to more readily accept findings that support things that they already believe (often for extra-scientific reasons), and to find fault with evidence that seemingly supports things that they disbelieve ("woo").
Oh yes, some of them most definitely do. They want particular results to be true (precisely the "woo" Mick rejects) and they will behave uncritically towards whenever seems to them to be evidence for whatever it is.
Has anyone ever gotten wealthy from supporting unwelcome hypotheses? I don't think that money is the motivation.
I think that it's more fundamental than that. Many people want to believe that reality is more amazing than it might at first seem. And/or they might want to believe that adherents of scientism don't already have all of reality all nicely categorized in little boxes. They want to believe that reality still has surprises in store, and that those surprises might even intrude into our mundane everyday lives.
In more traditional religious terms, it might be described as a longing for transcendence. This kind of person might naturally be expected to lean towards the more exotic/exciting hypotheses. (It seems to me that self-styled "skeptics" (in the "debunker" sense of the word) on the other hand, are disproportionately atheists, perhaps for this very reason.)
My own view is that there's obvious bias on both sides, among the self-styled "skeptics" just as obviously as among the "enthusiasts".
So probably the safest thing to say is "I just don't know at this point".
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We don't take eyewitness accounts as fact in court. Consider:
Prosecution: Did you see the accused shoot the victim?
Witness: Yes! He did it!
Prosecution: Thank you! Your witness.
Defense: Did you see the accused holding a gun?
Witness: Yes!
Defense: Was it a handgun or a rifle?
Witness: Well, I couldn't really see that. He was sort of behind a bush.
Defense: So you couldn't see the defendant?
Witness: Well, I could sort of see him. I could see his outline. He was wearing a hoodie.
Defense: Here is a picture taken from a security camera in the area 30 seconds before the attack. How many people do you see wearing hoodies?
Witness: Well . . . uh . . . six? Eight?
Defense: Do you see the defendant in this picture?
Witness: Uh . . . no.
Defense: Could that hoodie wearer have been one of these people in the picture, none of whom was the defendant?
Witness: Maybe? But I saw him point something and heard a bang!
Defense: But you are not sure that the person pointing the something was the defendant.
Witness: Well not really.
Defendant: And you are not sure of the type of gun or even if it was a gun.
Witness: But I heard a bang!
Defense: So to be clear, you saw someone who may or may not have been the defendant point a thing that might or might not have been a gun at the victim at the same time you heard a bang, would that be accurate?
Witness: Well . . . uh . . . yeah.
That's the adversarial process of justice, where both parties examine the evidence and challenge the witness.
Compare that to the process here:
Pilot: I saw a UAP that I can't explain.
MR: See? PROOF that there are UAPs that no terrestrial technology could produce!
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
"Evidence may be direct or circumstantial. Direct evidence is direct proof of a fact, such as testimony by a witness about what that witness personally saw or heard or did. Circumstantial evidence is indirect evidence, that is, it is proof of one or more facts from which one can find another fact.
You are to consider both direct and circumstantial evidence. Either can be used to prove any fact. The law makes no distinction between the weight to be given to either direct or circumstantial evidence. It is for you to decide how much weight to give to any evidence."--- https://www.ce9.uscourts.gov/jury-i...proof,both direct and circumstantial evidence.
You are to consider both direct and circumstantial evidence. Either can be used to prove any fact. The law makes no distinction between the weight to be given to either direct or circumstantial evidence. It is for you to decide how much weight to give to any evidence."--- https://www.ce9.uscourts.gov/jury-i...proof,both direct and circumstantial evidence.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Scientific analysis is simply not comparable to the legal justice system.
At its very basic, once a legal trial is over, you can't be retried twice without new evidence. Science is all about retrials. In fact, that is its strength. You can challenge a theory or finding as many times as it takes.
Einstein, when a hundred authors wrote criticizing his work, said simply: “It would not have required one hundred authors to prove me wrong; one would have been enough,”
At its very basic, once a legal trial is over, you can't be retried twice without new evidence. Science is all about retrials. In fact, that is its strength. You can challenge a theory or finding as many times as it takes.
Einstein, when a hundred authors wrote criticizing his work, said simply: “It would not have required one hundred authors to prove me wrong; one would have been enough,”
How about you quote from the report where it says that it has been determined beyond reasonable doubt that any unidentified UAP travelled at Mach 2?
Are you back to trolling, now that some of your warning points have expired? Willing to wear a few more days off, just to tell some lies and to try to antagonise people?
You need to stop that nonsense, Magical Realist.
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I would be interested to read your feedback on this…
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/scienc...stigma-are-needed-to-understand-ufo-sightings
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/scienc...stigma-are-needed-to-understand-ufo-sightings
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Measured and focused on facts, as one would expect. The view on the likelihood of life (of what sort not stated) existing elsewhere in the universe is far from controversial. As is the finding that no evidence has been presented of extraterrestrial visitation or cover up by government.
The "shift from sensationalism to science" is to be welcomed, but in my opinion is a forlorn hope.
And I think it says a good deal about the current hysterical psychological state of US society that the identity of the director of NASA UAP research cannot be publicised, for fear of threats and harassment, as already experienced by members of the panel.
One final thought: it strikes me that some recent NASA initiatives smell more of a search for popular relevance (cf. The Right Stuff: "Know what makes this bird go up? Funding makes this bird go up") rather than the pursuit of worthwhile science. Given that there will always remain a residue of unexplained cases, due to lack of good data on them, the firm believers will never be convinced there is nothing "out there", cf. JFK, Diana, the Duke of Edinburgh and the white Fiat Uno, Bermuda Triangle, etc etc. So there can never be a definitive conclusion to this exercise.
Good article. Yes, if we can reach the point where observations of UAP's are not immediately touted as "OMG ALIENS!" and then have the dicussion subsequently devolve into "yes they were" "no they weren't" that would be a good thing.
Shame on you for editing out the part that demonstrates the difference.
"For example, if a witness testified that she had been outside and saw that it
was raining, that testimony would be direct evidence that it was raining. On the
other hand, if a witness testified that she saw someone walk in from outside wearing
a wet raincoat and carrying a wet umbrella, that testimony would be circumstantial
evidence from which you could reasonably infer that it was raining. You would not
have to find that it was raining, but you could."
In other words, direct evidence proves a fact. Circumstantial evidence SUGGESTS a fact.
From this point on I am going to assume that everything you post is deceptive. BTW this post wasn't for you; I know you don't care.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
My feeling also.
If absolutely nothing is found beyond known physics/technology by NASA there will be a community that will stick to their guns.
I good illustration,I was going for concise
One thing I want guys like Magical Realist to understand is us sceptical guys ARE interested in the question.
Is there life beyond our solar system?
Can you think of a more important question?
I think the answer is yes, the observable universe is just too damn big.
Chemistry and physics appears to be universal so why not?
The best team to look into this are the teams looking at JWST exoplanet and the NASA organisation.
Intelligent, sentient life may be extremely rare.
Intelligent sentient life getting to our planet and making a poor job of being inconspicuous?
I find that highly unlikely.
wegs:
Did you read my last reply to you, post #64?
Also useful is my reply to Yazata, post #77, which covers some of the same matters that you have raised.
Yazata has taken to ignoring me - I think it's because he'd rather shut his ears than to acknowledge any of the points I have made about his war on skeptics, or to admit that he actually agrees with me on most things when it comes to UAPs (even though it is clear that he does).
I hope you're not also ignoring me. It doesn't reflect well on Yazata that he is unwilling to even acknowledge other points of view, let alone respond to them.
Courts of law also recognise that even when witnesses are "inherently credible", they are still human beings who have cognitive biases, who can make mistakes and who don't always perceive or remember things accurately.
Eyewitness accounts are certainly evidence. They are not worthless (and, just to be clear, no skeptic here has said they are). However, facts must be established by looking at all the available evidence. That's what juries do in criminal trials and that's what scientists do when they are examining unexpected phenomena.
A single, uncorroborated witness statement is not useless, but clearly a collection of independent accounts, combined with some physical evidence and auxiliary (circumstantial) evidence is far stronger if you're trying to make a case that some sequence of events actually happened.
I think you might have missed what the skeptics "scoff" at. It is not the accounts of eyewitnesses themselves, although in some cases eyewitness accounts can seem implausible or fabricated. What the skeptics here have been scoffing at is the notion that eyewitnesses are somehow infallible recorders and tellers of truth. Science and experience (even legal experience) tells us that is certainly not the case, yet some UFO believers are willing to blind themselves to that obvious truth, due to their own cognitive biases, the first and foremost being confirmation bias.
However, since you're asking, I would speculate that what motivates Mick West are things like (a) a desire to apply his own skills in engineering and science to solving problems, (b) a desire to publically promote and encourage critical thinking, (c) a desire to help people with less specialist expertise than he has to solve problems, (d) a desire to be a public voice for reason and rationality, against the tide of irrationality and superstition that characterises a lot of UFO belief.
Did you read my last reply to you, post #64?
Also useful is my reply to Yazata, post #77, which covers some of the same matters that you have raised.
Yazata has taken to ignoring me - I think it's because he'd rather shut his ears than to acknowledge any of the points I have made about his war on skeptics, or to admit that he actually agrees with me on most things when it comes to UAPs (even though it is clear that he does).
I hope you're not also ignoring me. It doesn't reflect well on Yazata that he is unwilling to even acknowledge other points of view, let alone respond to them.
DaveC and billvon have already given good replies to this. Here's what NASA has to say about eyewitness accounts:
Yet, without calibrated sensor data to accompany it, no report [i.e. no eyewitness account] can provide conclusive evidence on the nature of UAP or enable a study into the details of what was witnessed. While witnesses may be inherently credible, reports are not repeatable by others, and they do not allow a complete investigation into possible cognitive biases and errors (such as accuracy in perception, or misperception caused by environmental factors, errors in the recording device, judgment or misjudgment of distance or speed, for example). Therefore, the reports do not alone constitute data that can support a repeatable, reproducible analysis, and the hypothesis that what was witnessed was a manifestation of known natural or technological phenomena cannot be falsified.
Courts of law also recognise that even when witnesses are "inherently credible", they are still human beings who have cognitive biases, who can make mistakes and who don't always perceive or remember things accurately.
Eyewitness accounts are certainly evidence. They are not worthless (and, just to be clear, no skeptic here has said they are). However, facts must be established by looking at all the available evidence. That's what juries do in criminal trials and that's what scientists do when they are examining unexpected phenomena.
A single, uncorroborated witness statement is not useless, but clearly a collection of independent accounts, combined with some physical evidence and auxiliary (circumstantial) evidence is far stronger if you're trying to make a case that some sequence of events actually happened.
I think you might have missed what the skeptics "scoff" at. It is not the accounts of eyewitnesses themselves, although in some cases eyewitness accounts can seem implausible or fabricated. What the skeptics here have been scoffing at is the notion that eyewitnesses are somehow infallible recorders and tellers of truth. Science and experience (even legal experience) tells us that is certainly not the case, yet some UFO believers are willing to blind themselves to that obvious truth, due to their own cognitive biases, the first and foremost being confirmation bias.
Nobody has disputed that what the navy pilots saw was "out of the ordinary" (i.e. outside their normal daily experience of flying fighter jets). In fact, that is one of the reasons why we might expect the pilots not to be expert observers in UAP cases.
As I told Yazata, either all the available evidence is consistent with the UAP being a bird (or balloon or alien spacecraft) or it isn't. If it is, then it could be a bird (or a balloon or an alien spacecraft). The point is, if we can't rule out the "bird" as a plausible explanation, then that explanation is to be preferred over the alien spacecraft explanation, for all sorts of reasons (many of which have been discussed previously).
See my reply to Yazata (post #77). Even if Mick West hypothetically had a hidden agenda to try to debunk every UFO sighting because he did not want aliens to be real (say), it wouldn't affect the truth of anything he says that can easily be checked by other people. So, if West shows that a particular UFO could be a bird, then unless West has made an error of some kind, then the UFO could be a bird. In that case, West's hidden agendas - whatever they may be - are irrelevant.
However, since you're asking, I would speculate that what motivates Mick West are things like (a) a desire to apply his own skills in engineering and science to solving problems, (b) a desire to publically promote and encourage critical thinking, (c) a desire to help people with less specialist expertise than he has to solve problems, (d) a desire to be a public voice for reason and rationality, against the tide of irrationality and superstition that characterises a lot of UFO belief.
I don't know what you mean by that.
See above on the question of eyewitness legitimacy. Bottom line: navy pilots are human beings, not superhuman infallible heroes.
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