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what phenomena are you on about - blobs, tic tacs, fuzzy radar, what is it that we should accept because the evidence is so overwhelming ?
I think the only thing we can accept is some folk saw something they don't know what it is. No different than what happens after walking into an exotic restaurant with weir food.
Let's not talk about how overwhelming the evidence is, let's talk about how there's no solid evidence anywhere to be found, only fuzzy data and chit chat. Overwhelming would be something we can get our hands on, something put in front of the international community. What we actually have is underwhelming evidence.
Unidentified implies a lack of sufficient evidence required to identify something. Thousands of eye witness reports don’t qualify as sufficient evidence. Video and associated telemetry don’t qualify as evidence. What sort of evidence, and how much of it, would be sufficient to conclude that something is unidentified and flying? You come from a position of categorically dismissing a lot of evidence that would be considered valid in a court of law. Witnesses of an event count. Tour’s is not a logical or scientific viewpoint.
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Tizman, I think your points are well taken. But I'm also seeing that the opposing sides in the debate are talking past each other. I'm starting to think that both sides are being honest with themselves but that people's brains sometimes are working differently in the visual realm. For instance check out the link below about a condition called Aphantasia, something I'd never heard about previously.
Aphantasia: The People Without a Mind's Eye | 'Out of Mind' | Wired UK - YouTube
It's a condition where you can't visualize something in your mind's eye. Approximately 1% of the population has it. I hadn't even known that it was possible that people can not have that, let along that a few million people would have it based on that 1% number. I'm not saying anyone here has it but it would sure explain a lot about the opposing sides. Personally, I'm very good at visualizing things in my minds eye.
Aphantasia: The People Without a Mind's Eye | 'Out of Mind' | Wired UK - YouTube
It's a condition where you can't visualize something in your mind's eye. Approximately 1% of the population has it. I hadn't even known that it was possible that people can not have that, let along that a few million people would have it based on that 1% number. I'm not saying anyone here has it but it would sure explain a lot about the opposing sides. Personally, I'm very good at visualizing things in my minds eye.
I paint as a hobby and have no problem visualizing complex things in my mind's eye. If your implying one "side" represents only one person in a hundred I would suggest you make a better observation.
I was just trying to come up with an explanation for people having such different views without accusing them of bad faith arguments. I hope you can see that. I'm as disturbed that we can't find some common ground as anyone. The whole disagreement seems petty to me and I would like to find a solution that doesn't involve vanquishing the other side.
I'm glad you're not disadvantaged in that way. For myself visualizing and completing the picture in my mind is one of the most important ways I negotiate the world I interact with.
I'm glad you're not disadvantaged in that way. For myself visualizing and completing the picture in my mind is one of the most important ways I negotiate the world I interact with.
The standards science sets are higher than those set in any legal system - people get convicted of murder on circumstantial evidence. I doubt Einstein would have gotten very far if he had claimed relativity on circumstantial evidence
If one claims aliens have come, irrefutable proof is required. And, per Carl Sagan, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
Navy pilots and trained military professionals saw something. I believe them 100%.
However, the next claim is ‘it was not of this world’ (one of the pilots remarks). Since the object is ‘unidentified’, how can he be qualified to make a remark like that, or others ‘it’s probably of alien origin’?
“Some folk” = private, commercial and military pilots going back 70 years. In the case of commercial and military pilots, these events have multiple eyewitnesses and are backed by radar telemetry. Multiple governments around the world have reported such phenomena. You are forgetting there is a paper trail of documentation attesting to a US military taking the subject very seriously even when publicly trying to play it down. You are also forgetting that Project Blue Book was brought to a close in part because the lead scientific consultant in charge of debunking had begun to reverse his opinion. Comparing any of this to a trip to a restaurant is risible.
I agree 100% which is why it’s important to take the baby steps of simply acknowledging the ufo phenomenon exists before we begin speculating on their point of origin.
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Which brings us back to the question of what ulterior motive would the military have in escalating this topic to the stratosphere.
If I am reading you correctly, I agree this is problematic to say the least, which is also why I stress the importance of looking at the earliest cases. Modern technology has absolutely muddied waters, intentionally or not.
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You are right, it’s no comparison. In the restaurant there’s hard evidence, everyone can see it, touch it, smell it and taste it.
Yet you go home hungry anyway because one of your buddies tried to eat the menu, causing another to declare the restaurant a mass delusion. You all left, satisfied with another night of debunking foreign cuisine.
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You’re right, you would never do such a thing, you prefer to stay at home and insist on being spoon fed.
I'm not sure evidence to what but if you are referring to those so called flying objects that are unidentified, if solid evidence surfaced, they would no longer be called unidentified, would they?
Any legal system? 😱 🙄 I'm sure you know that there are many court cases which the conviction was made based on the leading edge scientific evidence, i.e. DNA, material analysis, nanotech... etc.
Speculation abounds. For some reason, to some people, speculation = claim.
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I suppose if the objects are clearly seen to be weather balloons you can say they have been identified, but if it’s something we haven’t seen before, you know, from outa space and made by little guys with buggy eyes, then we might not know what we have.
One of the reasons these conversations hit these sort of impasses is because at its heart, science is a philosophical concept, which is not grounds to dismiss it (before the philosophy detractors accuse me of belittling science). Nested within science are epistemological concepts such as rationalism, empiricism and skepticism. Bigun and JMFahey evince an adherence to empiricism, which is their prerogative, but empiricism is just one way to skin a cat and in some historical instances, would have precluded scientific advancement itself.
I apologize for playing a part in this. I think the pettiness could be toned down a bit if the deniers could refrain from the ufo=ET fallacy but it appears nothing can be done about that without deprogramming them. I have little patience for that; when someone is that disingenuous it’s much easier to tire them out and drive them away. As mean-spirited and unethical as Klass and Menzel were, at least they would issue challenges on a case-by-case basis. What we see now is a much lazier practice of their same mentality.
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