See here, I think.
Shameful & painful to read Stephen Hawking UFO declarations

Perhaps the aliens are farming us for the youth giving substance, peneal juice.

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I think my Ironymeter just blew.

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I don't believe it is worth the discussion. In as much as I respect Bart for his tenacity, I personally would have conceded the battle very early on. You can go back to one of my earlier comments a few month ago, shouldn't be too hard to find. I gave a hypothethical briefly which pretty much covered that incident. If you have any questions beyond that I may answer personally ZC. I have told one trusted member that way. Not really looking for any attention about this and my comment was certainly not a veiled attempt to initiate a response such as yours, although it could very well be perceived as such. I could have started a new thread any time but it just wouldn't accomplish anything. I am really not too concerned about being attacked either. Got a pretty rough hide to say the least, but not really willing to put up a fight in a battle that cannot be won. Winning isn't everything, but you can make yourself look pretty stupid trying to achieve it. Heck, I can do that without arguing a losing battle.

I found myself at a very young age knowing something the grown-ups would have had a hard time comprehending. At that age your entire life is wrapped around what they know. I was very uncomfortable to say the least for many years after and to date I only came here to hang around the subject without making too much noise. Some kind of self therapy I suspect. I can tell you this about me: when this happened I was already a "Life" boy scout. I was an avid observer of everything and bird watching was my favorite nature quest. Observing another new bird and adding it to my journal was a real quest for me. I gained such a keen eye in the wilderness that I could spot many animals even when draped in their localized camoflage. I soon began to register mammals as well. I raised pigeons, all kinds available at the time. I left the boy scouts shortly after this incident as well as my church. I was a month short of being a confirmed Lutheran. It broke my mom's heart and I could never really tell her why I gave it up. Got my draft notice in 69 and nothing in my life ever scared me like that again with the exception of the possiblilty of losing a loved one. Time to move on--take care--j

Interesting choice of words. Frankenstein, of course, was the very human man who created the monster. What monsters are you trying to create, Bart?

You cought the inference, congrats. No need for me to create anything, that was already half baked. Just trying to figure it out. Monsters from the ID, fear of the unknown, blind faith in divine purpose.
Do you see a need for understanding and reason?

Why would 8 mil US citizens make this up ? i'm sure there are many frauds and maybe one with sleep paralysis, plus the military abduction stuff.. but what about he 7 million others? they aren't all selling a book. are they?

Hmmm....one is likely, requires no physical evidence, and manifests itself in an organism that has been shown to suffer from mental disorders in a good percentage of its population. The other is incredible, should have physical evidence, and requires the presence of an unknown entity that has never been proven to exist. I think I will side with #1.

Before you state there are too many cases, you are wrong. How many cases? You stated millions earlier with nothing to back up that claim. I have heard Hopkins say thousands, with nothing to back up that claim. What is being discussed is a small percentage of the population that suffers from mental issues that manifest itself in this way. Considering that this is probably a percentage similar to that which seeks psychiatric help for various other issues, I don't think it is a stretch to suggest this is nothing out of the ordinary.

Feel free to tell us where you got the 8 million number.

Thanks jt-3d , i didnt see that

I agree Joe, isnt worth to discuss, i cant prove to you that was just an illusion, and you cant show me that it was real, is a dead end

metathor, 8 millions persons...is not a bit exagerated? do we have any solid data about how many adupted?, racial/social composition?

That sleep paralysis is the real deal from my experience. On several occasions while sleeping in my cabin I have woke up and not been able to move. Seemingly able to see, hear etc. On two occasions, one in the cabin and one while sleeping outside in the forest I found myself in this condition and was terrified to see a bear standing beside me. In the end there was no bear, but a bear is what I was worried about when I went to sleep. This seems to happen to me when I am away from home and vulnerable in some sense. The porch where I sleep in the cabin is mostly screen and not much more secure than a tent. My opinion is that most of the alien visitation phenomena can be linked to this. I was really paralyzed and really did see the bear, but the bear just wasn't there.

metathor, 8 millions persons...is not a bit exagerated? do we have any solid data about how many adupted?, racial/social composition?

Yes, this reads like an appeal to unrealistic numbers to stimulate interest by fear mongering.

I wonder what a real poll of the public verses the medical community would reveal? Show it is triviel, the debate ends.

Why would 8 mil US citizens make this up ? i'm sure there are many frauds and maybe one with sleep paralysis, plus the military abduction stuff.. but what about he 7 million others? they aren't all selling a book. are they?

The correct number is 3.7 million, which resulted from a Roper Poll conduct in 1991-1992. Bud Hopkins was among those asking the Roper Organization to pose questions in this area. Around 6,000 persons were questioned. However, they were not asked "were you abducted", but rather 5 questions, and Bud Hopkins then concudes that if they answer "yes" to 4 of them, it is an indication that they were "abducted" by aliens. The poll is flawed.
See

http://www.csicop.org/si/9805/abduction.html

There are only two possibilities.

In pseudoscience there are always two possibilities: the desired outcome, and a silly, straw-man caricature of everything else.

{1... (the caricature straw-man)
There are a lot of people who are suffering from stress or mental disorder and this is how many manifest it.

Or there are a lot of people leading ordinary human lives accompanied by the customary attendant difficulties and limitations. Pseudoscientist arguments beg the question that life should be free of any such hardship or uncertainty, or of fear and injury, or of outlying but ordinary effects.

There will always be charletons and oppertunist who prey on the weak, not a good argument for either skeptic or believer.

That depends on how the argument is deployed and supported. The fact that emotional and financial predation does occur means we need to eliminate or substantiate it where the facts of the case seem consistent with it. Often the proponent wants little more than attention; it would be harsh to categorize that under predation.

Alleged purity of motive is not by itself grounds to eliminate ulteriority.

{2... (the desired outcome)
Or the fantastic with only ancedotal evidence for support.

Or not only just anecdotal evidence, but also supposition to account for counterindicatory evidence. Such as...

1. They can control our perceptions and memory...
2. They ... play into the abductees belief systems.
3. Prevent physical evicence of presence...
4. Posture and display allowing only ancedotal evidence...

It doesn't take much thought to recognize when someone is wishfully defining the desired speculative phenomenon exactly to excuse why the evidence doesn't point toward it, and even why the desired phenomenon even exhibits properties that malevolently explain otherwise ordinary skepticism.

Every fringe theory I have encountered (and I have encountered very many) has the element that that criticizes the mainstream either for its inappropriate maintenance of hegemony, its concealment of truth, or its inexcusable inaction. Portraying the designated authority as somehow ill-intentioned seems to be the primary goal.

Every fringe theory supposes some manner of omnipotence that enables wholesale manipulation of the evidence to make the actions of the evil agent invisible. "NASA knows about Planet X but pressures the world's astronomers to keep it quiet." "Big Oil spends lots of money to discredit free-energy theories." "The government knows UFOs are alien spaceships, but lets the aliens do their thing because the aliens share technology." And on and on.

All of that spells an exercise to support a predetermined conclusion, not a search for where the evidence points.

Why would confusion and hiding in plain sight suit their purpose?
They are farming us.

Circular. There is no evidence of a "they," hence there is no evidence of "their purpose." Therefore by subversion of support, there is no motive that requires an explanation. That whole line of reasoning simply presupposes the existence of alien abductors.

Exact product and purpose is not clear...

Hence a purpose is established by pure conjecture, guided only by what is necessary to fit the alien-abductor hypothesis to the observations -- whatever those observations might be. There is never any exercise to see whether any such purpose or motive actually exists. Citing as such evidence the good fit with the observation closes the circular logic.

Face the truth folks. If their intent and purpose were really honerable...

Face the truth: there is no evidence that any such entity exists or pursues any such purpose.

Do any of these actions sound like someone with honerable intent?

No evidence of a "someone." The line of reasoning here is a converted conditional: if beings existed and engaged in such behavior, then such behavior from them would be consistent with malevolence. That is not, however, evidence of any actual malevolence because the motive depends on the existence of something to exhibit it.

Abductophiles consider the problem of the factual observations (whether reported quantitatively, categorically, or anecdotally) combined with the preconceived impression that an extrinsic cause (usually a fairly specific one) is responsible. Thus their lines of reasoning address the combination, and are thus predictably conjectural and unparsimonious.

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Wait.. I thought it was a government black-ops hoax that accounted for aubduction stories? When did "real" aliens come back into it?

CJSF

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Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

There was a show on NatGeo last night about the UFO phenomenon. The short segment I happened to catch was talking about "abductees" and the abduction experience. It was actually pretty good--the part I saw anyway. Started out with the usual Woo-ish claims and black-silhouette testimonies, but very quickly went on to conversation with psychologists and scientists about the real physical phenomenons behind many of these experience (namely sleep paralysis). I didn't watch much; maybe 5-10 minutes total... it was late and I didn't feel the need to learn stuff I already know... but it was nice to see a reasonable viewpoint portrayed without the usual cheap studio effects and narrator downplay to raise questions and doubt where there really wasn't any.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

What military abduction stuff?

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I believe that was a re-air of "UFOs: Seeing is believing" with Peter Jennings. Not a bad show if you ask me. The UFO proponents did not like Roswell being called a myth and was very angry at some of the SETI scientists reactions to UFOs. Jerome Clark suggested Frank Drake was a religious zealot and Jill Tarter was ridiculous when talking about her UFO sighting (which she would eventually figure out was the moon hidden by some clouds without calling MUFON/CUFOS/NUFORC/FUFOR etc). Stanton Friedman went as far as to refer to SETI as the "silly effort to investigate".

That's the show. I didn't see all the other stuff...but when I first saw that Peter Jennings was hosting a show on UFO's, I was a bit thrown...which just made me all the happier to see the rational treatment that segment I caught recieved.

Great varation on the typical format: Woo -> Scientific Explination -> Dramatic chord followed by vague line, eg "Or IS it?!" (unsupported statement of doubt) -> Commercial break to advertise new "scientific" ghost hunter series

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

No evidence of a "someone." The line of reasoning here is a converted conditional: if beings existed and engaged in such behavior, then such behavior from them would be consistent with malevolence. That is not, however, evidence of any actual malevolence because the motive depends on the existence of something to exhibit it.

Your analysis is interestig however since it is of ancedotal evidence which your reject as being possible to evaluate scientificly then your evaluation has no more validity than mine. Further you have an established bias that the subject is non existant and so your arguments are simply to support an opinion and not an evaluation.

Much of my statements are summary of actual research by KT and others so it is not just my unsuported thoughts. However since you have previously all such research as unworthy there is little point in discussing its merits.

None of what I stated was propsed as an establishe fact supported by physical evedence but merly an excercise of if this then that is implied.

Since you have ruled out anything but physical evedence being applicable to analysis then any conclusions made by you are baseless.

I just read project Bluebook special report 14 and I was amazed that the conclusions were not supported by the data. The unknowns were consistantly 20 to 30 percent in virtually every catagory. The low of 20 percent was attained by moving any that might be possible knowns out of the unknown group.

Quote from report.

The results of these tests are inconclusive since they neither confirm
nor deny that the UNKNOWNS are primarily unidentified KNOWNS, although
they do indicate that relatively few of the UNKNOWNS are actually astronomical
phenomena.

Here is how they class witnisess reports with high reliability of unknown.

It was decided that this process would not be carried to its logical
conclusion (that is, the determination of a linear combination of KNOWNS
that would give a negligible chi square when compared with the UNKNOWNS),
since it was felt that the inaccuracies in the reports would give a distorted
and meaningless result.

And this is how they avoided taking the unknowns to their logical conclusions.

Again it is all ancedotal evidence so I will concede any argument on that basis.

I find all of your arguments of scientific value do little to convince those who have actually seen one.

I want to thank you for your time and energy. I will take to heart the statement that I should adopt critical thinking before continuing to post as I am taking too much of this forums time and energy in continuing to ignore this premise.

You are quite knowlegable and I have learned a great deal here. It would be remiss of me not to consider your arguments at lenght so I plan to spend the next week or so following the links on critical thinking I was given here.

Given your pre requisite that only physical evedence is worthy of scientific evaluation I find it unlikly that any will be found to present to you. After the dcades of study that has so far produced none I think it shall not be produced for decades more.

regards

My goodness.. this is even more silly than you saying "straw man!" on the most inopportune occasions. This "I'll use against you, what works against me"-stuff is becoming more hilarious each time I see it. And sad at the same time, since if you think the term "ancedotal evidence" applies here, do you even understand what it means when other use it appropriately? A question I fear will remain unanswered.

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Meet the OOONG TOE.

Your analysis is interestig however since it is of ancedotal evidence which your reject as being possible to evaluate scientificly then your evaluation has no more validity than mine.

You have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. Do you honestly think that throwing together a word salad of things you've heard other people say before really constitutes an argument?

Further you have an established bias that the subject is non existant...

Correctly noting that there is no proof for the existence of space aliens is not a bias. Believing (in the absence of any evidence) that space aliens do visit Earth and are responsible for symptoms alleged or reported by so-called abductees, is.

Much of my statements are summary of actual research by KT...

You disavowed Karla Turner. You may no longer use her as a reference unless you plan to change your answers to my questions regarding the validity of her work.

...and others so it is not just my unsuported thoughts.

Here goes the backpedalling again. When you take others to task for not agreeing with the claims, you make those claims your own. You may not absolve yourself of such arrogance by simply naming the people whose claims you mindlessly repeat.

Since you have ruled out anything but physical evedence being applicable to analysis then any conclusions made by you are baseless.

What conclusions made by me are you talking about? I'm simply reminding you that your conclusions regarding the motives and actions of space aliens are highly dependent on evidence for the existence of space aliens in the first place, which has not been provided. You want to cross the finish line before you've even finished lacing up your running shoes.

I just read project Bluebook special report...

Changing the subject.

Again it is all ancedotal evidence so I will concede any argument on that basis.

You concede, but then you turn around and argue. Make up your mind.

I find all of your arguments of scientific value do little to convince those who have actually seen one.

What makes you think I'm trying to convince them? What makes you think they can be persuaded otherwise by any means?

You are quite knowlegable and I have learned a great deal here. It would be remiss of me not to consider your arguments at lenght so I plan to spend the next week or so following the links on critical thinking I was given here.

Thanks. I'll just be happy if you stop calling me biased and a government shill.

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"Flying Bar Stools", ok pretty good considering the context--"word salad", that is the neatest one yet. Tell me that is a standard line out their in acadamia. It will just kill me if you made that up yourself Jay. I wouldn't be able to come up with a line like that if I spent the rest of my life trying. Even if I was on one of my mean streaks--joe

Due to the wide swings in approach (It's true/ It's not true; I'm for it/I'm against it; You people haven't a clue/I've learned a lot here) that have been displayed, one wonders which bart5050 will show up in each of his posts.

My hypothesis: bart5050 actually did leave the first time he said he was going to, and has been replaced by a committee.

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The phrase "word salad" has been around for a long time.

It was probably coined the first time someone attempted to defend an unsupportable position by machine-gunning words at the opponents/critics/debunkers.

Then again, that debunker might have been Jay.

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Bart, do you realize that 4 million Americans would be 1 out of every 75 Americans?

Google define: word salad

Yields such as:

Gosh, all the definitions seem to involve schizophrenia. That usage was unfamiliar to me. Perhaps it originated as jargon in the field of psychiatry.

That flavor is never meant here, or any of the many times I've heard the phrase used, but instead has a more general meaning of: words strung together with little attention to semantics -- a little this, a little that, all chopped and mixed together.

Ah. At Wikipedia is the extended, more general meaning:

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Bart, do you realize that 4 million Americans would be 1 out of every 75 Americans?

Would love to discuss the research, the sources, and its faulty conclusions as well as the merits and posibilities. I find many of your posts thought provoking and insightful.

However no matter what approach I take to stimulate thought provoking ideas on possibilities, Jay rides herd on any thoughts that get outside the box. Life must be difficult under the shadow of such a powerful personality.

All of you totally missed the point of my clearly cicuitous word salid. So no point in exploring your question.

regards

Thank you sir. Appreciate the help. Maybe him saying it adds something to it, he places it in the right spot and cultivates it. My response would have problably bordered on ad-hom. More education needed here-never too late to learn

Apparently, you are intimidated by his approach. He wants details, as I do, that can be defended and discussed. So far, your arguments have failed to compell and you have been unwilling to support them with facts that can be checked. Instead, you often resort to UFO proponent catch phrases to defend your position.

Apparently, you are intimidated by his approach. He wants details, as I do, that can be defended and discussed. So far, your arguments have failed to compell and you have been unwilling to support them with facts that can be checked. Instead, you often resort to UFO proponent catch phrases to defend your position.

Any source reference I cited was quickly impuned as to motive. It was pointed out that only physical evidence accepted when all know that eyewitness accounts and researchers integrety is the evidence offered. My own integrety and qualifications became the primary basis of consideration and not the issue.

These are all standerd debunking tactics that I am rather inexperianced at dealing with. My inexperiance with the subject was obvious as I was undertaking this as a journey of personal discovery. This weakness was quickly recognized and used to full advantage. Any protest was quickly pointed out as beg to sympathy when it was not the intent.

Open and serious debate considering the posibilities and implecations of were rendered mute. When debate did start to become open and truly inquiring of the phenomena itself then Jay quickly jumped in and brought it back to the issue of debunking bart to head off where it was going.

Anyone incapable of recognizing the bias to the subject and the meathodology used to debunk is wearing blinders. Most of it was centered around my weaknesses at debate and not the merits of the issue itself.

You refer to UFO catch phrases when I am not even aware of what they are. This leads me to believe that what might be catch phrases as you call them is a way of classifying valid concerns making them easy to dismiss.

Thought I could surly find some approach to the subject that would be an honest appraisal because I am not CT nut or a forum troll but someone really looking for answers because I have legitimate questions. My position felt safe from attack because I have not had the experiance, although I know people of honesty and integrety that have. Already traumatized I cannot imagine them subjecting themselves to this kind of attack.

The bias here is purly to debunk by any means that works and no discovery of what the phenomena really comes from is possible in this environment.

Yes I am venting my frustration thank you.

Tired of your pointed questions with their thinly veiled agenda and will respond to them no more.

Have a good day.

regards

The way Jay thinks leads to better airplanes, better computers, better medical doctors, better teachers, etc. The methods you're trying to apply don't even admit the existence of the box in the first place.

Until you figure out why research into thousands of UFO sightings, abductions, crashes, landings, and whatever have not led to the slightest advance in how to do anything better, you're going to be stuck with not knowing who to believe and when to believe it.

Jay has consistently and exquisitely championed the ONLY method found (so far) where what we think we know can be tested without regard to authority or personality.

Science is not a test of what we don't know; science is a test of what we think we know from a premise of theory falsification and predictability and not verification: Scientists don't try to prove a theory right; they try to prove it wrong.

What you're trying to do is prove something right when proving the same thing wrong doesn't have a consequence: We learn nothing.