Jay, I've mentioned this before, and I'm sorry but I have to say it again: who are you quoting?

I apologize for the missing attribution. Maybe if I leave a portion such as above, with the link back to the original, it will help solve the problem.

I implore you to use the quote feature provided by the forum.

I explained earlier why I don't like the forum's quote feature for establishing context. It's far too graphically heavyweight for my style. And full context quoting eliminates the flow in the response. Further, for second- and further-generational quotes, BAUT software automatically removes all but the outermost quotations to eliminate the incomprehensible nested-box layout. This serves to remove important context in subsequent quotation, which is preserved in my method.

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I don't mind your method when you're quoting from the immediately preceding post, but not otherwise.

Perhaps in those instances, you could simply preface your quote with the person's name:

"geonuc: blah, blah, blah ..."

Or not. You've been a long-time contributor to BAUT and I note that I seem to be the only one whining about it. I'll shut up now.

I am as skeptical as anyone in the planet about UFO sightings, but I fail to see why there need be any inquisition as to personal academic history. What is relevant are the facts, and not the academic history of a mature individual. I also don't quite see, given your own question on such matters, you are hesitant to present your own background and experience, to which you have made reference in several posts and which is readily available at your own web site.
http://www.clavius.org/about.html,Company or other information that is readily availble on the web:

Senior Software Engineer, Software Validation
Company: Linux
http://www.aovk16.dsl.pipex.com/JayWindley.jpg

While I am unlikely to come to believe in UFOs, I don't see why this thread needs to become an inquisition of the individual's background. Let's concentrate on the facts and the factual basis for them.

If someone is claiming expertise, shouldn't the method of acquiring that expertise be relevant?

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Ah, you beat me to it. Jay is more than willing to talk about his relevant education and work history, when drawing on that as support for an argument.

And if the claimant is trying to use his or her own expertise to support their claim, it is up to them to establish said expertise.

When expertise is referenced as support, but has not been established, it is not a personal attack to ask for relevant personal history.

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"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

DrRocket,
This would normally be the case.

Here, however, Robert Hastings stated that his material is based on anecdotal evidence (eyewitness interviews) and historical documents.

So, I think Jay summed it up quite well when he asked:

Seen in this context it seems like a logical question to me...

...but I fail to see why there need be any inquisition as to personal academic history.

It is made relevant (and in fact, singularly relevant) by the proponent's claim to expertise, which he introduced in his first post and has affirmed subsequently. If one says he has "analyzed" evidence in order to arrive at a conclusion, then how he learned to do that analysis and how good he had previously demonstrated he is at it, are of paramount importance to the strength of the conclusion.

That's why I brought up the examples of Burrows and Vaughan: two people each demonstrably in adequate possession of the facts in the occurrences they write about, but only one of which properly equipped with domain understanding and proper technique to make defensible sense of the facts and draw supportable conclusions from them.

I also don't quite see, given your own question on such matters, you are hesitant to present your own background and experience...

I am not hesitant because I am bothered by my background, but because I object to the evasive turnabout. Fred does not have to be an expert in medicine in order to want to know whether Ted is a qualified doctor. Hastings' question is a distraction, and I dismiss it not because I don't have a good answer for it, but because I don't agree to the distractionary tactic of asking it. Mr. Hastings has written the book; therefore Mr. Hastings has the burden to proof he was qualified in all respects to have written it. Whether some prospective reader has some set of qualifications is utterly irrelevant to that.

...or other information that is readily availble on the web

Yes, but be careful: much of that sort of information is simply "crawled" by third-party robots and may not be accurate or up to date. In fact it is an increasingly controversial proposition in human-resource work whether it's legal or ethical to Google candidates for positions. Out of many jobs I've held, only one seems to have any visible evidence on the web.

I can certainly Google for Mr. Hastings, but then I'd be inferring something about him based on information of unknown reliability and completeness. I'd rather ask Mr. Hasting himself and have him answer.

http://www.aovk16.dsl.pipex.com/JayWindley.jpg

Ew, bad hair day.

Let's concentrate on the facts and the factual basis for them.

But the "UFOs and Nukes" question is less about the facts themselves than about the inferences Mr. Hastings has made upon them. That Mr. Hastings downplays having made any such inferences does not mean they don't bother me.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Just a comment from someone who claims no particular expertise....

Radar was invented in the late 1930's, so we do not have a really long term sample for Radar/UFO comparisons, and furthermore, The technology is constantly changing, this makes it hard to prove the various suppositions made by the OP....

When I say "Life affects me" this is an objective statement, when I express an opinion about it, I have become subjective and descended into partiality and argueing about subjective feelings...The same is true of Ufology, If I say "Unknown radar returns" it is an objective statment, if I say "UFO shot down dummy warhead...." I have descended into the pit of "He said--- she said....." and all the subjectivity that goes with that....

Science is the only place where objectivity rules and opinion based on belief means bupkis!!

Todays' generations need a course in Logic and some kind of epiphanic experience in objective thought....I do not know how to do it here!!

Dale

__________________
"Ad astra per aspera"

You've been a long-time contributor to BAUT and I note that I seem to be the only one whining about it. I'll shut up now.

I respect your criticism. I think middle ground is in order here. I do like the automatic link-back to post being answered. And I agree there should be no question about which poster is the source of the quotes.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

You're not. I finally gave up whining about it myself.. I can think of a few others too...
It's most annoying.
I don't even understand JayUtah's explanation for why he doesn't use the quotes.
This would be deliciously helpful.

If some guy at a bus stop approached you, asked how long you had that particular cough, took your wrist and looked at his watch, asked a few medical history questions, then stated: "you have cancer. You need to get help."... what would you do?

Me, I'd ask him if he was a doctor. Its a valid question. He has made a claim which requires special knowledge and training. I want to know if what he says has merit so I can form an opinion on what I should do based on his conclusion.

If he produced a valid diploma and gave me his business card, I'd beleive him and get checked out. And thank him profusely.

But, if he avoided the question, asked me if I was a doctor, and asked to see my credentials; or if he denounced others who expressed doubt that he was, in fact a doctor, and gave evidence about how they weren't trustworthy and their knowledge was incomplete or false; or if he claimed that, in the past 35 years he interviewed people who knew other people, all of whom had cancer, and analyzed unclassified patient records of people who had cancer, and therefore was an informed source on cancer; or if he claimed he slept at a Holiday Inn last night -- well, I dunno about you, but a Red Flag to me. A Big Red Flag. I am not going to give his conclusion any merit whatsoever.

You are either qualifed to make such statements, or you arent. And when you make those conclusions unsolicited, and ask people to beleive you, then its completely fair to question the qualifications of the person drawing the conclusion so that you may form your own opinion. If you don't question that, then go buy a copy of the National Enquirer -- I guarantee you it will change your outlook on life.

(re: Quotes; An engineer not following the standard?)

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Then let's evaluate and criticize the inferences. Lots of people make perfectly valid inferences without a certificate and lots of people with a great deal of formal training make invalid inferences.

Hastings has given his background and in fact gave a link to his personal website http://ufohastings.com/index.html.

We are not in a a court of law evaluating expert testimony. And if we were I would still not be overly impressed by credentials or lack thereof. I have been involved in high-dollar cases in which expert witnesses with high-level credentials have been justifiably dismissed because they did not know what they were talking about.

It ought not be too difficult to find alternate explanations for purported alien visitation, without making this a battle of "expert witnesses".

The strength or lack thereof of Hasting's conclusions rests solely on the data underlying those conclusions and what can be logically deduced from that data. We can analyze Hasting's methods and the conclusions drawn without any knowledge of where or how he learned to think. The important issue is whether his thoughts and logic are valid, not how his perspectives were formed.

The situation here is not analagous to the medical example offered previously. Nobody in this forum is likely to take anyone's word for anything important or controversial. Statements must be supported, not by expert testimony, but by physics and logic.

The whole thing looks like an extended advert to me... lots of read my website and study the work etc.

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Thanks - that's all I can ask.

Sorry for the off-topic distraction. But, on topic, to the thread as a whole ...

I'm no expert in anything related to UFO's or the debunking of them. But I am uneasy with the 'present your qualifications for evaluating eye-witness observations" deal. Sure, there are fields that would produce experts in this sort of thing - police detectives, insurance investigators, etc. - but is it really so specialized that ordinary people with sufficient intelligence and insight can't produce interesting opinions? I try to imagine if I undertook the effort that the OP has and presented my opinions to a science forum. We're not a peer journal.

My uneasiness extends solely to this point. His talk of evidence, having written a book and the rest are fair game for criticism here.

Then let's evaluate and criticize the inferences.

You may conduct whatever examination of Mr. Hastings' claims you see fit to mount. Please don't limit yourself to my method, if you disagree with it.

Hastings has given his background and in fact gave a link to his personal website.

Agreed. I noted that his background does not list any prior training or experience in the evaluation of eyewitness testimony or in the handling of historical military documents. Rather than to indefensibly conclude from that silence that he didn't have any such qualifications, I simply asked him directly whether he had it or not.

We are not in a a court of law evaluating expert testimony.

We are not in a court of law, but we are evaluating expert testimony, by Mr. Hastings' own assertion. Hence the first step in such an evaluation is to determine whether the witness, Mr. Hastings, is indeed an expert.

I have been involved in high-dollar cases in which expert witnesses with high-level credentials have been justifiably dismissed because they did not know what they were talking about.

What have you done to determine that Mr. Hastings knows what he is talking about?

It ought not be too difficult to find alternate explanations for purported alien visitation, without making this a battle of "expert witnesses".

Shifting the burden of proof. Mr. Hastings has made specific claims. He has the burden or proof. While the affirmative rebuttal you suggest would be one way of disputing those claims, it is not the only way, nor by any means the most effective or appropriate way. Mr. Hastings opened the debate by claiming expertise and has at least once subsequently affirmed that. He has further attempted to demand credentials from any who dispute him. You're laying blame at the wrong feet.

The strength or lack thereof of Hasting's conclusions rests solely on the data underlying those conclusions and what can be logically deduced from that data.

Induction, not deduction, is the reasoning here. Part of the journey from anecdote to assertion requires deciding how reliable the anecdote is. That is not a straightforward or objective process. You seem to believe that once a document is placed on the table, any conclusion drawn upon it is automatically valid if it is "logically deduced." I disagree with that approach to historical research.

The important issue is whether his thoughts and logic are valid, not how his perspectives were formed.

Mr. Hastings says he has "analyzed" the eyewitness and documentary evidence in order to arrive at his conclusions. I want to know what his analysis process was and how Mr. Hastings learned to do it. Please tell me why I'm not entitled to an answer to that question.

He frankly concedes here that his sources are "admittedly anecdotal evidence." I gather from that statement that understands that there are often problems with such evidence. I want to know if he has any training or experience in the methods available to address such problems.

The situation here is not analagous to the medical example offered previously.

I disagree; and I again refer to you to my examples of Burrows and Vaughan, which you still have not addressed.

Statements must be supported, not by expert testimony, but by physics and logic.

What physics and logic apply to the evaluation of eyewitness testimony? What physics and logic apply to the analysis of military documents?

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
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Being able to reproduce witness reports is not the point. The point is being qualified to be able to interpret witnesses testimony. To see the missing parts of what witnesses say. To be able to identify areas where certain assertions could not have been made. To have a feel for where time reinforces memories, right or wrong. To be aware of how circumstances can influence what witness perceive to see. To show the ability to not just take any witness info at face value. To have the ability to bridge the gap between observation and perception.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

Sure, there are fields that would produce experts in this sort of thing - police detectives, insurance investigators, etc. - but is it really so specialized that ordinary people with sufficient intelligence and insight can't produce interesting opinions?

Contradiction. There is either expertise or there is not. If there is, one cannot automatically assume to have it.

I'm not concerned with whether Mr. Hastings' opinions are interesting, but whether they are likely to be well founded.

I'm not trying to make this too fine-grained. I have concerns about Mr. Hastings' research methods. But it seems most prudent to ask specific questions about them rather than cast general aspersions unfairly.

We're not a peer journal.

And Mr. Hastings is quite welcome to present his findings to a more sympathetic audience if he so chooses. He chose to present them here, and we are responding as BAUT is famous for responding. I am merely employing now the same pattern for evaluating expert claimants that I have followed since I registered here.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

There's nothing contradictory about what I said.

I meant interesting in the sense that we as skeptics might be interested in hearing them. Being well-founded is part and parcel, but doesn't necessarily require credentials for the eye-witness evaluation aspect.

I said nothing about reproducing witness reports. I said 'evaluating eye-witness observations', which is precisely what you go on to describe.

I think it is. Otherwise, it's a recursive Appeal to Authority.

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Olsen the moderator.

Which is a skill, and if most of ones argument is built on it, a request for information to establish the level of that skill is perfectly valid, IMHO. Anyway, the point is moot. The direct question needs to be answered. "None", "little", "I don't know how to answer that" are all perfectly valid and acceptable answers. "I refuse to answer because you must answer first" is not.

Edit: Divide and conquer, anyone?

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

-- Im waiting on you to answer!

There's nothing contradictory about what I said.

Okay, I think I see now what you mean: people of ordinary experience can render opinions that attract attention; but you didn't necessarily mean that to stand in contrast to the case in which people's occupations give them greater skill at handling eyewitness testimony. Do I have it right now?

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

You do.

LOL! I think you probably mean the opposite. 'Moot' means undecided.

Anyway, yes, Mr. Hastings has some questions to answer, although, like a lot of new CT and ATM proponents, he may not understand the weight we place on rule 13.

Great! I can agree with your characterization then.

I don't say Hastings shouldn't be given attention. Here's my caveat: pseudoscience proponents often aim for a debate to bog down in details, either because there are lots of them or because they are calculated to be inconclusive. If possible I want to avoid that.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

re: Quotes; An engineer not following the standard?

Just like we have standard fastener specs. Several of them, in fact. My quotation style dates to the early 1990s and predates this newfangled vBulletin thingy by quite a long time. It gets fifty rods to the hogshead too.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Actually, it's more synonymous to "irrelevant."

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Well, I am pleasantly surprised by a few of the posts; the rest are largely composed of quite predicatably tiresome and off-mark projections. While many of the latter deserve responses, I'd prefer to stick to those posts relating to the Big Sur case. Nevertheless a few other comments demand a retort, so I will get those out of the way first:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Slang's contribution:

Originally Posted by Robert Hastings

Self-evidently, it will be nearly impossible for me to respond to every question, comment and criticism contained in the last several posts.

Slang wrote: Self-evidently? That's one of those words that inspire fact checking. When you wrote this there were a total of 3, maybe 4 direct questions explicitly directed at you (some of those repeatedly). Responding to direct questions is the minimum requirement for claimants in this forum, and this rule was alluded to, linked to, and even quoted. Being unable to answer 4 relatively simple questions, yet finding the time to write two such lengthy posts seems curious to me.

RH: Well, Slang, given that I said that I would not easily be able to respond to all of the questions, comments, and criticisms (numbering far more than four), may I suggest a remedial reading class.

I suppose your error is some how my fault too.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Lofty Issue of my Non-response to Jay:

Anyone who wishes to go to the beginning of the thread and read my first response to Jay will find that I answered his first question forthrightly and in detail. I then asked him a couple of questions in response. Rather than answering me, he fired back with a second question. I then asked that he answer mine first, which he declined to do. (What was that clause in the rules relating to the timely response to direct questions? Some of you have already quoted it for my, if not Jay's, benefit.)

Questions are a two-way street. I have no interest in responding to anyone who can not grasp this simple concept, whatever his/her intellectual prowess or educational acheivements. I have already googled Jay's own well-written bio and so have had my first two questions answered independently.

But the principle of the matter remains the same. When Jay answers one of my questions, then I will begin to respond to his.

My new question, Jay, is: What is your favorite color?

BTW, Jay, all the charges about my insinuating this or that are your own projections. I was just attempting to create an even playing field with a little verbal judo.

P.S. Slang, aside from Jay's questions, sometimes repeated, please itemize which ones I missed and I will respond to them tomorrow night. I concede that I have indeed missed a couple in the midst of the bombast.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Now, Big Sur:

One key question relates to Jacobs' account vs. George's account of the incident. As I noted in my last post, if one compares--word for word--what Jacobs' said vs. what George said Jacobs' said, one will quickly learn that George disgracefully misrepresented Jacobs' remarks and made other factual errors (itemized in my Big Sur article).

George had all of that brought to his attention by me in January 2004, March 2007, and again last month, but has not yet addressed the issue, acknowledged his errors, or apologized to Jacobs' for his remarks. This speaks poorly of his ethics, at least in this case. Incompetence is one thing; intellectual dishonesty is something else. The fact that he and his Sandia Labs PR specialist/Skeptical Inquirer publisher, Kendrick Frazier, still refuse to admit to their mistakes only reinforces the impression that they were not merely incompetent as a writer and an editor, but that they were indeed engaging in disinformation.

Someone please send this post to George. I have all of the pertinent documentation. If he wishes to sue me for libel I welcome the opportunity. In court, lies become perjury. Dr. Jacobs' would also welcome the opportunity to testify under oath, as would Major Mansmann's widow, whom I interviewed in 2006. My team is ready to dance. Are George, Frazier, and Oberg?

(Their response will speak volumes...)

So, before I address the other issues relating to Big Sur, I request that all of you review Jacobs' article first and then George's article. If anything I have said about George's mangling of what Jacobs' initially wrote is wrong, I will welcome the opportunity to review my own error(s).

For those of you too lazy to read the important source materials we are all debating, please don't criticize my take on the case. Mental masturbation in public is so unattractive. Do your homework.

Jacobs' article: http://www.nicap.org/bigsur2.htm

George's article: http://members.aol.com/tprinty2/bigsur.html

My expose of George's errors: go to ufohastings, open the Articles page, click on "Big Sur" and scroll down to "Kingston George Enters the Picture".

A final note, for the Army vet who wondered how an Image Orthicon image could be transferred to 16mm, Jacobs explains the technical set-up at Big Sur. The first film was 35mm; the 16mm copy was created for the CIA-attended screening at VAFB.

Once everyone who is sincerely engaged in this debate is up to speed, I will take the other Big Sur-related questions, one by one.

We'll get to the Malmstrom incidents ASAP.

Robert

Heh.. no, I did not mean the opposite. I meant that the question was not being answered, so we're bickering over relevance of a non-answer.

__________________
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.