Found this in my inbox-- I wont excerpt the article for copyright reasons.

Scientists decline to defend themselves

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...end_themselves

It's amazing how much mileage Friedman continues to get from his work decades ago in a technical field. People still buy into the notion that just because he once worked in a scientific field, that everything or anything he has done since must somehow also be scientific. He may have put in a good day's work at TRW back in the day, but nothing he does or says about UFOs has any such rigor. Friedman is indeed a charlatan. I'm sure his lectures draw crowds. So do car wrecks. That doesn't mean either is an objectively good and valuable thing.

I'm surprised at the responses written so far to the article, generally in favor of throwing out rigor in terms of "open-mindedness" and decrying well-founded criticism as "negativity." Science isn't about warm-fuzzines; it's about being right and testing that rightness ruthlessly.

Unfortunately museums are coming under increasing pressure to entertain as well as educate, sometimes at the expense of the latter. When I go to a museum I want to see the Coelecanth, not "Freddy Coelecanth and the Cretaceous Bunch in 3D, presented by Pepsi."

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Why does the media prepetuate pseudoscience?

Quite simply, because it sells. It is sensationalistic. Yellow journalism, nothing new. The media is out to make money. CNN, which used to be reputable, now reports on Britney Spears and Angelie Jolie. Larry King conducts superficial interviews with Stanton Friedman, et al. Aliens! Wow!

Youre right-- I guess that since sensationalism sells-- this is where we are going now. I read the responses on there and I was shocked too-- I was expecting some harsh criticism for the poster buying into the conspiracy theorists' mantra hook line and sinker-- but I guess people would rather put their trust in unproven and unsubstantiated views, rather than the science which has built the world around us and on which we depend upon for so much in today's society.

In the off-topic babbling section, I opened a thread about Uri Geller appearing on German TV on Nov. 15th for a 3 hour show promoting ufos and aliens (and, of course himself....). The ratings for the show were miserable thank goodness. The German papers gave a scathingly sarcastic commentary on the show and the level of nonsense which was presented.

But what saddened me though was that Uri Geller phoned up Dr. Edgar Mitchell for a short conversation on ufos (nothing new, just what he has always said...), and afterwards, both Uri Geller and another charlatan, Eric von Däniken, claimed they were good friends of Dr. Mitchell. Hate seeing a good, honest person like Dr. Mitchell being taken advantage of by charlatans!

BTW: They had an "ufo expert" briefly on the show, who showed how to tell whether or not an ufo video is fake: "if the ufo flies behind trees, then it is authentic"!

In the US shows like that get fairly high ratings. There was a show on here called "Phenomenon" which was sort of like a talent show for magicians but quickly devolved into shots of Uri and his co-host Criss Angel looking dramatic. (Angel, oddly, does not subscribe to belief in paranormal abilities... I can't quite figure out why he agreed to do a show with Uri)

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We also live in an era of instant gratification. People are impatient for results. Critical thinking involves an appreciable effort in educating yourself in the needed scientific disciplines which is an investment in time. It is much easier to "educate" yourself with YouTube, etc video clips promoting CT's with sinister commentators, creepy music and flashy videos...

These people then parrot "look up at the sky on a starry night, it is presumptuous to say we are alone in the universe". Never mind the Drake equation, never mind the short period of time intelligent life has existed on earth, never mind all the complications. Just chew gum and say "I believe in aliens....".

Maybe Criss Angel knows something about Geller that he's not telling.

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Like: Is Geller going to pull an Andy Kaufman move on us and show us it was all a joke? (I mean in terms of always being in character... not his death)

I hate to think it was just for money... and in general I respect magicians who admit they are just magicians (as Angel seems to).

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I can't figure out how Uri Geller survived his flop on the Johnny Carson show in 1973, shortly after the Time magazine article on Geller.

Johnny Carson invited him on the show, but spoke to Randi first for advice. Carson had a set of props for Geller on a table: spoons, etc. Also had a sealed envelope for Geller to try and figure out the contents. Geller was ambushed, failed miserably. Hilarious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNKmhv9uoiQ

Angel's new show in Las Vegas certainly reveals that he's just a magician -- and apparently not a very good one on a live stage. Believe is laughably bad.

Some mentalists openly acknowledge that what they do is just ordinary trickery. Others engage in what is known as "working strong," where they indeed claim to have the supernatural powers to which they attribute their feats. Geller is one of the latter. What I mean is that I wouldn't be surprised if Angel firmly believes that Geller is just the same sort of trickster he is, but respects Geller's wish to "work strong."

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There are multiple discussion points raised by the OP.

There is the Herald Tribune piece linked to in the OP. I was a little unclear if the piece was an opinion piece or blog, or a news article. But, even if it is a news article, I would say it wasn't really perpetuating pseudoscience, just reporting about the debate (it was a little biased IMHO, but not terrible, and anyway, I think it was more an opinion piece).

Then there is the question of the Roswell exhibit at the museum.
Since I have not seen the exhibit, it is hard for me to know. If the museum is truely just using this as a starting point for a serious analysis, I think that's fine. But I suspect the reality is somewhere between "showcasing a serious debate" and "something wild that will bring the dollars in".

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Swift brings up a good point. Yes, the Herald Tribune piece sounds like an opinion piece, which is why I didn't expound much on it. I'm still trying to figure out the writer's intent in mentioning palmistry and pedophilia in the same phrase, but I'll just admit confusion and depart the field.

And having not seen the exhibit myself, I can't comment either. I can only speak from the point of view of those museum curators with whom I pass pleasant summer Sunday afternoons. The push toward sensationalism is real, in the name of building patronage. One of my curator friends labels it "the Mythbusters effect," and she's a big Mythbusters fan (as witnessed by her Facebook photo with Adam and Jamie). But the growing feeling among the museum-going public seems to be that if you're not blowing something up, it's not science.

However if this was simply an exhibit to foster non-partisan interest in the debate, I'd expect Stanton Friedman's appearance to have been balanced by one from, say, Michael Shermer or another person who can put Friedman's wild claims in a more rational perspective.

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In answer to the OP, mainstream media perpetuates pseudoscience simply because it sells.

Mainstream media operates in the lowest common denominator sphere because thats where the biggest market is.

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I don't disagree with that, but I think it is more complicated than that. The term "mainstream media" covers a lot of stuff, and I don't know that one, they all behave the same, and two, they need to.

When we say "mainstream media" we include newspapers, books, music, radio, TV, films, and maybe even internet outlets of media. And even among those, for example, TV, you have news and all sorts of fiction. Do we need to hold The Simpsons to the same anti-pseudoscience standard that we hold the News to?

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I doubt it. Angel challenged Geller here:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Criss_An...anormal_claims

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I suppose it provides escapism for some. That was certainly why I kept reading Charles Berlitz's book about the Bermuda Triangle in 7th grade- because it was a distraction from Greek verbs and bullying. Of course, I didn't really believe it, I enjoyed it in the same way I would enjoy a Superman comic book.

But yes, I do think that escapism could be a factor, especially in hard times.

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Rosewell is an interesting (arguably important) event in American culture. Other than some probably interesting social and psychological aspects, it's not important as science. I can live with it being presented in a museum of history, but it'd be important to see how it was presented.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!"
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything! 14% of people know that!"

so which sounds better as a headline?

"The LHC may find Higgs Particle!"

or

"Black Hole could Gobble World as LHC is turned on!"

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-work in progress--

You might look here at how they described it:

Renown UFOlogist to lecture at The Brogan Museum!



http://thebroganmuseum.wordpress.com/

You will notice how much coverage they give to Stanton Friedman. Nobody is mentioned giving a dissenting opinion.

That certianly appears to fit into the "no business being in a museum" catagory. Oh well; as others have mentioned, revenue is an important factor aswell.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!"
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything! 14% of people know that!"

You will notice how much coverage they give to Stanton Friedman. Nobody is mentioned giving a dissenting opinion.

How disappointing. The business of UFO "research" continues unabated. Even more strange, the page now features an apparently automatically extracted quote from this very BAUT thread -- in fact the quote, I just quoted above.

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Friedman's latest book "Flying Saucers and Science" has a chapter in which Friedman takes a try at explaining how flying saucers could reach us from other stars and then manuever around the atmosphere. His background shows in this chapter, and he does a pretty good job with it.

But his main evidence is (1) studies with percentages of "unknown" sightings, and (2) physical traces, al la Ted Phillips, protege of J. Allen Hynek, (3) the ubiquitous government coverups, al la MJ-12 (did MJ-12 really exist? all I've seen are dubious documents)
He says "comments are often made by true unbelievers that there is really no difference between unknowns and knowns. That being the case, why pay attention to the knowns? The unknowns must simply be missed knowns." He means that faseciously , but, da..., that really is the obvious conclusion to be drawn . And physical traces are probably hoaxes, or meaningless natural phenomena.

CTC did have a debate for 3 hours each with Friedman vs. Michael Shermer and Seth Shotek in recent years. Of course, the CTC audience voted that Friedman won both debates, but I've listened to both several times, and from a scientific standpoint, Shermer and Shotek slammed Friedman.

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Friedman's continued reliance on the debunked MJ-12 documents is, in my opinion, one of his greatest weaknesses. Friedman knows his audience well and caters to them. And yes, "missed knowns" is a more probable explanation for unknowns than "radical, untestable farfetched claims."

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I see the interest in UFOs in that era as kind of a search for a "Space-Age Mythology", along with the SF comics of the time. Perhaps that's not a valid conclusion.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek

In the UK we have Darren Brown a Magician / Hypnotist on Channel 4

He did a brilliant debunking of a Seance. Unfortunately his seance was so good that a lot of viewers complained he was messing with the occult and such.

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I think the show "UFOs: seeing is believing" with Peter Jennings described Friedman best. They referred to him as a UFO "promoter". That is exactly what he does. He promotes the idea that UFOs are "real" (real what?) and there is a government cover-up. Personally, these guys don't want real alien spaceships to show up and then find out this is their first contact with earth or that all government documents regarding UFOs to be released only to discover there is nothing there. Those events would deflate their claims. Of course, they will just state the aliens are lying and somewhere there is a file that shows the true government cover-up.

yet another reason why Carson was the greatest.
didn't he create that psychic character he played that held envelopes up to his forehead and tried to guess what was inside it on this event? Karnac the Great or something like that?

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I thought that clip of Gellar on Carson was classic, and seeing Gellar squirm and offer the usual defenses of blaming Carson for being a 'negative' or 'pressuring him' and then fallin back on the old 'I wasn't prepared' to be classic

It was like watching Gellar go through the FlimFlam playbook. It is so hard to believe for me sometimes that some people still insist on believing in him and his abilities.

As for Friedman, there is no way this man is this dense as a scientist, I think UFO Promoter is basically what he is. He has been shown imperical data and he choses to ignore it to what amounts to in a sense place such evidence into his own view. Much like forcing a square peg into a round hole.

He is a very poor scientist and he often plays or almost panders to the UFO community in order to remain a spokesman. I really am having a hard time believing that these are his actua beliefs based on studied research.

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One could only hope that Fox News will one day hold to the standards set by the Simpsons (on the same network). The Simpsons have their own resident skeptic (Lisa), and regularly deflate pseudoscientific nonsense. The Simpsons even mock Fox: remember Bart's comment that they'll buy anything?

Sad that a cartoon program has a better grasp of reality than the news team.