Debunking Pseudoskepticism: Common fallacies

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
By the way even your final realization is incorrect. This thread is not against people who disagree UFO's are ET's, it is against common pseudoskeptical arguments.

You are the one who said it, not me. I am only quoting you.

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
I encourage the "believers" to use the so far unrefuted arguments in this thread whenever you debate with people

It is extremely clear what you are saying here.

Of course constant adhominems, constant accusations, constant misrepresentations is not at all a strong argument. It is completely dishonourable.

I did not misrepresent anything. It is your words that I quoted, and their meaning is quite clear to anyone.

And as regards your threats, I'm not worried. If I never see you in another thread that'll be just peachy.

I like to debate with people who have open minds and are reasonable, not people who are so utterly convinced that they're right they don't even consider any other opinion.

By the way I am a he

Oh, excuse me. I couldn't conceive of a man who would call himself "indigo child." I made the assumption that Blossom Goodchild was a female for the same reason, but I never got to debate her.

I did a search on ATS on discussions on the converse of this thread: pseudoscience. A term used often to describe fields like parapsychology, ufology, NLP, alternative medicine, intelligent design.

I found plenty of threads on this subject:

Im sick of these new age people:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Financing Pseudoscience: Intelligent Design and the Evolution "Debate"

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Is ufology "anti-science"

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Therefore, it would seem that discussion of pseudoscience is completely permissable on ATS and has been discussed many times in the past and no doubt will be discussed in the future. Therefore, cannot be any valid objection to discussing its opposite "pseudoskepticism" Any attempt to shut down discussions will be seen as unfair censorship.

Therefore I urge people who are participating in this thread not to attack those who are arguing against pseudoskepticism to respect ATS's rules and environment for openminded discussion and discuss the actual arguments presented and not attack individuals. Please this is not too much to ask.

[edit on 3-4-2009 by Indigo_Child]

I will now finally expose Heiki to all of ATS:

Heike has repeatedly claimed in this thread that myself, Malcram, Platoallegory and basically anyone who is supporting this thread is attacking skeptics. Her claim is this thread is a conspiracy against skeptics.
It has been clarified to her several occasions and which will be verified by the objective reader reviewing this thread that myself, Malcram, Platosallegory and others have repeatedy told her we are not attacking skepiticism but psueoskepticism and common fallacious arguments. Despite this she has continued to accuse us of this and misrepresented our arguments, called us names and accused of all kinds of evil intentions.

Up until now she has maintained she is not misrepresenting our arguments.

I did not misrepresent anything. It is your words that I quoted, and their meaning is quite clear to anyone.

I will prove to all of ATS she is and she is doing it deliberately and consciously to shut down this discussion and make it difficult to have a civil and healthy discussion.

She quotes a section of one of my recent posts to show that I am telling people to use my arguments to debate with people.

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
I encourage the "believers" to use the so far unrefuted arguments in this thread whenever you debate with people

It is extremely clear what you are saying here.

That was not the original quote, she has taken it deliberately out of context. This is what I originally said:

I encourage the "believers" to use the so far unrefuted arguments in this thread whenever you debate with people using pseudoskeptical fallacies.

Exposed! Heikie's dirty trick has been exposed to all of ATS. She has been deliberately misrepresenting the arguments of myself, Malcram and Platosallegry and now she's been caught doing it.

Thus it has been exposed she joined this thread not to engage in civil discussion but to attack the thread and the supporters of the thread with every dirty debating trick in the book and now that she has been exposed she should be asked to leave this thread so others can have a civil on-topic discussion.

[edit on 3-4-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by Indigo_Child

Therefore, it would seem that discussion of pseudoscience is completely permissable on ATS and has been discussed many times in the past and no doubt will be discussed in the future. Therefore, cannot be any valid objection to discussing its opposite "pseudoskepticism" Any attempt to shut down discussions will be seen as unfair censorship.

Therefore I urge people who are participating in this thread only to attack those who are arguing against pseudoskepticism to respect ATS's rules and environment for openminded discussion and discuss the actual arguments presented and not attack individuals. Please this is not too much to ask.

[edit on 3-4-2009 by Indigo_Child]

How one can get it so very wrong... i do not know..

Therefore, it would seem that discussion of pseudoscience is completely permissable on ATS and has been discussed many times in the past and no doubt will be discussed in the future.

epic fail...

Very first page of the thread..

The excellent thread, "skeptics dilemma" started by Platosallegory has inspired this thread. I think there is a very severe problem of pseudoskepticism on this forum and it impairs the enjoyment of some on this forum(yours truly included) I also think that this forum can benefit from more clear thinking, and thus I am writing this brief primer on logic focussed particularly on the subject matter of Aliens and UFO’s. I will discuss the common fallacies used by pseudoskeptics and offer a rebuttal.

other part of your last post..

Therefore I urge people who are participating in this thread only to attack those who are arguing against pseudoskepticism to respect ATS's rules and environment for openminded discussion and discuss the actual arguments presented and not attack individuals. Please this is not too much to ask.
[/qoute]

..... now i shall show you the problem here incase one can not read..

I think there is a very severe problem of pseudoskepticism on this forum and it impairs the enjoyment of some on this forum(yours truly included)

Therefore I urge people who are participating in this thread only to attack those who are arguing against pseudoskepticism

what part of hypercrit ilogical nonsensical argument am i missing

and btw each and every comment i posted came from your very fingers

not mine not anyone in a mob but infact YOU

now please understand why me and others are telling you to stop trying to be smart when infact you look like .............

mathamicaly deconstructed

have a nice day

reply to post by Indigo_Child


The funny part is that you infact are a pskeptic yourself..

Look at the posts you have made.. look at your wording... look at the very thing you claim to hate,, but yet your are doing the very same thing..

I am the proof of this.. why? well first you said i insulted you i did not then you went on to infact not pay any attentiont to my valid arguments.. and put me on ignore then you infact called me a troll..

so if anyone is reading this then please understand that this thread and the OP has set out on his.her own freel will to make an argument of ones own egotsisctal view points..

its like this

one will use a methord of argument based on a spkeptical based view point then based the "thread" as is very clear here to provied evidence when infact evidence is only opinions on subjects people dissagree or agree on..

Pskeptic is a way to say that a person is knowinlgy argumentative just becuase they can be to upset the givin topic.. when infact the op postulates this because she.he has no evidence. in that respect he.she becomes a skeptic,,, correct? and to argue the case as you are then you become what you are infact doing "pskeptic"

you are arguing your own case to yourself.. not me not others but yourself...

thats why for me and others we find the thread yes interesting but on the other hand your views about it make the thread redundent..

you close off to all other views about this one word. = you are a pskeptic weather you wish to admit it or not..

and i have proved YOU to be one in my post above me.. first post vs your own comments = hyprocrit

and yes feel free to call me a troll and tell me my grammer and spelling is defunk

as thats an insult to me.. correct? how one can be so very very wrong but so very very arogant is amazing let alone scary..

reply to post by Indigo_Child


I have to concur. Heike has already admitted that her intent here was to "exhaust" those who post threads discussing pseudo-skepticism and so discourage them from ever doing so again. And it's true, despite endless restatements regarding our intentions - as if they were not crystal clear in the OP - she and the rest of her cadre have repeatedly tried to spin this thread and our intentions as an "attack on skeptics", along with other false accusations, in an attempt to shut down this debate, as has SC , who in another thread admitted that his intent was to stop people from engaging in discussion in threads dealing with pseudo-skepticism.

Despite the epic attempts to stop this discussion and others like it by means of every possible low tactic and slanderous accusation, it has certainly served it's purpose. This thread, exposing the fallacies employed by pseudo-skeptics, has served to act rather as metaphorical 'fly-paper'. And we must ask ourselves which handful of members have embedded themselves in here and are engaged in the most aggressive and obsessive 'buzzing' in opposition to a topic which exposes the fallacies of pseudo-skepticism?

That accomplished, it will be necessary in future to ensure that threads regarding pseudo-skepticism not be allowed to be swamped by off topic posts, endless complaints regarding the subject matter and repeated false accusations against those who created the thread or dared to agree with it's premise.


[edit on 3-4-2009 by Malcram]

reply to post by Indigo_Child


My, that was a lot of hoopla and drama over nothing. The quote I posted and the quote you posted mean exactly the same thing, since most people don't even know what a pseudoskeptical fallacy is, much less when they're supposedly using one.

In other words, every time some poor innocent says "There's no proof of aliens on Earth." (which is a pretty reasonable thing for a lot of people to say, since they probably believe it), the pseudoskeptical fallacy alarm goes off and Indigo_Child and Malcram (aka Fallacyman and Logicboy) have license to swoop in and save the forum by debunking this poor person to death - or at least until he gives up and leaves the thread in frustration and disgust.

By YOUR definitions, most everybody goes around using "pseudoskeptical fallacies" all the time without ever realizing it.

Oh right - you're "denying ignorance." I get it.


(edited to add instead of double posting)
By the way gang, let's set the record straight.

I BELIEVE in UFOs. I BELIEVE in extraterrestrials. I BELIEVE that the government is covering up knowledge of extraterrestrials.

Take a few minutes and check some of my other posts, any which are not in either this thread or the "sceptics say no evidence" thread, and see for yourself. I posted about my UFO sighting. I posted about UFOs having cloaking devices.

Yet certain people here are now trying to convince you that I'm a pseudoskeptic just because I disagree with their tactics. Nothing could be further from the truth, and my history speaks for itself. I'm a BELIEVER.

However, when people disagree with me and say things like "there are no aliens" or "there's no proof," I don't need to call them names or start an epic logic and science war to get rid of them.

This has got to be the funniest thing about this whole thread yet. Regardless of the fact that they KNOW I am a believer, they have to label ME a pseudoskeptic in order to explain why I'm disagreeing with them.




[edit on 3-4-2009 by Heike]

Originally posted by Seany
reply to post by Malcram

 

Im going to jump in here , a breath of fresh air so to speak

you are all sayin the same things , over and over , this thread be not needed to be more than 2 pages tops

Actually, I agree. The first couple of pages were regarding the issues raised in the OP. After that it became an all out attempt to shut down the thread by means of false accusations against those who dared to discuss pseudo-skepticism and complaints about the subject matter. It's the angry backlash against the very premise of this thread by a handful of members that has swamped it and spread over countless pages. If the debate was allowed to proceed only dealing with the issues raised, we would have been done by now. But this is what some people do not want.

I would LOVE to just debate and discuss the topic presented in the OP Seany. I'd like nothing more, and you're right, if that was allowed to happen unmolested, it would only take a few pages. But I'm still waiting for that to be allowed, which is why I think in future discussions of pseudo-skepticism and the use of fallacy in denial of the UFO issue, the Mods, unfortunately, will have to take a more prominent role in order to ensure the discussion goes ahead with only the topic being discussed.

[edit on 3-4-2009 by Malcram]

ANY further Off-topic posts will receive a warn and the -500 points penalty that comes with it.

It stops here.

Discuss the topic and NOT each other.

Malcram, I tried to address that, I really did. It went nowhere.

The "arguments" in the OP are either made up or exaggerated. I_C has not been able to show even one single instance of anyone on ATS actually using any of those arguments.

The closest he could get was some astronomy papers about the impossibility of interstellar travel which have nothing to do with this thread.

Discussion of the OP is supposed to address the refutations of the arguments presented. but ... but ..

Since the arguments presented are totally ridiculous, how can anyone argue against the refutations of something that was never a valid argument to begin with? It's all nonsense!

Present and refute some arguments that REAL people really use on ATS, like "a blurry youtube video of bouncing lights does not "prove" it's an alien spaceship" and we'll have something to talk about!


(edited to correct my spelling. Yep, I'm not perfect. Get over it)

[edit on 3-4-2009 by Heike]

reply to post by Heike


and i can say that is my agrument aswell

METHORD

look it up.. it has everything to do with this this topic...

reply to post by Heike


I think it has been established now what was going on. However, I am not interested in the past now, but the future.

Anyway a discussion on pseduskepticism is valid and not against the T&C..

Discuss the topic. The arguments are still standing in the OP, please engage the arguments, and not the author(me in this case)

I wish now I'd ducked out of here earlier. Arguments on the existence of extraterrestrial visitations appealing to logic that are more like vanity projects have little interest for me.

If elaborating the characteristics of those who don't fully accept so-called proofs is a major issue, I'd say the argument itself becomes weaker based on the overly defensive stance of the supporters.

I have been receptive to the discovery of alien contact all my life. I've just become increasingly skeptical of those who say they have it. The arrangement of their evidence is less than convincing, and their behaviour often brings into question their motives and reliability.

There is a term close-mindeness. It's around a lot, even in self-proclaimed open-minded circles. It inhibits learning and personal growth and should be avoided.


Mike

reply to post by Indigo_Child


Anyway a discussion on pseduskepticism is valid and not against the T&C..

No one said it wasnt??

you see what some of us are trying to point out.. and yes for why im off topic i do not know....maybe the mod is a pkseptic

thats how much of a joke it infact is.. and tbh none of my comments have been directed at you

BUT THE THREAD.. cant you see that? You called me a troll "after you put me on ignore"

but the very same thread is about the very same actions you used against me?

and yes its personal because its only ones view point!! THERE IS ONLY VIEWPOINTS

You are speaking to someone with more of an open mind than you can think.. trust me..

a watever skepteic type person is ALSO within there rights to BE ONE dont u see??

you are becoming the very thing you are flaming!!!!!!

I cant state this enough

its the methord you are using to state a fact that is not a fact that is an opionon based on other opnions

look at a simple question i ask in relation to the pskeptic here

do aliens come from other planets?

or does it come from other dimentions?

what is the difference? "opinion"

and yes i may have lost 500 points and thats the opinion of the supper mod not mine

so me and him/she dissagree what is infact of topic and what is not..

That is the same stupid argument you use for pskepetics!!!!

rediculus... Now feel free to call me a troll and insult my grammer and spellings again.. im sure that was ON TOPIC...

pftttf