The Logical Trickery of the UFO Skeptic

Originally posted by atlasastro
And on the statistical methedology [of SR14] ... "... on page 76 of Report #14 ... it is stated that the Chi Square Test neither confirms nor denies that the Unknowns are primarily unidentified Knowns".

Yes, but misleading. atlasastro up to his same old tricks....

He forgets to mention the following primary conclusion regarding the core data, reported in the very first sentence after the main chi square results, before inferences and speculation are piled on:

"In five of the six cases, the probability is less than 1 percent that the distributions [Known vs. Unknown] are the same." (p.68, emphasis mine)

That is BIG.

If the distributions of Knowns and Unknowns are not the same ... they're different. Statistically different, reliable to at least the 99% significance level. Basic statistical theory says this means Unknowns therefore do not differ from Knowns due to chance; they differ for reasons other than chance. And all that's left after chance is excluded is that Unknowns differ from Knowns because they are DIFFERENT.

We cannot assign a reason for that difference. It does not mean Unknowns = Flying Saucers. However, as soon as the sentence "the probability is less than 1 percent that the distributions the same" is written, the skeptics' argument that (Unknown) = (Known minus sufficient data) has the rug pulled out from under it.

That argument would be proper only if SR14's basic data found the two distributions to be the same. At least closer. But the core data only shows that Knowns and Unknowns are statistically different; NOT that Unknowns are likely to be, or could even reasonably be considered just hidden Knowns. Not even close. Even ambiguous results (and calling

reply to post by atlasastro


Unfortuantely, I'm sure this is not a nail in the coffin. Here's how it works. You take the bits and pieces from different sources that support your belief and anything that doesn't, you discard.

For example: quote Hynek excessively, use the "Mass Hallucination" straw man, throw out that Hynek said "Mass Hallucination" was acceptable.

Example II: Use the Fermi Paradox to support your position, say anyone who thinks ETH is implausible is an idiot, throw out that Fermi said the ETH is implausible.

Example III: Use the parts of Twining memo that look good, don't use the parts that don't look good.

Avoid any question you can't answer like the plague.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

reply to post by TeaAndStrumpets

"In five of the six cases, the probability is less than 1 percent that the distributions [Known vs. Unknown] are the same."

It doesn't mean that much. Sorry.

it says you have a category thats not categorized and nobody cared that much, regardless of how much you cut and paste.

reply to post by TeaAndStrumpets

These SR14 battles have been fought before, and pseudo-skeptics dis not fare well. (Which is why you'll very rarely see them introduce this topic.)

why? did they not know how to copy and paste? For the record, I am not a skeptic, pseudo-skeptic, debunker or any of that...I am a Retard on the Internet. lets get that straight.

For more, see Maccabbe's report on SR14.

I am actually interested in that. But in the mean time, how do you explain this?
en.wikipedia.org...

Among his papers was a reanalysis of the statistics and results of the famed Battelle Memorial Institute Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14,
...
Another was a reanalysis of the results of the Condon Committee UFO study from 1969.

(Like many others, Maccabee concluded that Edward Condon lied about the results.)

Comments please.

I will admit my mistake but please rant on.

Originally posted by ZetaRediculian
reply to post by TeaAndStrumpets

 

"In five of the six cases, the probability is less than 1 percent that the distributions [Known vs. Unknown] are the same."

It doesn't mean that much. Sorry.

it says you have a category thats not categorized and nobody cared that much, regardless of how much you cut and paste.

I think the problem is more that you don't understand what is being said. Seems like you're the fellow to wave any statistical results away when they don't please too much. Since you already admitted to being an internet retard (your words! ), I am seriously interested in knowing just how many of you 'skeptical' peeps have any actual degrees starting at the bachelors level. My personal guess, not too many.

reply to post by jclmavg

I think the problem is more that you don't understand what is being said. Seems like you're the fellow to wave any statistical results away when they don't please too much. Since you already admitted to being an internet retard (your words! ), I am seriously interested in knowing just how many of you 'skeptical' peeps have any actual degrees starting at the bachelors level. My personal guess, not too many.

It's not a question of statistics, it's a question of logic. It doesn't matter how many reports are unexplained, it's a matter of making a logical case that any of them can only be explained by resorting to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. Calling them "unexplained" is honest; claiming they are evidence for anything but their own inexplicability is not.

Originally posted by jclmavg

Originally posted by ZetaRediculian
reply to post by TeaAndStrumpets

 

"In five of the six cases, the probability is less than 1 percent that the distributions [Known vs. Unknown] are the same."

It doesn't mean that much. Sorry.

it says you have a category thats not categorized and nobody cared that much, regardless of how much you cut and paste.

I think the problem is more that you don't understand what is being said. Seems like you're the fellow to wave any statistical results away when they don't please too much. Since you already admitted to being an internet retard (your words!

), I am seriously interested in knowing just how many of you 'skeptical' peeps have any actual degrees starting at the bachelors level. My personal guess, not too many.

edit on 26-2-2013 by jclmavg because: (no reason given)

You seem preoccupied with he education level of those with whom you disagree. Technically a hybridization of an ad hominem and appeal to authority. Problem is your inability to satisfactorily answer a valid question is not mitigated by the inappropriate qualifications, or complete lack thereof, of the person posing the question, nor have your unique qualifications in the field of discussion been established and scrutinized.

You want to know MY personal guess? You've got nothing to say, so you make your feeble jabs at what you believe [but do not know] to be the educational shortcomings of those who make you "grumpy".

You don't impress me, sheep skinned or not.

Originally posted by DJW001
It's not a question of statistics, it's a question of logic. It doesn't matter how many reports are unexplained, it's a matter of making a logical case that any of them can only be explained by resorting to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. Calling them "unexplained" is honest; claiming they are evidence for anything but their own inexplicability is not.

Your point is a valid one. But we're getting bogged down in useless details.

Less so than the actual identity or correct explanatory hypothesis, what people are really interested in is the idea of non-human intelligence. So there are excellent reasons to simply jettison the sub-issue of "ETH vs. EDH vs time travel vs XYZ"....

The real question is, do you think any of this UFO stuff points toward the presence of non-human intelligence?

Originally posted by jclmavg

Originally posted by ZetaRediculian
reply to post by TeaAndStrumpets

 

"In five of the six cases, the probability is less than 1 percent that the distributions [Known vs. Unknown] are the same."

It doesn't mean that much. Sorry.

it says you have a category thats not categorized and nobody cared that much, regardless of how much you cut and paste.

I think the problem is more that you don't understand what is being said. Seems like you're the fellow to wave any statistical results away when they don't please too much. Since you already admitted to being an internet retard (your words!

), I am seriously interested in knowing just how many of you 'skeptical' peeps have any actual degrees starting at the bachelors level. My personal guess, not too many.

edit on 26-2-2013 by jclmavg because: (no reason given)

I fully admit i dont fully understand the statisical methods that they used. Here is what i understand:
Compare the knowns to the unknowns and see if there is any difference in size,shape, color.etc. If there is a difference, then, you most likely have something you didn't account for. Well they did find a difference. So what that means is they may have found something they didn't know about. They can put a value on their unknowns. So the odds of their unknowns not being a known is less than 1%. keeping in mind that they had some questionable ways to explain things away and a number of these were taken from news paper clippings during the start of the Cold War, they had some indication that they didn't know about every possible thing flying around.
So the question that was raised was, what are the odds of there being something to them meaning ET. I think the answer is 0 if I did my math right.
Does that sound about right?
If not please explain it to me cause I done only graduated the 8th grade.

Originally posted by TeaAndStrumpets

Originally posted by DJW001
It's not a question of statistics, it's a question of logic. It doesn't matter how many reports are unexplained, it's a matter of making a logical case that any of them can only be explained by resorting to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. Calling them "unexplained" is honest; claiming they are evidence for anything but their own inexplicability is not.

Your point is a valid one. But we're getting bogged down in useless details.

Less so than the actual identity or correct explanatory hypothesis, what people are really interested in is the idea of non-human intelligence. So there are excellent reasons to simply jettison the sub-issue of "ETH vs. EDH vs time travel vs XYZ"....

The real question is, do you think any of this UFO stuff points toward the presence of non-human intelligence?

This is as good as it gets [in this thread, at least].

Understanding and a reasonable, unloaded question.

reply to post by TeaAndStrumpets

Your point is a valid one. But we're getting bogged down in useless details.

Less so than the actual identity or correct explanatory hypothesis, what people are really interested in is the idea of non-human intelligence. So there are excellent reasons to simply jettison the sub-issue of "ETH vs. EDH vs time travel vs XYZ"....

The real question is, do you think any of this UFO stuff points toward the presence of non-human intelligence?

I put it to you: the question is do these reports point to something far more mind boggling than merely the presence of non-human intelligence?

Originally posted by draknoir2

Originally posted by TeaAndStrumpets

Originally posted by DJW001
It's not a question of statistics, it's a question of logic. It doesn't matter how many reports are unexplained, it's a matter of making a logical case that any of them can only be explained by resorting to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. Calling them "unexplained" is honest; claiming they are evidence for anything but their own inexplicability is not.

Your point is a valid one. But we're getting bogged down in useless details.

Less so than the actual identity or correct explanatory hypothesis, what people are really interested in is the idea of non-human intelligence. So there are excellent reasons to simply jettison the sub-issue of "ETH vs. EDH vs time travel vs XYZ"....

The real question is, do you think any of this UFO stuff points toward the presence of non-human intelligence?

This is as good as it gets [in this thread, at least].

Understanding and a reasonable, unloaded question.

Agreed. I honestly don't care about all the "attacks" or proving I'm right or proving someone wrong. I'm open to being wrong, you just have to show me. I have really been enjoying reading the SR14. I program for a living and I love these kinds of problems.

You said you new about robotics or something? Do you know anything about Fuzzy Math? Looks like it could be applied here. That's on my list and this may be my jumping point into learning that.

I may be wrong but I believe the best UFO investigators will first try to find a logical explanation that is non E first and once all those possibilities are ruled out only then should they be theorizing the UFO as alien. The problem as I see it is that a large portion of the UFO community will claim A UFO sighting as ET in nature almost right off the bat with little or no effort in first trying to identify them as terrestrial.

I feel it is that group that has giving the UFO community a bad name. Am I wrong in thinking this?

When I signed up to ATS I had hoped to find threads with some solid information and serious investigators but to my dismay I feel it has been more like a bad joke. I learned very quickly there are some mentally challenged people on here which isn’t bad per say however much of the community supports those views more than those who know what they are talking about.

I am not petty as far as who gets flags or stars but when you see one poster who states unsubstantiated claims and their reasoning will be among the lines of it must be true because the government lies and they deny said instance and use that as proof they are starred endlessly and cheered on instead of them actually presenting evidence to the contrary. That kind of thing makes me lose faith in the entire premise.

Before I joined ATS I was a believer in ET visitation and I believed there was proof to be found or at least strong evidence that supported it. Now I lean more towards the towards the premise that it hasn’t happened and that there is no evidence to be found. It wasn’t the debunkers who changed my mind it has been the believers. I had once though because there were so many people who believed and so many eye witness accounts there had to be something to it however after seeing who these people are it has made me realize that I have had far too much faith in society as a whole.

I know there are some serious mentally stable non charlatan people who are believers. I used to think there were some credible people who had firsthand experiences however I have not met them nor have I talked to them on here as of yet. I would like to believe they exist (credible humans that claim UFO experiences) same goes for aliens. I am not talking about someone who saw something which they couldn’t identify I mean those who have made some incredible claims.

Anyway the point is debunkers and skeptics are not the problem as far as credibility of the UFO community. The term debunker means nothing to me and when I read where someone accuses others of being a dissinfo agent I think the person is one step closer to fruit loops. If there is evidence then it will hold up to scrutiny if it can’t stand up to scrutiny the fault lay with its credibility not the person questioning it.

If the only way someone can debate or argue a point is through using logical fallacies then the point they are trying to make is probably worthless to begin with.

The OP of this thread seems to suggest that the reason the UFO community is somehow not taken serious is the fault of skeptics or debunkers and I totally disagree. The OP seems to be an excuse and instead of blaming the evidence or lack of evidence instead it suggests the blame is in those who still need convincing.

If anything I just wrote is incorrect then please explain to me why. My mind is not made up on these matters my position will change if I am given a logical reason to.

reply to post by Grimpachi


What's more open minded than accepting the possibility of aliens(?):

Accepting the possibility of UNKNOWN without any requirement for pressing any other label until there's substantial enough data to merit a reasonable position.

In other words, just because you run out of known explanations, doesn't necessarily give liberty to go chasing rainbows, and aliens.
It's entirely okay, fine, dignified, and responsible to say "I don't know", and just leave it at that until there's more data.

reply to post by Druscilla


I am not sure I follow you in terms as to what I wrote. It is probably my fault I often have a hard time conveying my thoughts to where others interpret a message other than what I am trying to send.

I didn’t mean to imply anything about open mindedness in my post or imply traits of debunkers or skeptics.

In short my post was about how believers who do not question UFO sightings are the ones destroying their own credibility and how it is those believers who have swayed me from thinking there is any validity to the UFO phenomenon because they are so insistent that every sighting has to be aliens.

My post was also supposed to be about how I feel the article in the OP is trying to shift the blame of the negative credibility of the UFO community on the skeptics and those they believe to be debunkers.

I hope I clarified myself a little better of course there is more to my post than that but I think I would muck it up even further if I tried to rephrase it any further..

reply to post by Grimpachi


You implied that after all mundane possibilities are ruled out, it's okay to delve into zero sums like aliens.

I followed that by stating it's fine to just leave it at unknown and say "I don't know".

I included the statement regarding open-minded, more for pubic consumption regarding objectivity where many people of entirely sloppy, irresponsible and poorly used reasoning facilities seem to have the impression that open-minded = aliens.

"aliens" is NOT open-minded.
"aliens" is subjectively interpreted imaginary strangeness.
Unknown, however, doesn't rule out or specify aliens. Unknown is thus more open minded.

I wasn't attacking you.

Originally posted by DJW001
I put it to you: the question is do these reports point to something far more mind boggling than merely the presence of non-human intelligence?

Fair enough. My answer is... I don't have the slightest gosh darn clue.

I do think there's something to all of this UFO stuff, obviously, but I'm very uncomfortable 'stretching' to accommodate the strangest of the strange -- the kinds of reports that make people like Vallee and Alexander say they'd be surprised if the answer were as simple as "just" ET. Then I throw something like Thomas Bullard's ideas into the mix, and it all becomes just a huge, barely comprehensible mess. That's why my 'UFO comfort zone' just doesn't extend much past the better radar-visual and multiple-witness cases. Many of the 'lesser' single-witness cases report true events, I'm sure, but I can only go on my gut at that point, and that's uncomfortable.

I guess a fairer and more complete answer to your question is that I think there are multiple things behind the phenomenon, most of them mundane, some of them not, but ultimately we probably just don't have the capacity to understand the far edges of it. Whether because we're missing some fundamental sense(s), or are just not sufficiently intelligent. I watch my cat toy with a cricket, and I'm sure that cricket's not contemplating the stars ... or even the full extent of the cat. And at the end of the day, and even though so frustratingly unsatisfactory, I suspect we have more in common with the cricket than we'd like to admit....

reply to post by Druscilla


I didn’t mean to imply that but I do believe that once you are at that point it should be exceptable to explore that possibility. I do not think that should be the conclusion because all other possibilities have been crossed off.

If I gave the impression that once all possibilities have been explored and discounted that we then it should point to being aliens that was not my intent.

However once you have gotten to that point then being open to all options including aliens should not be frowned upon. That possibility exists whether we acknowledge it or not. Considering even governments have looked into the possibility says there is a possibility.

I may be misinterpreting you but I get the impression the word aliens=impossible to you.

Being open minded is being open. If you are saying something off limits that is not being open minded. So I guess we will stay at a disagreement if you insist the something cannot be explored.


Edit to add

I never said you were attacking me. Even if you had been I am a big boy and have a tough skin very little ever bothers me.

Originally posted by atlasastro
Moving the goal posts won't work Teabag. It is over and you know it.

I know it hurts Teabag, but there you have it.

Anyway. Here is my nail in your coffin.... " Nothing in the reports of Unknowns necessitates the assumption of extraterrestrial origin. To state the cause of an aerial phenomena is "unknown", does not imply it is "unknowable" within the framework of terrestrial events. To this extent, assuming an aerial phenomena to be extraterrestrial in origin because its unidentifiable becomes unneccesary, illogical and unscientific."

So, according to Bluebook, a ETH is uneccesary, illogical and unscientific. Wow.

You never disappoint, atlas.
1) You still didn't answer my question / support your previous "newspaper" claims.
2) We already KNOW about the conclusions of Blue Book, Condon, etc., but the real issue here (and in all of science) is, does the data support the conclusions?

I'm perfectly content just hoping that people will read as much as possible and make up their own minds. Wherever they come down, at least their ideas will then be based on knowledge and information and not just invalid assumptions, cultural biases and taboos.

Toodaloo ;-)

reply to post by Grimpachi

I never said you were attacking me. Even if you had been I am a big boy and have a tough skin very little ever bothers me.

Do not get on her bad side.

I think we have a lot of the same thoughts with all this. I guess I'm a skeptic since I tend to go in that direction. If I remember, I started lurking around as a believer. I had been interested in this topic since I was a kid watching project UFO. That was basically the Project Bluebook story as a 70s tv show. That is probably why I am so fascinated with reading it right now. So I had been watching every UFO documentary I could and I thought there had to be something to this. I was even hating on all those evil skeptics. My girlfriend would catch me staring up in the sky a lot "looking for UFOs again?" Well, I was.

Anyway, I decided to look at the other side but there wasn't a whole lot on tv about it. So I eventually made my way here. By the time I signed up, I was already a skeptic I guess. I just wanted to here both sides of the story and quite honestly, the skeptical side was more palatable.

What's weird is that I often get accused of being some skeptic that's twisting and turning words and making up stuff to fit my on predetermined beliefs. What possible agenda could I have where I would be so maniacal? So now I want to learn about this blue book stuff because I love data. So for something like this, I won't take anyone's word for it. It's right there for me to decide for myself what the data says. Im not in some skeptic vs believers war. its rediculous. Oh and by the way, you are in the "gang" now.