The paronormle

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1) If A is true than B and C are possibilities, not definites, and certainly not assumptions.
2) Scientists saying it is likely there is life elsewhere in the universe is not the same as scientists saying that there is life elsewhere in the universe.
3) There are the laws of physics.

1) possibilities is correct but in the case of funded projects the only way to attract a grant is to say it's an "assumption" and success is "probable" i.e. we (the research team) "assume" that if we keep scanning the sky it's "probable" we will find a radio signal. If they use th term "possible" then SETI would never have been funded.

2) No they say it's "highly probable" as this is the reverse of the following "the statistical probability that Homo Sapiens are the only intelligent life form in the universe is "highly improbable".

3) I'm afraid the laws of physics and the politics of man are in two different paradigms.

You weren't talking about how scientists get grants. You were saying that the scientific community as a whole assumes that these things are facts without any reason or evidence to support such a claim.

So we agree that high probability does not equal fact, and that the scientists have not claimed it is a fact.

This discussion isn't about politics, but about what constitutes scientific proof. You believe that if A is true then B and C are assumptions, and that if a skeptic can't prove you wrong then that lends support to your unproven hypothesis. I contest both of these claims.

As I said, we can imagine anything.

- Wormholes and black holes as methods of interstellar travel are not plausible. Balck holes tear matter apart as it nears the Schwarzchild Radius. Worm holes require black hole for their formation AFAIK and those are only theoretical constructs.
- Non carbon life already here? Implausible because while an intelligent form of non-carbon life might choose to remain hidden, lower forms would not and we have never found the lower forms.
- interdimensional beings are as fantastical as unicorns. I know of no theory that would allow such entities
- not suite what you mean by temporal issues
- being watched? If they are so good at hiding, how can we find them?


Again, what is plausible? Humans are great at coming up with possibilities. We are so good at it that we can invent more possibilities than we can ever investigate. So we must edit our efforts to that which is most likely to provide results. And even the SETI search for stray radio signals seems a stretch by that metric.

We agree on that

Modus operandi...to get money to search for little green men you need to make a case for A...i.e. there's life Jim. but not as we know it. Among the evidence used for SETI funding was the "Drake Equation" which predicts X number of planets will have intelligent life.



What UFO skeptics rely on is that people won't ask too many questions relating to incoming data. Occams razor is a convenient barrier to questioning the paradigm limitations of known science.

Occam's Razor, correctly applied is no barrier to anything. Too many people use the colloquial version "The simplest explanation is the correct one" when the actual statement and meaning is nothing like that.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor


The principle of Occam's Razor is to not add complexity to an explanation without need. Sometimes the simplest explanation is flat wrong. Atheists consider "God did it" to be such an explanation. But invoking interdimensional beings or aliens hiding among us to explain strange phenomena needlessly complicates what are most often determined to be much more benign events.

I think it's safe to say that there is no "smoking gun" in relation to reliable and valid evidence that inter-dimensional beings or extra-terrestrial beings have visited earth.

However I refer back to the "known" data that exists out there and the apparent dishonest way it was handled. For instance I have a copy of Project Blue Book Number 14, a study of reports on UFOs. This publication was commissioned by the USAF at Wright Patterson Air-base and conducted by the Batelle Memorial Institute (BMI) in Columbus Ohio.

The study finding were reported in 1955 covering the period between 1947-1953 covering 3201 of the most significant UFO reports in the USA. The secretary of the USAF Donald B. Quarles made a press release in 1955 announcing that after analyzing the data only 3% of the reports could be classified as "unknown" and he went on to say that "this unknown group could have been identified as conventional phenomena or illusions if more observation data were available". Today this figure has been anchored in most UFO statistics including the later Condon report which was the last time the USAF commissioned a report into UFOs.

Infact the original press release was a distortion of the actual findings. According to Project Blue Book 14 the actual proportion of the 3201 reports classified as unknown were 21.5%. In addition the researchers (among the top in their fields in the US at that time) had explicitly reported that of this actual group of unknowns that 35.1 % could be sub-divided as excellent or in the words of the BMI researchers;
a) The sightings were long i,e > 1 minute duration lasting up to > 30 minutes in some cases
b) Witness reliability was highest i.e. they graded witnesses from lowest (town drunk) to highest (politicians, doctors, police)
c) Conditions were graded as ideal (scale from poor (typhoon/storm) all the way to ideal i.e. clear blue skies or no cloudcover)

I can only conclude that the USAF were anxious not to draw attention to the results but they chose to distort their own finding, this was sufficient to throw the media of the scent,. Only in the last 10 years have these distortions even surfaced. If the whole investigation into UFOs commenced with a lie then gives some indication why the present governments don't seem particularly interested in the data they have collected.

Occams razor is hard to use when it's blunted...

This doesn't even address the issue; it is a distraction. Back to the original point: you believe that if a skeptic can't prove you wrong then that lends support to your unproven hypothesis. This is clearly faulty reasoning, because the onus is on you to prove your case, not for the sceptic to prove you wrong. If you can't prove your case, the skeptic doesn't have to do anything because your hypothesis is insufficiently or unsupported and therefore unproven. What the skeptic does or doesn't do is immaterial.

But I have agreed with this line already, the burden of proof is on the proponents of the existence of UFOs. What I am focusing on is the apparent "lack of interest" in reports given involving a) multiple witnesses and b) reliable witnesses and even involving photographic or film evidence. Project Bluebook did infact indicate there are significant numbers of reports that are real X-files because the data was too hard to interpret.

If all of these can be proven to be actual natural phenomena or USAF secret testing then all the better.

Oh I see. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I do believe in some paranormal things like certain psychics. I do not, however, believe that it's acceptable for the more famous psychics(Sylvia Browne)to charge thousands of dollars for a phone reading like what happened to my cousin. It just reeks of taking advantage of the vulnerable to me.

Carefull there psychics on the phones want money and there fake there are many ways for them to trick you so you want to make sure you find one that is not a fake and is not asking for money.

I believe in some paranormal activities. I've also experienced things for which I have no other explanation for the occurances: a drawer pull making noise without anyone being near it, smelling cigarette smoke where no one was smoking, odd orbs showing up on film or digital pictures without any strange visual oddities being present at the time, etc.

That said, I don't trust people who come out & say they're psychics either, nor would I ever call a psychic hotline. I just don't think they're authentic.