The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis and the null hypothesis

neoholographic
Yes it does. Sadly, you don't understand how science works. It's not the job of Science to prove the alternative hypothesis. In order to show crop circles are made by aliens you would have to give evidence that there's crop circles that can't be made by humans.

The quote above is almost the most uneducated idea mentioned so far. Almost. It is always the alternate hypothesis that one wishes to show has support from the data. The null hypothesis, in contrast, is almost always taken as the currently accepted position or status quo of no effect when it is desired to determine if something may have an effect on an outcome. For example, if we wish to show that adding more of a chemical to a process improves the purity of the product, the null hypothesis is that adding more of the chemical does nothing. The alternate is that adding more of the chemical increases the purity. Quite a bit of effort will go into defining what an improvement means and possibly into what exactly is meant by adding more of a chemical. It may seem obvious -- but it is not until it all gets defined.

Neo, most of the people providing you with some advice and questions re your logic clearly work *daily* in the sciences. They know full well how science really works. You may want to have a chat with your high school science teacher (if you are in high school yet) as to how all this works. With a little luck, your teacher may have had a minor in a science instead of something like history before ending up with a BA in education.

OTOH, if you are out of high school and into college and have taken a course or two in the sciences, you may want to ask for a refund.

reply to post by radkrish

Again, we are not talking about obvious cases where an ufo turned out to be planet venus.

I once stood right next to someone that thought venus was something flying under intelligent control. Why wouldn't we talk about that?

If it 'appears' to be doing intelligent things, then there is a very good chance that they are indeed under intelligent control.

I am not so sure about that. pretty much every naturally occurring thing was once thought to be some kind of intelligence. Comets for example. Its kind of hard wired into us. It doesn't rule it out.

neoholographic
reply to post by Ectoplasm8

 

It's simple.

I'm skeptical of bigfoot because he hasn't been caught. How can a primitive primate that big escape capture for so long especially as technology increases? I think bigfoot is most likely a misidentification of a known species.

There's a hypothesis that bigfoot is an alien. This hypothesis answers the question as to why bigfoot has been able to evade capture for so long. They're cases where U.F.O.'s have been seen with ape like beings.

In my mind, I can accept bigfoot as an alien before I can accept bigfoot as an unknown primate. I'm not saying bigfoot is an alien but you asked the question.

I have an open mind about things where most blind debunkers never look at evidence, So if evidence were presented to me that bigfoot is an alien, I wouldn't scoff at it.

At this point, I think bigfoot is most likely a misidentification of a known species whereas U.F.O.'s are an observed phenomena that can evade capture, move in ways that defies current understanding, cause malfunctions in cars and at nuclear sites and more.

So again, simple common sense tells you there's evidence for and against bigfoot which is different from the evidence for the ET hypothesis. It's very telling that blind debunkers want to lump all of these things together. It's all or nothing and they lack the common sense to make these simple distinctions.

So again, how can bigfoot evade capture even as technology advances, with U.F.O.'s this can easily be explained by the ET hypothesis.

Prove the Patterson film to be a fake. Here you have video "evidence" that goes far beyond any evidence that we have ever had of a UFO or alien incident. Yet, you believe with Bigfoot, it's a misidentification of a known species? Please prove for us the film is "most likely" a misidentification of another animal. Or, prove for us it's "most likely" a hoax, using your methodology.

Your reasoning behind a belief in alien piloted UFOs through the provided low-level evidence, doesn't quite correspond with your non-belief in Bigfoot with an actual higher quality of evidence.

Just to be clear... As others have done, I'm using Bigfoot for the sake of the argument. Which for some reason you seem to have a problem grasping the concept of. I'm not defending nor believe there's a Bigfoot hiding in the Washington, Oregon, _________< fill-in-the-blank forest.

------------------

Re your first post:
You're aware that Stephen Hawking said the following, correct?-

Evidence that intelligent life is very short-lived is that we don't seem to have been visited by extra terrestrials. I'm discounting claims that UFOs contain aliens. Why would they appear only to cranks and weirdos?
.
.
Further evidence that there isn't any intelligent life within a few hundred light years comes from the fact that SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Life, hasn't picked up their television quiz shows. It is true that we advertise our presence by our broadcast. But given that we haven't been visited for four billion years, it isn't likely that aliens will come any time soon.

Hawking effectively negates part of your argument and goes as far to refer to believers in ET piloted UFOs and visitation, as cracks and weirdos. I don't understand why he's included in your first post as supposedly one of the people proving that aliens "most likely exist" helping further support your own argument. When in fact he doesn't.

Another point:
Edgar Mitchell solely bases his belief of ET on second-hand stories that he's been told through the years. He has zero direct involvement in anything alien, nor has he ever seen or examined an alien body or an alien craft in person. He speaks in terms of a belief of ET, rather than factual evidence of ET. How does someones belief in a phenomenon, connect directly to a most likely argument? Without actual evidence, it's still only a belief. If you're one impressed with a title and use that title to forego the need for actual evidence, your argument works. However, most scientists aren't going to settle and take a story at face value in leui of actual evidence when referencing an alien life form visiting Earth.

Phage
reply to post by radkrish

 

Why E.T? Because it a perfectly plausible and viable answer.

Plausible why? Because we know ET is visiting?


You didn't answer the second question. How do you go about demonstrating that no UFO reports involve extraterrestrials?

edit on 4/13/2014 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Thats your job if you really want or like to 'prove' that no ufo reports involve extraterrestrials.

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by radkrish

 

Again, we are not talking about obvious cases where an ufo turned out to be planet venus.

I once stood right next to someone that thought venus was something flying under intelligent control. Why wouldn't we talk about that?

We just talked about it. Huh?!

If it 'appears' to be doing intelligent things, then there is a very good chance that they are indeed under intelligent control.

I am not so sure about that. pretty much every naturally occurring thing was once thought to be some kind of intelligence. Comets for example. Its kind of hard wired into us. It doesn't rule it out.

Alllll righhhht!!. What do you think it is? A 'naturally occuring' metallic-looking, flying saucer that does weird things in the sky; gets mentioned by highly sane people for visiting nuclear sites and switching them off- its perfectly fine and a natural phenomenon. Lets shrug it off like anything.

Well yeah, aliens have advanced unknown tech that can do all these amazing things. Like magic. It really doesn't require much thought. Its a "one size fits all" explanation for a very complex phenomenon. Its kind of lame really. Lets lump a pile of things together and call it aliens.

Of course its a complex phenomenon and aliens is one explanation. If it isn't, its perfectly fine. But something intelligent is interacting with humans for quite some time. And how technologically advanced are we during the last 2-3 centuries? Now think about civilizations that are older than us..way old. It looks magical and lame..but don't forget that there is an answer to this phenomenon left untouched.

To sum up our tendency towards this subject-Hey, we can't do it yet! So nobody can do it either.

reply to post by Ectoplasm8


You again spent most of your time talking about bigfoot and I suggest if you want to debate bigfoot go and start a thread. The reason you keep talking about bigfoot is because you can't debate the evidence.

The reason blind debunkers want to talk about everything except for the evidence presented is because they can't refute the evidence. So they want to talk about bigfoot, the easter bunny, the flying spaghetti monster or unicorns creating rainbows. Sadly, because you can't refute the evidence all you want to talk about is bigfoot.

NEWSFLASH!

There's evidence for bigfoot and there's evidence for the ET hypothesis. I know you want to keep lumping all of these things together because you can't refute the evidence used to build the ET hypothesis.

I guarantee you, the blind debunkers will keep trying to talks about everything else but the evidence. This just shows how strong the evidence is for the ET hypothesis.

Next I don't think bigfoot has higher quality evidence. Like I said, it has to be explained to me how a primate that size can evade capture. But again, this thread isn't about bigfoot. You said:

Just to be clear... As others have done, I'm using Bigfoot for the sake of the argument. Which for some reason you seem to have a problem grasping the concept of. I'm not defending nor believe there's a Bigfoot hiding in the Washington, Oregon, _________< fill-in-the-blank forest.

Of course you don't believe there's a bigfoot. We know why you're fixated on Bigfoot, because you can't refute this:

Radar reports

www.ufoevidence.org...

Trace Evidence

www.ufoevidence.org...

Vehicle interference cases

www.ufoevidence.org...

Electromagnetic effects

www.ufoevidence.org...

Physical evidence

www.ufoevidence.org...

Government U.F.O. Documents

www.ufoevidence.org...

U.F.O. articles published in scientific journals

www.ufoevidence.org...

It's a smokescreen because you can't refute the evidence.

Now onto Hawking. Hawking said aliens almost certainly exist. If you say aliens exist you then can't turn around and limit what another civilization can or can't do based on our current understanding of physics. Hawking called eyewitnesses cranks and weirdos. That's not the case. Do these people look like cranks and weirdos?



or these people



Or these cases.

www.ufoevidence.org...

Listen how Hawking described what an advanced civilization might be capable of. You can't limit them to our current understanding of physics.



Hawking starts off by saying alien technology to us is like a rocket ship would be to a caveman. Again, if aliens are this advanced we can't turn around and say well they couldn't visit earth. You can't say this based on our current understanding of physics. For years Hawking talked about the event horizon of a black hole and now it's an apparent horizon. He can't even pin that down so how can anyone say what a civilization can or cannot do if their technology is so advanced we will feel like cavemen looking at a rocket ship when we see it.

So, I mention Hawking because soon as you say that Aliens exist, you open the door to extraterrestrial visitation and the only way you can try to refute the strong evidence is try to reduce eyewitnesses to cranks or weirdos, talk about bigfoot or Unicorns creating rainbows.

Now, to your last point. Again, we're not talking about Edgar Mitchell the guy who works at Rite Aid. We're talking about Edgar Mitchell who can walk into the Joint Chiefs of Staffs and talk to an intelligence officer about U.F.O.'s as he explains in this clip.



Listen to what Edgar Mitchell says in the clip.

He's talked to people who he can't mention who were in the intelligence community. He talked to an intelligence officer at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The reason Edgar Mitchell was all over the news and radio because he's credible. We're not talking about Edgar Mitchell from Rite Aid or we're not talking about me. See, we have this thing called common sense and we use it to weigh credibility. The reason why blind debunkers started calling Edgar Mitchell a kook and a senile old man when this first came out is because they wanted to damage his credibility.

reply to post by Phage


In real terms nothing in science can be proved. Proof belongs in the realm of mathematics alone. Science ultimately comes down to what is a reasonable assumption. If we go to extremes with falsifiability nothing is falsifiable so it is a question of degrees. What is the standard for falsifiability?

The question then becomes "Is the ET hypothesis proved?" Some would say it is and it is falsifiable. To falsify it one would have to refute the available evidence. So now we are back to evidence and how to interpret it. The people on this thread are not likely to agree on this because some believe that the evidence is tantamount to proof and that makes it falsifiable.

The real issue here is how high the bar should be with regard to falsifiability. How do you answer that because no matter how high you raise it it will never reach the level of mathematical proof and at those extremes anyone can say things are not falsifiable.

I think you should agree to disagree!

reply to post by EnPassant


EnPas: Totally correct regarding math vs science. Math does not have hypotheses like science in general, outside of statistics. Rather, mathematics has theorems. Theorems can be proven to hold with complete certainty.

Misstated as a null hypothesis, the "ET Hypothesis" is ridiculous. As a null hypotheses it tacitly assumes the existence of aliens visiting earth is true and demands sufficient evidence that they are not to favor the alternate. Stated as an alternate hypothesis, the ET Hypothesis is more reasonable but there is a serious need to define what is meant as evidence. Stating happenstance observations that are only at the level of unexplained as equivalent to evidence is juvenile. One cannot have a UFO which is explained, by definition of UFO. As currently stated, even if used as an alternate hypothesis, the "ET Hypothesis" requires one to explain 100% of all UFO sightings to avoid saying aliens are not visiting Earth. That is an inane requirement.

I would not (nor would a reasonable person) accept any level of evidence that would allow the substitution of fairies, ghouls, monsters, ogres, dragons, witches, gods of the Greek, Roman, or Germanic pantheons, or Phage's unicorns, etc for the word "alien" to be declared to exist would be sufficient evidence. Anything that is imaginary could be agreed to exist if the bar were set that low -- and that is exactly how low the bar has been set by the OP. If the word "alien" is defined and a level of consistent evidence is defined such that it does not permit imaginary beings or past pantheons from being declared to exist, we may get somewhere. But coming up with that definition does not appear to be occurring in this thread. Nor is it recognized by the OP that such a redefinition needs to occur. The OP just wants us to accept any evidence where we can freely substitute any imaginary being for "alien" and prove their existence as well.

Unfortunately there is no current evidence which is public knowledge which suffices to differentiate between fairies/ghouls/monsters/etc and aliens riding around in UFOs. Radar and other equipment have artifacts, observations under unusual conditions are easily mistaken. That a small fraction of a percent of everyday occurrences lack identification is totally in line with human capabilities and technical expectations.

It is however possible to set technological levels for evidence, such as a physical craft or DNA which shares no genes with any known plant/animal/microbe/virus on Earth. That, I would assume, would be quite sufficient evidence for any reasonable person provided the evidence was freely examinable by experts in multiple fields. That no such evidence exists in the public domain despite numerous reports of crashes and abductions is powerful evidence to date that we are not being visited. DNA should be readily available in abductions and crashes and a great deal of technology should survive virtually any crash. Where is the evidence? All we have is stories -- and stories do not amount to evidence.

The "ET Hypothesis" as stated is busted on so many levels it isn't even comical. It's rather sad to see it still being claimed by some to be vaild and somehow (magically) shown to be true. Yeah -- so are fairies, elves, ogres, etc.... If you accept one you have to accept them all.

reply to post by radkrish

Alllll righhhht!!. What do you think it is? A 'naturally occuring' metallic-looking, flying saucer that does weird things in the sky; gets mentioned by highly sane people for visiting nuclear sites and switching them off- its perfectly fine and a natural phenomenon. Lets shrug it off like anything.

Human perceptions, memory and interactions are quite complex and very misunderstood so it is difficult to comment on cases and have actual open minded discussions that entertain such notions. "it must be aliens" just seems intellectually retarded to me.

We must be asking why 'this' phenomenon and not something else if we find ourselves to be the root cause of it.

Besides, I don't find any difference between aliens or a form of unknown consciousness interacting with humanity. All am interested is the phenomenon itself and not speculate whether they are aliens or some unknown form of consciousness. It is the happening that matters.

reply to post by BayesLike


First off, you have it all wrong. You said:

Misstated as a null hypothesis, the "ET Hypothesis" is ridiculous. As a null hypotheses it tacitly assumes the existence of aliens visiting earth is true and demands sufficient evidence that they are not to favor the alternate. Stated as an alternate hypothesis, the ET Hypothesis is more reasonable but there is a serious need to define what is meant as evidence. Stating happenstance observations that are only at the level of unexplained as equivalent to evidence is juvenile. One cannot have a UFO which is explained, by definition of UFO. As currently stated, even if used as an alternate hypothesis, the "ET Hypothesis" requires one to explain 100% of all UFO sightings to avoid saying aliens are not visiting Earth. That is an inane requirement.

You need to understand the null hypothesis. It doesn't tacitly assume that aliens are visiting earth. The null in this situation would be no extraterrestrials control U.F.O.'s. You have to assume that the null is true. The alternative hypothesis is some U.F.O.'s are controlled by extraterrestrials.

It's up to proponents of the ET hypothesis to refute the null hypothesis. How do you do this? With evidence.

Radar reports

www.ufoevidence.org...

Trace Evidence

www.ufoevidence.org...

Vehicle interference cases

www.ufoevidence.org...

Electromagnetic effects

www.ufoevidence.org...

Physical evidence

www.ufoevidence.org...

Government U.F.O. Documents

www.ufoevidence.org...

U.F.O. articles published in scientific journals

www.ufoevidence.org...

The reason why bringing up things like unicorns creating rainbows because there's no evidence to refute the null hypothesis.

The ET hypothesis has strong evidence to support. It's evidence is the only explanation that matches the data. If it wasn't we wouldn't have so much evidence that can't be identified. There would be no need to invoke the ET hypothesis if blind debunkers had a explanation for the data. Just like there's no need to invoke aliens when you see a crop circle because there's evidence that human beings can explain the data because they can make these intricate patterns.

The evidence for the ET hypothesis is very strong. I would say it's around a 95-98% probability of the ET hypothesis being the explanation for the observed phenomena called U.F.O.'s. How do we know this?

The ET hypothesis corresponds to the data better than any explanation. If it didn't there would be no need to invoke extraterrestrials to explain these things.

The accumulation of evidence is just mountainous. One thing science likes to see is the accumulation of evidence. So, science will look for multiple signals for the higgs boson or multiple detections of gravitational waves.

You also know the evidence is strong because blind debunkers and pseudoskeptics can't refute the evidence and they can't provide explanations that matches the data. If this could happen, there wouldn't be U.F.O.'s or the need to invoke extraterrestrials.

Because they can't refute the evidence, they try to dilute the evidence. They desperately want to lump everything together. This is why you said this:

The "ET Hypothesis" as stated is busted on so many levels it isn't even comical. It's rather sad to see it still being claimed by some to be vaild and somehow (magically) shown to be true. Yeah -- so are fairies, elves, ogres, etc.... If you accept one you have to accept them all.

This whole paragraph shows why blind debunkers are in such a horrible position. I mean just look how illogical this sounds. First blind debunkers try to argue from the standpoint of incredulity. So the ET hypothesis is busted on so many levels that it's comical. What you don't say here is why it's busted on so many levels or any debate about the evidence. So you hear words like "busted" "comical" and "magically." These are feel good words for blind debunkers. They think it means something just to say these things while they run away from the evidence like it's the plague.

You also notice how he mentions fairies, elves and ogres. Again, this shows how strong the evidence is for the ET hypothesis. Blind debunkers can't refute the evidence so they have to lump things together. So if you accept the ET hypothesis you have to accept all these things LOL. It's just so ridiculous and outside the realm of common sense all you can do is laugh.

Think about the things you have heard from blind debunkers on ATS.

SANTA, THE EASTER BUNNY, BIGFOOT, UNICORNS CREATING RAINBOWS, TOOTH FAIRY, FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTERS AND NOW FARIES, ELVES AND OGRES.

What's next???

The reason why you hear all of these things is because they can't refute the evidence for the ET hypothesis. They have to lump all of these things together. This just shows how strong the evidence for the ET hypothesis is.

BayesLike Where is the evidence? All we have is stories -- and stories do not amount to evidence.

In a court of law 'stories' would amount to evidence. But witness testimony is backed up by physical trace evidence as well. All the pieces of the ufological jigsaw fit together to suggest ET. It is disingenuous to say there are only stories when these stories are backed up by evidence in other domains. The question here is whether ALL the evidence for ET constitutes a respectable hypothesis. If it does it is falsifiable. Falsifying witness testimony would require a demonstration that witnesses cannot be trusted; a convincing demonstration, not just some experiment done in a lab that shows there can be minor discrepancies in memory. Also, it would have to be demonstrated, beyond reasonable doubt, that trace effects are not from a physical craft ( if the craft are physical that goes a long way to establishing the ET presence).

In my estimation there is enough evidence for the ET hypothesis and therefore it is falsifiable - it is not necessary to prove every ufo photo is a hoax or that all trace evidence is explainable by non ET causes. It would be enough to demonstrate that trace evidence can be explained in another way and that it is not reasonable to believe ufo photos are what they seem. This would constitute falsifiability.

These demonstrations would be hard but not impossible and that fact shows the strength of the ET hypothesis.

You are setting the bar too high when you demand incontrovertible proof. Normally evidence is sufficient to form a hypothesis and strong evidence is enough to accommodate falsifiability.

reply to post by EnPassant

It would be enough to demonstrate that trace evidence can be explained in another way and that it is not reasonable to believe ufo photos are what they seem. This would constitute falsifiability.

Yes. Incidents can be falsified. The ETH cannot be. It has been shown that Venus has been mistaken for a UFO. Does that falsify all eyewitness reports?

reply to post by Phage


That's just a silly comparison.

Of course Venus can't falsify eyewitness accounts because it doesn't match the data that's used to build the ET hypothesis. There would be no need to invoke U.F.O.'s or extraterrestrials if Venus fit the data.

I go back to crop circles. The reason why the hypothesis that aliens create crop circles is falsified in part is because humans can make these intricate patterns which matches the data.

It's easy to falsify the ET hypothesis. Just provide an explanation to explain the data and there's no need to invoke extraterrestrials the same thing that occurred with crop circles.

The fact is, blind debunkers can't refute the evidence so they bring up things like unicorns creating rainbows, fairies, ogres and any other nonsensical comparison they can think of.

reply to post by neoholographic

You again spent most of your time talking about bigfoot and I suggest if you want to debate bigfoot go and start a thread. The reason you keep talking about bigfoot is because you can't debate the evidence.

The reason blind debunkers want to talk about everything except for the evidence presented is because they can't refute the evidence. So they want to talk about bigfoot, the easter bunny, the flying spaghetti monster or unicorns creating rainbows. Sadly, because you can't refute the evidence all you want to talk about is bigfoot.

NEWSFLASH!

There's evidence for bigfoot and there's evidence for the ET hypothesis. I know you want to keep lumping all of these things together because you can't refute the evidence used to build the ET hypothesis.

I guarantee you, the blind debunkers will keep trying to talks about everything else but the evidence. This just shows how strong the evidence is for the ET hypothesis.

Next I don't think bigfoot has higher quality evidence. Like I said, it has to be explained to me how a primate that size can evade capture. But again, this thread isn't about bigfoot. You said:

Of course you don't believe there's a bigfoot. We know why you're fixated on Bigfoot, because you can't refute this:

Over half of your comments are just repeating the same rhetoric over and over and over again. There's clearly a comprehension problem. That partly explains why you're hung up on your own methodology as well.

Bigfoot is using an example to show a point. I asked for you to prove the Patterson film to either be a misidentified animal, or a hoax. You did neither. You instead repeated the same crapola you already had 15 times previous claiming Bigfoot, unicorns, rainbows are all a smokescreen for addressing UFO "evidence".

Radar reports

www.ufoevidence.org...

Trace Evidence

www.ufoevidence.org...

Vehicle interference cases

www.ufoevidence.org...

Electromagnetic effects

www.ufoevidence.org...

Physical evidence

www.ufoevidence.org...

Government U.F.O. Documents

www.ufoevidence.org...

U.F.O. articles published in scientific journals

www.ufoevidence.org...

It's a smokescreen because you can't refute the evidence.

So, you want me to go through and respond/debunk every case in those links? If you take a look around, you'll see most skeptics in this thread do debunk cases like these. You also have to understand that the available information of some of these cases is limited. So any investigation can only go on so far and many times is limited to only a story. The JAL 1628 incident is one that we can investigate from the available tower to flight transcripts, etc. This is touted to be one of the strongest UFO cases ever and I'm sure you would agree. It was talked about and presented in one of Stephen Greers Disclosure Projects. This "mothership" part of the sighting lasted for 50+ minutes. In those 50 minutes, there was never a consistent radar signal. When a signal was seen, it was intermittent and lasted off and on for only a few minutes total of that 50 minute sighting. It was explained by radar experts to be a "uncorrelated primary and beacon target return". Which is a delayed ghost return of JALs own signal. Which explains why it was spotty and inconsistent and why the Fairbanks tower in direct line with JAL 1628 never had a radar signal from this "mothership". There's a quick grounded Earthly explanation. Care to prove this was "most likely" really an alien craft radar return? Keep in mind of the three crewmen in the cockpit, the only one to see this "mothership", the size of two aircraft carriers, was the pilot. Who coincidentally claimed to see motherships on two other occasions. Seems to be a lucky fellow.

You see, there isn't a single case of the thousands and many decades of this phenomenon that can stand alone to prove alien visitation has happened, as in fact. So, the only recourse is to attempt to grab every which way in all subsets of this phenomenon and link examples of these cases in order to help support your own belief thinking as a group they do. What you actually still end up with, is a group of stories and simple weak-leveled evidence.

Also, please explain this. Alien abductions are a physical one-on-one event where someone is abducted on to a space craft and examined by alien beings. This is no longer a remotely experienced phenomenon, it's crossed over to a physical tangible one. However, not a single ounce of physical evidence has ever come about with all the abductions ever listed in the decades these claims have been made, ever. Why is this? In the infamous Travis Walton case, he claimed to pick up an object from a table to protect himself. This shows the ability to grab an object from one of these supposed encounters.

Now onto Hawking. Hawking said aliens almost certainly exist. If you say aliens exist you then can't turn around and limit what another civilization can or can't do based on our current understanding of physics. Hawking called eyewitnesses cranks and weirdos. That's not the case. Do these people look like cranks and weirdos?

Listen how Hawking described what an advanced civilization might be capable of. You can't limit them to our current understanding of physics.

Hawking starts off by saying alien technology to us is like a rocket ship would be to a caveman. Again, if aliens are this advanced we can't turn around and say well they couldn't visit earth. You can't say this based on our current understanding of physics. For years Hawking talked about the event horizon of a black hole and now it's an apparent horizon. He can't even pin that down so how can anyone say what a civilization can or cannot do if their technology is so advanced we will feel like cavemen looking at a rocket ship when we see it.

So, I mention Hawking because soon as you say that Aliens exist, you open the door to extraterrestrial visitation and the only way you can try to refute the strong evidence is try to reduce eyewitnesses to cranks or weirdos, talk about bigfoot or Unicorns creating rainbows.

Again, evidence of your comprehension problem. In your first post, you interchange "possible" with "most likely" in the same paragraph. But they aren't interchangeable. Any scientist, including Hawking, will agree that it's possible that alien life exists. However, as Hawking says- there's no evidence that shows it does, in turn making your "most likely" comment as to Hawking invalid and wrong. HINT: That's why I bracketed with quotations *most likely*

Don't just skim through and read comments. Actually think about what is said before responding.

CONTINUED....

Now, to your last point. Again, we're not talking about Edgar Mitchell the guy who works at Rite Aid. We're talking about Edgar Mitchell who can walk into the Joint Chiefs of Staffs and talk to an intelligence officer about U.F.O.'s as he explains in this clip.

Listen to what Edgar Mitchell says in the clip.

He's talked to people who he can't mention who were in the intelligence community. He talked to an intelligence officer at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The reason Edgar Mitchell was all over the news and radio because he's credible. We're not talking about Edgar Mitchell from Rite Aid or we're not talking about me. See, we have this thing called common sense and we use it to weigh credibility. The reason why blind debunkers started calling Edgar Mitchell a kook and a senile old man when this first came out is because they wanted to damage his credibility.

Did you even read my comment on Mitchell? I see I'm going to have to fall into the same frustrating pattern that everyone else has and repeat the same things to you. He has not had any direct involvement with anything alien. He has a belief from second-hand stories that aliens exist. He has zero evidence. This does not support your "most likely" argument.

It's this weak-leveled "evidence" that only means something to people like yourself. That again is because you don't have one solid evidence case to draw from to show aliens pilot UFOs. So you have to corral any and everything together and accept this ridiculous type of thing as evidence.

Phage
reply to post by EnPassant

 

It would be enough to demonstrate that trace evidence can be explained in another way and that it is not reasonable to believe ufo photos are what they seem. This would constitute falsifiability.

Yes. Incidents can be falsified. The ETH cannot be. It has been shown that Venus has been mistaken for a UFO. Does that falsify all eyewitness reports?

edit on 4/13/2014 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Correct.

There is no way to be able to achieve the standard set by the OP to be able to falsify all UFO reports as being "not alien in origin". However, just because I cannot falsify every report, that does not make the alternative hypothesis (that at least one report is actually an alien craft) necessarily true.

It is NOT the case that a report that has not been falsified by finding a prosaic/Earthly explanation is automatically "true". That's because some reports that cannot be falsified by finding a prosaic/Earthly explanation simply fall under the category of "unknown".

So there are three possibilities for each sighting:

(1) There is strong enough evidence to prove that it has an earthly non-alien explanation [i.e., falsified]
(2) There is strong enough evidence to prove that it is an ET controlled craft [i.e., verified],

or in the absence of strong enough proof for possibility #1 or #2,

(3) there is not enough evidence to either falsify it or verify it, thus it remains unknown.

Just because someone can't readily explain a sighting that does not automatically mean aliens were involved. There is nothing wrong with saying "I don't know what that was".

Not only that, but it seems the ET hypothesis people put too much stock in eyewitness accounts, as if an eyewitness account is incontrovertible. We know for a fact that is not the case. Eyewitness accounts may become a part of the evidence, but they should not blindly be considered fact or proof -- for a variety of reasons, ranging from honest mis-identification to misplaced memories to outright fabrication.

So in the end, it seems like all the OP is left with is the fallacious claim that IF every sighting/UFO report can NOT be falsified, then that means at least one is truly an alien craft. That approach to the issue is simply poor logic. There is no way in the real world to falsify every sighting...

...even if every sighting was in fact false, there would be no way (for all intents and purposes) to PROVE that they were all false.

reply to post by Ectoplasm8


Again, your post makes no sense but I will explain it again. You said:

You see, there isn't a single case of the thousands and many decades of this phenomenon that can stand alone to prove alien visitation has happened, as in fact. So, the only recourse is to attempt to grab every which way in all subsets of this phenomenon and link examples of these cases in order to help support your own belief thinking as a group they do. What you actually still end up with, is a group of stories and simple weak-leveled evidence.

This is what blind debunkers don't understand. All I ask is that a little common sense is used.

Again, the evidence isn't weak is very strong. This is why blind debunkers can't refute the evidence. When I say the evidence, I'm not just talking about a single case. When I say evidence I'm talking about falsifying the ET hypothesis by providing evidence of another explanation to fit the data.

The ET hypothesis is only invoked because it matches the data. If blind debunkers had evidence that fit the data they wouldn't have to obfuscate with things like bigfoot, fairies and unicorns creating rainbows.

Yes, there's physical and trace evidence that accompany these reports and I've listed it over and over again. Of course blind debunkers stay away from the evidence like the plague.

Let's look at crop circles again. I don't have to look at every crop circle in order to falsify crop circles in part. This is because you have evidence of a alternative explanation that fits the data. We don't have to invoke aliens with crop circles because we know that humans can make these intricate patterns.

So again, it's not about trying to debunk a case or two. That's meaningless. It's about providing evidence that fits the data for the evidence used to build the ET hypothesis.

Also, you need to actually read what Hawking said before you comment.

Hawking did exactly what I said we should do which is way the evidence as to what's most likely and what's less likely. Hawking said this:

Hawking says that in a universe with 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars, it is unlikely that earth is the only place where life has evolved.

"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said, according to The Sunday Times.

Hawking just didn't say it was possible, he said it was likely. He also said this:

Renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says intelligent alien life-forms almost certainly exist, but trying to communicate with them is "too risky."

content.usatoday.com...

Again, Hawking weighed the evidence and came to the conclusion that intelligent alien life forms almost certainly exist. He didn't say it was possible he said it was ALMOST CERTAIN.

Again, I know blind debunkers are adverse to actually looking into these things and they just make statements that are fantasy. Hawking did exactly what I said you should do which is weigh the evidence.

When it comes to Edgar Mitchell the question is who gave him this second hand information. Like I said, Edgar Mitchell is not a guy that works at Walmart. So common sense tells you that Edgar Mitchell is talking to people like intelligent officers at the Pentagon. So you have to give weight to his second hand information. This is why when he said this he was on every TV and radio show and this is why blind debunkers tried to damage his credibility.

If David Petraeus or Buzz Aldrin came out tomorrow and said they talked to intelligence people and people from the Pentagon who confirmed their questions about Aliens it will be all over the news.

Again, this is just basic common sense. It doesn't mean he's right but it has to be given weight because of who he is. You then have to look into what they're saying. Most blind debunkers are too lazy to do this so they try to call him a senile old man or completely misrepresent what he said.