The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis and the null hypothesis

reply to post by ZetaRediculian

yes the thread should have died on the first page. There is no way to prove " No U.F.O.'s are controlled by Extraterrestrials"

That is the point of the OP. You cannot say this therefore the null hypothesis is falsified.

There is nothing different, they are both not known to exist. We can add time travelers, Natzis, x-men, atlantians, god, angels, demons and anything else you can think of. or we can look at current knowledge of human perceptions and memory which is very misunderstood and flat ignored.

Unless one is really willing to neglect the witnesses, evidence and the thoughtful field research of highly credible sane people.We can soundly ignore them for being E.Ts but we stick to human perceptions doing tricks on ourselves. Now thats quite scientific to me.

double post

reply to post by ZetaRediculian


What are magical U.F.O.'s?

When debunkers start using words like magical, elves, ogres and unicorns creating rainbows you know they're losing the debate badly.

You said:

That is not true. Aliens are in my belief system but it is impossible to Identify something as "alien" when we don't know what constitutes an alien.

Again, this just shows debunkers don't bother to look at the evidence.

We don't need to know what constitutes an alien in order to build the ET hypothesis it's based on the data surrounding U.F.O.'s. It's what lead what lead Hawking to the conclusion that he's ALMOST CERTAIN they exist.

Again, nothing magical here. This is based on energy consumption and how a civilization could harness the energy of the sun. Here's more from Hawking:



Again, there's nothing magical about U.F.O.'s. They leave videos, pictures, trace evidence, physical evidence and more. I know the debunker loves to talk about things as magical or they bring up unicorns creating rainbows and this is because they can't refute the data that supports the ET hypothesis.

Here's more:



You can also add a civilization that can harness the power of energy from the vacuum.

Like I said it's nothing magical here it's just data and physics.

Soylent Green Is People
reply to post by EnPassant

 

Lets' take one example of a common "sighting": People who say they see something that they thought was a star, but it begins to noticeably "wobble".

It is a known phenomenon that after staring at an object (like a star) for a period of time, an illusion can occur that makes object appear to wobble when it really is not. Considering this is a known illusion , we cannot use the quantity of these reports as evidence that it is anything other than an illusion...

...i.e., it is a fallacy to use the argument "Well, maybe some of these is an illusion, but the high number of these reports leads me to believe it can't be just an illusion".


Granted -- we can get into "wildly zigzagging maneuvers", but that's another issue with other potential explanations (based on the details of the case) beside "aliens".

No that is just explaining things away. The people who report falling leaf motion are not talking about a light in the sky, they are talking about a craft, close up.

reply to post by radkrish

Unless one is really willing to neglect the witnesses, evidence and the thoughtful field research of highly credible sane people.We can soundly ignore them for being E.Ts but we stick to human perceptions doing tricks on ourselves. Now thats quite scientific to me

The people that have done the field research have done some good work. Unfortunately not too much of it draws from the study of perceptions and memory. Any claim that misperceptions, false memory, etc. have been ruled out are suspect since its not falsifiable and remains possible. What does it hurt learning about this? You would be much more informed and better able to deal with people that say stuff like "they are all delusional". Which is also not true. The alternative is to make stuff up and add to the confusion. If these folks are indeed seeing aliens, the aliens aren't going anywhere. So you believe they are seeing aliens? OK. Now what? We stop questioning and wait for them? We collectively ooo and ahhh?

draknoir2

neoholographic

What you said is just a huge contradiction. You do understand that the ET hypothesis identifies U.F.O.'s.

Cite s SINGLE instance where a U.F.O. was positively identified as an intelligently-controlled craft of extraterrestrial origin.

ETH is not founded on any single case. It is a picture that emerges from many different sightings that have emergent themes. It is these themes that give the hypothesis its strength.

reply to post by ZetaRediculian

Unfortunately not too much of it draws from the study of perceptions and memory.

Wouldn't this only be relevant to testimony of a single witness? Instances where a group has a shared experience would rule that out I believe.

reply to post by usertwelve

Instances where a group has a shared experience would rule that out I believe.

No. Not really.
Group eyewitness reports are no more reliable, especially when a group discusses an event or an event is publicized.

Loftus and Palmer argue that two kinds of information go into a person's memory of a complex event. The first is the information obtained from perceiving the event, and the second is the other information supplied to us after the event. Over time, information from these two sources may be integrated in such a way that we are unable to tell from which source some specific detail is recalled. All we have is one 'memory'. This argument is called the reconstructive hypothesis.

www.holah.co.uk...

Individual eyewitness recall reports were gathered from witnesses (29 undergraduates) who were later put into 4 groups to discuss and reach a consensus on a description of a simulated crime they had witnessed. Groups gave more complete reports but at the price of a significant increase in errors of commission (the fabrication of details under group pressure). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

psycnet.apa.org...

It was found that individuals tend to agree in their testimony following group discussion, and are liable to change their original replies to bring themselves into agreement with group leaders' recall.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

reply to post by ZetaRediculian


I think people are ignoring the way ufology and good investigation and analysis works. There are techniques and subtle arguments for evaluating a large body of evidence. Some of these techniques borrow from the scientific method (Hynek was converted because of the results of scientific analysis of sightings). To falsify ETH requires a refutation of these techniques; it requires that an alternative explanation be put forward and this alternative would have to be based on analysis. But nobody is addressing this. Nobody has shown me why Hynek's analysis is wrong or why the arguments used by people like Jenny Randles are wrong. All that is being said is that witnesses could be mistaken. But this argument is dead. They keep reporting the same things. They are the same because a consistent phenomena is being observed. You can't argue against ETH unless you go into detail about the reasoning behind the hypothesis and this reasoning is not superficial. The best of it is based on sound arguments and perceptive analysis.

reply to post by neoholographic

What are magical U.F.O.'s?

When debunkers start using words like magical, elves, ogres and unicorns creating rainbows you know they're losing the debate badly.

I think you missed what I said. Aliens have super technology that can make us hallucinate things and make us see things in a magical way. Because you ignore how the brain functions you are being fooled by the real aliens. I am merely suggesting that you become less ignorant of this by looking at something other than UFO books. If you study abductees and high strangeness, you know they mess with brains so...get less ignorant.

reply to post by EnPassant

To falsify ETH requires a refutation of these techniques; it requires that an alternative explanation be put forward and this alternative would have to be based on analysis.

No.
To falsify the ETH it must be shown that "no UFOs are controlled by extraterrestrials." That is something the OP got right. What he got wrong is that it is possible to do so.

reply to post by usertwelve


Again, I can make the statement because the data supports the ET hypothesis.

There's a lot of misunderstanding and just plain misrepresenting science when it comes to debunkers.

For instance, I can say no crop circles are created by aliens. It's not the job of science to prove the alternative hypothesis. It would be the job of proponents who say aliens create crop circles to show evidence of a crop circle that couldn't be created by human beings.

The reason you can't say no U.F.O.'s are controlled by extraterrestrials is because the data supports the ET hypothesis. Here's more:

Although the null hypothesis cannot be proven true, it can be proven false. This is because science and hypothesis testing are based on the logic of falsification. If someone claims that all swans are white, confirmatory evidence (in the form of lots of white swans) cannot prove the assertion to be true. However, contradictory evidence (in the form of a single black swan) makes it clear that the claim is invalid.

The first of the following statements comes from an online document entitled “Converting Research Questions into Statistical Hypotheses.” The second statement comes from an article authored by a medical statistician at the University of Cambridge. The third statement comes from a university’s online study-skills document. (Note the phrases can disprove and to be disproved that appear in the second and third passages.)

"Remember we can never prove the null hypothesis. All we can prove is that there is a relationship or effect (H1) between two or more variables."

"The point is that we can disprove statements, but we can not prove them. This is the principle of disconfirmation, and it forms the basis for scientific inquiry . . . . Now, knowing that we can’t prove a hypothesis but can disprove it, we take the tact of attempting to disprove the null hypothesis. If we are successful then we have, in an admittedly backwards and somewhat convoluted manner, supported our real hypothesis, the alternative hypothesis. While you can’t prove that a statement or hypothesis is true, you can disprove that its opposite is true, thereby obtaining the desired result, provided that there are no possibilities other than your hypothesis and its opposite. It is really a rather ingenious system."

"A null hypothesis is a working hypothesis that is to be disproved by a statistical test in favour of the alternative hypothesis."

www.statisticalmisconceptions.com...

This is why I keep asking for explanations that fit the data better than the ET hypothesis. If the ET hypothesis were accepted as true tomorrow, there wouldn't be much debate about U.F.O.'s because the ET hypothesis fits all the data.

It's the only hypothesis that explains the data. If it wasn't we wouldn't be having this debate. There wouldn't be a U.F.O. and Alien forum on ATS.

There's no other explanation that if it were accepted as true tomorrow it would explain the mountains of evidence surrounding U.F.O.'s.

neoholographic
We don't need to know what constitutes an alien in order to build the ET hypothesis it's based on the data surrounding U.F.O.'s. It's what lead what lead Hawking to the conclusion that he's ALMOST CERTAIN they exist.

I'm not sure how that is any different than what most skeptics say here on ATS (at least most of the ones I have come across). Virtually every "skeptic" I know on ATS thinks that intelligent life probably does exist elsewhere. However, that is not the same as saying that intelligent ETs are visiting Earth.

Even Stephen Hawking in that video you linked is not convinced about alien visitation -- in fact it seems he has doubts about it. He said:

So if aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be very much like when Christopher Columbus landed in America...which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans"

and

"Let's hope that if Aliens do find us, they come in peace"

We could argue about his ideas on aliens exploiting us, and the meeting between us and aliens going as badly as the Native Americans encounter with the Europeans, but that is besides the point, and fodder for a different thread. The point here is that it does not sound as if Hawking believes we are being visited. If we were being visited, we probably wouldn't be going about our days and living our lives freely the way that we do.

And, like I said, I'm not sure what you are arguing here, but most skeptics AGREE with Hawking's views that intelligent life almost surely exists elsewhere in the universe. It seems like you are attempting the strawman argument that most skeptics feel that their no other intelligent life in the universe.

Personally, I am also almost positive that intelligent life exists elsewhere. But I also feel that the Universe is so vast, and the earth is and almost infinitesimally small part of that universe, that any alien life that does have the ability for space travel may not have ever come upon this almost imperceptible speck we call earth.

reply to post by EnPassant


Exactly!

The reason debunkers try to claim eyewitness accounts are EQUALLY unreliable is because they can't debate or refute the evidence.

So they have to throw out basic common sense.

Common sense tells you some witnesses will be very strong and reliable and some eyewitness will be weak. Debunkers don't use basic common sense when dealing with these things because they have an illogical all or nothing mentality when it comes to these things.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


No it's not a strawman argument. It's laid out for you beautifully in the ET hypothesis.

Hawking even has to call eyewitnesses cranks and weirdos. This is because the ET hypothesis can't be refuted when you look at the data.

When you admit that intelligent alien life exists, you strengthen the ET hypothesis because the hypothesis fits the data. I'm not talking to you in a vacuum, I'm talking about data.

So unless you reduce eyewitnesses to cranks and weirdos or talk about silly things like unicorns creating rainbows there's no way to refute the data that supports the ET hypothesis.

neoholographic
reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

 

No it's not a strawman argument. It's laid out for you beautifully in the ET hypothesis.

The strawman argument is your (apparent) notion that skeptics don't believe there is life elsewhere. I said "apparent notion" based on what you wrote in relation to the video clip of Hawking (i.e., it seemed you were arguing that since Hawking believes in life elsewhere, that skeptics should too -- which seems to presuppose that you feel skeptics do NOT believe in life elsewhere).

The reason I said it is a strawman argument is because most skeptics DO IN FACT believe that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy. In fact, most people with a basic education to have an understanding of the size of the universe feels that life almost certainly exists elsewhere.

So to assert that skeptics think there is no other intelligent life in the universe is not a valid assessment of most skeptics that I have encountered. That's why saying otherwise is a strawman.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


What?

Talk about strawmen. Where did I ever say this:

So to assert that skeptics think there is no other intelligent life in the universe is not a valid assessment of most skeptics that I have encountered. That's why saying otherwise is a strawman.

When did I ever say:

"SKEPTICS THINK THERE'S NO OTHER INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE"

This is the perfect example of a strawman argument. You make up things that I never said and then debate against those things.

neoholographic
reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

 

What?

Talk about strawmen. Where did I ever say this:

So to assert that skeptics think there is no other intelligent life in the universe is not a valid assessment of most skeptics that I have encountered. That's why saying otherwise is a strawman.

When did I ever say:

"SKEPTICS THINK THERE'S NO OTHER INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE"

This is the perfect example of a strawman argument. You make up things that I never said and then debate against those things.

You're right -- I wasn't sure about what you were arguing, that's why I said your "apparent notion", then explained why I thought that's what it "seemed" your argument to be.


But that begs this question:

Then why were you pointing out Hawking's beliefs about life elsewhere...

neoholographic
It's what lead what lead Hawking to the conclusion that he's ALMOST CERTAIN they exist.

So Hawking feels almost certain that intelligent ETs exist. I'm guess not sure why you feel that is important to your argument in support of alien visitation.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


I spelled it out several times. When you say Alien life is almost certain to exist that strengthens the ET hypothesis because you can't then limit what technology they may have based on our current understanding of physics. So you can't reduce eyewitness accounts by saying they only appear to cooks and weirdos.

Alien life has to be plausible to strengthen the ET hypothesis. If it wasn't, you can say why aren't fairy godmothers, elves or ogres piloting these U.F.O.'s.

So when Hawking says Aliens almost certainly exist and when you just said most skeptics agree with him, you strengthen the ET hypothesis. If aliens didn't almost certainly exist, then you can say why not the tooth fairy instead of extraterrestrials. If the idea of Aliens isn't plausible then the hypothesis is weakened. It has to be more than just a possibility it has to be plausible. It has to be almost a certainty.