Neil DeGrasse Tyson: ET and DNA

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
%a reply to: Scdfa

Most means at least 51%. At LEAST 51%, it could mean any percentage from 51% to 99%.

lets say 3% of the abductions occur in the rural areas and 1% occur in the city. if 300 people live a rural area then that would be 9 abductions. if 1000 people live in the city then that would be 10 abductions. so that would mean 52.63157894736842% of all abductions occur in the city. Which is most.

You are either joking, or you lack the most basic understanding of percentage.

Let's see if this helps. The definition of percent is "one part in every hundred". Simple as that, really.

So when you say, "3% of the abductions occur in the rural areas and 1% occur in the city," that mean that the total number of abductions from rural areas is by definition three times greater than the total number of abductions from the city.

Which is not most.

So if the total number of abductions is, say, one-million, then 30,000 abductions were from rural areas, and 10,000 were from the city, according to the percentages in your statement.

But the bigger question from your post remains:

If 3% of abductions are from rural areas, and 1% of abductions are from cities, then where are the remaining 96% of abductions taking place?

originally posted by: tanka418

originally posted by: HarteSo I see you're going to stick by that claim that "most abductions happen in cities where there are always people around" with no evidence to back it up whatsoever? Cool

I told you where I read it, at least.



You, on the other hand, appear to have read something at the referenced link that's not even there.



Only you and Zeta are worried about location, like I told him, it doesn't matter to me.The only way it matters to me is the unbelievable absence of witnesses to these high-rise abductions.



That fact has meaning. What it means is that the abductions didn't occur. At least, not physically.



Harte

I recently saw a news story, it didn't seem relevant at the time, so I didn't read it. But, it was about this man in New York City who was seriously beaten while on the subway train...in a car full of people...long story short; nobody seemed to "see" anything!



So much for your "lack" of city witnesses.

At last a reasonable response.

So you think that possibly anyone that saw a UFO waiting outside the window of a 40th floor apartment would say nothing just because they don't want to get involved?

Sounds like New York.

originally posted by: tanka418

This whole argument you are having; is two people...One with a wee bit of logic and another who insists on using a poorly remembered story from some time ago.

This was admitted, however, I don't see any other information in the thread that is better remembered or newer, though I asked for it several times.

A handful of sensationalized cases is all anyone has come up with so far. So I submit my poorly remembered old story is better than that.

originally posted by: tanka418
The reality is that ET, IF he actually has any intelligence, an I submit; he must! Would not, logically, abduct people from the city, unless, there was some compelling reason. Logically, ET would abduct from a place of relative safety...not un like their Terrestrial Human counterparts. The Human would "abduct" the Lion so as to collect data about him...that very same Human would not be very likely to enter the Lion's Den (figuratively speaking).

This would indicate that all the urban reports are sleep paralysis, whereas suburban and rural ones are not.

An odd distribution, if you ask me.

originally posted by: tanka418

By-the-way; somehow missed your Omni link...or was that the link that didn't go to where you said. (it could also be my failing vision).

It was a link to an article-finding webpage. You had to scroll down to read what little of the article was available there.
About halfway down this page.

I hadn't expected the article to be unavailable - I guess that shows my age.

Harte

a reply to: Scdfa
Let me help you. If you have 2 jars of jellybeans and one has 300 jellybeans and the other has 1000 and the one that has 300 has 3% that are red and the one that has 1000 has 1% that are red. the one with 300 has 9 red and the one with 1000 has 10 red. the total is 19. most of that total is from jar with 1000 even though there is a higher percentage of red jelly beans in the smaller one. I may have misworded the original problem but since you didn't pick it up, it probably doesnt matter anyway. That coupled with your comprehension bias probably threw you off a bit.

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: Scdfa
a reply to: Harte

originally posted by: Harte
But I wonder if you realize that most abductions have occurred in large cities, and most of those in high rise apartments in New York City

This is a direct quote of Harte, which I declared to be pure nonsense. And that's exactly what it is, I can't see how he is still arguing to support this absurd statement.

Folks, It is one simple sentence, easy to examine:

First,
Harte says, "most abductions have occurred in large cities." Most, he says. The definition of the word most, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is "almost all : the majority of".

Most means at least 51%. At LEAST 51%, it could mean any percentage from 51% to 99%.

Harte says most abductions have occurred in large cities, which means at least 51% of all abductions have occurred in large cities, according to Harte.

That statement alone is without evidence, and Harte was unable to support it, but that is only half his statement. I find the other half to be more absurd.

Harte says, "most abductions have occurred in large cities, and most of those in high rise apartments in New York City."

Again, most means, "the majority of". That means Harte is saying that at least 26% of all abductions are from high rise apartment buildings in New York City.

At LEAST 26%. Most of 51% is anywhere from 26% to 50%.

And folks, that is what I call pure nonsense. There is no evidence that suggests at least 26% of all alien abductions are from high rise apartments in New York City. Absolutely none.

Harte is unable to defend that ridiculous claim. At this point, he is more likely to argue that he didn't mean to use the word "most", but I won't put words in his mouth. I will, however, ask him to support the words that he does use.

I meant what I said, and gave my source.

I don't consider Omni to be (or have been) the be-all and end-all of sources though.

Again, do you have a source for where (or in what sort of regions) most abductions have occurred?

Omni said what I said. Where's your info coming from?

Harte

You don't think your claim that at least 26% of all alien abductions are from high rise apartments in New York City is outlandish and unsupported?

That makes it difficult to take much of what you say seriously, I'm afraid. Of course you are free to support any claim you like, but a claim so far-fetched and without any evidence to support it? It calls into question your understanding of the subject.

Perhaps you could provide the quote from OMNI magazine, I'm wondering if you're interpreting it incorrectly. I'm not sure why anyone would take a magazine published by Penthouse seriously in the first place.

a reply to: Scdfa

I'm not sure why anyone would take a magazine published by Penthouse seriously in the first place.

Doesn't Jacobs get most of his material from Penthouse? Or is there a magazine made especially for people with alien hybrid rape fantasies?

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: Scdfa
Let me help you. If you have 2 jars of jellybeans and one has 300 jellybeans and the other has 1000 and the one that has 300 has 3% that are red and the one that has 1000 has 1% that are red. the one with 300 has 9 red and the one with 1000 has 10 red. the total is 19. most of that total is from jar with 1000 even though there is a higher percentage of red jelly beans in the smaller one. I may have misworded the original problem but since you didn't pick it up, it probably doesnt matter anyway. That coupled with your comprehension bias probably threw you off a bit.

Zeta, when you're in a hole, stop digging.

This is your quote: "lets say 3% of the abductions occur in the rural areas and 1% occur in the city."

So tell me, 3% of what? 1% of what? And where are the other 96%?

If 3% of the total number of abductions are from rural areas, and 1% of the total number are from cities, then three times as many abductions occur in rural areas. This is grade-school mathematics. And you question my comprehension?

It wouldn't matter if there were 500 people in the rural areas and 5,000,000 people in the cities. If 3% of abductions are from rural areas and 1% of abductions are from cities, then the number of abductions from rural areas will still be three times the number of abductions from cities.

I'm still curious where the other 96% are from. Any answer?

Good luck.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: Scdfa

I'm not sure why anyone would take a magazine published by Penthouse seriously in the first place.

Doesn't Jacobs get most of his material from Penthouse? Or is there a magazine made especially for people with alien hybrid rape fantasies?

Dr. David Jacobs has greatly advanced our understanding of the nature and implications of alien abductions.

And he understands math.

a reply to: Scdfa

Zeta, when you're in a hole, stop digging.

This is your quote: "lets say 3% of the abductions occur in the rural areas and 1% occur in the city."

Yes, I already said I worded it wrong. But its kind of obvious what I meant. It should be "3% of people in rural areas and 1% of people in the city." Isn't that obvious by now? I probably confused you into oblivion. My bad. So let me know when you dig yourself out your confused state. You still have time to rewrite your entire post again.

originally posted by: Scdfa

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: Scdfa

a reply to: Harte

originally posted by: Harte

But I wonder if you realize that most abductions have occurred in large cities, and most of those in high rise apartments in New York City

This is a direct quote of Harte, which I declared to be pure nonsense. And that's exactly what it is, I can't see how he is still arguing to support this absurd statement.



Folks, It is one simple sentence, easy to examine:



First,

Harte says, "most abductions have occurred in large cities." Most, he says. The definition of the word most, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is "almost all : the majority of".



Most means at least 51%. At LEAST 51%, it could mean any percentage from 51% to 99%.



Harte says most abductions have occurred in large cities, which means at least 51% of all abductions have occurred in large cities, according to Harte.



That statement alone is without evidence, and Harte was unable to support it, but that is only half his statement. I find the other half to be more absurd.



Harte says, "most abductions have occurred in large cities, and most of those in high rise apartments in New York City."



Again, most means, "the majority of". That means Harte is saying that at least 26% of all abductions are from high rise apartment buildings in New York City.



At LEAST 26%. Most of 51% is anywhere from 26% to 50%.



And folks, that is what I call pure nonsense. There is no evidence that suggests at least 26% of all alien abductions are from high rise apartments in New York City. Absolutely none.



Harte is unable to defend that ridiculous claim. At this point, he is more likely to argue that he didn't mean to use the word "most", but I won't put words in his mouth. I will, however, ask him to support the words that he does use.

I meant what I said, and gave my source.



I don't consider Omni to be (or have been) the be-all and end-all of sources though.



Again, do you have a source for where (or in what sort of regions) most abductions have occurred?



Omni said what I said. Where's your info coming from?



Harte

You don't think your claim that at least 26% of all alien abductions are from high rise apartments in New York City is outlandish and unsupported?



That makes it difficult to take much of what you say seriously, I'm afraid. Of course you are free to support any claim you like, but a claim so far-fetched and without any evidence to support it? It calls into question your understanding of the subject.



Perhaps you could provide the quote from OMNI magazine, I'm wondering if you're interpreting it incorrectly. I'm not sure why anyone would take a magazine published by Penthouse seriously in the first place.

I'm a fan of science fiction. Ben Bova was the editor. Ever heard of him?

The real question here is why it would matter to you who published it. Have you ever read it?

Articles from Nobel Prize winners, short stories by Nebula Award winners. Good enough for me.
That is, until it became a UFO rag, at which point I cancelled the subscription.

Feel free to supply your own data backing up what you claim. I've not seen that yet.
I at least provided the source, if not the entire story itself.

Harte

a reply to: Scdfa

Dr. David Jacobs has greatly advanced our understanding of the nature and implications of alien abductions.

No he hasn't.

And he understands math.

Does he know how to divide by 2 and add 1 to one number and subtract 1 from the other? Pretty impressive there.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: Scdfa

Dr. David Jacobs has greatly advanced our understanding of the nature and implications of alien abductions.

No he hasn't.

And he understands math.

Does he know how to divide by 2 and add 1 to one number and subtract 1 from the other? Pretty impressive there.

Dr. Jacobs has greatly advanced our understanding of the nature and implications of alien abductions, despite your comments to the contrary.

a reply to: Scdfa
Folks out there in ATS land, I grossly misworded a word problem and I am truly embarrassed and this poster has every right to chastise me until I feel even worse about my already severely lacking math skills. Even though I have tried to correct my mistake, the hole I have dug is too deep.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: Scdfa
Folks out there in ATS land, I grossly misworded a word problem and I am truly embarrassed and this poster has every right to chastise me until I feel even worse about my already severely lacking math skills. Even though I have tried to correct my mistake, the hole I have dug is too deep.

I misunderstood your intent, for that I apologize, I only disagreed with what you had written.

I will try to be more aware of such situations, and I would ask you to understand that my experiences with this topic leave me a little sensitive to data that I feel is inaccurate.

No need to feel bad at all, you're obviously a true gentleman, and I hope we both can move forward in these discussions in a less adversarial manner.

a reply to: Scdfa
Thank you for your mercy. I am in your debt forever.

Anyway, Now if we have 2 distinct populations And one population is in a rural area and the other population is in the city. If the first population consists of 300 and out of those 300 we find that 4% of them have reported abductions, that gives us 12 abductions in the rural area. And of the 1000 people that live in the city, 1.5% of them have reported abductions. That gives us a total of 15. The combined total is 27 abductions out of 1300. which is about 2%. Now in this type of scenario, we have a higher percentage of abductions in the rural area yet have a larger number of abductions in the city. This only one possible scenario but nobody knows what the breakdown is because guys like Jacobs have not shared this information. The only number we have to work with is 2% of the whole population.

So in this scenario, if it could be shown where we have distinct differences between 2 populations, it would lend more credibility to the ETH. So far, no numbers have shown ANY difference whatsoever.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: Scdfa
Thank you for your mercy. I am in your debt forever.

Anyway, Now if we have 2 distinct populations And one population is in a rural area and the other population is in the city. If the first population consists of 300 and out of those 300 we find that 4% of them have reported abductions, that gives us 12 abductions in the rural area. And of the 1000 people that live in the city, 1.5% of them have reported abductions. That gives us a total of 15. The combined total is 27 abductions out of 1300. which is about 2%. Now in this type of scenario, we have a higher percentage of abductions in the rural area yet have a larger number of abductions in the city. This only one possible scenario but nobody knows what the breakdown is because guys like Jacobs have not shared this information. The only number we have to work with is 2% of the whole population.

So in this scenario, if it could be shown where we have distinct differences between 2 populations, it would lend more credibility to the ETH. So far, no numbers have shown ANY difference whatsoever.

Ah! Now I get it! You raise an interesting point, of course. But I wonder about the line of demarcation, specifically, where it would leave people like me. My family and I were taken from a small city, around 15,000 population at the time, in the center of a rather rural area. I wonder where we would draw the line between city or rural? What about the suburbs, for example? If I had to guess, I'd probably say that most abductions are somewhere in-between rural and big city. But I'd be guessing.

I do know that these aliens have shown no sign of trouble taking anyone from anywhere and avoiding being witnessed. Unless they want to be seen, as seems to be the case in the Linda Cortile case. That seemed to be a performance, a demonstration for the U.N. Secretary General.

So, that's a no on providing any evidence to support your absurd theory that at least 26% of all alien abductions are from high rises in NYC? I didn't think so.

And you don't even have the magazine article on which you based your theory? Again, no surprise.

As far as omni goes, it was created by Bob Guccione's girlfriend at the time, I'll admit is was one of the better mags published by Penthouse, but that isn't saying a great deal.

as for Ben Bova, I have no opinion, not one of my favorites, but a great many science fiction writers are complete idiots when it comes to the reality of alien contact. They're often only comfortable with the topic of aliens as fiction, and have a very hard time dealing with actual alien abductions.

originally posted by: Harte

But I wonder if you realize that most abductions have occurred in large cities, and most of those in high rise apartments in New York City

a reply to: tanka418

If i may butt into you guys' conversation, its been proven that a nice amount ( if i had to say a number maybe 25-30% ) of abductees weren't actually abducted. I forgot the scientific name but what happened was they were asleep and their brains woke up before their bodies thus giving the feeling that they cant move and since their bodies are still asleep things that you would normally see in your dreams seem to manifest in reality provoking the thought of an abduction

originally posted by: rebellion7
a reply to: tanka418

If i may butt into you guys' conversation, its been proven that a nice amount ( if i had to say a number maybe 25-30% ) of abductees weren't actually abducted. I forgot the scientific name but what happened was they were asleep and their brains woke up before their bodies thus giving the feeling that they cant move and since their bodies are still asleep things that you would normally see in your dreams seem to manifest in reality provoking the thought of an abduction

Lucid dreaming.

Can be a real "trip", some that I've had seemed very real. usually they were "given up" by some improper element within, lots of fun though.

a reply to: tanka418

Yea its fun for a little while but when you start doing it on purpose like i was, things tend to get a little eerie that's why i stopped

originally posted by: rebellion7
a reply to: tanka418

If i may butt into you guys' conversation, its been proven that a nice amount ( if i had to say a number maybe 25-30% ) of abductees weren't actually abducted. I forgot the scientific name but what happened was they were asleep and their brains woke up before their bodies thus giving the feeling that they cant move and since their bodies are still asleep things that you would normally see in your dreams seem to manifest in reality provoking the thought of an abduction

You are welcome, thanks for joining the conversation. However...

What you are talking about is called "sleep paralysis". It's the latest in a never ending series of excuses du jour, to try and explain away alien abductions. Sounds nice enough. Trouble is, alien abductions are really happening. Alien abductions have happened a lot, an awful lot, to a whole lot of people in the last fifty years.

As popular as 'sleep paralysis' is in the mainstream media, it has never proved anything.

Now I'm not saying that every person who believes they have been abducted by aliens actually was abducted. But sleep abduction is a poorer explanation than most.