There's 2 types of skeptics out there. There are ones who use skepticism to get to the truth and the others who use skepticism to back their
pre-existing belief system.
Most skeptics fall into the second category. Every video and pic that's posted you can be assured that they will be yelling fake, weather balloon,
or CGI soon after the thread is made.
Here's a hypothetical case study of this kind of skeptic that illustrates their backwards logic when it comes to Ufology.
Say you have a person who just got released from a mental institution and a Pilot and they both have a U.F.O. sighting.The pseudoskeptic will say one
is a mental case and the other is just a confused Pilot. This to them is evidence enough because it fits what they already believe.
John Mack, Pulitzer Prize winning author and Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, made this interesting observation in an
interview.
Q. How do you test the reliability of these claims?
A. I do a careful psychological evaluation of their mental states, take their psychological history — the standard clinical exam and, in some early
cases, batteries of psychological testing. I will get character witnesses to assess whether they embellish the truth. And there is something more,
which I'm still struggling with. It is feeling that a person is speaking as if they've been there — this comes from body language, the look in
their eye, from having no other agenda. I'm working to better define this.
www.johnemackinstitute.org...
This is what the true freethinker will do.
You ask the mental patients family and friends does he usually make these things up and if the answer is yes then you give less weight to his account
vs. the Pilots account. Not so with the pseudoskeptic. They are both equally wrong in there eyes and they have come to this conclusion before any
investigation.
Next you ask the Pilots family and friends does he make these things up and you build a character profile.
You then try to exclude other things that it could be.
Then you take his account as opposed to other similar accounts and look into there explanations if there is any.
At the end of the day you can guage through reason wether his story is true or more likely to be false. The pseudoskeptic says you can't come to a
conclusion and we have to keep the case open until they find an explanation that suits their pre-existing belief. This is truly silly.
Through reason we can say it's an 80% chance that he saw a U.F.O. that couldn't be identified because it wasn't from this planet. You have to take
his eyewitness testimony into account with all the direct and circumstantial evidence that supports Ufology.
Direct Evidence - Eyewitness accounts from pilots, police officers, military, high ranking government officials and more. Also abduction cases.
Circumstantial Evidence - Cave paintings, ancient manuscripts, paintings, pictures and video.
So you can say the Pilot saw a U.F.O. with extra-terrestrial or extra-dimensional origins beyond any reasonable doubt.
The pseudoskeptic will say it has to remain open because these explanations don't fit their pre-existing belief system and worldview. This is not
freethinking but being closed minded.
We are human beings and have the faculty to come to a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence. You can say it's an 80% chance that the Pilot saw
a U.F.O. that didn't originate from this planet. This will also leave room for any reasonable explanation that may come up in the future.