I'd be more shocked if their wasnt any other forms of life in this gigantic universe of ours! Would seem like quite a waste of space and planets

This is a very educational thread because it shows how desperate the pseudoskeptic is.

The main trait of a pseudoskeptic and a debunker is they have to debate against absolutes.

This is why you hear things like proving a negative, not existing and evidence that extraterrestrials don't exist.

They haven't debated the issue because they can't. They have spent this whole thread trying to debate an absolute.

This is because all of the evidence that has accumulated over the years.

They can't debate the available evidence with reason, they can't debate probabilities because they have to debate against an all or nothing argument.

We debate for and against the existence of parallel universes.

We debate for and against the existence of psychics and mediums.

We debate for and against the existence of extra dimension.

We debate for and against the proposition all the time.

The pseudoskeptics are upset because they can't debate the issue. They need an absolute, so they will try to convey an absolute onto things I said. This truly shows how flawed the pseudoskeptic position is.

As human beings, we always weigh the available evidence within reason as to what's most likely and what's less likely. I understand why the pseudoskeptic can't debate the issue

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
Again,

The pseudoskeptic and debunker has no evidence to support their claims. They want to yell out anything in a vacuum without any evidence.

They will say, it's a weather balloon, it's a bird, he's lying, he's hallucinating but they don't thin they need any evidence to support their claims.

This is they want to remain in a constapated state of possibility.

Out of all the evidence we have accumulated over the years, the pseudoskeptic needs to come to the table with more than their opinion and wild speculation.

The reason they keep trying to debate a point that I never made, is because they have no evidence. They want to be able to yell out any silly opinion or wild speculation without any evidence.

They will say, the guy could be lying or hallucinating. This means nothing when the case has been investigated and there's no evidence to support this claim.

Nobody in this thread said anything about all cases of alien visitation being weather balloons, birds, or lying -- so why are you bringing those irrelevant ideas into this conversation...
...But do you know what? Sometimes it is a weather balloon, a bird, or a guy lying or hallucinating (or, more specifically, someone's mind making up stories).

HOWEVER, that's not -- as your thread title asks -- "evidence against extraterrestrial visitation". That would be simply evidence against those specific reports in question. I can't comment on which weather balloon case you're speaking of, but there HAVE been cases proven to be only weather balloons.

You are now resorting to throwing generalities about skeptics in our faces. I suppose you are running out of tactics.

I still don't know what kind of evidence "against" alien visitation that you want from us. You know darn well that we can't provide such evidence, so it seems you are simply setting us up so you can keep throwing out hot-button words like "pseudoskeptic".

Your rant about weather balloons, birds, and liars has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic at hand, so why do you bring it up. Do you really need to resort to these sorts of attacks?

*****

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
We debate for and against the existence of parallel universes.

We debate for and against the existence of psychics and mediums.

We debate for and against the existence of extra dimension.

We debate for and against the proposition all the time.

So you ask "people can debate the non-existence of parallel universes, so why can't people provide evidence against the existence of alien visitation?"".

In those debates about parallel universes (for example), there is nobody trying to provide evidence that parallel universes do NOT exist. Rather, they are debating the specific evidence that they DO exist.

There is nobody saying that extra dimensions do not exist, but are rather debatting the evidence that has been offered that they DO exist.

There IS a difference.

I'm sure there are some people who have debates trying to provide evidence against something, but I think those debates are futile. Other people can have futile debates trying to provide evidence against something, but I'm not going to fall into that logical fallacy.

I don't understand why you are trying to force us to argue from a logically flawed position. I won't play your game.


[edit on 11/14/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
...Einstein and Bohr debated for and against without "proving a negative."

It's hardly futile and we debate for and against the proposition in all walks of life.

They were debating their very specific theories. They were NOT debating a grand generality like "provide evidence against alien visitation".

Like I asked before, play devil's advocate for a second and provide an example of evidence that a skeptic may offer against alien visitation in general (not a specific explanation such as "bird" or "satellite"). I'm sure you have a "skeptics' argument" in mind.

Please help me by providing an example of what you are asking us to provide.


[edit on 11/14/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

At this point, I honestly can't tell if Matrix is the most illogical, ignorant, muddled poster on ATS, or a trolling genius. Eleven pages in, and all he's had to do is copy/paste his initial response over and over again, and everyone continues trying to debate him.

We all know he's not going to answer any questions, push the debate, or actually say anything worthwhile beyond his key words (That would be Pseudoskeptic and debunker. Oh, and ignorant/silly.).

While normally I am the kind of person to respond to jokers like this in the attempt to enlighten the readers outside of that one person, I really don't see the reason this one needs to continue. Everyone's gotten plenty of ammunition for any of Matrix's future posts. My recommendation is to add this thread to your favorites and wait for a new Matrix thread to pop up, and just link to this one and reference new readers to it.

Once they get a feel for how illogical and blind Matrix is, hopefully they won't fall for the same trap.

Originally posted by EsSeeEye
Everyone's gotten plenty of ammunition for any of Matrix's future posts. My recommendation is to add this thread to your favorites and wait for a new Matrix thread to pop up, and just link to this one and reference new readers to it.

Great idea. And I would also like to point out he has still not answered a very simple question...

If

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
What's the evidence and argument that supports reducing life in the galaxy to earth?

...does not mean "evidence that extraterrestrials don't exist", then what does it mean? His refusal to answer this can only mean there is no difference and he knows it.

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
I already told you what it means.

Then it should be a very simple matter of linking to that post. Please, do so.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
...Einstein and Bohr debated for and against without "proving a negative."

It's hardly futile and we debate for and against the proposition in all walks of life.

They were debating their very specific theories. They were NOT debating a grand generality like "provide evidence against alien visitation".

Like I asked before, play devil's advocate for a second and provide an example of evidence that a skeptic may offer against alien visitation in general (not a specific explanation such as "bird" or "satellite"). I'm sure you have a "skeptics' argument" in mind.

Please help me by providing an example of what you are asking us to provide.


[edit on 11/14/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

Again, they were debating for and against a proposition.

Einstein was debating against probability in quantum theory and bohr was debating against determinism. This lead Einstein to say "God doesn't play dice."

They didn't prove a negative and we have debates for and against things in all walks of life.

We do it in science, in court rooms, in are personal lives because we have to draw conclusions based on the available evidence. People debate themselves, should I pay both bills or should I pay one bill now and I can hold off on paying this bill. They weigh the available evidence because they don't have absolute proof as to what may occur.

With ufology, the pseudoskeptics and debunkers want absolutes. They don't want to weigh the evidence within reason as to what's most likely and what's less likely. They don't want to talk about probabilities because they want to toss out any possibility without any evidence to support their claim.

I don't know why pseudoskeptics and debunkers act as if we can't debate things within ufology this way. Why can't we weigh the available evidence within reason as to what's most likely and what's less likely? We do it all the time in everything from science to courts. .

We have accumulated a lot of evidence over the years and it's time for the pseudoskeptic and debunker to be called out for this silly and illogical standard.

These cases have been investigated and if you have evidence to rebut the investigation and rebut the eyewitness testimony then present it.


[edit on 15-11-2009 by Matrix Rising]

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
...We have accumulated a lot of evidence over the years and it's time for the pseudoskeptic and debunker to be called out for this silly and illogical standard.

These cases have been investigated and if you have evidence to rebut the investigation and rebut the eyewitness testimony then present it.

So, now you want the skeptics to rebut specific evidence for specific cases.

Well, that's very, very different than trying to provide evidence for the broad statement "ET visitation is not happening", which is what you have been asking for since your original post.

However, I don't think this is the proper thread to be giving evidence for specific cases, and then waiting for a rebuttal for each case. That's what the entire "Aliens and UFO" thread is for.

It's rather difficult to provide evidence against alien visitation in general. Like I said before, I don't know of anyone who absolutely, positively denies the possible existence of the phenomenon of alien visitation -- Therefore, a fair skeptic would never provide evidence against alien visitation in general.

How in the world can someone provide evidence that something is not happening?


[edit on 11/15/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

I think that there is a better way of looking at this problem than to ask each other for evidence of ET visitation. It basically boils down to two questions:

1) Are UFOs real? In other words, once you are reasonably confident that you have filtered out all of the non-UFOs, such as aircraft, balloons, astronomical stuff, birds, optical illlusions, hoaxes, delusions, lies, etc, take a look at what is left - that 5 to 15 percent, depending on whose collection of reports you're considering. If you study the UFO phenomenon at all thoroughly, it's hard to argue against the fact that the reports that are left over fall into only a handful of rather well-defined categories. People from every part of the world report seeing essentially the same few types of objects each performing their own characteristic set of behaviors and maneuvers. The question then becomes: Are these people accurately describing what they are seeing? If so, (and I have to think that out of the thousands of people who have seen these unknowns, at least SOME of them are getting it right, just by the odds) then regardless of their origin, we have to say that there ARE metallic disc-shaped things, big cigar-shaped things, spherical type dealies, massive triangular/boomerang shaped craftish-appearing objects, etc. actually and truly flying about and - whether or not they really ARE intelligently controlled - certainly SEEM to be intelligently controlled, or are behaving in a way that we would not expect naturallly occurring phenomena to behave (pacing vehicles on land and in the air, changing speed and direction, etc.) So, if we can accept that these many truly unidentified reports are not due simply to a massive coincidence, but were indeed sparked by an actual sighting of real objects/phenomena that a multitude of people have witnessed, then that leads us to the second question.

2) What could these things possibly be? We can pretty much rule out the idea that these things are anything we KNOW to exist, which places us right into the realm of speculation almost before we begin. The ET Hypothesis, then, essentially comes about as the result of the process of elimination. Among the many things that might exist, but of which we are not really sure, we can pretty easily imagine that intelligent life - having occurred once for certain - might have occurred elsewhere. After all, the universe is a big place, and what else can we name in the universe of which there is only a single example? I think it's pretty much been decided that if you see one example of something out in space (a star, a galaxy, a comet, an asteroid, etc), there are typically billions more of them out there. So it doesn't seem too out of line to include ET in our list of things that might explain some of these sightings. To be sure, it's not scientifically proven, but that doesn't necessarily mean there is no good reason to believe it's true. If a man walks into a restaurant full of patrons and strangles another man to death in front of 50 witnesses, there may very well be no scientific evidence that he was the one who did it, but with 50 people giving eyewitness testimony that it happened, it would be stubborn and foolish to declare that human perception is imperfect and that eyewitness testimony is the flimsiest form of evidence, true as that might be. The other main possibility that I can think of would be some super-secret human made technology - maybe military, maybe not. However, the further back in history you go, the less satisfying this explanation becomes, especially when you go back as far as World War II. Secret technology in the year 2009 is one thing; that of 1946 is another.

So, let's conduct an exercise here. Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that these things (the discs, cigars and so forth) are really up there zipping about exacly like people say they are. Now let's throw out the ET Hypothesis and the military craft theory. What else can we come up with? Ready? Go.

Thank you very much. Why wouldn't there be intelligent life outside earth? We were making wheels and marveling at "fire" not too long ago. Look how far we have come. How characteristically ignorant, egotistic and presumptuous to rule life on other planets out.
That said, less exciting but probably more true is a majority of UFO's are from our planet, under the sea and even inside earths geode shaped sphere in places like Mt Shasta and above Greenland. (Near the World Seed Vault perhaps?) They are apparently traveling to who knows where and back from HERE.
Certainly other types of UFO's are passers by, some possibly malevolent, others simply curious.
If any of the UFO abduction reports are true there is an element of scientific "harvesting" going on which might be curiosity or even something more desperate. A widely held theory (based on accounts where humans are "told") many UFO's are humans, sometimes drones, from our own future returning to a)collect DNA to modify or strengthen their gene pool and/or b)to monitor atomic facilities and try to stop us from blowing ourselves to smithereens and/or c)to stop something else unknown FROM happening and/or to encourage something beneficial TO happen.
Since time and space both bend time travel is and has been theoretically possible for about 60 years. So we don't know how to do it. That doesn't mean it can't be done. Describe TV to a cave man and check their disbelief. Like us now, with this.
The argument, we would have seen more of them by now...doesn't really hold water. What if they don't want to be seen? Who looks up? If a chameleon or a life form as simple as a "walking stick" can vanish on a tree limb why imagine an intelligent life form cannot hide in our sky and make itself invisible to us?
To me irrefutable proof of alien visitation and EBE is the overwhelming number of highly educated, extremely credible individuals with impeccable reputations who also have many years of training, related experience and expertise in the field of aeronautics telling what they saw. Reports are filed by military commanders generals, astronauts, pilots and even Presidents. And uh gosh stack these very credible scientifically knowledgeable people against.... who? Joe Blow with an IQ of like 60, sitting at home on his couch telling everybody who'll listen it's all BS because HE doesn't think it's true? The rest of us are supposed to prove something to this poorly educated, likely genetically disadvantaged goofball?
It is laughable.
The next time you find yourself in an argument over this ask the person...And what do you do for a living? By this I mean what is your area of expertise, your cred? Just empty bags of hot air.
I sense even the de-bunkers getting tired, running out of material. Hangers on comb UFO sites and respond too fast too soon to information they supposedly have no belief in. How are they not only there but the first ones there? The web is obviously MONITORED by de-bunkers for keywords (think blue collar 'men in black') UFO, Alien etc. If you move around on the different sites you see a clear unmistakable pattern. Never any intelligent argument against ET's or UFO's just the same idiotic remarks about little green men....like there's a de-bunkers handbook or something.
I think it is time to stop exhausting ourselves trying to prove anything to people who really don't want to know. Like saying "look" over and over to someone who won't remove a blindfold. You are not getting anywhere. So let's jump to the next step. Given they are real, let's ask why and what might they be interested in? When can we expect our government to fall in line with the rest of industrialized nations and release some information? What does our government gain from keeping this secret? Are they afraid or worse? How much of and what parts of the government are involved? How many countries? Is it possible as has been said EBE's already live work and walk among us?
Don't waste time on doubters.

[ed

[edit on 16-11-2009 by rusethorcain]

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
...We have accumulated a lot of evidence over the years and it's time for the pseudoskeptic and debunker to be called out for this silly and illogical standard.

These cases have been investigated and if you have evidence to rebut the investigation and rebut the eyewitness testimony then present it.

So, now you want the skeptics to rebut specific evidence for specific cases.

Well, that's very, very different than trying to provide evidence for the broad statement "ET visitation is not happening", which is what you have been asking for since your original post.

However, I don't think this is the proper thread to be giving evidence for specific cases, and then waiting for a rebuttal for each case. That's what the entire "Aliens and UFO" thread is for.

It's rather difficult to provide evidence against alien visitation in general. Like I said before, I don't know of anyone who absolutely, positively denies the possible existence of the phenomenon of alien visitation -- Therefore, a fair skeptic would never provide evidence against alien visitation in general.

How in the world can someone provide evidence that something is not happening?


[edit on 11/15/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

You can debate against the general proposition or a specific case and that's why I listed evidence.

We debate for and against things all the time.

It's easy to provide evidence that something is not happening.

Police do it all the time when they rule out suspects.

We have accumulated a lot of evidence over the years that has been investigated. The pseudoskeptic and debunker needs to provide more than just their opinion.

Give me some evidence against extraterrestrial visitation so I can look in another direction.

Like I said, these cases didn't occur yesterday. They have been investigated and they have been around for years. The pseudoskeptic wants to throw out all of these possibilities without a shred of evidence.

If there's no evidence against extraterrestrial visitation, why should I look in another direction when these cases have been investigated?

Either provide some evidence for your claims or against extraterrestrial visitation and I will start to look for another answer.

Off topic: in response to your signature....So is this a surprise? We are social animals. Why not work toward socially responsible goals since we need to inhabit the world we create?