2009: The year of the sceptic.

what is a skeptic ?


can/should skeptics be put into different categories ?

is it a mistake to use the term skeptic in a broad sense to describe everyone that is a non believer ?

some possible scenarios ....

1-debunker skeptics who believe there is nothing to the ufo/alien phenomena

2-skeptics who believe the possiblity that life does exist elsewhere but is not visiting this planet

3-skeptics who are open to the idea that aliens ufo's are visiting Earth but are just critical of the available evidence

4-skeptics that believe some cases or evidence might be genuine but believe the other 99% of the evidence is fake

5-skeptics that are open minded about the whole thing but debunk cases to get to the truth



these are just some thoughts i had about different kinds of skeptics and i am wondering if some skeptics are offended by being automatically grouped into the "debunker non believer " category ?


can/should "believers" be put into different categories ?


and my last question:

do debunkers worship this guy ?...








[edit on 31-12-2009 by easynow]

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
Anything by the website "marsanomalyresearch".

Why does marsanomalyresearch feel that they need to overcompress/oversample their images?...and why do they always shade them with a "sepia" color? Why not just use the much more hi-resolution source image rather than overcompressing the image until it is full of jpeg compression artifacts?

Here is an example. Marsanomalyreaseched claimed their picture below sowed strustures and straight-line roads on the Moon. All of these photos used the EXACT SAME RAW IMAGES from the Clementine space probe. The image on the bottom is from the Clemetine Lunar Map v2.0 (beta) is very clear and relatively hi-res. The image in the middle is the old Clementine imaging software that left "stich" lines. The top image is the overcompressed, oversampled, sepia-colorized image from marsanomalyresearch:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b9141d2d5553.jpg[/atsimg]


[edit on 12/31/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

SGIP -

I honestly thought the same thing unitl I looked at a full moon earlier this year with basic field glasses (don't know the X level off hand, not very high) and saw this "banding" in the lower right quadrant. Seriously. It's funny looking, but not nearly covering the amount of surface claimed by Skipper.

reply to post by easynow


Easynow, very well said Sir - a Happy New Year to you (and everyone else).

I'm off to get pissed!

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


I don't know if courting the more belief oriented people is sensible. I think their numbers are exaggerated because they're more vocal about their beliefs. I think that a lot of otherwise sensible people come on a site like ATS and post stuff they've read from various exopolitics and new age sites, and rapidly become disillusioned/a bit more critically minded. Other than ATS there is not really much on the web to cater to people in the hinterland between belief and scepticism. It's either all belief or all scepticism.

I think the success of shows like MythBusters, taking on folklore to hearsay, indicates that there is potentially a huge market for a more sceptically minded look at things like UFOs. (I actually liked the first series of UFO Hunters, because the inclusion of a robust sceptic was a huge leap forward, but rapidly became the same as other crappy UFO programmes when Ted Acworth left. The star child episode was risible.)

The way I look at it is that huge numbers of people believe in things like UFOs, but a minority of them are vocal, unyielding, hardcore believers, and if an organisation like MUFON or other serious group manages to compete by providing the same style of news as the bonkers websites, minus the belief, they could tap into the same wider market as shows like MythBusters, and get more non-believers involved/open up new revenue streams. I think there's a great deal of semi-sceptical ordinary folk put off UFOs because of the lack of a venue for them.

[edit on 31-12-2009 by jackphotohobby]

I love sceptics... TRUE sceptics

I have the utmost respect for people who will look at something with a completely open mind, not bringing any preconceptions to their analysis.

I greatly admire people willing to suspend whatever preconceptions they might have, and who will interact with others without resorting to rudeness, derision, scorn, ridicule, etc

I love to see someone weighing all the evidence, taking each case on it's own merits, and behaving like a true sceptic should.

Ask how many can really be called a true sceptic on ATS...

Perhaps this thread should be renamed '2009, the year of the smug, rude, biased, and intolerant' ?

Just a suggestion

Originally posted by Dagar
Perhaps this thread should be renamed '2009, the year of the smug, rude, biased, and intolerant' ?

I thought this thread was about skeptics, not believers...

My favorite thread/ topic had to be the gobstopperish "Taymour" claim of PROOF of ET life with pics - I was strung out on that one for days - I think it finally was shut down by the mods after 30 or so pages...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

if you haven't subjected yourself to this tortuous nonsense. It was enough to make a skeptic out of Jonathan Rutter BSer Reed.

CDS

Mine was the guy on here who's convinced he's an alien when really he's just Sottish with Indian heritage ! His post Aliens DNA Evidence or summat along those lines ! That made me smile big time !

Originally posted by KingX

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by KingX
BS.But people are so stuipid they bought it line,hook and sinker.

Pilots,Astronauts,Presidents,Generals,Policemen the list goes on and on of people who claimed to have viewed UFO's.But according to stuipid people there all liars.

My favorite moments are usually when really stooopid people call other people 'stupid' and misspell it. And demonstrate their microliteracy with using "there" for "they're".

English is not my first language I do the best I can.

How many languages do you know?

Being defiantly stooopid and unapologetically microliterate isn't winning you any sympathy.

In the age of 'Babel Fish', we can all get by in as many languages as we need.

Even before that, I could handle myself in childhood Swedish, High School Latin, plus French, Russian, some German and Japanese, and street Greek and Kazakhi. It's a delight to be aware of more languages than your original one, and to push your luck into making as many mistakes as your listeners are amused by.

reply to post by JimOberg


Gee....

You're giving poor old KingX a bit of a beating...

Could be ol' Kingx is asking to learn via a beating.

Second line?

Nah, and this ain't a third one either!

-m0r

Originally posted by DoomsdayRex

Originally posted by Dagar
Perhaps this thread should be renamed '2009, the year of the smug, rude, biased, and intolerant' ?

I thought this thread was about skeptics, not believers...

DoomsdayRex -are you about twelve years old?

Thats probably one of the best posts I've read in a while and thats all you've got to say about it?

Originally posted by Maybe...maybe not
reply to post by JimOberg

 

Gee....

You're giving poor old KingX a bit of a beating...

Not my intention. I've made more mistakes in my native language and those others i've ventured into, then he can ever HOPE to make -- if you DONT make mistakes I don't think you're reaching far enough.

I was teasing him specifically about making mistakes while insulting the intelligence/skills of others. THAT'S all I was mocking. I found it ironic and self-defeating.

When I try, ever so rarely, to insult or curse in a foreign language, I KNOW I have to be triple-certain to get it right or it totally destroys the intended effect. And I know that, because it's happened to me personally.

To be clear -- I apologize for any impression I was making fun of anybody's less-than-perfect general knowledge of any language.

I congratulate and encourage his attempts to master English and join in encouraging English-speakers to get off their lingocentric obsession with everybody ELSE learning THEIR language but not vice versa -- every new language you get familiar with is a different angle on reality, a new eye for perception of the external and internal universes, a new way to be neighborly and considerate of fellow earthers.

And it's darned useful, now that we have worldwide media access to ten thousand newspapers in a hundred lively languages. 'Babel fish' only goes so far -- you have to get familiar with its limitations and the nature of the tongue it's trying to represent. And then -- we are opened to insights and information and multiple points of view far beyond the gathering abilities of anyone in any previous generation.

[edit on 1-1-2010 by JimOberg]

Originally posted by KingX


The fact that UFO's and Aliens have so easily been hidden from the public just reinstates what I said above.

People are ignorant.

So true ...makes you wonder how they can stay in such a state of denial .

Read my sig......

The first New Years Resolution should be to get rid of the silly term 'debunker'.
Partly because to so many people the term has connotations of paid or organised denial or denial 'just for the sake of it'.
Indeed 'paid debunker' is so often the cry as soon as someone tries to apply some logical or critical reasoning to something.
Isn't that what we should all do? It's called engaging your brain.
In fact some of the staunchest 'conspiracy theorists' refuse to believe anything from mainstream sources. I mean come on. You could stand in front of someone and launch a flippin Chinese lantern in front of them and they would still insist it was ET phoning home.
Likewise the term 'sceptic' is so often used with negative connotations.
If we insist on using these terms there should something equivalent for the gullible and the delusional.

reply to post by JimOberg

Thank you Jim

I am appreciative of your detailed & thoughtful reply.

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

Originally posted by karl 12

Originally posted by DoomsdayRex

Originally posted by Dagar
Perhaps this thread should be renamed '2009, the year of the smug, rude, biased, and intolerant' ?

I thought this thread was about skeptics, not believers...

DoomsdayRex -are you about twelve years old?

Thats probably one of the best posts I've read in a while and thats all you've got to say about it?

DoomsdayRex is smarter than you think I feel. Sometimes waffle isn't needed.

...see my signature.

Year of the skeptic?

I have my doubts, where is the proof?

We better send more money to Shermer, he'll tell us what to think for sure.

Long live the cult of skeptic!

It's no longer just a point of view, it's a lifestyle.


to the tune of the Dr.Pepper jingle:
I'm a skeptic, she's a skeptic, he's a skeptic, we're all skeptics, wouldn't you like to be a skeptic too? Be a skeptic, buy a subscription?

It's easy, you don't even have to know how to spell it!

[edit on 2-1-2010 by Deny Arrogance]

[edit on 2-1-2010 by Deny Arrogance]

Hey m0r!

Happy New Year man!

My list is far too extensive to name all of them and I think you covered most bases.

As a resident 'skeptic' I guess I'd like it to be known (again) that I am actually a 'skeptical believer'... having witnessed a relatively close encounter myself in the 90's.

I'm not skeptical of alien life, or that they may even be coming to earth... but what I am skeptical about is people (lies & agendas). There's far too much of it on the forum and to be honest, for the second part of 2009 I gave the Aliens & UFO's board a relatively wide birth.

The truth is that NONE of us really know. Yet some people can't even be honest enough with themselves and others, or their ego's are so fragile that they simply cannot acknowledge it.

The whole purpose of ATS is to work towards the truth together, no matter how unfashionable that may be. Yet it appears that many here delude themselves into believing they already know it all and in so doing, propagate nothing but sheer ignorance on the forum.

That's my pet peev for 2009, just like it was for 2007 and 2008. Sadly I can't see 2010 being any different.

IRM