Has the existence of aliens been proven?

Originally posted by LordBucket
The OP is asking if there's proof, and I'm pointing out, by way of example, that there cannot be proof.

I think you are using a definition of proof that goes above and beyond what most of us would consider proof.

If a claim is extraordinary, extraordinary evidence is needed to get us to accept something as true. To use a real life example, look at the platypus.

When the Platypus was first encountered by Europeans in 1798, a pelt and sketch were sent back to Great Britain by Captain John Hunter, the second Governor of New South Wales.[5] British scientists' initial hunch was that the attributes were a hoax

It wasn't unreasonable to suspect a hoax since mammals with duck bills that laid eggs were outside the experience of westerners of the time. However if you are arguing that the existence of the platypus still hasn't been proven, I'd say your standards of proof are so high as to put you in a small minority of the population, and that most people would argue that we do in fact have satisfactory proof of the existence of this creature, as fantastic as it may be.

Are we 100.0000000000% certain instead of say, 99.999999999% certain the platypus really exists? Maybe not, but that's a distinction I don't think most people are trying to make when they use the word proof. I think most people would agree the existence of the platypus has been proven, the way normal people (as opposed to philosophers) use the word proof.

So if we had as much evidence for the existence of alien visitors to the Earth as we do for the existence of the platypus, I think most people would call that proof in spite of your claims to the contrary. But your point is valid to the extent that it can sometimes be difficult to know when the evidence is sufficient to be considered proof. Apparently a pelt and a sketch isn't enough.

I think the information is just incomplete. If there was actually concrete evidence, and I stress the concrete, then even the most uneducated of us would understand it.

Given the way this thread is going I would like to recommend the book , Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson


The review
The full book PDF