Quote:
Originally Posted by Fish
Keg has been asking why the UFO phenomenon isn't given more respect. Well... this is a big part of it. Because there are so many out there who want so badly to believe, that they readily admit that they'll using logical fallacies as justification, and they simply don't care. They are so caught up in wanting it to be true, that they don't believe any critical thinking needs to be applied in that process.
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I haven't asked why. I've explained why, and then lamented the fact. You are correct that the believers pollute. I've said that over and over. I've also said that the debunkers and people entirely outside the subject are either unwilling to or incapable of separating the believers from the skeptics - by that I mean the true skeptics, and not the debunkers who call themselves skeptics while working the problem in exactly the same way the believers do, just from the antagonistic side.
The problem is that everybody in the field is painted with the same broad brush, and therefore even the serious researchers - who are not the most popular researchers - can never be taken seriously. People think of UFO Reasearch and they equate it with garbage like Ancient Aliens or UFO Hunters or Hangar 1. People think of paranormal or crypto research and they think of crap like Ghost Hunters or Finding Bigfoot. They don't know, or care to know, anything about the real research that's being done. The research that's looking for answers without predisposition.
Of course part of the problem is that much of that research isn't public, like the work being done by Bigelow Aerospace and Jaques Vallee. Or the data collected by Ray Stanford or Ted Phillips or any of a number of other researchers.
And no, that's not saying that I believe proof of some alien cover-up is being hidden. That's simply saying that some of the best, most serious research is not something that any of us can look at online, or something we'll see on H2 or Discovery or the Smithsonian Channel. All we get to see are the entertaining kooks like Richard Hoagland or Georgio Tsoukalos. Because that's entertainment and that's what sells ads.
I don't know what the UFO phenomenon represents. I don't know if it's extraterrestrial or military or something exotic from earth we aren't aware of or a natural phenomenon like weather we don't understand yet or an echo of another reality or something nobody has even thought of yet.
And the only thing I believe is that it's a mystery worth exploring. Exploring seriously and scientifically.