Skeptics have already made their minds up about UAPs

Magical Realist said:
No..meteorites don't exhibit the same flight behavior as uaps. See post #29.
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Not the ones I saw. Coming into the atmosphere hard at different angles is like skimming stones. Different composition, weights. Some were perfect straight lines, some skimmed along like crazy and changed direction.
I know about comets and the atmosphere and friction.
So that's fine, say we didn't? What then?
 
Magical Realist said:
No..because they don't exhibit the flight behavior of uaps. Moving on..
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If meteorites were not explained to you by science, they would be in the mix. Same with solar phenomena.
Why wouldn't they be?
Military phenomena domestic and foreign no one will ever tell you about.
We have no idea what that stuff does.
There are other explanations.
 
Yazata said:
Moderator note: This thread was split from the following thread:

Venus and camera stabilizing | Sciforums
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The movement "skeptics" come into an argument with their minds already made up that thatever their opponents propose is bullshit ("woo") and that their self-appointed mission in life is to erase bullshit (and those they perceive as bullshitters). In this case the perceived bullshit is any proposal/hypothesis that something unfamiliar might be happening in the sky that doesn't conform (or can be reduced) to the set of things that the "skeptics" already believe can happen in the sky.

Then they practice highly selective targeted skepticism in which those opponents' ideas are exposed to relentless attack while their own preexisting beliefs are simply accepted as givens. It appears hypocritical at the very least.

Real skepticism is doubt and questioning about any and all belief. If our movement "skeptics" were really skeptical, they would criticize their own assumptions just as rigorously as they criticize those of their opponents.



In their minds, bullshit isn't worthy of anything more than insult and ridicule. Of course, their preexisting assumption that their opponent's hypothesis is bullshit might itself be bullshit.

If they really want intelligent discussion, they mustn't try to gratuitously anger their opponents. That just hardens those opponents against anything that they have to say, no matter how valuable it might be.

There's no way that we can anger our opponents into agreeing with us. That's not how it works. The goal in rhetoric is to make opponents want to agree with us. That means sympathetically addressing their issues and concerns and finding some way to make them consistent with our own.
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I consider myself a “skeptic,” but some people like Mick West call themselves skeptics but they’re too dogmatic to have that title, imo. Science can’t overcome bias.
 
wegs said:
I consider myself a “skeptic,” but some people like Mick West call themselves skeptics but they’re too dogmatic to have that title, imo. Science can’t overcome bias.
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As always, all someone has to do is prove he's wrong. Even once.
Shouldn't be that hard, right?
 
Magical Realist said:
Noone said anything about positing God as an adequate explanation for a phenomenon.
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I didn't claim they did; that is a strawman argument.

What I DID say is that without using the scientific method, any explanation at all can be defended. Which is why it's important to use it.
 
DaveC426913 said:
As always, all someone has to do is prove he's wrong. Even once.
Shouldn't be that hard, right?
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Has he ever been proven right? I don't recall if he has.

That's the thing about the skeptic's position. It's slippery and non-committal. Could be a bird or a balloon or a meteor or a droplet of water on the lense. So many possibilities but nothing certain. The need to raise doubt and to debunk but not to ever make a solid claim. Hence they are never wrong..
 
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DaveC426913 said:
As always, all someone has to do is prove he's wrong. Even once.
Shouldn't be that hard, right?
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Proving what, exactly? I think that West mainly criticizes the notion that space aliens exist (based on the refutable evidence out there using the scientific method), which is fine.

While I don’t think that West should be classified as a villain, its important to not trivialize the claims that the tic tac flying object as one example, has no explanation. That to me, is progress. I’m not sure if West accepts that the tic tac flying object is currently “unidentifiable.”
 
What I DID say is that without using the scientific method, any explanation at all can be defended.
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That's not true. Outside of some magical method for discovering the truth, there is always the evidence and logic and the knowledge gained about the phenomenon thru observation. People find explanations everyday without recourse to the scientific method. Truth is not the sole provenance of science.
 
Magical Realist said:
That's not true. Outside of some magical method for discovering the truth, there is always the evidence and logic and the knowledge gained about the phenomenon thru observation.
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Yep. And there is a magical way of discovering the truth.

Someone sees lightning hit a building. They find out someone evil was living in that building. Therefore, through evidence and logic, God was mad at that person. And they used their powers of observation to determine that the lightning did indeed hit that building. Done!

Or you can use science, and say "the hypothesis is that God causes lightning strikes where evil people live. To test this I will observe as many lightning strikes as possible to see if this hypothesis is true. But when I did that test, 99.9% of lightning strikes hit trees, mountains, powerlines or clouds where no evil person was. Therefore that hypothesis is falsified."

Science! It's like magic, only real.
 
Magical Realist said:
Has he ever been proven right? I don't recall if he has.

That's the thing about the skeptic's position. It's slippery and non-committal. Could be a bird or a balloon or a meteor or a droplet of water on the lense. So many possibilities but nothing certain. The need to raise doubt and to debunk but not to ever make a solid claim. Hence they are never wrong..
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Did you look at the NASA stuff. There is a four hour discussion
 
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