altheim wrote:

"Michael Davis" <mdavis19@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

.
altheim wrote:

"Michael Davis" <mdavis19@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

altheim wrote:

"Michael Davis" <mdavis19@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

altheim wrote:

"Michael Davis" <mdavis19@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

altheim wrote:

"Michael Davis" <mdavis19@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

altheim wrote:

"Michael Davis" <mdavis19@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

researcher wrote:

Michael Davis wrote:

altheim wrote:

[snips  where nothing further to say]

Do tell. So, where exactly has mainstream science ever embraced it,
or even found the slightest trice of evidence that any of the alleged
psychic powers even exist at all?

Well, there's the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
program for instance

Which has come up empty.

or the Consciousness Research facility
in the University of Nevada

Which has come up empty.

and right here in Britain we have
the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh.

Which has come up empty.

If I had the time
and patience, I could go on to name many dozens more in almost
every civilised country in the world.

All of which have come up empty.

I'm not going to waste my time arguing with you if all
you can do make bald contradictions. Any fool can do
that and it is obviously your style.

They have all come up empty. That's a fact. Whining about my style of presenting that fact to you doesn't make it any less of a fact.

All these require and receive
funding that would hardly be available if their authorities were
not convinced of the existence of an anomaly - a phenomenon
that required explanation.

You aren't really that stupid, are you? Convincing gullible people with
money to part with some of it is the specialty of the paranormal
fraudsters. Success at bilking people out of money does not equal
success at proving any sort of anomaly really exists. Sheesh!

Got news for you, sparky. Only kooks believe in psi.

[...]

"How many times"? That depends on how much more pedantic
you want to be. I will continue to use "theory" in the common usage
sense whether you like it or not.

Translation: You intend to continue making a fool of yourself.

I don't mind trading the occasional insult but unlike you I don't
resort to insult when I've lost the argument. You just make yourself
look a prat.

So I've lost the argument, eh? Self-delusion noted.

It is attitudes like this that bring all progress to a halt.

You have got to be kidding me! What planet do you live on? I don't see
progress grinding to a halt.

Fortunately that is because there are not too many people about who
share your dogmatism.

You are wrong twice in one sentence. First off, there are a lot more
skeptics than you think. All scientists are skeptics for a start.
Secondly, I have no dogmas. It's simply that skeptics accept as true
only that which can be proven. If you see such a rational approach as
dogmatic, then you could stand a big dose of dogmatism yourself.

True sceptics are sceptical for very good, well considered reasons -
dogmatists are NOT true sceptics as they are, for some deeply
psychological reason, unable to adapt to new data or data which
happens to conflict with their own deeply ingrained beliefs. This
appears to be the case with you.

What new data? Nobody has presented any new data. All I see from you paranormal advocates is second and third hand, unverifiable, unreproducible, unbelievable, *stories*. Stories aren't data. So your argument that I am not a skeptic is invalid. HTH.

If you were not, by your own admission, here merely for kicks I

Everyone in any field of endeavor is only there for the "kicks" as you put it.

should describe you as a mental cripple,

And I would say you are projecting again.

but deep down,
you know I am right else you would do a better job of countering
my arguments.

What is there to counter? Your "arguments" are almost self-debunking due to their total lack of supporting evidence, the rich history of hoaxes related to the paranormal, and your reliance on an almost faith-like automatic belief in the veracity of every nonsensical story or notion that comes your way. I simply had to counter all that inane BS with a little logic. This sent you off the deep end and got you raging at me over my "attitude" and lack of "sensitivity," rather than rebutting the logic I presented. So clearly you have no real arguments to counter.

When an anomaly is discovered it needs a name purely for
reference. It doesn't have to be first proven to exist in order
to name it.

Failure to produce any examples from reality noted. You never did go
down to the library, did you? Face it, you are just making up shit based
on your dysfunctional ideas about how you think science *ought* to work.

You had better drop this or I might ask you to explain what a
unicorn is.

It is a creature with exactly as much hard evidence for its existence as
there is for the existence of psychotronic energy and psi powers. In
other words, it is a fictional fairytale thing.

You poor dumb cluck, you fell right into the trap didn't you.

So I'm the one in the trap, eh?

I didn't
have to tell you what I meant by "unicorn", you knew right away that
it is a fictitious creature and that it is just a name for a "fairytale

thing"

yet you use the name all the time without a second thought.

Um, was there some point hidden in there? I thought that comparing
"researcher's" BS to a unicorn was very appropriate.

<sigh> The point is that you were disputing the need for a name,
e.g. Psi, for observed natural anomalies -

Stories aren't observations.

on the grounds that psi
doesn't exist yet you readily use the name "unicorn" even though
you know it does not exist.

Yes, I know it doesn't exist. Lots of things that don't exist nonetheless have names. Scientists though are not in the habit of emulating the techniques of fairytale writers. I asked you to produce some examples from scientific literature of scientists inventing cutesy names for things for which a good working hypothesis had not even been formulated yet. You failed utterly and instead came up with a fairytale reference. You may consider your claim debunked now. I sure as hell do.

[...]

...as I have said elsewhere, an explanation is needed to explain ufo

travel

Why? Nobody has yet proven UFOs are anything out of the ordinary. You do
know what the U in UFO stands for, right? It stands for Unidentified.
Unidentified does not equal alien spacecraft or whatever "researcher's"
kooky "theory" du jour may be. It just means Unidentified. BFD. You are
engaging in the equivalent of speculating about how many angels can
dance on the head of a pin without first even bothering to prove there
even are any angels at all. That's called fantasizing. It's not science,
it's not speculation, it's not debate, it's just fantasizing. HTH.

It doesn't matter whether or not they can be proved.

Of course it matters.

The point is
there is a possibility that ET UFOs exist and this is the place to
discuss them. Live with it.

No. until you prove UFOs are anything out of the ordinary, there is no
possibility they are anything extraordinary. Unidentified still only
means unidentified.

Of course it does but most rational people accept that the
possibility of them being of extraterrestrial origin is only
speculation.

Rational people don't speculate wildly about unidentified things. After all, unidentified means we have no data. Speculating in the absence of data is fantasizing. One point to consider though is that there is no evidence whatsoever that any aliens are, or ever have, visited Earth. Certainly no UFO case that has been thoroughly investigated has turned out to be an alien spacecraft. They have all turned out to be mundane objects or phenomena that were misinterpreted by the witnesses, or deliberate hoaxes, with only a small percentage where there is insufficient data to form any conclusion at all about them and no grounds for speculating that they are anything in particular. Taking these facts into account, there is no sane reason to speculate that any UFO ever sighted was an alien spacecraft. If you weren't so gullible and if the sci-fi and paranormal huxterism industries hadn't been telling you that UFOs were alien spacecraft for the last 60 years, you wouldn't see any reason to even consider it either. Does it hurt to be so gullible and easily manipulated?

But still it is exciting speculation and until the many questions
relating to ufos have been answered the speculation will go on.

The wild fantasizing (it doesn't deserve to be called speculation) will go on because people crave an exciting answer over a mundane one and would rather be titillated by an alleged mystery than educated about how things really work. Add in the fact that UFOs and the paranormal in general are a big business which a great many con artists make their living at. They have a vested interest in keeping the mystery alive in the minds of gullible people, rather than just getting to the bottom of things once and for all. The paranormal will be with us for as long as there are con artists making a quick buck off of ignorant people, but not for one minute longer.

I understand that later this year the British MoD is to release
hitherto secret files on ufos.

Yawn. And when they reveal nothing extraordinary, the saucerheads will go into full denial mode and claim that the lack of hard evidence that UFOs are something extraordinary is just yet more "proof" of the world-wide conspiracy to cover it all up. Mark my words. I've seen it all before.

and
this is as good an attempt as any. It is certainly better than
theories about FTL machines or time travel.

No, it is just exactly as bad. There is no evidence that supports any
one of these silly ideas over any of the others.

It is only
speculation, I know that and I think researcher knows that;
only you seem to think it is offered as a serious theory.

Yes, I think that's how he was offering it. That's also how you are
defending it. In reality it is the worst sort of bunkum not worthy of
serious consideration by any rational person.

Yes I'm defending it. I'm defending it because I believe in free
speech.

But only for kooks, eh? Skeptics and debunkers aren't allowed
to respond to their nuttyness?

Hey! when did I ever say or imply that?

You seem to have a problem with *my* free speech, but not the free speech of clowns like "researcher." Your double standard is glaringly obvious.

Surely it follows that
if I am on one side I am going to get into more arguments with
the other.

I can see faults in his theory but that doesn't make the
whole concept wrong.

I disagree. I think the big, glaring, fault that there is no sane reason
to believe UFOs are ET spacecraft totally invalidates his theory.

From a BBC program about ufos shown just yesterday on TV
several filmed examples were hugely suggestive of ET presence.

TV is merely an entertainment medium. Why is it that every UFO kook eventually stoops to citing some silly program they saw on the boob tube to back up their claims? Do you really have no clue how foolish that makes you look?

Two air force ex-pilots described their sightings, including film
from on-board cameras, and described how they were later
interviewed by MoD officials and warned the information was
MoD property and not to discuss them with anyone. In another
example involving US military personnel at a UK base, filmed
recordings were shown and described by the soldiers. It is only
now, that the information is to be released that they could talk
about it.

Yawn.

I think these, among many other unrelated examples from other
sources, and in default of a more mudane reason, are are
perfectly sane reasons for accepting an extraterrestrial origin.

Well, you would think so, but then you are obviously just another gullible saucerhead. I see no evidence of anything extraterrestrial in that story. Even if you were to for some silly reason accept a story you saw on the boob tube at face value, unidentified still doesn't equal alien spacecraft. HTH.

Even if that weren't the case, even minor flaws can totally sink a theory.
Newtonian mechanics worked very well, but couldn't explain an amazingly
tiny anomaly in the orbit of Mercury. This and other very minor flaws
ultimately sank the whole thing and prompted Einstein to reinvent physics.

Einstein didn't re-invent physics,

Amazing ignorance noted.

he just showed a better way of
understanding it.

Ok, at this point it is clear you have no idea what you are talking about. Why is it that all the self-professed "experts" in the paranormal are so utterly ignorant of real science? It must be a cause and effect thing. I guess you can't believe in fairytales unless you are ignorant of how the world really works. An education would do wonders for you.

 Psi is not about changing physics - it is just a
matter of understanding it in terms of physics.

What's to understand? There is zero evidence that any form of psi even exists.

I am certainly not qualifed to debunk it.

Well that much at least is true. Your almost pathological level of
credulity certainly disqualifies you from being able to debunk much of
anything.

You don't understand irony do you.

Of course I do. Every one of your posts is dripping with it.

I was trying to tell you that if
I, with my better knowledge of parapsychology and psychical
research,

Your better knowledge of nothing?

am not qualified to debunk researcher's theory, then
you most certainly aren't.

I have already debunked him by pointing out his total lack of supporting evidence and his dependency on logical fallacies. The reason you can't debunk him is because you want to believe too much, so you close your eyes to all logic and choose a fantasy over reality. How sad for you.

--
The Evil Michael Davis(tm)
http://www.mdpub.com/scopeworks/
http://skepticult.org Member #264-70198-536
Member #33 1/3 of The "I Have Been Killfiled By Tommy" Club

"There's a sucker born every minute" - David Hannum (often erroneously attributed to P. T. Barnum)