Furiously scratching in the sand, "Sir Arthur CB Wholeflaffers ASA"
<science@zzz.com> wrote:

Question: What level of proof is adequate proof, then?

SF: I talk in terms of evidence. The legal profession recognizes
certain standards: in a civil court, "preponderance of the evidence;"
in a criminal court, "beyond a reasonable doubt." I think there is,
right now, quite sufficient evidence. 

Good 'ol Stan...  loves to proclaim on the "preponderance of
evidence",  but he never seems to be able to produce any.   Such as...

Question: Give me some examples. What are some of the strongest cases
on record that you know of, and why do you find them so convincing?

SF: I feel the Roswell evidence makes a very strong case. We've talked
to more than 240
(now over 350) people about that case; people at the Roswell Army Air
Force base; people out at the rancher's site, including Mac Brazel's
neighbors, his son, his daughter, and his daughter-in-law. 

,,etc.  Stan brought up the "standards" of Civil Court, but somehow
fails to mention that almost all the "testimony" in the Roswell case
is at least second hand, if not third hand:  "This is what my Dad told
me 20 years ago- just before he died..."  that kind of "evidence" is
useless, but Stan buys into it all regardless.  No civil court would,
though.

He also fails to mention that many of the major Roswell witnesses have
been found to be imaginitive, but not very honest, storytellers.
Truth be told, the Roswell case has been on a fast slope downhill for
the past 10 years. and Stan is one of a very few UFO researchers left
who still think the Roswell case has any merit.

So, I get irked when I hear people say there isn't any evidence. 

Many people get really irked when Stan repeats over and over that
stuff like the above is "evidence".

We've
got things like the University of Colorado study, the Condon Report, in
which 30% of 117 cases studied in detail couldn't be identified.

This is another special goody from Stan.  The commonly accepted number
from the Condon report is 10% "not identified".  But Stan has
concocted some special math (that would make Hoagland jealous), and
come up with 30%.  No one else has been able to follow his logic (or
lack of it), but he still likes to use this number.

And, he also fails to mention that the majority of the 10% (or 30%)
got into that category not due the validity of the reports, but
because there was too little information for the committee to make a
solid case one way or the other.  These were the cases that the
Committee felt needed more research and/or investigation.

Real solid proof, eh?

Oh, and BTW, further research into the cases the Condon report
identified have produced exactly zippity.  How come Stan didn't
mention that?

Question: We also have a situation of extremely high strangeness
associated with a lot of UFO sightings.  Stories where people floated
through walls by aliens, or where beings seem to just appear in a room
and then disappear--things that are absolutely fantastic.  And yet,
some of these abduction cases are among the most reputable ones.  How
do you account for that?

SF: Arthur C. Clarke once said it very well: "Advanced technology is by
definition magic." If you tried to show your great-great grandfather a
television set, it would have been magic. 

  <a lot of pontificating BS snipped>

We're stupid, we're silly, we're ridiculous, we're unprofessional. And
that's the kicker here. Because we don't have explanations, because we
cannot duplicate, doesn't mean that it cannot happen. 

Love this (...ahem!) reasoning.  Here Stan says that because it
*might* be true, we cannot discard the concept.  Neat way of turning
any wild tale into an implied fact!  And he claims to be a physicist?
Gack!

He uses a lot of examples where smart people said an idea was
impossible (ie: machines will never fly), only to have those
predictions fail.  Well, did you know that one of the smartest people
ever- Issac Newton- was convinced that alchemy was a real science, and
he spent a good deal of time trying to prove it?

Works both ways, Stan!

Friedman's Law,
if you will: technological advancement almost invariably comes from
doing things differently in an unpredictable way. The future is not an
extrapolation of the past. A great scientist, Max Planck, once said,
"New ideas come to be accepted, not because their opponents come to
believe in them, but because their opponents die and a new generation
grows up that's accustomed to them." So, I get upset at professional
people who put their pride before their science. They can't figure out
how something could happen, so it couldn't, and that's the end of that.
And that's not science, that's pseudo-science.

Equally true is that a great many ideas don't get accepted because
their supporters fail to prove the concept is true.  The theory of
Eather comes to mind...

Question: Why are they keeping it a secret?

SF: That's a different question, of course.  I'll give you several
reasons why all governments are keeping it secret.  You see, it's not
just the United States government, it's a worldwide phenomenon. Some
people might think I'm saying there's a conspiracy. I'm not saying that
at all, although there may be. But I am saying that there are sometimes
common interests. People may be enemies and still think the same way
about things. Here are several good reasons for all governments to not
want to put the UFO data out on the table....

 <More pontificating snipped>

The usual pap- excuses that serve only to cover-up the real reasons;
there ain't nothing for the governments of the world to cover up!

Stan again(!) conveniently forgets that the world has delt with
catatrophic change many times, and survived.  Think of some of the
major ones-  the Bubonic Plague, the Industrial Revolution, the rise
of Christianity, Darwin, the Printing Press... the list goes on.
Religions, Governments, and Socities have had to deal with Change for
eons, so all his "reasons" are really lame.

However, I must add that, as a nuclear physicist 

I KNEW he'd get that in somehow!  Never misses a chance.  What a
buffoon.


As an apologist for the the UFO crowd, he certainly has The Speech
down cold, but it cannot escape the cold fact that he ain't got any
facts!

Case dismissed.


EW


If you add up all known religions
and cancel the contradictions, you are left with only one invariant
universal message: God needs *your* money.
  ----Uncle Al