dre wrote:
snip

truth yes,crap theories no.
otherwise proof it...

What a useless debunker, but a typical one.
From: slk <slk@EVANSVILLE.NET>
Via: CURRENT-ENCOUNTERS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM

Irrationality, CSICOP, And UFOs

Trying to understand just why the thought of UFOs as extraterrestrial,
intelligently-controlled spacecraft provokes violent emotional and
illogical reactions is not an easy task. Largely, the issue appears to
depend on value-constructs that people believe and which drive the
evaluation of evidence.

Still, harmless convictions or not, one can only be baffled by
statements
that even the consideration of giving UFOs a fair scientific hearing
is, by
their definition, "irrational," supposedly going against all that
science
stands for [Sheaffer, 1981]. This antagonism, shared by various people
belonging to contemporary skeptical societies such as CSICOP, and
echoed by
authors like Robert Sheaffer, does not appear to make much sense upon
examining the few reasons behind it -- reasons which, in the end, have
very
little to do with a scientific approach.

To understand their conclusions, one must first comprehend the ideology
of
those who maintain such concepts. The only way to do so is to look at
CSICOP's origin and the belief systems of its members. As it turns out,
a
large number of its most vocal supporters are secular humanists. Which
is
not really a surprise, after all, the American Humanist Foundation
founded
CSICOP under their sponsorship. But, it is just this belief system
which is
the result of CSICOP's decaying credibility and rationality.

Although there are different forms of humanism, in general, it
indicates
belief in a philosphy based on interpreting the world in terms of known
human values and experience, while emphasizing the intrinsic worth of
mankind. As it appears, various skeptics, such as Robert Sheaffer,
identify
themselves with this patriarchal, anthropocentric worldview, evident
from
their other interests and published ideas. The fundamental problem with
this approach becomes clear when CSICOP tries to "explain" phenomena,
such
as UFOs, resulting in treading dangerously close to the fallacy of
reductionism -- the belief that all  knowledge and experience must
ultimately reduce to common principles. This approach is typified by
much
of the skeptical literature, in which explanations for UFO incidents
frequently omit part of the problem domain -- "prosaic" explanations
accounting for only part of the evidence, while simply ignoring or
dismissing the rest.

One other aspect, vital to a society governed by patriarchal humanistic
principles, is freedom from control. Fearing the possibility of losing
control of one's own actions by other humans, one can only imagine the
psychological resistance to a superior extraterrestrial intelligence,
which
would have total control over our actions at any time. So, instead of
trying to come to grips with the actual UFO problem, they deny the
possibility that UFO experiences are due to the actual presence of
extraterrestrial objects intruding our airspace, forcing them to
dismiss
the phenomenon altogether. Thus, UFO accounts are not debunked because
there's nothing to them but misidentifications and hoaxes, but because
such
reports disturb the anthropocentric humanist's view of the universe,
leading them to believe that people who discuss and report such
phenomena
must be "irrational." In essence, the validity of the ETH as a working
hypothesis is denied simply because is helps to prevent psychological
deterioration. This aspect of religious skepticism, denying the
validity of
individual experience if it violates certain dogma, illustrates how
much of
real skepticism has become like establishment religion. Both insist
that
only they know what is true. This is the most destructive of religion's
many deliberate falsehoods, because it revokes the individual's power
to
judge for herself or himself what is or is not real.

More disturbing, however, is that such ideas and beliefs can and do
result
in crusades to restore "order, reason, and critical thinking." Although
this might seem a worthy goal, skeptical societies such as CSICOP do
not
have the objectivity to accomplish such a task because of their own
humanistic ideas and beliefs. It is a specific brand of skepticism,
which
they fallaciously define as what they perceive to be a rational
scientific
approach. One finds that they are not so interested in investigating or
getting to the truth of controversial issues. Instead, they "debunk,"
employing tactics similar to that of a prosecution attorney whose job
is to
prove to a jury that the individual on trial is guilty. Tactics such as
these tend to perpetuate personally invested belief systems which tend
to
motivate one to focus solely on specific final conclusions - an
absolutely
disastrous approach to follow when attempting to perform an accurate
and
unbiased scientific investigation of a controversial subject.

In fact, their published ideas sound more like a hope that
non-conformists
can be brainwashed into Right Thinking. That is, reintroduced to
"reality"
... as they evaluate reality. This belief, like all beliefs, begins
with
the assumption that it is correct and complete; thus, any phenomena
which
cannot be pigeonholed into its tenets are, by definition, incorrect and
in
need of "cure." The most significant difference between science and
skepticism of this sort is that the former theoretically admits that
all of its knowledge
is tentative, while the latter declares that its knowledge is
conclusive.
And this constitutes one the most serious problems of contemporary
skepticism: the denial of the possibility that one's beliefs are in
error,
unless of course that possibility is brought forward by one of their
own, because to do so
would undermine their dominance in defining "reality."

Barry Karr calls it "nonsense" and "irrationalism"... and James Randi
just
calls it "flim-flam." The problem is the extremism of the statement and
the
fundamentalism from which they come. When one has too much invested in
this
belief to tolerate a challenge to its scope or authority, it ceases to
be
"skepticism," and becomes a belief structure. And unless one recognizes
this dogma at the heart of "skeptical" societies like CSICOP, one will
only
keep redescribing the universe in terms of our own ignorance rather
than
discover anything of merit. Science and skepticism shouldn't be about
what
really is going on.

In the end, one should realize that anthropocentric humanists'
qualitative
standards for assessing evidence derive from, and are colored by, their
self-interest and world view which most certainly includes defense
against
threats to one's carefully constructed, apparently consistent
intellectual
framework. Thus, the stridency of a given skeptic's demand for
extraordinary evidence is predicated not on an objective standard but
on
the degree to which the phenomenon in question threatens one's world
view
and self-interest. In short, what makes the extraterrestrial hypothesis
extraordinary to some is not that it is undemonstrated but that it is
unacceptable.

And we all know it's not easy to show something exists when the person
to
whom this must be shown is wearing blinders, and refuses to take them
off
until you prove the existence of that which lies outside his narrow
field
of view.