"mike3" <mike4ty4@yahoo.com> wrote:

..

I have a question for any UFO skeptics that may be here. What is the
rationale for considering UFOs an "extraordinary claim" 

First and foremost- the odds that there are, and have been, other
intelligent races in our galaxy are extremely good, if not certain.
Not a lot of civilizations, but they're out there... or at least have
been. The odds that any one of these races were/are smart enough to
have develped the capablity for interstellar travel are much longer,
but I think it safe to assume that some made it.  Remember we're still
a long, long way from that point. 

There is no ONE reason for the "extraordinary claim"- 

There are some 10 Billion stars in our galaxy alone, which means that
the odds of chance encounters with an alien race are very,very,very
small.

We (the the Sol system) are in a relatively sparcely populated part of
the Milky Way, so again the odds of chance encounters...

And... we (the human race) have been around for less than an eyeblink
of the Galaxy's history, so again the odds of chance encounters...

The nearest star is over 4 light years away.  Even if you assume that
an intelligent race has figured out how to travel at the speed of
light,  most stars are still a long, long, long way away, so again the
odds of chance encounters...

Finally, no demonstrable proof exists that "they" are, or ever have
been here.

...for which the
probability of being true is so nearly zero that it's best not to do
any serious and deep scientific investigations, anyway? 

Serious scientific research is expensive, and if there is no rationale
to persue the subject, it is a waste of time, talent, and sometimes
scarce research dollars.  That being said, there is one serious
scientific project ongoing- SETI.  As this search is mostly privately
funded,  is largely an automated, computer-driven project and it does
not eat up too much time of the people involved, it continues.  So
far, no luck.

Is it because
the supposed lack of evidence? If so, then why believe in, say, string
theory, which by the way has absolutely NO evidence (or at best, very
little) to directly prove that it actually is true, unlike general
relativity and quantum mechanics (which it purports to unify)? Why is
that considered a more "likely" or "reasonable" avenue of inquiry as
opposed to UFOs despite the fact that there is very little if any
direct evidence to substantiate it?

Direct experimental evidence? True- not one test has been successfully
run that proves any portion of the theory.  A major reason for that is
that there does not exist any devices that can measure the incredibly
small "strings" that the theory predicts, nor have we developed any
way to detect the myriad dimensions that the math predicts.  But they
are working on it. Equally true is that it no portion of String Theory
has yet been proven untrue.  They're working on that too.  BUT... the
mathematics that drives the theory is sound, so there does exist a
good reason to expend time, talent and money on reseach into String
Theory.  

Lastly, as you pointed out, String Theory has strong foundations in
Relativity and QM- two subjects that do have a reasonable body of
experimental proof.  That alone is a good reason to persue the
subject.

When it comes to the alien/UFO subject, there is no demonstrable
reason to invest in serious research- no analogue to the math in
String Theory, and no previously proven theories as foundations.  But
I assure you, that if and when a good reason does comes along, you
*will* see MAJOR resources committed to the subject.


hutch

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 (Usenet)