The Explanation Of Skeptics (A Disturbing Trend - Skeptic/sp00ks
interfering with UFOlogy Newsgroups)

From: Koleshak <IndNewsServKK@erols.com>
Tony Veca wrote:

I would like to thank Huber, Schwartz and Nelson for proving something
to
me. You are right the problem isn't that you can't prove a negative.
But you
definitely have a blind spot but not the one I always thought it was.
That
blind spot is called preconceived notions'. Your unwillingness to
consider
any evidence is proof enough that you don't really want to know the
truth.
Because if you knew the truth, you would have to change your
preconceived notions.

Thomas Kuhn, in his book 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' he
describes the reactions of scientists to new discoveries and hard it
is for
them to make changes in their basic beliefs.

Kuhn noticed that scientists would go to any lengths to deny the
validity of
new theories or the need to change their minds.  He describes the
symptoms
associated with fundamental change:

     1. Persistent denial
     2. Refusal to consider evidence
     3. Reluctance to criticize old ideas
     4. Slander of new-thinking colleagues
     5. Anger at having to give up cherished dogmas

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Notice how EXACTLY this fits the skeptic/spooks.

And the problem is that the skeptic/spooks are DESPERATELY TRYING TO
PROVE THE NEGATIVE, that is, that ETs don't exist and all the evidence
that they do exist doesn't exist.  In any moderated forum they would
be expelled
immediately.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
There was a show about the psychology of thieves recently.  They said
that shoplifters will deny they stole anything even when they are
caught
with the goods in their hand bag, etc.  They will even deny it if
there's a video of them stealing the goods.  Apparently their denial
response is so severe that they go into a stupor of some type and
claim
that the character on the video is not really them.  That is magic,
isn't it?  That is what the official reports are like in cases like
LA.
- a total, farcical, and hideously evil lie.  The diff is that a
common
thief is nobody, and is thrown in the hoozgow.  The US Navy, OTOH, is
big and mighty and little folks look up to it and trust it and believe
in it.  Therefore, any garbola that the Navy spews forth will be
eagerly
lapped up by the majority of people.

 - grouchy

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - -
SKEPTICS AS "RELIGIOUS FANATICS" OF SECULAR HUMANISM
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - -

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.

by Jean van Gemert

References:
Sheaffer, Robert, "The UFO Verdict," Prometheus Books, 1981.
Skeptical Inquirer, Issue 1, Vol. 19, 1995.
Zimmerman, Michael, "Why Establishment Leaders Resist the Very Idea of
Superior
Non-human Intelligence," Fund for UFO Research, 1994.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Re A Disturbing Trend - Skeptic/sp00ks interfering with UFOlogy
Newsgroups
mungojery <mungojery@webtv.net> wrote on 9/20/000

I couldn't help but comment about the cattle mutilations that were
made fun of in a previous post.

I have no idea what is going on with these mutilations, but I can tell
you they are not the work of coyotes or other predators unless these
predators have access to a laser that can produce heat in excess of
4000 degrees.

My brother-in-law is Chief Deputy in Marshall County in North
Alabama.  He also owns a quite large cattle farm in the rural part of
the county.  He is one of the most down to earth people you could ever
meet.  I believe it also says something for him that he was elected
overwhelmingly against all of his opponents in this large county in
Alabama.

One morning after a light snow as he was checking his herd of cattle
as he does every morning before going to work, he noticed one of his
heifers was not with the rest of his stock. He found her in the back
part of the stockyard, dead. drained of all blood.  There were parts
of her that had been removed by a laser (we know this because they
were sent to a state law enforcement lab.)

When a predator kills an animal he does it by tearing and ripping the
flesh. The flesh on this animal looked as though it had been cleanly
cut and the lab said it had been exposed to a high temperature of
heat, such as a laser (although at the time this accrued the lightest
weight of laser that existed weighed 2000lbs.)  Some of the cut looked
as though they had been made with a pinking sheer.  The parts removed
were a  section of the jaw and the rectum.

I remind you, these were not torn and ripped as a predator would have
done and according to the state lab had been exposed to a high rate of
heat such as a laser.  Also, ALL BLOOD had been drained from the
heifer.  This is the only time this happened at my brother-in-law's
farm, but did happen several nights later at a neighbor's farm.

I saw this with my own eyes--my brother-in-law-is not one to tell
tales and still is baffled at what occurred.  Him being a law officer,
I put great faith in his story.  He  as spoken to several Texan
farmers whom have had the same thing happen on their farms.  No one
seems to have an explanation for these weird happenings, but I assure
you it is not a PREDITOR draining all blood and removing parts with a
laser type heat.  Now you explain this.