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From: Jerome Clark <jkclark@FRONTIERNET.NET>
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 10:26:21 PDT
Fwd Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 09:51:07 -0400
Subject: P-1947: Re: Critical Thinking - The Missing Element


>Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 09:14:22 +0200
>From: Edoardo Russo <edoardo.russo@TORINO.ALPCOM.IT>
>Subject: Re: Critical Thinking - The Missing Element
>To: PROJECT-1947@LISTSERV.AOL.COM

>>Indeed, critical thinking is the missing element in ufology
>>today!

>>To save serious UFO research from total oblivion, it may be
>>necessary for those responsible elements to operate separate and
>>apart from that which constitutes ufology today.

>On the contrary, we have to go on, to loudly affirm that _we_
>are the ufologists, _ours_ is _the_ ufology (meant as the study
>of UFO phenomena) and _not_ let the presently prevailing lunatic
>fringe dictate what ufology is.

Edoardo,

Well said. I get sick of reading jeremiads which go on and on
accusing ufology of every imaginable moral, intellectual, or
logical crime, even when these excesses are manifestly outside
the power of ufologists to control. It is also crucial, as you
and I both believe, to keep in mind that ufology is a good
thing, more worthy to be respected than to be reviled. It is
what we who try to bring some intellectual discipline to UFO
study do.

Ufology is an honorable enterprise, and those who abuse it do
not deserve to be called ufologists. Our quarrel is not with
ufology but the larger, nebulous "UFO scene" where anything,
however crazy or crooked, goes -- or, as Rod Brock puts it, the
benefit of the doubt is always given.

Jerry Clark