From: 'Jack Hudson' <true.x-file.news@n2news.com> Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 06:46:54 -0700 Fwd Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 11:53:39 -0400 Subject: CSICOP X-File Movie Review Lacks 'Rationalism' "If The Truth Is Out There...We'll Find It!" 6/19/98 For Immediate Release: CISCOP X-File Movie Review Lacks "Rationalism" by Jason Sterling On June 16th, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal issued a press release via the internet entitled "Skeptics Versus the X-Files" in which they claim that the motion picture debut of the globally popular TV program "has the potential to catapult interest and belief in a range of paranormal phenomena above already historic levels." Taken at face value, this argument seems to have some basis in fact. Topics like UFOs and angels, it seems, are more popular now than ever. A recent poll, that CSICOP cites, showed that 71% of the American people believe in a government cover-up of UFOs. But like many arguments postulated by skeptics, and in particular the man whose name is attached to the news release as a contact(there is no author credit)this theory of a never before seen level in paranormal interest falls apart under scrutiny and for very obvious reasons. From the time that man existed on Earth and up until the not so distant past, ALL of MANKIND believed in paranormal phe omena ranging from water sprites and shape shifting demi-gods to flying, firey chariots and blond haired babes that would swoop down and carry the souls of fallen warriors to an eternal beer bash in the heavens! If that sounds like a startling revelation, consider this: these days skepticism is more concerned than ever with maintaining a status quo of knowledge and so-called rational thought, as opposed to discovering truth. Though the CSICOP release shows a version of the now famous poster from Fox Mulder's office that features a flying saucer with the phrase "I Want To Believe", now pasted over with the CSICOP inspired "I Want To Know!" (see http://www.csicop.org/articles/x-files-movie ) skeptics today "want to believe" even more than the paranormal true-believers. They want to "believe" that nothing that could upset their rationalized framework for the universe would, or could, ever be real. Any doubt about that statement should be sufficiently erased by observing the subtle placement of the now trademark "X" for "X-Files" over the flying saucer in the poster. The result is a clever way of "X-ing" out the the alien craft with the symbol of the show itself, making the real statement of the entire image "I Want To Know THERE ARE NO FLYING SAUCERS!" Skeptics don't really want to "know" anything outside of their fragile box. This is why the level of any true "investigations of the claims of the paranormal" among skeptics has dropped to abyssmal levels. If anyone makes a claim of something unusual, more times than not, the skeptical response is "Prove It!" A consistant and mantra-like repetition of Carl Sagan's comment "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" has resulted in skeptics tending to rely entirely on the work of the believers to produce evidence that the skeptics claim is never enough proof, rather than skeptics actually investigating to determine what the truth is. The main defect in the skeptical ideology is the pursuit of a "rational" explanation when many times the truth isn't what you might expect, let alone rational. Another indication of how skeptics are becoming more and more irrational in the attempts to preserve "rational thought" is their acceptance of the use of inaccurate statements and half-baked theories to prop up their position. Case in point: In the CSICOP article, along with the grossly over inflated speculation about the impact of the X-Files movie, this statement appears - "In every episode of the X-Files, science fails. FBI agent Dana Sculley, the series symbol of rational skepticism, is incapable of positing satisfactory scientific explanations for the extraordinary plot developments. It is always Fox Mulder's mystical speculation that is on to something." That statement is completely false. More importantly it reflects a lack of a talent that many skilled skeptical investigators were once proud of - keen observation. In this instance, keen observation would have revealed that there are times when the "rational" explanation wins out. For example the episode which was the three-part season cliff hanger last year that featured a deliberate hoax of creating an artificial alien body of exotic hybrid cells called "chrimeras". Then there was the black and white episoide that featured a cameo appearance by talk show host Jerry Springer and was about a "monster" that was going around making love to women in a small town after they had been subjected to knock-out gas normally used to sedate nervous cows for milking. The "monster" turned out to be a greatly deformed teen-age boy whose heroin was Cher because of her performance in the film, "Mask". There are some episodes that seem to predict developments in science that actually occur. In the first season the "Eve" episode involved the issue of human cloning experiments done through invetrofertilization. Only a few years later, Congress would be debating the issue of human cloning due to the breakthrough with Dolly the cloned sheep. There was nothing "paranormal" about the "Eve" episode. It was meerly scientific speculation, speculation that became a true potential reality beyond what many could have ever expected. There are X-Files programs that have no resolution. The episode featuring cock roaches is but one example. When death after death seems to be attributed to killer cock roaches, Sculley comes up with explanation after explanation that seems to fit perfectly. Eventually, however, the argument that some of the cock roaches might be tiny robots sent here from outer space is made due to the discovery that some seem to be made of metal. In the end there is no real solution, just more speculation after all the evidence is inadvertantly destoryed in the explosion of a fertilizer factory. But what true keen observation would reveal is that the X-Files is a fictional show. Many times the viewers know that there is only a so-called paranormal explanation because they see the events contributing to the case at hand when the characters don't. When a man's shadow (one of the series' more nonsensical attempts)acts like a black hole and destroys anyone who comes in contact with it, what kind of rational explanation is ther ? Even as a paranormal phenomena it doesn't make sense since *everything* that the shadow would touch(walls, floors, the ground) should be sucked in as well. The pathetic position that skepticism finds itself in today can be seen in a saddening panaorama of examples. From the whinning of the 1996 "World Congress" of skeptics at X-File creator Chris Carter when he appeared before them, to the extremes like the recent investigation that revealed that scientists Jacques Vallee and Bernhard Haisch conspired to promote an article that Vallee wrote and Haisch published contaning fraudulent information attempting to debunk the Philadelphia Experiment. Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins weighed into the CSICOP article with his observation that if the X-Files was a crime show where every week there were two suspects, one black and one white, and every week the black suspect was found to be the guilty one, could "Hollywood defend that kind of myth-making as "only fiction". The obvious answer is "yes" if the show in question was all about how bad black people are supposed to be. Of course that would be incredibly racist and completely intolerable except maybe in t e South Africa of past decades. What Dawkins is failing to realize, due to his lack of observation, is that the show that he uses as an example would be making a statement about the nature of people of differing races where the X-Files is about the nature of reality and how it is perceived. The show is not about whether skeptics are right or true-believers are right, and there are times when Mulder and Scully have seemingly exchanged roles. Dawkins' observation is a reflection of the paranoia that has so embraced skeptics that it makes their arguments sound more and more *religious*. Religious in that they are worshiping rationalism instead of looking for "truth" and in their own words and phrases, they espouse these religious beliefs. After all, you seldom hear of a skeptic mention the idea of finding the "truth". Their concern instead is for the discovery of a rational "explanation". *Explanation* is a sophisticated way of saying "excuse". It used to be "rational" to view the Earth as the center of the un verse or the world as being flat, or that man would never fly. None of these views proved to be the truth, and the first two were held by both scientists and by the Church. What is the point of posing excuses for events when actual scientific work should be done to discover a true answer, be it mundane or extraordinary? For that only skeptics like Matt Nisbet would have the answer. You see Nisbet not only is the name of the contact on the CSICOP press release, but he had written a letter to the editors of USA Today supporting the Air Force's contention that when Roswell witnesses claimed to have seen alien bodies, they were actually seeing crash test dummies, a *rational* explanation that not only had true-believers balking, but many non-believers as well. The reason? The crash test dummies hadn't been used until the '50s and the Roswell crash was in 1947. To make matters worse, investigator Marshall Barnes had pointed out that he was surprised at how detailed the dummies were in the original photos released by the Air Force to the media. "These things (the photos in the USA Today story)were tall and looked nearly exactly like models that I have seen of Nazi propaganda for th head shape and features of the perfect Aryan. So how anyone could come up on a crash site and see these things as short, big eyed aliens with small noses is completely beyond explanation." And the Air Force didn't try to explain it, but Nesbit still endorsed the idea despite its lack of proper science and common sense. That doesn't mean that there is evidence that *proves* that Roswell did happen, but the lack of conclusive proof doesn't jusitify the blind acceptance of just any explanation to the contrary, especially when it is plainly no answer at all. The X-Files always begins with the motto in the sky - "The Truth Is Out There". For skeptics with Prof. Dawkins and Matt Nisbet's style of *irrational* rationalism, we can be most assured of one thing - they'll never find it. _______________________________________________________ Distribution in any form granted as long as proper credit is given to True.X-File.News
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