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From: Moderator, UFO UpDates - Toronto
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 13:28:39 -0400
Fwd Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 13:28:39 -0400
Subject: Fortean Times - No. 114 - Editorial 



Source: Fortean Times [North American Edition] - No. 114
September [October] 1998

Editorial
by
Bob Rickard & Paul Sieveking

War Of The Words

This July saw a strained war of words erupt between the two
leading academic groups of scientists who take an interest in
'paranormal' and fortean phenomena. On 29 July 1998, the Society
for Scientific Exploration (SSE) -- founded in 1982 by 14
professors -- published their journal ('JSE') and drew the media's
attention to its leading article. Called 'Physical Evidence
Related To UFO Reports' it declared some classes of UFO reports
worthy of scientific investigation.

The report -- the first independent scientific review of UFO data
since the Condon Committee 28 years ago -- is available on the
SSE website ( www.jse.com ). It developed from a special six-day
workshop at which a team of eight respected ufologists were
invited to present their best cases invalving physical evidence
to a panel of nine senior scientists, themselves overseen by the
SSE's scientific steering committee.

The report -- presented by Peter Sturrock, a physicist at
Stanford and president of SSE -- cancluded that "there was no
convincing evidence pointing to unknown physical processes or to
the involvement of extraterrestrial intelligence." Nevertheless,
it argued that scientists owed it to themseives and to the
public not to dismiss UFO reports out of hand because there
was always the possibility of learning something new.

So far so good, but this was too much for the Committee for the
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormai (CSICOP),
founded in 1976 by an equally impressive array of academics and
scientists (www.csicop.org). They responded with a press release
of their own, described in the media as "deriding the report as
a publicity stunt by UFO believers to promote fringe research at
the expense of mainstream science."

It is our belief, having read the material, that the SSE report
makes a serious and honest (if heavy-going at times) attempt to
evaluate some tangible data, but CSICOP's top spokesmen attacked
the integrity of the SSE panel. Philip J. Klass -- CSICOP fellow
and senior editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine
-- complained: "it is unfortunate that the SSE did not assemble
a more balanced roster of UFO investigators to present evidence
to the panel of scientists." Surely the point was to investigate
what specialists thought to be the most credible evidence and,
in any case, the evaluation was done, not by the
investigator-presenters as Klass suggests, but by the panel.

Kendrick Frazier -- CSICOP fellow and editor of their magazine
Skeptikal Inquirer -- even accused the SSE of having "a hidden
agenda". "While presented as neutral and obective... they seem
to be interested in promoting fringe topics as real mysteries
and they tend to ignore most evidence to the contrary." This
is rich coming from CSICQP, whose name is a byword for narrow
vision. An astonishingly ignorant editorial appeared in the New
York Post (1 July 1998), branding the SSE a "superficially
respectable organisation" full of 'credulous academics". It
described ufology as "little green men havinng unusual sex with
hicks in the farm belt" and then dismissed it as "ridiculous".
This insults everyone who labours for a better understanding of
the UFO phenomenon, whatever it is.

In a reply to these rather puerile jibes -- also posted on the
SSE site -- Bernard Haisch, editor of the 'JSE' asks reasonably:
"How can anyone rationally object to a cail for scientific
examination of evidence?"

This is proper procedure, even if it results in a mystery
explained. We can. see this happening in this issue as Karl
Pflock discovers no knowledge of crashed UFOs in early secret
reports; and again when Robert Schoch ponders the ambiguity of
the 10,000-year-oid Yonaguni rock structure. Like the Cydonian
Face, many people want it to be an ancient artifact. But as
William Corliss once said, "Nature is a geometer." You only have
to look at the hexagonal pillars of the Giant's Causeway, the
'paving slabs' of Bimini's underwater 'roads' and even the
Kaimanawa 'wall' (FT92:12) to realise that we forget this at our
peril.

By way of contrast, in this issue, Niklas Rasche demonstrates
how much you can get out of a subject bv considering its
cultural context -- an app~oach that has no place on the agendas
of either the CSICOP or the SSE, but which forteans find
illuminating.

Finally, the time has come ~o begin planning for UnConvention
'99 and to issue a call for papers. If you'd like to make a
presentation on any subject of interest to forteans or would
like to make suggestions for top cs, please contact the
editors at the usual address.


Address all editorial correspondence to:

'Fortean Times'
Box 2409, London NW5 4NP, UK.
Tel:0171 565 3125
Fax; 0171 565 3056

Editor Bob Rickard
E-mail: rickard@forteantimes.com
Fax: 0181 552 5466

Editor Paul Sieveking
E-mail: sieveking@forteantimes.com
Fax: 0171 485 5002

FT Online
www.forteantimes.com