home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: news.demon.co.uk!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!arclight.uoregon.edu!chi-news.cic.net!nntp.coast.net!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!sdd.hp.com!col.hp.com!fc.hp.com!news
- From: Jim Rogers <jfr@fc.hp.com>
- Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,sci.skeptic
- Subject: Re: Dr. Paul Hill's repulsive force field
- Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 18:02:49 -0600
- Organization: Archaeological (lower strata contain older files)
- Lines: 47
- Message-ID: <31CB3829.FB1@fc.hp.com>
- References: <31B24188.2488@students.wisc.edu> <4pkl88$bon@agate.berkeley.edu> <4pl2f0$jhf@pentagon.io.com> <4q6m6r$cbn@thorn.cc.usm.edu> <4qe8aq$fov@bermuda.io.com> <31CB20BA.69AD@fc.hp.com> <31CB471E.1D27@students.wisc.edu>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: hpesjfr.fc.hp.com
- Mime-Version: 1.0
- Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
- Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
- X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (X11; I; HP-UX A.09.03 9000/735)
- Xref: news.demon.co.uk alt.alien.visitors:88876 alt.paranet.ufo:54083 sci.skeptic:73375
-
- Brian Zeiler wrote:
- > Jim Rogers wrote:
- >
- > > Shouldn't that be considered an important hurdle? Would you rather have only
- > > credulous, gullible people's acceptance of something be a measure of worth
- > > of a conjecture?
- >
- > Some people, like me, don't think that the "believers" are gullible or
- > over-credulous. Rather, they think that UFO debunkers are the polar
- > opposite of the true gullible believers who think aliens are hiding in
- > their attic. The debunkers decided not to accept UFOs until they have
- > to, because they don't want to accept them. It's useless to deal with
- > them, and their acceptance is hardly a barometer of the general intrinsic
- > credibility of the evidence. Bill's right. Nobody should care what the
- > blathering debunker zealots have to say. I only respond to them
-
- See what a little SaucerZealotSelectiveEditing can do. Bill didn't mention
- "blathering debunker zealots," he said "skeptics." If he was talking about
- "blathering debunker zealots," I might agree with his comments.
-
- > here because it annoys me to see the foolishness of the debunkers posted
- > as fact. It's the same reason that the astronomers in sci.astro feel
- > compelled to debunk Nancy the Zetan Contactee. It doesn't look good to
- > let misinformation go unchallenged.
-
- "The debunkers decided not to accept UFOs [as alien spacecraft] until they
- have to" because they want the evidence to compel them to accept it, because
- it is a postulate that introduces tons and tons of undefined complexities.
-
- "Debunkers" are investigators for the little hints that give away the true
- nature of the putative phenomenon, like that little exercise earlier this
- week concerning the "boomerangs UFOs" sighted several years ago in the
- evening on the east coast, coincidentally at the exact date a 2-day-old
- moon was in the evening sky. It may not be a complete I.D. until we also
- know the sighters were looking toward the west, but it's already strong
- reason to suspect that's what they really saw, *regardless* of what
- shenanigans they may have reported it performing, because we *know* about a
- "boomerang-shaped object" that was exhibiting a dramatic apparition in the
- sky that night (and which, coincidentally, was again in the sky the very
- day we discussed it here...beautiful sight).
-
- Think of "debunkers" like defense lawyers looking for openings. Their efforts
- don't guarantee "truth" any more than a trial lawyer's does, they just help
- keep important stones from remaining unturned. Ignore them only at peril of
- unnecessary credulity.
-
- Jim
-