Thursday, August 18, 2005

Apparently Seth Shostak's quips on the NBC UFO special weren't lame enough the first time around, because he's written a new article reiterating them.

The proof is out there ...

"The good news is that the latest polls confirm that roughly half of all Americans believe extraterrestrial life exists. The weird news is that a similar fraction think some of it is visiting Earth."

"Good" news because that means more philanthropists forking over money to listen for radio signals, which is Seth's big thing, but "weird" news that some people think extraterrestrials might already be here because that wreaks havoc with SETI's tidy, hermetically sealed paradigm.

"Additional evidence is 'expert testimony'. Pilots, astronauts, and others have all claimed to see odd craft. It's safe to say that these witnesses have seen something. But just because you don't recognise an aerial phenomenon doesn't mean it's an extraterrestrial visitor. That requires additional evidence that, so far, seems to be unconvincing."

Seth doesn't cite a single case, and with good reason -- some of the best sightings, strongly suggesting exotic craft operating at the boundaries of known physics, have been made by impeccably credentialed observers. He's right, of course, when he writes that "just because you don't recognise an aerial phenomenon doesn't mean it's an extraterrestrial visitor." But is this the best he can do? Sadly, yes.

"When push came to shove, and when pressed as to whether there's compelling proof of extraterrestrial visitation, the experts on this show backed off by saying 'well, we don't know where they come from. But something is definitely going on.' The latter statement is hardly controversial. The former is goofy. If the saucers are not from outer space, where are they from? Belgium?"

Admitting the possibility of exotic objects in our skies -- and, furthermore, conceding that one doesn't know where they come from -- is "backing off"? Real skeptics (as opposed to the faction of virulent pseudoskeptics epitomized by Seth) call this "suspending conclusions"; after all, even the most spectacular UFO sighting isn't likely to reveal the UFO's home star system (if in fact we're dealing with star-hopping craft and not something altogether weirder).

Seth's screeds against UFOs wouldn't irk me nearly as much if they could be excused as simple ignorance. But his incessant attempts to muddy the facts about the UFO phenomenon betray a deliberate (indeed, somewhat frantic) need to stamp out interest.

Radio SETI, it seems, cannot stand as a discipline without creating spurious straw men to impale. At the very least, this should serve to arouse deep skepticism of SETI's dogmatic approach to extraterrestrial communication.

8 comments:

Paul Kimball said...

Mac:

Well said.

And yet...

I had a long chat with Stan Friedman yesterday, and we talked about the state of ufology (which I've criticised at my blog). Stan points to opinion polls, and says, as do many other ufologists, that things are fine - people "believe." I told him that anyone who has any knowledge of polls knows that they're not all they're cracked up to be. They certainly don't show a serious interest in the public in the UFO phenomenon (that's not what the questions ask, and it's not what the polls are designed to measure). What they show is an interest in, and a general willingness to accept, that there is life "out there," but not necessarily that it's coming here.

Which leads me to SETI, and Seth. Stan and I agree on one thing - SETI is a colossal waste of money. But over the years, it has gotten the scientific respectability, the public and private funding, and the media exposure - three things ufology DON'T have (ask CUFOS, or FUFOR, or MUFON).

Why?

Because (a) ufology continues to be associated with the wackos (Exopolitics is the latest manifestation) in the minds of both those people who matter (i.e. decision makers), and (b) ufology has become inextricably linked to the ETH in the public mind, despite the fact that the key word in ETH is the "H" i.e. "hypothesis" i.e. "not yet proved."

Until ufology publicly jettisons the wackos (i.e. don't attend their conferences, don't reply to their e-mails - either ignore them, or expose them, but don't consort with them) and pulls back from the acceptance of the ETH as a fact (as opposed to a valid theory that needs further investigation), Seth and company will continue to rake in the money and attention that could - and should - be spent on studying the UFO phenomenon.

But don't blame them - ufology has no-one to blame but itself.

Paul Kimball
www.redstarfilms.blogspot.com

Mac said...

I would include your own (to me seeming anyway) brilliant takes on this whole issue.

They're not exactly brilliant (although I appreciate the nod), but they're possibly somewhat unique in that I can usually see through the semantic/political clutter that hovers over the issue of ET intelligence like a layer of thick, cloying smog.

Like you said re. Vallee: Who said anything about ETs? I'm instantly exasperated when I read some UFO blowhard (pro or con) going on about extraterrestrials; the nature of the phenomenon is an open question.

The ETH is a tenable, valid hypothesis and shouldn't be ignored, but it's not the only hypothesis on the block. I have an as-yet comletely unproveable hunch that our visitors are something else -- something perhaps much stranger -- and deliberately use our fascication with the ETH as a smokescreen.

Ken said...

"Until ufology publicly jettisons the wackos (i.e. don't attend their conferences, don't reply to their e-mails - either ignore them, or expose them, but don't consort with them)"

...Which was precisely why I have said in the past that Whit Strieber needs to be ignored. But at present that only remains my personal opinion. What we really need (first and foremost) is a legitimate and universally recognized critereon whereby wackos can be distinguished from nonwackos.

"They might be from Belgium.
They really might not be from outer space, or they might be. Coming from outer space is just an assumption. We know almost nothing about these "visitors", and even less about the mysteries of the universe."

IMO there are only two possibilities -- EITHER UFOs are terrestrial crafts OR they are from somewhere else in spacetime (I don't like to use the term "outer space" because I feel that it falls short of describing the unitary nature of space and time -- i.e., space as constituting three dimensions and time as constituting the fourth dimension of ONE reality). If UFOs are from somewhere else in spacetime, they are almost certainly from another planet (or from the moon of another planet, as the case may be). I personally find it less believable that these are terrestrial crafts; the only government in the world that is capable of producing such apparently advanced technology is that of the U.S. -- and at the beginning of the modern UFO era the U.S. seemed just as uneasy and paranoid about what UFOs might be (i.e., it would appear that they suspected these were Soviet crafts). This would suggest ignorance on the part of our government regarding exactly what UFOs are or where they are from.

Ken said...

"I have an as-yet comletely unproveable hunch that our visitors are something else -- something perhaps much stranger -- and deliberately use our fascication with the ETH as a smokescreen."

Think about it...What else could they possibly be but ET? Unless UFOs are OUR crafts (very unlikely), or they are crafts belonging to a sentient race with which we have always shared this planet but of whose presence we have hitherto been completely ignorant (not very likely either), or they are from somewhere else in spacetime.

If our visitors are ET, the next question is: What the hell are they doing here, and how long have these abductions been going on?

Ken said...

"Well, how about UFO's as psychic phenomena?"

I don't think this theory would account for *physical* evidence of abductions, like the instances being discussed in _Hair of the Alien_. Physical evidence suggests something much more than mere psychic phenomena.

"They come from a parallel universe, right next to ours ... but we don't know crap about it, neither do they about us ... they somehow tapped into this ... and that's why they are curious and doing all this "research"."

That would still make them ET...

Mac said...

Give 'em hell on Discover!

I'm looking forward to it. If my radio appearances are any indication, they'll pick my brain for "weird" sound-bites and call it a wrap, but I'll try to make it difficult for them.

Mac said...

"See? We (SETI types) are not like THEM (UFO types). UFOs are bogus, THEREFORE SETI isn't."

You betcha. As strange is it may sound, there are lots of people who thing radio SETI is weird stuff, so people like Shostak are quick to denigrate any potential challengers.

It's not about science; it's about maintaining prestige and keeping the grant money coming.

John Sawyer said...

There's possibly a mix of phenomena, some cooperating with some of the others, and some acting independently:
-- "classic" ETs
-- other life forms that evolved here on earth
-- Some of the "craft" may indeed be craft as we think of it, but some of it may be life forms that mimic that craft--as Mac says, deliberately using our fascination with the ETH as a smokescreen
-- etc. (which covers all remaining bases)

Then again, it's possible that it's all from one source that likes variety. Maybe we're being treated to something much like Monty Python's "Confuse-A-Cat" service, to keep us amused and asking questions. Personally, I don't think we need such a service to prod us into asking questions, but who knows where we'd have been without it? I subscribe to Harlan Ellison's tenet, that we kick out the "gods", but we still don't know how much we owe to these things. If they even exist, that is.

But I say give SETI its funding. Maybe it WILL find someone out there using radio waves--we can't dismiss that any more than we can dismiss any other possibility. And if SETI eventually gives up after not finding any radio communications, maybe it will evolve into some other sort of search that might have a greater chance of succeeding. Scientists often like to turn over every stone when searching for something, even when they suspect the thing they're looking for is under another stone way over yonder. Eventually they usually get there. SETI doesn't cost much, and it doesn't really impinge on other valid research into nonhuman intelligence, and the resources that fund SETI wouldn't fund any "nonconventional" research anyway--the existence of SETI isn't what prevents them from funding other research efforts. To say that it is, is a stretch of the imagination. Nor do I think that anything Seth Shostak is likely to say, will have any impact on genuine researchers plodding away, and little impact on public opinion, though it does need to be countered anyway just in case. But of what great value is public opinion in this field anyway? Don’t worry too much about it. Besides, at least half of the public's opinion is pretty well established anyway, and not a bad opinion at that, that there's probably nonhuman life out there, there's some evidence of it right now, and maybe we'll get more solid evidence in the future. What more could one expect given the current state of research and evidence? The fact that "only" half believe this is nothing to worry about. And the fact that this half isn't actively investigating nonhuman intelligence themselves, thus not demonstrating "a serious interest in the public in the UFO phenomenon", just means they're busy with their lives--I wouldn't begrudge them that. I have a life too, and it doesn't revolve around fretting too much about aliens, though I keep an eye on the situation, but I think we could all live a fine life without some other life form popping into our lives every now and then, and then disappearing with rarely a trace. As you might gather, sometimes I find it fascinating, and other times I find it a real annoyance.

And I agree with stankan above--maybe they ARE from Belgium. Monty Python had a thing about Belgians too.