Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Meta - Forums About Forums
Archive-threads
Encounters with the Supernatural
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Dr. Harry" data-source="post: 1097248" data-attributes="member: 5468"><p>But "unknown" measn only "unknown at the present moment". To say "I don't know what this is therefore I must accept the possibility that it is something that would go against all previous evidence and require all of our current scientific understanding to be tossed out the window" seems a bit of a leap to me. When weighted in the balance with "... or it could be a natural item that I don't understand" and/or " .. perhaps I/the witness made an error in thinking, or in interpreting the event", I think the choice is obvious.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ah, so we are only 1% apart! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p> That does not track.</p><p></p><p> Everyone who sees a UFO sees something in the sky that they do not understand. That does not mean that there is any reasonable chance that it is an alien spacecraft.</p><p></p><p> This is not a case of probabilities. If 10,000 people roll a 10,000-sided die, there is a 63% chance that someone will roll a one. This does not work for paranormal explanations for experiences, each case must be evaluated separately. If 10,000 people each say they had an experience, and if their prefered explanation for that experience is consodered to be 99.99% likely to be false (I am being quite generous here as to the odds), then the reasonable conclusion is that all of them were mistaken at soe point in their reasoning of processing of sense information.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>By the very nature of scientific knowledge, it is impossible to attain all knowledge about the universe. This actually makes me happy. It is not that I think there are "things man was not meant to know", but that we will never reach a point where we are done and where there is nothing left to know. This pusuit has rules, however, and the rules are fairly strict, and it requires a lot of effort to play. Still, this has resulted in vast gains and benefits.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We have sufficient tools to measure the *results* of psychic powers, easily. Such tests have simply never been successful with standard lab protocols in place.</p><p></p><p> </p><p></p><p>Atoms are *still* a theory, or rather our current description of atoms is an important and well-tested part of our model of matter.</p><p></p><p>Theory does not mean guess. A theory is an explantion for observed phenomena; a scientific theory is a natural explanation for an observed phenomenon.</p><p></p><p>Additionally, nothing - absolutely nothing - in science is "proven", there are scientific theories that have earned more confidence than others, but no amount of confidence allows them to "graduate" from a theory to anything else, as there is no certainty to graduate to.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Not necessarily, no. All of the universe that we can observe shows evidence of following the same rules of physics universally. We would need some place that had different rules. Also, the observable universe is vast, but not infinite. Some things are too unlikely to be expected.</p><p></p><p>I would prefer "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You can believe what you want, and make whatever personal insinuations about him that you want, but that does not affect at all the strength of his reasoning. A much better source for exposing Randle's sloppy, sensationalistic approach would be Kal Korff's book "The Roswell UFO Crash"</p><p></p><p>Also, during the Cold War, the USSR did commonly use aircraft to test US air defense, flying at US territory until discovered and ordered out. Some of these flights got embarrasingly deep; it would be in the US government's best interests to have these seen as "UFO's - mebbe aliens" than air defense holes. In fact, some of the most famous UFO cases were Soviet planes. (I can only assume the US was doing the same thing.)</p><p></p><p>Please examine this page for the largest scientific study on UFO's:</p><p></p><p><a href="http://ncas.sawco.com/condon/index.html" target="_blank">http://ncas.sawco.com/condon/index.html</a></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p> Hey, I'm a physics professor in Kingsville.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As to your first sentence, skeptics are human too, but it is test is in the argument and evidence, not the person.</p><p></p><p>As to your second sentence, please refer back to comments on the limits of the scientific method of my previous posts.</p><p></p><p>As to your third sentence, that should leave those events as accessible to science. So far, there has not been an event that has passed that muster.</p><p></p><p></p><p> In all this, I would not choose to address individual stories, especially those who say that the internal support for their stories is rooted in their religion. I do have a backgroundin astronomy and observational astronomy, so I'd be willing to help people curious about UFO they have seen - if and only if they were interested.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dr. Harry, post: 1097248, member: 5468"] But "unknown" measn only "unknown at the present moment". To say "I don't know what this is therefore I must accept the possibility that it is something that would go against all previous evidence and require all of our current scientific understanding to be tossed out the window" seems a bit of a leap to me. When weighted in the balance with "... or it could be a natural item that I don't understand" and/or " .. perhaps I/the witness made an error in thinking, or in interpreting the event", I think the choice is obvious. Ah, so we are only 1% apart! :) That does not track. Everyone who sees a UFO sees something in the sky that they do not understand. That does not mean that there is any reasonable chance that it is an alien spacecraft. This is not a case of probabilities. If 10,000 people roll a 10,000-sided die, there is a 63% chance that someone will roll a one. This does not work for paranormal explanations for experiences, each case must be evaluated separately. If 10,000 people each say they had an experience, and if their prefered explanation for that experience is consodered to be 99.99% likely to be false (I am being quite generous here as to the odds), then the reasonable conclusion is that all of them were mistaken at soe point in their reasoning of processing of sense information. By the very nature of scientific knowledge, it is impossible to attain all knowledge about the universe. This actually makes me happy. It is not that I think there are "things man was not meant to know", but that we will never reach a point where we are done and where there is nothing left to know. This pusuit has rules, however, and the rules are fairly strict, and it requires a lot of effort to play. Still, this has resulted in vast gains and benefits. We have sufficient tools to measure the *results* of psychic powers, easily. Such tests have simply never been successful with standard lab protocols in place. Atoms are *still* a theory, or rather our current description of atoms is an important and well-tested part of our model of matter. Theory does not mean guess. A theory is an explantion for observed phenomena; a scientific theory is a natural explanation for an observed phenomenon. Additionally, nothing - absolutely nothing - in science is "proven", there are scientific theories that have earned more confidence than others, but no amount of confidence allows them to "graduate" from a theory to anything else, as there is no certainty to graduate to. Not necessarily, no. All of the universe that we can observe shows evidence of following the same rules of physics universally. We would need some place that had different rules. Also, the observable universe is vast, but not infinite. Some things are too unlikely to be expected. I would prefer "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" You can believe what you want, and make whatever personal insinuations about him that you want, but that does not affect at all the strength of his reasoning. A much better source for exposing Randle's sloppy, sensationalistic approach would be Kal Korff's book "The Roswell UFO Crash" Also, during the Cold War, the USSR did commonly use aircraft to test US air defense, flying at US territory until discovered and ordered out. Some of these flights got embarrasingly deep; it would be in the US government's best interests to have these seen as "UFO's - mebbe aliens" than air defense holes. In fact, some of the most famous UFO cases were Soviet planes. (I can only assume the US was doing the same thing.) Please examine this page for the largest scientific study on UFO's: [url]http://ncas.sawco.com/condon/index.html[/url] Hey, I'm a physics professor in Kingsville. As to your first sentence, skeptics are human too, but it is test is in the argument and evidence, not the person. As to your second sentence, please refer back to comments on the limits of the scientific method of my previous posts. As to your third sentence, that should leave those events as accessible to science. So far, there has not been an event that has passed that muster. In all this, I would not choose to address individual stories, especially those who say that the internal support for their stories is rooted in their religion. I do have a backgroundin astronomy and observational astronomy, so I'd be willing to help people curious about UFO they have seen - if and only if they were interested. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Meta - Forums About Forums
Archive-threads
Encounters with the Supernatural
Top