-=> Quoting Ivy Iverson to David Bloomberg <=-
 II> From my little "home" dictionary:  Skeptic n. A person who doubts
 II> or questions.
   When you think about it, the dictionary doesn't define the most
important point: Doubts what? Questions what?
   Everything?
   Nothing?
   Or only what seems to need to be questioned or doubted?
 
 DB> That doesn't mean whatever evidence might be brought forth is
 DB> automatically deemed as fake.
 II> To many, at least in the field of UFOlogy, it sure seems like it!
   Another subtle difference people have trouble with:
   "It might be fake, so it is fake."
   "It might be fake, so it's safer to assume it is fake until
something turns up independently to support it."
 II> Ok, and how many people have found parts/objects which have
 II> fallen out of or off of airplanes?
   How many plane crashes have there been since 1945? How many of them
have made it onto the news?
   Repeat, substituting "flying saucer" for "plane".
   And, to address the other implication of the question:
   Alien ashtrays notwithstanding, parts and objects aren't the only
proof.
   We don't *need* bits of aeroplanes, because there's so much other
evidence that they exist.
 
 II> ...  No, the majority of what _I_ have accepted as evidence is
 II> when personal friends, people who are NOT prone to spinning
 II> yarns, and who do NOT discuss their experiences with strangers
 II> for fear of ridicule, describe to me, in private, stories of
 II> their abductions and other ET/UFO experiences.
 DB> You accept that as evidence. I have seen enough information such
 DB> that, while I doubt they are necessarily "spinning yarns," they
 DB> may be unwittingly telling a false story.
 II> True.
   So you admit that the evidence on which you base your belief is not
actually sufficient?
 DB> And if all we have is their word for what happened, that is
 DB> simply not good evidence for such an extraordinary claim
 DB> (especially when all the inconsistencies in so many of these
 DB> stories turn up).
II> Inconsistancies, huh? How about the college professor set up the
II> following activity during one of his classes: In the middle of the
II> lecture, someone comes running into the room, yelling, "Help!
II> Help!" followed a few seconds later by someone else holding a
II> banana. The second person points the banana at the first, yells
II> "BANG!" and leaves as the first person screams and falls to the
II> floor. The professor then has the class write an account of what
II> had just happened. The result was that out of the whole class, NO
II> TWO REPORTS WERE THE SAME, and OVER HALF reported that a real gun
II> had been used and that the first person was shot dead!
   You're agreeing with him again!
   You've just stated that you accept that your belief in alien
visitors is mostly based on evidence that may be false, or at least
largely inaccurate.
   What's going on here?
 
Paul
... "Vehemence is no guarantee of truth." - Isaac Asimov  
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