>>> Part 1 of 2...
 -=> Quoting Fred Austin to Paul Andinach <=-
 FA> You do not know  what evidence  you would  accept.  Well,an
 FA> interesting viewpoint.
 PA> Indeed, and a very good one, allowing for an open mind.
 FA> Open mind or a closed one. State would you consider acceptable. Or
 FA> is this just to leave yourself loopholes...
   I would consider as acceptable evidence any evidence that, after close 
study, I believed to be real and true evidence.
   It would have to pass tests designed to eliminate the possibility of fraud 
and show that the evidence was real.
   Sorry if that sounds clumsy, but it's difficult to explain in 
generalities. It would be easier to explain why I considered that a specific 
piece of evidence was or was not acceptable.
 FA> If it is acceptable  in a  court of  law,
 FA> then it is acceptable in the argument of UFO's.
 PA> Indeed. But when has anyone ever produced evidence of an alien
 PA> visit that would stand up in a court of law?
 FA> We are talking about the question of circumstantial evidence.  
   So? It still has to be a high standard of evidence.
 FA> It is the skeptic viewpoint that only a skeptic can determine
 FA> what is valid and not.
   It is the skeptic viewpoint that skeptical thinking has the best chance of 
determining the truth.
   Credulously accepting anything you're told will not find the truth.
   Clinging to a belief despite evidence that there is a more likely 
alternative will not find the truth.
   Clinging to a belief without even looking at the evidence will not find 
the truth. (And is not skeptical thinking, despite the large number of 
skeptics who think like this sometimes - we are, after all, only human.)
 FA> We  do not ask you to believe anything.
   Excuse for a moment while I go off somewhere and laugh.
 FA> You are here questioning why we believe.
 FA> We in return, provide information.  You dismiss it. We provide  past
 FA> events  and  official  positions  and attitudes  of governments.   You
 FA> dismiss it.  We say well we personally saw something. You dismiss it.
 FA> So therefore, your minds are made up.
   My mind is made up that I want compelling evidence before I believe.
   This is a very important issue, so I set my standards high.
 FA> All of us in this echo have  no credibilty.
   Your credibility is only as good as the evidence you provide for what you 
ask me to believe.
 FA> So Paul, I would like to know what you are looking for.
   The truth.
 FA> The last question is have you ever seen a UFO.
 PA> I have, on several occasions. Strange lights moving across the sky.
 PA> *Not* alien spacecraft.
 FA> Well Paul, since you dare not  venture anything  about what  "you"
 FA> think you saw, except "strange lights", I see no point.
   What is so difficult?
   I saw a strange object, it was moving through the sky, and I couldn't 
identify it. It was, in short, an unidentified flying object.
   I could venture all sorts of ideas about what it was. It could have been a 
plane, a satellite, a flying saucer, a glowing duck the size of Manhattan. It 
could have been Santa Claus ironing out the bugs in a new sleigh.
   But all I *saw* was a small light moving across the sky, with nothing to 
suggest what it was.
 FA> If you are not able to determine for yourself,
   Am I missing something?
   I saw a light for a few seconds. How am I supposed to know what it was?
 FA> if you are...
 FA> able to dismiss everything so easily
   What do mean by that?
   I do not dismiss "everything".
   I do not dismiss that I am Paul Andinach.
   I do not dismiss that I am sitting at a computer typing.
   I do not dismiss that the room I am in also contains two other computers, 
a piano, a stereo system, a large collection of LPs, and a lot of mess; nor 
that it is in a house in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, Australia, the planet 
Earth, the Universe.
   On a more scientific note, I accept the existance of gravity, the 
electromagnetic spectrum, electricity, magnetism, the induction effect, heat 
tranferance without physical contact, the germ theory of disease, and many 
other such ideas.
   If I listed everything that I do not dismiss, I would die of old age 
before I received the moderator warning about wasting bandwidth.
 FA> I will however defend occassionally, what I would call
 FA> nasty attacks for lack of better  words on  some people,  with what  I
 FA> would say is poor logic and even poorer rationale.
   That is up to you, of course.
 >>> Continued to next message...
--- Blue Wave/Max v2.30 [NR]
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