From: Taner Edis Subject: Re: HALLUCINATIONS AND UFOLOGY Message-ID: <9308111514.AA05172@lll-winken.llnl.gov> Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 11:13:03 EDT > . . .Occam's razor is invoked mercilessly in skeptical UFO "studies." > My dichotomy (by your choice of words) was to accentuate the > contradictions that can arise by invocating Occam's razor. You chose > to categorize it as dubious. . . Ed Stewart (Whee -- I got it right!) should argue against my point, which did not use any Razor, or rely on dubious invocations of the same by unnamed skeptics. For the record, I'm not overly impressed by the loose usage of parsimony common among skeptics -- it lends an impression of formal exactitude to an argument when this is much too strong a property. In any case, Stewart (or Edwards, his new alter-ego?) has set up a false dichotomy, and made a dubious call upon parsimony; that some others might routinely behave similarly does not bear upon his particular argument. > It appears to me that you are implying that the phenomena needs to be > looked on a case by case basis, yet with no reason to expect a simple > explanation if looked at in the aggregate. Precisely. One of the common problems with the complex sciences is operating on a model suitable for physics, and getting stuck in searching for single/simplistic explanations. It is, of course, possible that a case by case examination will be useful in stripping away irrelevant confounding information, revealing the significant common core to the matter. However, the possibility that no simple pattern common to many events exists must be also kept in mind -- there may be no good explanation at the bottom of UFOs, but a complicated, idiosyncratic mess of factors that enter into an explanation, quite differently in different cases. Note that if this is the case, the complexity of the situation will mean that many "unexplainable" cases will be expected; so the interpretation of the residue of "white crows" depends on the theoretical perspective. Obviously, I have described extremes of possible explanations, and there is a vast middle ground. However, I think it quite possible in our current state that the "mess" option is viable. In certain ways, that's closer to the vile debunkers' position, but then, I'm not that impressed by the rhetorical barrage directed against them of late. > I also see the need to look at cases individually, but in the context > of a methodology which examines the phenomenon as a whole. Fine -- except that I'm wary of the implicit assumption that there is a "whole." McCampbellesque speculation aside, are we that certain that UFOs are that much of a coherent phenomena? This question is particularly relevant in that there seems to be a good deal of preselection and sifting through of cases going on. As with a badly designed psi experiment, I have to wonder how much of any patterns found have to do with the selection rather than a substantial cause. Now, I'm not advancing the above as a fatal objection or anything, just a question. But it remains that there are some nice-sounding statements about methodologies grasping the whole being made, without much follow-up. If we have little to tell us what this methodology what might be like, such sentiments are not much better than platitudes. > Taner, I am afraid here you have completely disregarded the detail of > the quoted text. Nowhere in the quoted text that I posted does > McCampbell decide "that no other explanation will do". The quoted text > is filled with qualifier statements, phrases and single words such as: > it appears, might be, sometimes, as though, and if. I hope I'll be excused if I'm not too impressed by the hand-waving and ass-covering statements. It remains the case that McCampbell has engaged in speculation, of a particularly uncalled-for character, without explicitly stating so. It is reasonably clear from the details of his remarks that he thinks of UFOs in the context of some sort of craft, perhaps one that has some anti-grav behavior. He nowhere states that a tie-in to General Relativity is necessary, true. I can only direct Stewart back to the context of my original remark, which was to the effect that (i) the link to gravitation was extremely tenuous to begin with, and (ii) one would need to consider and solidly reject alternatives before starting to think about playing with physics in a way as to construct a truly extraordinary claim. McCampbell's statements are such that one has to wonder whether he truly has an appreciation for General Relativity, or if he's just impressed with himself for knowing about a mass-inertia connection (that is not even unique to General Relativity, by the way). > Of course, if you do have another explanation, I would like to hear > it. Skeptics are not required to do that, but it is somewhat arrogant > to misrepresent the position stated and then dismiss it out of hand. I have no alternate explanation -- my position is that I don't know, and that uncertainty is the proper attitude -- McCampbell certainly shows no signs of having a clue either. As for the misrepresentation, I'm convinced that, unless the brief excerpt Stewart provided has an effect of drawing his remarks out of context, I have done no such thing. The dismissal is not out of hand, rather, the thrust of my remarks was that there is no reason to spin tales involving gravitational theories as yet. One day, me might be forced to conclude that McCampbell is right, however, we'd be ill-advised to bet on it. > That McCampbell's observation of the witnesses describing the > phenomenon of General Relativity correctly is accurate, REGARDLESS > whether or not that might be the real or final interpretation. Let me state this explicitly -- no one has described the "phenomenon of General Relativity," any more that someone observing a light bulb going on would be describing the phenomena of Quantum Electrodynamics. Bringing in an impressive-sounding theory is a cheap rhetorical ploy here. Also, consider something that many who have taught high school or freshman physics might have observed: folk-physics concepts are *not* Newtonian; thus reports of noninertial behavior are not the most solid ground to stand on. > . . . Perhaps a precondition is for both the scientific > community and UFO researchers to approach it with less arrogance in > their respective viewpoints and more of an understanding of what is > really required --- objective attempts at multi-disciplinary research > and analysis. Yes. But also a noncommittal statement that most can agree with, and thus probably rather vacuous in effect. Taner Edis