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On Monday, January 5, 2004, at 11:09 AM,

wrote:

 

> Message: 5

> Mon, 05 Jan 2004 03:29:03 -0000

> " radcsusa " <peakqstr

> Re: Sayonara / ET life and vegetarianism

>

> Thanks for clarifying your remark, though you go further to apparently

> condescend to me as some scientifically naive and uneducated twit who

> claimed more than I in fact did.

>

> We necessarily disagree on evidence.

 

Why necessarily? If there is some, let's see it. Oh, yes, there is

" evidence " of SOMEthing, but radar traces and such don't cute it, and

eyewitless accounts amount to nothing.

 

> I've never " seen " mesons or

> bubble chamber trails, but I accept their photos in say a Sci Am

> article as reasonable " evidence " .

 

Why? Because other scientists are repeating those experiments and

confirming the findings, and peer review keeps everyone honest. Such is

not happening in UFOlogy, and isn't even possible. You are citing apples

when the topic is oranges.

 

> There is a huge wealth of credible

> research by credible scholars, interviews, unhoaxed film, and more.

 

Really? Gee, I've studied this stuff for nearly four decades and I

disagree. Show me where this wondrous stockpile is kept.

 

> Anyone with serious interest I refer to things like Timothy Good's

> Above Top Secret just for a start.

 

Read it. Good book, but certainly falls on the credulous side of things.

And no book proves a damned thing.

 

> Governmental entities with only

> indirect interest like the CIA deny conducting any investigation into

> matters they research specifically with multimillion dollar budgets

> specifically for it.

 

Would you expect them to cop to secret projects? lol

>

> I argue your reasoning is circular, that there is no credible evidence

> because anything claiming ET visitation is real you ipso facto define

> as inherently non-credible. At least give the point consideration.

 

Nope. That'd be CSICOP logic, not mine. I'm flatly stating that there is

no convincing evidence. There is circumstantial, indirect, tangential

evidence, sure. But guess what? Evidence for anything can be faked. We

need something like ONE ET, or ONE ET's BODY, or ONE ACTUAL SPACECRAFT

with PROVABLE ET aspects.

 

It's just like Bigfoot. Unless and until we have one in hand, it remains

hearsay and circumstantial. This is not my fault, nor is it a

reclassification of evidence, as you suggest. Shame. If it were it'd be

so easy to contradict.

>

> You suggest my sighting was maybe drone craft or my mind.

 

I listed those only as two among many possibilities, none of which can you

prove. See the problem?

 

> Surely you

> don't think I never asked myself these questions?

 

I'm sure you've asked often. Doesn't help much, does it?

 

> Drone craft do not

> glow bright red

 

How the hell do you know? Oh, and this is actually demonstrably untrue.

Ever heard of the A-12? Precursor to the SR-71, looks just like it, but

carries a DRONE on top, which looks like a cute little son of SR-71. Both

the plane and its drone glow bright red when traveling at mach speeds. In

fact, the fuselage gets so hot that the titanium actually reforges itself.

The plane lands with skin newer than when it took off.

 

So did its drone, which could go even faster and higher.

 

Your categorical statement is thus refuted with real world facts anyone

can confirm. That's how real science works.

 

> nor illuminate clouds as they pass into them

 

Any glowing craft, such as one heated by re-entry, would illuminate a

cloud when passing through it. So would, for that matter, a

light-emitting hot air balloon, etc. Ever watch planes land in fog? Same

thing.

 

> or

> execute instantaneous changes of direction.

 

From a single observer's viewpoint it is impossible to determine whether

such a maneuver was made. It can look that way from one observer's view,

but if triangulate you find the maneuver to have been well within normal

parameters. So you cannot know this. Do you see how insufficient a

single point observation is?

 

> My imagination?

 

Why not? People hallucinate all the time. And they're always convinced

it was real. That's the nature of hallucinations. You cannot demonstrate

that it was NOT imagination, which is my sole point. I happen to believe

you saw or experienced something, but I'm saying neither you nor I have

any way of saying what it might have been.

 

> Sure,

> just like I could be imagining the computer in front of me, which I

> submit I am not.

 

Silly example. My reception of your signal confirms its existence. That

didn't happen during your UFO.

 

> I tried to come up with alternative explanations

> after I observed them, and failed.

 

That's the frustrating nature of Fortean phenomena, their transience.

 

> Let me suggest for your

> consideration these warn't no stinkin' weather balloons or planet

> Venus either,

 

How can you be sure, though? You cannot.

 

> and that you might care to start allowing for if nothing

> else the very possibility these babies are definitely for real.

 

Real? Never questioned their " reality " . Only your intepretation, which

you seem married to. Why? It's obviously important to you that these

things you saw be ET in origin, and intelligently controlled. Interesting

testament of faith, but faith-based statements don't add a whit to

scientific evidence. We haven't ruled out, for instance, external forces

or influences that may have caused you to experience this subjectively.

Unless and until we do, and in the absence of any physical evidence to

handle, test, and verify, I'm afraid it is reduced to anecdotal and thus

insignificant.

 

My own UFO observations fall into this exact situation, too, by the way.

>

> I all but stated outright for you that the connection between

> extraordinary performance craft and ET life

 

What ET life would that be? You're using an imagined solution to solve a

problem. That's cheating. Unless and until there are confirmed ETI you

cannot cite them as an explanation for this or that.

 

> was indirect; but it's a

> far shorter hop once you accept the first; (a) because they're so far

> beyond conventional physical technology (laws of momentum, etc.)

 

Nope. We don't know that at all. We know only that you think you saw

something defying physics as you know it -- yet I contend that it might as

easily have been you being tricked by or fooled by something or someone.

And you surely can't argue that your observations are any more reliable

than others'?

 

Example: You say it performed maneuvers impossible for any craft we know.

Instant reversals, etc. Were there sonic booms? If not, then why would

one conclude these " glowing " things were solid? Perhaps they were only

light, being cast somehow, from somewhere you didn't spot. Solid things

passing through air create specific effects. Extending your argument that

it's Magic ET Tech at work, you'll have to now include not only control of

a craft that stays together in impossible maneuvers, but that also somehow

controls the reality around it, contravening local physics. The

explanation grows ever more stretched and less likely.

 

> , and

> (b) because of the, I argue, abundant corroborative evidence

> consistent with them.

 

No. Corroborative testimony, maybe. No evidence.

 

> I don't challenge you to believe it on my

> say-so alone; but kindly in future cease to claim I did when I did not.

 

You're asking us to buy your explanations. I cannot in conscience do that.

I do believe you saw or experienced something. No reason to question

that.

>

> Internal terrestrial diversity is a reference to within species; the

> account represented the ET's in question as saying that off-world

> civilizations are generally far more homogenized.

 

I don't know what you mean. In science fiction novels, you mean? I'd

disagree. But either way, we're discussing imaginary beings. It's silly.

>

> Your claim I claimed they're magic is false; I asserted little more

> than advanced use of science.

 

" Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from

magic. " -- Sir Arthur C. Clarke. It was to this that I held reference.

>

> Believe me, I can make all the arguments against ET contact probably

> better than you.

 

I'm not arguing either way. Just observing.

 

> The sun, 6.0x10^5 miles across, if reduced to BB

> size, would be about 58 miles from Proxima Centauri; relativistic

> limitations, etc.

 

Non sequitur.

 

> You may wish to consider in the hypothetical, if

> nowhere else, that a civilization in existence for, e.g., 600 million

> years, may be capable of bypassing those restrictions with continuum

> alteration and better harnessing of the fundamental forces.

 

Why? Maybe they've had six hundred million years of enjoying thermal mud

baths and lolling about in gelatin. Why does time alone give them an

impetus toward technological breakthroughs? For all we know, we're unique

in that. Scary thought, but maybe less scary than the obvioius

alternative.

 

And I've read science fiction for decades too, so I know the wrinkles and

variants.

>

> You take this further off-topic than I intended, and we don't need to

> prolong it. My key point was ultimately the moral logic of an

> advanced civilization evolving into vegetarianism; on this, perhaps,

> we may agree.

 

Morality is based on references to an established dogma. I see no reason

why there would be a universal one. Everything being relative, I'd say it'

s unlikely we'll ever find another intelligence that agrees with even the

slightest of our moral bigotries and provincial ethics.

 

>

>

We are so fond of being out among nature

because it has no opinions about us.

-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

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Oh this is a fun discussion! It is sort of like being on my

paranormal list with you again. *lol*

Anyway, good show and I agree with your thoughts on

this subject.... but still I WANT to believe!

I still also hold to my opinion that cats are alien greys

in a clever disguise. Also, bigfoot is real and lives somewhere

in my backyard. Yes, he sure does!

;]

 

~ PT ~

 

Since 'tis Nature's law to change,

Constancy alone is strange.

~ John Wilmot

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~~~~~>

, The Stewarts <stews9@c...>

wrote:

> Nope. That'd be CSICOP logic, not mine. I'm flatly stating that

there is

> no convincing evidence. There is circumstantial, indirect,

tangential

> evidence, sure. But guess what? Evidence for anything can be

faked. We

> need something like ONE ET, or ONE ET's BODY, or ONE ACTUAL

SPACECRAFT

> with PROVABLE ET aspects.

>

> It's just like Bigfoot. Unless and until we have one in hand, it

remains

> hearsay and circumstantial. This is not my fault, nor is it a

> reclassification of evidence, as you suggest. Shame. If it were

it'd be

> so easy to contradict.

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, The Stewarts <stews9@c...>

wrote:

>

> On Monday, January 5, 2004, at 11:09 AM,

> wrote:

>

> > Message: 5

> > Mon, 05 Jan 2004 03:29:03 -0000

> > " radcsusa " <peakqstr@n...>

> > Re: Sayonara / ET life and vegetarianism

> >

> > Thanks for clarifying your remark, though you go further to

apparently > > condescend to me as some scientifically naive and

uneducated twit who > > claimed more than I in fact did.

 

Here you're not trying to claim you didn't even notice me as you did

in your post preceding. Whether you intended anything personal by it

is naturally different, but I tend to ignore personal stuff in

preference for factual content anyway, and the condescension is

evident enough in your first post, though perhaps a pardonable lapse.

 

> > We necessarily disagree on evidence.

>

> Why necessarily? If there is some, let's see it. Oh, yes, there

is > " evidence " of SOMEthing, but radar traces and such don't cute it,

and > eyewitness accounts amount to nothing.

 

The necessity arises from our different definitions of what

constitutes it. I accept the Big Bang e.g. in spite of the fact it

will not be repeatedly replicated in my lifetime. Science does not,

contrary to myth, consist solely of precise moles in beakers: it has

loads of holistic and fuzzy-edged, subjective fields from psychology

to economics to anthropology and a dozen more where people piece

together disparate and inconclusive data to argue to likelihoods, and

which are not for that reason less science. As for eyewitness

accounts amounting to nothing, that boils down to asserting that if

out of a randomly chosen pool of 1000 subjects, 995 of them agree

regarding observable details of an event, the scientific worth of that

datum is zero. That I dismiss as bunk, -- and the kind of difference

regarding evidence that makes our respective viewpoints so difficult

to reconcile.

 

> > I've never " seen " mesons or

> > bubble chamber trails, but I accept their photos in say a Sci Am

> > article as reasonable " evidence " .

>

> Why? Because other scientists are repeating those experiments and

> confirming the findings, and peer review keeps everyone honest.

Such is > not happening in UFOlogy, and isn't even possible. You are

citing apples > when the topic is oranges.

 

Your " isn't even possible " is a positive assertion of the kind of

unprovable you try to fault me for. Then you seem to deliberately

ignore the bigger-picture factors like the fact that any scientist who

so little as investigates, let alone claims evidence exists, is for

that very reason subjected to intense peer derision and professional

ceiling, irrespective of the merit, and people like John Mack and Leo

Sprinkle are the exceptions that prove the very rule. I contend you

also overlook, somewhat crucially, *documentable* government coverup

agendas to suppress, selectively intimidate and in instances snuff, ET

contact evidence; to investigate while denying, largely for (not

wholly groundless) concern the population at large is unprepared to

handle the reality of contact. The UFO craft that overflew DC openly

in the 50's, which were not in any way mistakable for conventional

craft, were seen by hundreds if not thousands of witnesses, yet they

probably got less followup research, in spite of their arguably far

greater cosmological import than say one single alleged proton decay.

Predjudice today is not terribly different from the Ptolemaic

scientific dogma that derided Copernicanism. Suum cuique.

 

> > There is a huge wealth of credible > > research by credible

scholars, interviews, unhoaxed film, and more.

>

> Really? Gee, I've studied this stuff for nearly four decades and I

> disagree. Show me where this wondrous stockpile is kept.

 

Here's this wonderful resource called the internet. Sure you have to

sort through lot of fluff along the way (though recall the line about

tabloids in Men in Black ;-) ), and yes it's sizeable, but a little

basic horse sense, and you'll stumble across resources like

http://www.ufoevidence.org or http://disclosureproject.org. I concur

with the scientists and astronauts who believe these things are not,

as you do, thousands of bizarrely mysterious " inexplicables " . 'Scuse

the X-files echo, but objective truth is out there and exists.

 

> > Anyone with serious interest I refer to things like Timothy Good's

> > Above Top Secret just for a start.

>

> Read it. Good book, but certainly falls on the credulous side of

things. > And no book proves a damned thing.

 

Gee, so have I, and curiously, I disagree with your credulous

characterization. I contend it's untenable to think you can dismiss

every single account in there as imagination. I've met commercial

pilots who see these things fly their discrete patterns, simlutaneous

with their crews, who would laugh you out the room. Your " no book

proves " contention is false; I could prove root two irrational on only

one page. I suggest you're in effect defining nothing as truly

provable.

 

> > Governmental entities with only

> > indirect interest like the CIA deny conducting any investigation

into > > matters they research specifically with multimillion dollar

budgets > > specifically for it.

>

> Would you expect them to cop to secret projects? lol

 

No, but your answer proves you easily distracted off a main point.

Confronted with the evidence, they indict themselves to believe

something's very definitely real, and to want to stifle its evidence,

that you claim doesn't even exist.

 

> > I argue your reasoning is circular, that there is no credible

evidence > > because anything claiming ET visitation is real you ipso

facto define > > as inherently non-credible. At least give the point

consideration.

>

> Nope. That'd be CSICOP logic, not mine. I'm flatly stating that

there is > no convincing evidence. There is circumstantial, indirect,

tangential > evidence, sure. But guess what? Evidence for anything

can be faked. We > need something like ONE ET, or ONE ET's BODY, or

ONE ACTUAL SPACECRAFT > with PROVABLE ET aspects.

 

If that too can be faked, what'd be the point? You appeal for an

" absolute " certainty even you yourself deny is possible. We're back

to our definition of evidence again. Your contention reduces to null

hypothesis: if a craft landed on the White House lawn, it'd still be

possible to fake it, and in twenty scant years you might claim even

the DNA might conceivably somehow be synthesized.

 

> It's just like Bigfoot. Unless and until we have one in hand, it

remains > hearsay and circumstantial. This is not my fault, nor is it

a > reclassification of evidence, as you suggest. Shame. If it were

it'd be > so easy to contradict.

 

Definition issue again; I continue to assert it's classification still.

 

> > You suggest my sighting was maybe drone craft or my mind.

> > I listed those only as two among many possibilities, none of which

can you > prove. See the problem?

 

My point was I considered many more than your two, including whether

air masses might have created a complex lensatic effect with sunlight,

and I was forced to concede to the true Occam's razor here.

 

> > Surely you > > don't think I never asked myself these questions?

>

> I'm sure you've asked often. Doesn't help much, does it?

>

> > Drone craft do not > > glow bright red

>

> How the hell do you know? Oh, and this is actually demonstrably

untrue. > Ever heard of the A-12? Precursor to the SR-71, looks just

like it, but > carries a DRONE on top, which looks like a cute little

son of SR-71. Both > the plane and its drone glow bright red when

traveling at mach speeds. In > fact, the fuselage gets so hot that

the titanium actually reforges itself. > The plane lands with skin

newer than when it took off. > So did its drone, which could go even

faster and higher.

 

How the hell I know, and there's your ignorance of me and

condescension again, is I know the difference between a blackbird or

reentering Apollo capsule on the one hand, and three distinct craft at

approximately 3-5 miles moving at speeds of on the order of a few

hundred miles per hour, which would not generate the effect you

describe and are consistent with both film and credible witnesses.

That's how.

 

> Your categorical statement is thus refuted with real world facts

anyone > can confirm. That's how real science works.

 

My statement implied the specific context I referred to and therefore

was NOT categorical (straw man argument by you, sight). Your

" refutation " is thus refuted, and THAT's how real science works.

 

> > nor illuminate clouds as they pass into them

>

> Any glowing craft, such as one heated by re-entry, would illuminate

a > cloud when passing through it. So would, for that matter, a

> light-emitting hot air balloon, etc. Ever watch planes land in fog?

Same > thing.

 

Absurdly self-evidently, but at the speed I observed, my refutation of

your drone/plane alternative holds fast. At this intensity of glow,

the titanium off an SR-71 skin would melt and peel, and it was closer

to a cherry or laser-pointer red than orange. I've never seen a

hot-air balloon emit light; one could easily be made to, but that

explanation too (pun intended) deflates. These were no planes (and oh

yes, I dismiss swamp gas too *g*).

 

> > or > > execute instantaneous changes of direction.

>

> From a single observer's viewpoint it is impossible to determine

whether > such a maneuver was made. It can look that way from one

observer's view, > but if triangulate you find the maneuver to have

been well within normal

> parameters. So you cannot know this. Do you see how insufficient a

> single point observation is?

 

Bunk. We're talking approximately ten hairpin turns, which in toto

moot your feeble " viewpoint " objection, and whether the angles were

obtuse or acute is irrelevant to my laws of momentum point. Loads of

radar stations have tracked these independently too. These ARE a

reality, their nature is in the main consistent, they've been filmed,

and no discomforted appeals to hallucination will make them go away.

 

> > My imagination?

>

> Why not? People hallucinate all the time.

 

SOME people do all the time; to claim ALL do all the time distorts the

fact.

 

And they're always convinced > it was real.

 

Also false; many doubt, and most are equipped with a statistically

healthy ability to differentiate most of the time. The fact you MIGHT

confuse a dream for a memory is no proof you're wholly incompetent to

try. And loads of flights have had multiple human witnesses from

multiple angles too.

 

> That's the nature of hallucinations. You cannot demonstrate

> that it was NOT imagination, which is my sole point.

 

Duh. On the other hand, I'm perfectly capable of submitting my own

observational evidence to close analysis, which I do independently of

your objections.

 

I happen to believe > you saw or experienced something, but I'm saying

neither you nor I have > any way of saying what it might have been.

 

To me the evidence weathered strong internal skepticism and challenge

and survived. There IS a difference. The fact you've never seen a

small stone monument in my town, irrespective of the fact you can't

accept it exists because I say it does, does not change the fact it

exists.

 

> > Sure, > > just like I could be imagining the computer in front

of me, which I > > submit I am not.

>

> Silly example. My reception of your signal confirms its existence.

That > didn't happen during your UFO.

 

Not silly at all. To you I'm a string of text on a computer screen

and could even be a pathological liar or a sophisticated bot. Your

own " people hallucinate all the time " argument itself countervails.

 

> > I tried to come up with alternative explanations

> > after I observed them, and failed.

>

> That's the frustrating nature of Fortean phenomena, their transience.

 

If you disregard all other factors in the problem I've alluded to,

perhaps; otherwise I hold again they're less Fortean than you claim.

 

> > Let me suggest for your > > consideration these warn't no

stinkin' weather balloons or planet > > Venus either,

>

> How can you be sure, though? You cannot.

 

I beg to point out that unless you claim weather balloons and Venus

possess no falsiably distinct characteristics, or that Venus executes

multidirectional instant delta-V's and flies into clouds, I can

indeed. QED.

 

> > and that you might care to start allowing for if nothing

> > else the very possibility these babies are definitely for real.

>

> Real? Never questioned their " reality " . Only your intepretation,

which > you seem married to. Why? It's obviously important to you

that these > things you saw be ET in origin, and intelligently

controlled. Interesting > testament of faith, but faith-based

statements don't add a whit to > scientific evidence. We haven't

ruled out, for instance, external forces > or influences that may have

caused you to experience this subjectively. > Unless and until we do,

and in the absence of any physical evidence to > handle, test, and

verify, I'm afraid it is reduced to anecdotal and thus > insignificant.

 

Why? My best scientific deductive processes. I could just as easily

counterargue it's " obviously important to *you* that these

things...[not] be ET " in origin, and it'd be just as petty and trite.

I was simply finally willing to accede to the cogent in SPITE, not on

account, of my preconceptions. And every data point is an " anecdote " .

Few bother to add them together and interpolate, and their lives

proceed contentedly. But perhaps everything in its time.

 

> My own UFO observations fall into this exact situation, too, by the

way. > >

 

I believe that not better knowing the comparative characters of our

observations, you can't claim this. All observational quality has

lesser and greater.

 

> > I all but stated outright for you that the connection between

> > extraordinary performance craft and ET life

>

> What ET life would that be? You're using an imagined solution to

solve a > problem. That's cheating. Unless and until there are

confirmed ETI you > cannot cite them as an explanation for this or that.

 

We're back to the character of evidence again, and you already know my

reply in answer to " imagined " , but this time you're ignoring it more

deliberately. That IS cheating.

 

> > was indirect; but it's a > > far shorter hop once you accept the

first; (a) because they're so far > > beyond conventional physical

technology (laws of momentum, etc.)

>

> Nope. We don't know that at all. We know only that you think you

saw > something defying physics as you know it -- yet I contend that

it might as > easily have been you being tricked by or fooled by

something or someone.

 

I have a friend who faked a " ufo " enough to scramble Canadian jets

into a scramble. I know the difference just fine, and to argue

otherwise is like saying I can't look at Jupiter at an overhead

ascension and claim it's not Venus since they're both bright lights.

 

> And you surely can't argue that your observations are any more

reliable > than others'?

 

I'd plainly have to examine both to say, wouldn't I?

 

> Example: You say it performed maneuvers impossible for any craft we

know. > Instant reversals, etc. Were there sonic booms?

 

No. But I can make effectively instant change at other subsonic

speeds without booms too, or alter the nature of instant just enough

at that distance (while still defying momentum). And your " necessity "

also overlooks the large unknown character/variable of the very nature

of the travel that permits that in the first place, of which you are

even more ignorant than I. Open variables; objection fails.

 

> If not, then why would > one conclude these " glowing " things were

solid? Perhaps they were only > light, being cast somehow, from

somewhere you didn't spot.

 

They would have to have been projected onto something reflective, and

there was none in the clear air they travelled through. Holographic

projections like in Star Wars, even with independet reference and

inference beam sources, do not today exist.

 

> Solid things > passing through air create specific effects.

Extending your argument that > it's Magic ET Tech at work, you'll have

to now include not only control of > a craft that stays together in

impossible maneuvers, but that also somehow > controls the reality

around it, contravening local physics. The > explanation grows ever

more stretched and less likely.

 

Beside my answers preceding, it's actually not that difficult

conceptually once you investigate some of the theoretical physical

explanations suggested for them. But for you to suggest I don't

already grasp your point and allude to Magic ET Tech is silly,

childish, and trite by you, shortening my interest in this exchange.

You're more interested in dominance-asserting verbal dexterity than

honest investigation. Fine.

>

> > , and

> > (b) because of the, I argue, abundant corroborative evidence

> > consistent with them.

>

> No. Corroborative testimony, maybe. No evidence.

 

Another deliberate choice to ignore my " I argue " qualifier. How far

can we get when you ignore such details in front of your face? Same

point as the preceding.

 

> > I don't challenge you to believe it on my

> > say-so alone; but kindly in future cease to claim I did when I did

not.

>

> You're asking us to buy your explanations. I cannot in conscience

do that.

 

Your prerogative. Not an emotion issue for me, but I still enjoin you

to be as open to the concept this was real as I tried to be it wasn't.

 

> I do believe you saw or experienced something. No reason to

question > that.

> >

> > Internal terrestrial diversity is a reference to within species;

the > > account represented the ET's in question as saying that off-world

> > civilizations are generally far more homogenized.

>

> I don't know what you mean. In science fiction novels, you mean?

I'd > disagree. But either way, we're discussing imaginary beings.

It's silly.

 

No, I specifically referenced the account I referred to the first

time. As for your unqualified assertion they are positively

imaginary, that's the very kind of unsustained claim (again) you fault

me for. Double standard, faulty science again.

 

> > Your claim I claimed they're magic is false; I asserted little

more > > than advanced use of science.

>

> " Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from

> magic. " -- Sir Arthur C. Clarke. It was to this that I held reference.

 

Yet you made your assertion as the very categorical you objected to.

By that " logic " , the fake " turkey " and " sausage " in my fridge are not

only straight out of Star Trek but effectively voodoo to boot.

 

> > Believe me, I can make all the arguments against ET contact

probably > > better than you.

>

> I'm not arguing either way. Just observing.

>

> > The sun, 6.0x10^5 miles across, if reduced to BB

> > size, would be about 58 miles from Proxima Centauri; relativistic

> > limitations, etc.

>

> Non sequitur.

 

To what? It followed nothing, it simply made two of the arguments

against. (And p.s.; my first recollection was slightly in haste, it's

more like 864,000 miles, though not having measured the Sun directly,

I didn't claim for the figure the authority I do for my recollection.)

 

> > You may wish to consider in the hypothetical, if

> > nowhere else, that a civilization in existence for, e.g., 600 million

> > years, may be capable of bypassing those restrictions with continuum

> > alteration and better harnessing of the fundamental forces.

>

> Why? Maybe they've had six hundred million years of enjoying

thermal mud > baths and lolling about in gelatin.

 

Why do you again ignore the fact I alluded to *possibility* rather

than certitude?

 

> Why does time alone give them an > impetus toward technological

breakthroughs?

 

Notwithstanding the self-destruction variable in Drake, we extrapolate

some information as likely based on comparative evidence. Darwinian

evolution is only one example.

 

> For all we know, we're unique > in that. Scary thought, but maybe

less scary than the obvioius > alternative.

 

See second answer preceding.

 

> And I've read science fiction for decades too, so I know the

wrinkles and > variants.

> >

> > You take this further off-topic than I intended, and we don't need

to > > prolong it. My key point was ultimately the moral logic of an

> > advanced civilization evolving into vegetarianism; on this,

perhaps, > > we may agree.

>

> Morality is based on references to an established dogma. I see no

reason > why there would be a universal one.

 

By that line of argument, you refute the validity of relative value in

your own vegetarianism. Civilization, however slow, still seems a

stubborn thing.

 

> Everything being relative, I'd say it' > s unlikely we'll ever find

another intelligence that agrees with even the > slightest of our

moral bigotries and provincial ethics.

 

The same kind of jump again you don't accept from me, though to your

credit, this time you do qualify it as an opinion.

 

Like I said, it all reverts to our definitions of evidence, like my

hypothetical 1000x data sample above. You say zero evidence exists; I

say by that line, a huge chunk of scientific extrapolation fails as

evidence. You say all accounts are anecdotal and uncorroborated; I

say they aren't. You say every amateur video is either faked or a

useless dot; I strongly differ. You say radar data means nothing; I

say when it flies at ten thousand miles an hour along a US coast and

then takes off vertically at the same speed, it is a stubborn reality

that does not disappear simply because you find it inconvenient or are

incapable of supplying the explanation I argue is compelling and exists.

 

I repeat, we necessarily agree to disagree. I find our exchanges,

after this many hours, are adequate of themselves and find further

discussion likely pointless; you may perhaps come to share the view.

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