Sunday, September 03, 2006

Rod Brock: "Ignoring History"

Rod Brock continues to churn out some excellent, thought-provoking material at his blog, Aliens Ate My Buick (which, if true, just proves that aliens aren't very discriminating when it comes to cars).

The latest is "Ignoring History".

An excerpt:

There is much that "ufologists" choose to ignore... One area of great importance, which virtually all "nuts and bolts" ufologists ignore, is history. They pay lip service to the idea that the "UFO phenomenon" has a past, but just barely. They are aware that people have been seeing strange things in the sky for millenia, but they would rather gloss over that subject, because these phenomena weren't interpreted as extraterrestrials, and they weren't called "UFOs." They were interpreted in the context of the myths and folklore of the era in which they appeared; a comet, for example, was interpreted as a "finger of doom" pointing at the earth, or a "celestial broom," come to sweep the earth clean of good and evil alike...

The phenomena that gave rise to various beliefs way back when stand apart from the interpretations placed upon them; perhaps a prosaic explanation of a certain account suggests itself to the modern mind, perhaps not. Precisely the same is true of "modern" UFO reports. A phenomenon giving rise to the modern ufo report may be utterly mundane in nature, or it may defy all attempts at explanation. The interpretations of these unexplained events, however, are born out of the propensity of human beings to interpret the unknown in terms of myth, of folklore, of the preternatural or supernatural. We are not so terribly different from our forebears.

You can read the entire column here.

Paul Kimball

9 comments:

The Odd Emperor said...

There seems to be an all or nothing take in many people over the UFO phenomena with even stronger for a “believe me or die” kind of attitude from abductees. I don’t necessarily think that abductees are experiencing things too far outside of “normal experiences.” By that I mean, most people have strange gaps in their memories and lots of people see strange lights in the sky or have oddball things happen to them. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have an unusual story to tell,

UFOlogy as a field (and I’m taking the average “look” from my POV.) seems to be more interested in proving what UFOs and are and not eliminating what they are not. This is far more akin to religious scholarship than some sort of scientific pursuit. This is not to say that all UFOlogests do that or all UFOlogy is non scientific but, it’s clear much of it is utterly deficit when dealing with scientific rigors as well as having a casual disregard to the history and folklore surrounding UFOs.

Strangely enough, exactly the same two biases exist in society at large. A singular lack of understanding in scientific principles and nearly complete ignorance of their place in history.

Don Maor said...

The guy shows light and irrelevant conclusions, unwillingness to study the evidences, etc.

he says: "may be yes, may be not" i ask: ¿what if we focus on evidences of strange phenomena instead? They exist.

Paul Kimball said...

The guy shows light and irrelevant conclusions, unwillingness to study the evidences, etc.

Actually, he shows a willingness to speak some truths that are rarely, if ever, spoken of in the hallowed halls of the pro-ETH clique within ufology.

Paul

Paul Kimball said...

UFOlogy as a field (and I’m taking the average “look” from my POV.) seems to be more interested in proving what UFOs and are and not eliminating what they are not. This is far more akin to religious scholarship than some sort of scientific pursuit

This is true of the believers, but then they're not trying to "prove" anything - instead, they're trying to convert the masses, or make themselves feel better. The more serious and reasonable ufologists(i.e. the ones without the need to replace God with aliens), even if they favour the ETH as a theory, are still usually willing to admit that they don't know what UFOs are.

Paul

Don Maor said...

"Actually, he shows a willingness to speak some truths that are rarely, if ever, spoken of in the hallowed halls of the pro-ETH clique within ufology"

but his speculations have been heard from all kind of skeptics since the 50ies...

Nothing new.

The Odd Emperor said...

Favoring one theory over another is part of doing science. Theories are just models of what might be. They have to be falsifiable or they are not theories by definition. Faith neither requires nor desires the scientific trappings of theory. Faith by definition cannot be falsifiable.

Paul Kimball said...

TOE:

The problem is not favouring one theory, but promoting that theory as a proven fact, in the process ignoring evidence that might indicate that other theories, including the dreaded and much-maligned "null hypothesis" (and the equally dreaded and much-maligned "psycho-social hypothesis") may also be valid.

Paul

The Odd Emperor said...

We need to keep all possibilities open, not just the ones that appeal to us. It’s interesting that the “null hypothesis” and PSH are psychological terms. I’ve several minds about this, one thread runs thusly;

Let’s say we are an intelligent species performing some kind of task with a population on a nondescript planet somewhere. One of the task goals is that the native population not be utterly transformed by the task, or only changed in such a way that conforms with the other task goals. Certain psychological games are played in an attempt to burn-in some mindset or motif into the gestalt of the native population. The objective is for most members of the native society to be unsure that anything is happening at all, those who are the subjects of the game are carefully chosen to not have too much influence so as to create a kind of background hum that won’t intrude on the lives of most people. Each experience is tailored to each individual so that their stories won’t match.

The given in this scenario are, entities capable of star travel ( or really good camouflage.) Entities that have a very deep understanding of human psychology, better than our own as a matter of fact. Entities that work in almost geologic time spans. It’s one very unlikely scenario, but one that fits an abundance of the facts.

My point is, if we accept the ETH out of hand we must begin assume a vast, mind numbingly complex program spanning many thousands of years—we probably will never comprehend what it's for.

Or it could be some shared hallucination triggered by an external phenomena. We really don’t know yet. That’s why I think the witnesses need to be studied far more closely. Certain segments of the ‘biz’ are studying their stories but that (to me at least) is becoming more and more counter-productive.

Paul Kimball said...

Odd:

We need to keep all possibilities open, not just the ones that appeal to us.

Exactly so!

Paul