mike_thoth
Skilled Investigator
I agree with Mr. Carrions opinions regarding the UFO crowd closing ranks on some cases. For many people, including UFO researchers (they are human like the rest of us) the constant talk, conferences & social norms of an "in group" can certainly lead to a sort of cognitive dissonance.
The challenging of a world view has led to many rises and falls, just look at the history of science for that.
Traditional Ufology has become a belief system in my opinion, with different levels of belief, facilitated with the deception of witnesses by forces of intelligence but also the encounters themselves. On a social level, I would love to study the route is such belief structures, the phenomena plays it's part.
I've said before that I don't agree 100% with Stan or other researchers. But I think the nuts & bolts researchers, like Stanton, are a product of an earlier time & we still need them.
If anyone read Ann Druffels book Firestorm (a truly excellent work" you get the feeling (I certainly did anyway) that scientists like McDonald, Friedman & many others preferred to concentrate on the physical cases in an effort to engage the scientific community, to make them act because surely if they did, the skills, techniques & tools of science could, at a primitive level, prove that there is a real, physical phenomena.
Once this goal is achieved the idea would be to get science on a global scale to investigate. Leslie Kean's recent book is attempting the same thing. Good cases, great cases to engage the scientific community. In 60 years no progress has been made, at least in the open civilian literature.
Given that sad state of affairs & looking back over the years these petty, stupid arguments have resulted in chaos, mixed up thinking with each group,setting thier own goals. Socially the reality of the phenomena doesn't matter. The public accept it because science has let us down. Therefore these knowledge gaps are exploited by other groups, leading to mass confusion, belief systems & name calling, the hallmark of Ufology.
Where is the joined up, single minded objectives? Surely the past tells us more of the same is useless.
If we want a breakthrough then let's aim for it, rather than getting bogged down in conjecture.
Once again I step off my soapbox.
Michael
P.s. Sorry for typos.
The challenging of a world view has led to many rises and falls, just look at the history of science for that.
Traditional Ufology has become a belief system in my opinion, with different levels of belief, facilitated with the deception of witnesses by forces of intelligence but also the encounters themselves. On a social level, I would love to study the route is such belief structures, the phenomena plays it's part.
I've said before that I don't agree 100% with Stan or other researchers. But I think the nuts & bolts researchers, like Stanton, are a product of an earlier time & we still need them.
If anyone read Ann Druffels book Firestorm (a truly excellent work" you get the feeling (I certainly did anyway) that scientists like McDonald, Friedman & many others preferred to concentrate on the physical cases in an effort to engage the scientific community, to make them act because surely if they did, the skills, techniques & tools of science could, at a primitive level, prove that there is a real, physical phenomena.
Once this goal is achieved the idea would be to get science on a global scale to investigate. Leslie Kean's recent book is attempting the same thing. Good cases, great cases to engage the scientific community. In 60 years no progress has been made, at least in the open civilian literature.
Given that sad state of affairs & looking back over the years these petty, stupid arguments have resulted in chaos, mixed up thinking with each group,setting thier own goals. Socially the reality of the phenomena doesn't matter. The public accept it because science has let us down. Therefore these knowledge gaps are exploited by other groups, leading to mass confusion, belief systems & name calling, the hallmark of Ufology.
Where is the joined up, single minded objectives? Surely the past tells us more of the same is useless.
If we want a breakthrough then let's aim for it, rather than getting bogged down in conjecture.
Once again I step off my soapbox.
Michael
P.s. Sorry for typos.
