Evidence and the Twelfth Man: How Much Is Enough? Part Two

A phrase has appeared in many popular science books as well as sceptical books about various aspects of the paranormal and pseudoscience’s, but which has, in classic meme fashion, spread to other subjects as well. That phrase is “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. However, I feel that phrase has well outlived its original purpose, is total nonsense, and has passed it’s ‘use by’ date by several decades at least. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (ECREE) is often the mantra when it comes to the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH).

 Many ideas or fads, be they in the sciences or the arts, don’t last long – theories come and theories go and actual fashions and fashion in music change yearly. What’s ‘in’ and what’s ‘out’ is often pretty fickle. A lot of what was popular in 1947 (the birth year of the modern UFO era) has fallen by the wayside now - but, interestingly enough, not the UFO ETH. The UFO ETH is as popular as ever, maybe even more so now than in 1947, not that popularity equates of necessity to something factual. If a billion people believe a stupid idea – like an invisible friend who art in heaven – it’s still a stupid idea. However, over six decades on, despite all the professional and amateur sceptics and the universal naysayer, the government denials, scientists professing ‘no evidence’, the ‘giggle’ factor and the ‘silly season’ publicity, the UFO ETH is alive and well thank you very much. Something must be driving this. Perhaps, at least as far as many of the great unwashed are concerned, there is some signal in the noise – some sort of evidence (albeit not physical enough to be acceptable to many professional scientists) that’s swaying the general public.

It is suggested, with good reason, that the whole issue of the UFO ETH must be judged on the basis of the evidence. And, it is claimed, that the evidence for visitation is so poor that very few scientists find it convincing. And that is true, at least the part that few scientists, publicly at least, find the UFO ETH somewhat lacking in solid evidence. Thus, the UFO ETH has garnered somewhat of an aura of being a ‘silly season’ subject, unworthy of scientific study. [To be honest, I’d often like to survey academics / scientists for their private opinions!]

UFOs vs. evidence for the ETH – there is no absolute smoking gun - yet. I’d be the first to acknowledge that. I’d suggest however that this is a case of where there’s smoke, there’s smoke. The fire has yet to be seen through the smoke. There however has got to be something suggestive about the nature of that smoke to drive lots of people, even some quite intelligent people, to accept the possibility of the UFO ETH. I mean the idea just didn’t pop out of the ether – out of thin air. Something very suggestive is driving it. 

I would ask the question whether by evidence one means a physical artefact that can be put under the microscope, or is human testimony, the sort that would convict someone of a crime and put them on death row enough evidence? I’m 99% convinced scientists would say the former, yet the evidence for the UFO ETH is 99% the latter (plus a few radar returns and films). Actually IMHO it’s ludicrous for UFO ETH sceptics to poo-poo and give the thumbs down to eyewitness testimony. After all, it’s accurate eyewitness testimony that enables the trained investigators to properly identify the vast majority of UFO reports, turning them into identified flying objects. So, when sceptics need eyewitness testimony to be accurate and turn UFO cases into something with ordinary and mundane causes – that’s fine. But when the tables are turned, sceptics turn turncoat as well so as to re-enforce their already-minds-made-up point of view. That is, eyewitness testimony that turns a UFO sighting into an unexplained bona fide UFO case, well then clearly the eyewitness testimony counts for nothing in terms of bona fide evidence.   

Now there are lots of current concepts in science that have absolutely no evidence to support them, yet are taken quite seriously by physical scientists. A partial list would include concepts like the Multiverse, the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics, string theory or its related M-Theory, the Higgs Boson, the possible existence of ten or eleven dimensions, the Ekpyrotic (two branes colliding origin of the) Universe theory, and, shock horror for those interested in SETI, the total lack of any under-the-microscope, hard core evidence whatsoever for any intelligent life forms other than intelligent terrestrial life forms. Yet it is acceptable for scientists to research these areas without being subject to having their sanity questioned. I fail to see why the UFO ETH is an exception to this.

Scientists need more than 20 fingers and toes to list all of the there-is-no-evidence-for- these-way-out-theories in science that ultimately had to wait years, decades, longer even for experimental confirmation. If scientists had put these in the too hard basket, or dismissed them with a ‘I just don’t believe it - it can’t be therefore it isn’t’ attitude, well we’d still all believe that the sun goes around the Earth, black holes would be confined to the pages of science fiction, and as for gravity bending light rays – forget it.

There are other ‘the nature of the evidence’ parallels with UFOs – physical phenomena that don’t stand still; you can’t poke and prod, put under the microscope, examine at your leisure and which are unpredictable in space and in time. Ball lightning comes to mind; ditto Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP); and you can’t rewind the clock and prepare for (instruments at the ready) and witness the one-off Tunguska event. There seems to be a double standard for evidence here. UFOs have a ‘giggle factor’; ball lightning does not, yet both have theoretical underpinnings that make their existence plausible. In the case of UFOs, it’s the Fermi Paradox – if advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist, they’ve had enough time to colonize the galaxy, so where is everybody?

So, that ultra overused phrase “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is nonsense. Claims of course require evidence, but again the word ‘extraordinary’ is in the mind of the beholder. What’s extraordinary to one is routine, boring, commonplace and downright bloody obvious to another. And speaking of the common phrase, another one that can be applied to the UFO ETH is “absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence”.

Conclusion: If you make a claim, extraordinary or otherwise, you’ve got to be prepared to back it up with your evidence, your whole evidence, and nothing but your evidence. The 12^th man would require no more, and no less.

Evidence and the Twelfth Man: How Much Is Enough? Part One

A phrase has appeared in many popular science books as well as sceptical books about various aspects of the paranormal and pseudoscience’s, but which has, in classic meme fashion, spread to other subjects as well. That phrase is “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. However, I feel that phrase has well outlived its original purpose, is total nonsense, and has passed it’s ‘use by’ date by several decades at least. 

How much evidence does it take to convince someone of something like a jury; a scientist; a ‘professional’ sceptic; the great unwashed? The answer is obviously “Enough”. Any more than that is overkill. Of course what’s enough for any particular scenario will vary depending on the person. So, as per the film “12 Angry Men”, what’s enough evidence to convince 11 men wasn’t enough to convince the 12^th. Still, in theory there would come a point where additional evidence would be enough to sway that 12^th man. But that’s no more than just enough additional amount of evidence that he would require to join the other 11. The 12^th man requires some additional evidence, not extraordinarily more evidence; not overkill.

So why do scientists demand evidence overkill as per the way overused and illogical phrase “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (ECREE). No, claims of any kind require sufficient evidence to convince that 12^th man – no more and no less. ECREE needs to be consigned to the rubbish bin. I can understand the intent behind the phrase, but not the logic.

Sometimes you hear a song once too often and it loses its appeal. Sometimes it never had any appeal in the first place. In this case, it’s somewhere in-between. I didn’t object to the ECREE phrase at first, but after the 1000^th time, and especially upon more sober reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a nonsense phrase.

I gather an original purpose of ECREE was to separate the scientists making scientific claims, backed by independent verification and peer review, from the non-scientists making pseudo-scientific (i.e. – extraordinary) claims. This was all with the view on the grounds scientists don’t have the time and inclination to investigate every pseudo-scientific claim, so if they are to take the great unwashed seriously, a truckload of evidence had better be presented to them – far more than would be required initially from one of their peers. While that makes a bit of sense, it perpetuates an us vs. them dichotomy and makes scientists more elite than they really are, and/or makes the great unwashed even more unwashed than they really are. Anyway, this you’d better dump on me an extraordinary amount of evidence in my lap before I take you seriously (and even then I’ll probably take you with a grain of salt because I doubt I’ll have the right time of day for you because my mind is made up so don’t confuse me with facts or evidence) has become enshrined in the ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ mantra. 

Now at the onset, let me state that claims require evidence. That is not in dispute. That philosophy is an absolutely central concept part and parcel of our modern civilization. The entire foundation of our legal system answers to that principle. The scientific community, peer review, has adopted that principle. Even in everyday personal life, we insist on the viability of that principle. I mean if you claim you have a red dress, some doubting Thomas is perfectly within his rights to make you prove it – provide the evidence. And so you go to your closet, bring out the red dress, and so prove your claim. Now if you claim to have 1000 red dresses, which may seem like an extraordinary claim, but the nature of the evidence is exactly the same. You go to your closet, drag out 1000 red dresses, and dispatch Mr. Doubting Thomas quick-smart.

Oh, there is one great exception to the ‘claims require evidence’ principle – religion. When it comes to religious claims, however outrageous and illogical then may seem, you don’t have to provide any evidence, extraordinary or otherwise. It’s all about blind faith – faith is the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to believing in – to be honest – unsubstantiated claims.

Now the problem is that the work ‘extraordinary’ is in the mind of the beholder. What’s extraordinary to one individual isn’t even remotely extraordinary to another. It’s an emotive, personally judgmental word.

If I claim there’s a blue sedan parked in my driveway, that’s an ordinary claim.

If I claim there’s a ‘flying saucer’ parked in my driveway, you’d say that’s an extraordinary claim. However, both claims, ordinary or extraordinary, require the exact same amount of evidence. 

In the no-nonsense legal world, there’s no need for extraordinary evidence. You don’t require twice or thrice the number of witnesses to convict in the case of murder vis-à-vis shoplifting, even though murder is a far rarer and more extraordinary crime than shoplifting.

You go to the bank. Whether you withdraw an ordinary $1 or an extraordinary $10,000, you will be required to produce evidence that you are who you say you are – your signature, and perhaps photographic identification. But, in either case, it’s the same evidence.

Okay, we have to come to terms with the fact that lots of extraordinary claims have in fact come to pass, with rather ordinary evidence. Let’s list just a few once-upon-a-time scientific impossibilities (extraordinary claims) that have proved (via ordinary evidence) to be anything but.

It used to be quite obvious that the Sun went around the Earth – any other extraordinary claim of another configuration was considered impossible.

Once upon a time, our Universe could not be anything but static – neither expanding nor contracting. Einstein however knew the Universe should be contracting because of the attractive force of gravity. To counter that, and keep the static Universe he and the science of the times believed in, he invented his ‘cosmological constant’, a repulsive force to exactly counter gravity’s pull. That was his extraordinary claim. He later called that his greatest blunder. However, that ‘cosmological constant’ has recently resurfaced in the form of ‘dark energy’, so Einstein might have been right after all!

Those extraordinary Black Holes, while existing on paper in relativity theory, could not actually exist in reality - in practice they were quite the impossible object. There’s massive evidence now that they do indeed exist.

No one in their right Biblical mind would believe that it was extraordinarily possible that mankind had any actual evolutionary relationship with ‘lower’ life forms. Evolutionary biologists can give you lots of ordinary evidence to the contrary.

That matter actually consisted of rather extraordinary indivisible bits called atoms - the atomic theory was nonsense. The atomic theory was an extraordinary claim. Particle physicists can give you ordinary evidence to the contrary.

That ‘island universes’ were actually independent conglomerations of stars and not nebulous entities part and parcel of our own Milky Way Galaxy was deemed extraordinarily impossible by experts. Ordinary observational evidence eventually proved otherwise.  

Catastrophism in geology was considered an extraordinary no-no for much of the time since it began as a legit part of earth science. All geology (especially landforms) could be explained as a gradual softly-softly, slowly-slowly, process. Violent events need not apply to explain things. Tell that to the dinosaurs! Of course we know better today. Ordinary evidence shows that Catastrophism has taken its place and role playing in the geologic scheme of things.

Speaking of geology, the idea of continental drift was once considered extraordinarily preposterous pie-in-the-sky stuff. How dare a meteorologist (Alfred Wegener in 1912) tell geologists what should have been bleeding obvious! Geologists of course countered that there was no physical mechanism that could push continents around. Well, there was as it turned out, only we may no longer call it continental drift but rather plate tectonics. The ordinary evidence is in; geologists accept it.

Once upon a time, the concept of nuclear energy was extraordinary pie in the sky – a subject no scientist would take seriously. Does anyone dispute the evidence for it today?

Prior to the initial test, there were ‘experts in explosives’ who said that the A-bomb would never work. That it would would have been an extraordinary claim to the contrary. The evidence that it did work is evident now. 

Powered flight was once considered extraordinarily impossible – balloons were the only feasible means of air travel. Today, the verdict is in.

Rocket travel was utter extraordinary bilge as there was nothing in space for the rocket’s exhaust to push against. Yet the moon landings became so ordinary that the public quickly got bored with them.

It was impossible for the human body to travel faster than the speed of a (fill in the blank) without suffering fatal physiological consequences. Any person suggesting the contrary would have been forced to provide extraordinary proof.  Of course quite ordinary proof proved most satisfactory to counter the claim.

The sound barrier would never be broken; to suggest otherwise was an extraordinary claim. Again, it’s now quite ordinary to break the sound barrier; no extraordinary evidence was required, just the sound of a sonic boom.    

It was considered impossible for stones to fall from the sky – witnesses to the contrary be damned. Today, we incorrectly call them ‘shooting stars’; more correctly meteors, and when then hit the ground, meteorites. Picking up a meteorite is ordinary; although claiming it fell from the sky was once upon a time an extraordinary claim.  

The RMS Titanic was ‘unsinkable’. To suggest otherwise would have been extraordinary. The very ordinary evidence now rests at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean.

The city of Troy was ordinary mythology, pure and simple. There was no such place in reality. To suggest the contrary was an extraordinary claim. Today, nobody doubts the ordinary evidence backing up the city’s reality.  

To be continued…

UFOs: The Stellar Rainbow Connection: Part Two

It’s pretty much common knowledge that most scientists reject the reality of UFOs, at least in terms of UFOs being something ultimately anomalous, like extraterrestrial spaceships. Eyewitness testimony doesn’t cut their mustard. Photographs don’t hack it. What they demand is something nuts-and-bolts that they can study, put under a microscope, pound with a hammer, pour acid on, etc. No actual body on the lab’s slab equals no actual evidence one can study therefore there is no reality to the nonexistent body and no correspondence will be entered into on the matter. I smell a double-standard rat!

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

If you say you’ve seen a rainbow, you can’t prove that to me since you can’t bring the rainbow, or any part of it (like say the associated pot-of-gold), into my lab and place it on the slab for me to hammer away at or put under the microscope. You obviously believe in the reality of rainbows, yet you can’t put the one you see in the sky on your lab’s slab either. Okay, you know and I know that rainbows exist, but the critical point is that you cannot prove to me (or anyone) that you saw a rainbow. We all know eyewitness testimony, ain’t worth the price of spit in a bucket. As for photographs, being the grand skeptic I am, no doubt your photographs of rainbows are fakes, pure and simple. I REQUIRE PROOF of rainbows and you can’t provide it.

Can you capture and put an actual rainbow in the sky into a laboratory environment and subject it to cruel and unusual punishments?  You can artificially create one in the lab, but that’s not quite the same thing – it’s not the real McCoy. And what about that associated physical trace – the pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow? I’ve yet to read of any laboratory analysis of that pot and that gold. How do we know it’s really gold without slab-in-the-lab analysis? Maybe its fool’s gold! And just like Pandora’s ‘box’ is really a jar and not a box, maybe the ‘pot’ is really a bowl! Of course the scientists can’t quite get at the pot-of-gold since it’s guarded by a leprechaun, and no scientist is going to admit being thwarted by a little green man (or abducted by a little grey one either for that matter).

Okay, I would be foolish not to believe your observation and to deny the reality of rainbows, yet its okay for scientific skeptics to ignore the rainbow parallel when it comes to UFOs. Eyewitness testimony regarding UFO sightings isn’t worth the cost of the paper it’s printed on; photographs of UFOs are indeed pure Photoshop fakery.

But in fact, UFOs offer up way more physical evidence than the rainbow. Despite that pot-of-gold at the end of a rainbow legend, rainbows leave behind no physical traces; no physiological effects, and no electromagnetic effects; they make no sounds, etc. UFOs are not so hampered. So, if crunch-comes-crunch, the reality of UFOs have a lot more going for them in terms of physical evidence than the reality of rainbows. Of course no scientist in their right mind would exhibit scepticism of the existence of rainbows even without any physical evidence backing them up, but when it comes to UFOs, that’s a different horse of another colour – but is it really a different horse, and is it really of a different hue?

Of course one reason physical scientists accept the reality of the rainbow is that they’ve seen one themselves (many most likely) and seeing is believing as long as it’s they who are doing the seeing. If they themselves had witnessed a UFO event they (and their colleagues) could not identify then I’m sure they would be much more open and inclined to accept another’s eyewitness testimony. A bit of a double standard there of course but that’s human nature and scientists aren’t exempt from that weakness. Unfortunately, UFOs tend to be a rarer commodity than rainbows and therefore witnessed way less often, including viewings by scientists. 

While UFOs have a higher physical evidence quota than rainbows, they also have a higher strangeness quota too, which is not to say that rainbows don’t have a strange mythological aura about them. I wonder if the scientist who accepts the reality of the rainbow also accepts that the rainbow is a bridge to heaven (Asgard) according to Norse mythology and made famous in the conclusion to Richard Wagner’s first “Ring Cycle” opera “Das Rheingold”. Christian mythology has the rainbow as a sign that at least the next time God lays waste to the world it won’t be via the Big Wet, though I doubt you’ll find that in any textbook on optical and atmospheric phenomena. And if you’re into cryptozoology, the Australian aborigines have a Rainbow Serpent (which doubles as a creator deity), but then again, scientists aren’t noted for their curiosity into the actual existence of unknown mega-fauna or polytheistic creator deities** either for that matter. In fact, you name the culture; you’ll find a rainbow mythology contained within. Rainbows are associated with spirits and demons and all manner of omens from the good, to the bad and the ugly that scientists will reject as part and parcel of their belief system.

So, where do scientists draw the line? Rainbows – yes; rainbow serpents and rainbow bridges – no. And this distinction is rightly so, IMHO. But when they reject out of hand a phenomenon that actually has more and better evidence than say rainbows (auroras and sprites would be other cases in point) then eyebrows must be raised and questions asked – like please explain your logic.

While on the subject of things mythological, let’s go harking back to the stars and planets and other celestial objects. There’s a massive mythology from many ancient cultures that usually goes hand-in-hand with how those celestial objects and night sky patterns came to be. Astronomers don’t support those tall tales either since they have other more scientific theories that explain the origins of stars and constellations. Still, its two competing theories of how to account for say, the Pleiades star cluster. Once upon a time it was Zeus. Today it’s astrophysics. Who’s to say since neither scenario can be subjected to a definitive WE REQUIRE PROOF slab-in-the-lab test.

By the way, as a final counterattack, I haven’t yet seen any SETI scientist come up with proof positive on ET, so IMHO it’s still a tied ball game. But rather than have two opposing teams, SETI scientists may as well study UFOs as well since SETI to date has a batting average of zero. Perhaps that’s what comes from scientists putting all their ET eggs in just the SETI basket. 

*And the Sun can’t have sunspots since we all know that the Sun is perfect; meteorites can’t exist since we all know stones can’t fall from the sky;

**Though faith in the reality of God is hardly unknown to exist in some physical scientists, though like stars and rainbows, they can’t put God on the slab in their lab either. Somehow the WE REQUIRE PROOF criteria don’t matter in this case.

UFOs: Bits and Pieces: Name Dropping

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena, this time naming some of the pro-UFO (as a serious scientific issue) people who have had first hand and hands-on experiences with UFOs.   

Given that a large percentage of the population of developed nations believe that there is something to the UFO subject beyond UFOs being just ‘silly-season’ fodder for the tabloids, it’s not surprising that a lot of household names would be among them. However, just because you’re famous as an actor or musician or politician or industrialist, etc. doesn’t by itself translate into having any more credibility when speaking out on the UFO subject vis-à-vis any old Jane Doe private citizen. However, there are some people who have had a more direct relationship with the subjects. While police and pilots and other qualified and trained observers of UFOs have credibility, they aren’t household names. In short, fame has nothing to do with UFO credibility. When I refer to ‘name dropping’, I mean naming people who, when it comes to the UFO as a credible scientific subject, have the runs on the board and have to be taken seriously by the UFO sceptics.

There are physical and other scientists with professional academic qualifications, who took (or take) the UFOs in general and often the UFO ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis) question in particular very seriously. Scientists and academics like J. Allen Hynek (scientific advisor the USAF Project Blue Book who later founded to Center for UFO Studies), James E. McDonald, Berthold E. Schwarz (M.D.), John E. Mack (M.D.), Michael Swords, Ron Westrum, Jacques Vallee, Bruce Maccabee, David M. Jacobs, Thomas E. Bullard, Karla Turner, Stanton Friedman, Frank B. Salisbury, Ivan T. Sanderson, and Richard F. Haines. I could extend the list, but you get the gist.

I should also point out that both the former heads of the USAF Project Blue Book (Edward J. Ruppelt) and the British Dept. of Defence UFO study (Nick Pope) wrote books detailing their experiences, and both took the subject very seriously indeed.

Then there are former NASA astronauts like Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell who have come out in no uncertain terms that the UFO ETH is not only plausible, but beyond doubt.

There’s also a host of top military officers who have given credibility to the subject. One such notable was Barry Goldwater, better known as a politician and presidential candidate; he was also a USAF general officer.

For every well known UFO debunker or sceptic, there’s an equal and opposite pro-UFO (as in UFOs are serious business) counterpart. In fact, based on my own four decades of serious interest in this field, I’ve noted that there have been far more sceptics turned UFO believers (though not of necessity a believer in the ETH), than the other way around.