From: Peter Rogerson <progerson.nul>
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 00:10:05 +0000
Fwd Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 08:52:20 -0500
Subject: Re: Alien Abductions - Rogerson


>From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:14:52 -0600
>Subject: Re: Alien Abductions

>>From: Peter Rogerson <progerson.nul>
>>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>>Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 18:53:04 +0000
>>Subject: Re: Alien Abductions & Coffee Enemas

>>>From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
>>>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>>>Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 16:04:37 -0600
>>>Subject: Re: Alien Abductions & Coffee Enemas - Clark

>>>This from the guy who once championed "birth trauma" -
>>>"something [that] we don't even know exists" - as an
>>>"explanation" for the abduction phenomenon.

>>>Now it's time for Peter to take the gospel to all those SETI
>>>types who are forever "referring to something [that] we don't
>>>even know exists," speculating about its nature, and working on
>>>strategies to contact it.

>Peter lets this one go by. Gee, I wonder why. Well, folks, I'll
>tell you: Peter loves to bash ufologists but knows his place
>when it comes to authority figures.

You obviously haven't been reading the last few UpDates. I
thought I had made it clear that I am unimpressed by the SETI
project and its anthropomorphic outlook. Quite a few ufologists
look really sophisticated in comparison. As for Frank Drake with
his idea of sending messages into the skies in the hope that the
God like aliens will give us the secret of peace on earth, with
immortality thrown in for good measure, the religious symbolism
is obvious

>>Sorry Jerry but I have never been a champion of the birth trauma
>>hypothesis, and am very sceptical of it. To be fair however it
>>did have some of the properties of s scientific theory. It
>>failed because it was falsified by what we know (or think we
>>know) about the organisation of the neonates brain and sensory
>>abilities.

>In reality, Magonia extolled the birth-trauma "hypothesis"
>enthusiastically when Alvin Lawson first proposed it, and Peter
>sang in the choir, that is, when he wasn't proposing the
>Americans imagined abduction experiences because they fear
>Hispanics. If it were worth my time, which it isn't, I'd dig
>through old issues of the magazine for the appropriately
>embarrassing quotes. Still, I'll take Peter's word for it that
>he no longer believes it, and congratulate him for his good
>sense, at least on this matter.

Magonia devoted one issue to an article by Lawson years back,
and I doubt if we ever referred to it since. I see that Jerry is
still going on about Hispanics. That was a throw away piece
about Dark Side ufology and the idea of aliens doing nasty
things in hangers in the desert. The piece never even mentioned
the word abduction. But if you want to go down that road just
look at what David Jacobs and Budd Hopkins are now saying about
the hybrids. Racial fears or what?

Presumably the fact that IUR published article after article on
the Roswell nonsense means Jerry was promoting it. Or was he
just publishing articles as they came along.

>>As I keep saying, the problem with the ETH and its more exotic
>>bretheren is that they are unfalisifiable infinitely elastic
>>hypotheses.

>If one holds falsifiability to be a criterion - a notion
>generally now regarded by scientists as creaky and old-
>fashioned, strongly disputed by Karl Popper's many critics - it
>is true that only wreckage, machinery, and bodies are likely to
>settle the issue. That's one reason, by the way, that I am
>cautious in everything I've written about the ETH. Another
>reason, of course, is that it's fun to drive pelicanists nuts.
>Having nothing better to do with their time, they have devoted
>many furious words to bashing me for my fence-sitting and
>reading my thoughts. Out of that they've created a strawman, and
>that's the one Peter now attacks.

>Short of wreckage, machinery, and bodies, we're dealing with a
>problem for which no solution is immediately in sight. But then
>the other hypotheses - such as the ones Peter favors - haven't
>exactly been falsifiable, either, and if anything less useful.
>I've yet to see a falsifiable version of the psychosocial
>hypothesis and/or the pelicanistic one - they are, of course,
>"unfalsifiable" and "infinitely elastic," as we learn with each
>"sceptic" posting on this List and with each issue of Magonia.
>If you're a pelicanist, you can just make it up as you go along,
>and if that weren't fun enough, you get to accuse everybody else
>of being irrational and pseudoscientific for doing exactly what
>you're doing. Golly, who wouldn't want to be a pelicanist?

Its up to those who propose that there are dramatically
anomalous phenomena out there to prove the point, its not up to
sceptics to demonstrate otherwise. Of course if anyone like Andy
Roberts or Dave Clark get out of their armchairs and investigate
these cases and come up with answers Jerry doesn't like he damns
them too.

>>Jerry has made this point on a number occasions about
>>paranormal explanations but seems to have a slight difficulty
>>realising that invoking a technology so advanced as to be like
>>magic is only verbally different from a paranormal explanation.

>I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, except that
>pronouncements like these seem to give the likes of Peter great
>satisfaction as he goes about conjuring up ever more and more
>elastic, magical pelicans. Since it was Arthur Clarke who made
>the comparison of ETH technology to magic, I urge you to take
>your quarrel to him. Oh, wait a minute; he's an authority
>figure, isn't he? Sorry.  Never mind.

It means that a _magical_ technology = magic. Can I make it
plainer than tha?

As for Arthur C Clarke, well the guy deserves the credit for
making a life time career out of one succesful prediction, but
have you read what was forcast for 2000 in say is 1961 Profiles
of the Future. I could go on about how his ideas were influenced
by being brought up in the days of the British Empire and
reading things like Boys Own comic in which plucky English
public schoolboys confounded the _natives_ by their display of
white man's technology etc. That's where the magical technology
comes from.


Peter (Pelican) Rogerson