From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 09:31:18 -0500
Fwd Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 11:19:57 -0400
Subject: Re: Friedman/Shostak Debate - Clark


>From: Brad Sparks <RB47x.nul>
>To: ufoupdates.nul
>Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 04:59:06 EDT
>Subject: Re: Friedman/Shostak Debate

>>From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
>>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>>Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 12:41:16 -0500
>>Subject: Re: Friedman/Shostak Debate

>>>From: Brad Sparks <RB47x.nul>
>>>To: ufoupdates.nul
>>>Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 22:54:29 EDT
>>>Subject: Re: Friedman/Shostak Debate

>>>>From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
>>>>Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 09:10:56 -0500
>>>>Fwd Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 21:02:31 -0400
>>>>Subject: Re: Friedman/Shostak Debate - Clark


Hi, Brad,

>I don't think it is fair that I should have to self-censor
>myself to word things in such an butt-kissing way that it is
>utterly dull,

I think you've identified the problem right there, confusing
courtesy to colleagues with "butt-kissing". I do know that under
no circumstances would I make sweeping, self-righteous charges
against _all_ ufologists - not if I expected to be heard. In
ufology as in life, serious, intellectually engaged people come
to different conclusions about complex issues, and if progress
is to be accomplished - not to mention professional comity - a
degree of mutual respect is surely desirable and even essential.

>dull and technical, dealing with scientific methodological
>issues hardly warranting the opprobrium I got. We will have to
>agree to disagree on this and I will remain as puzzled as ever.
>If my criticism was too "sweeping" it is simple enough to quote
>someone in the UFO community who has put forward some pro-ETH
>modeling that improves upon SETI's offerings that were done in
>an effort to refute both ETH and UFO reality. As I say Stan
>Friedman has countered the SETI criticism but no one in the UFO
>world so far as I know has done some "positive campaigning"
>instead of just "negative campaigning" against SETI. Jacques
>Vallee put forward some numbers in rough modeling of ETH in his
>5 arguments against ETH. That's about it. I would love to see
>more, that is continually built upon. But I hope that it doesn't
>all turn on the question of whether it has a pro-ETH or anti-ETH
>result. Objective scholars should be able to report negative
>findings on ETH if that is what they turn out to be. And
>negative findings could turn positive with more work (look at
>SETI arguments, with improvements they could be turned pro-ETH).

As its critics both inside and outside ufology have observed on
a number of occasions, SETI sometimes resembles a religious
movement more than a scientific one, with its own share of
failed prophecies. The failed prophecies involve the projected
success of the program within a specified period of time. Back
in the early 1990s, for example, Frank Drake (if memory serves)
confidently predicted contact with ET civilizations within five
years. The other day, I heard a SETI scientist declare his
certainty that it will happen in the next 20. Uh huh. All that
will come of this, after the failures no longer become
rationalizable, is the prospect that some young, iconoclastic
scientist will finally say, Well, if we looked at some actual
evidence, such as what ufologists have in their files, maybe
we'll find something that we haven't found before. In terms of
history's judgment, I'd far rather be a ufologist empiricist
than a SETI wishful thinker.

And no, Brad, that doesn't mean ufology has no shortage of
problems. Nor does it mean that we shouldn't criticize those
problems, as I have spent my life in this field doing, as an
extensive paper trail documents. Nor does it mean that you are
wrong about this or anything else, or that your views are not to
be heard and taken seriously.

>I could say the same thing having read this just after returning
>from a scientific meeting at UCLA, and chuckling at how UFO
>research is never going to get anywhere if we cannot even agree
>on working to improve its methodology, instead of defending the
>status quo.

Since I have spent my adult life as a ufologist trying to get
ufology to "improve its methodology" and allying myself with
those who feel the same, I am at a loss to understand what
you're saying. If you reread my earlier post, you will find that
all I was doing was explaining why ufologists handle or do not
handle the ETH the way they do for certain rather clear
historical, strategic, and ideological reasons, and that these
reasons make a certain degree of sense and merit more than
unthinking scorn. If ufologists agreed on methodology, they
would have a certain broad agreement on the nature of the
problem they confront, and they don't. And that is surely
understandable.

 >>Since the 1960s, as historians of the subject and more-than-
>>casual observers know well, ufology and the ETH have hardly
>>been synonymous. They are synonymous only in outsiders' - and
>>usually unsympathetic outsiders' - representation of what
>>ufologists think and do. One can read far more about
>>ufologists' supposed obsession with the ETH in debunking (and
>>ridicule-laced) publications such as Magonia and Skeptical
>>Inquirer than in actual UFO literature. Before the likes of
>>Swords and Ashpole, consequential writing within our field, with
>>the honorable exception of Stan Friedman's, had become scarce.
>>Even now, ETH writing in the published literature is rare. I
>>exclude contactee and Dark Side mythology from the just-stated,
>>obviously.

>Here we go again with the extreme empiricism. Are you saying
>that any theoretical work on UFO's is now "rare" because it is
>seen as threatening the survival of UFO research due to the
>unfair identification UFO = ETH as synonymous?? But invalid
>theoretical reasoning like that which equates UFO = ETH is no
>excuse to just throttle all theoretical work. That is why the
>UFO community needs to do its own UFO theoretical work on the
>ETH so it will ensure a "fairer hearing" on such issues.

Excellent theoretical work appears in Mike Swords's several
papers on ufology and the ETH. I encourage others to follow in
his footsteps. At the same time, it is my judgment, for reasons
already expressed, that theory-making cannot be ufology's first
priority

>>Debunkers asserted that since
>>ufologists couldn't prove the ETH, there was no reason to take
>>UFO sightings seriously and to investigate them accordingly.
>>Ufologists, quite naturally, came to the conclusion that since
>>indeed we can't prove the ETH (or any other hypothesis about the
>>nature of the phenomenon), it is wisest - both intellectually
>>and strategically - to concentrate on data-gathering. They were
>>led to argue (as in fact I did a couple of weeks ago in a
>>conversation with a producer from the news division of a major
>>broadcast network) that UFO reports are best seen as modestly as
>>possible: as questions for investigation, not as subjects for
>>sweeping speculation. If a single puzzling report is brought to
>>a potentially intrigued scientist, it is frankly stupid to
>>present it as possible evidence for a staggering claim; rather,
>>it's best brought forth as a puzzle which, if solved, might
>>teach us something new, possibly even important, and no more.

>Once again it's this either/or: Either extreme theoreticism
>(the actual term is "idealism" but would be misunderstood here)
>or extreme empiricism. Theory and observation are supposed to
>work together in an interactive synergistic fashion. You are
>taking it that ETH theoretical work is going to be done in a
>SETI way, standing aloof and judgmentally condemning UFO
>observations. Well that isn't the way theory and observation
>usually work in science anyway and once again, if the UFO
>community did its own theory development you wouldn't such a
>problem of disparaging the UFO data.

>Scientists get put off when someone tries to push "data" on them
>that they see no theoretical framework for interpreting. It's
>like giving them a painting of a house without blueprints,
>tools, or materials and telling them "Now build us a house!"
> You are telling them to build the foundation for a brand new
>science all from scratch! It is highly unlikely that any single
>scientist is capable of doing that, Isaac Newton style, even if
>they wanted to. They need a community of something like on the
>order of a hundred equally capable colleagues. If you had some
>theoretical framework built already, you might be able to
>attract some scientists who can see a way to build on that
>foundation, that it wouldn't look so hopeless.

I think - unoriginally - that the core problem ufologists face
is that they lack resources.As you noted wisely not long ago, in
all the history of ufology, probably six months of actual
science has been committed to the problem. Ufologists will not
solve the UFO mystery; it's way, way too big for them.
Therefore, if the project on which ufology is focused is to
succeed, it has to be taken up by scientists, who do have the
training, resources, institutional support, and all the rest of
the stuff on which real science draws to do its work.

In my judgment ufologists should work toward the end of making
themselves obsolete. In other words, they need to make the case
that there is an interesting investigatable problem which
scientists could usefully take up (and therefore relieve
ufologists of).

It is all well and good to talk in some abstract way about
theory and data in normal science, but ufology long ago ceased
to be an ordinary scientific question. Actually, few scientists
are willing to acknowledge that it is a scientific problem at
all, much less a window into the workings of an alien
intelligence Therefore....

We will accomplish ufology's purpose - its own extinction - only
with good data, removed from toxic theoretical associations
(e.g., utterly predictable, ridicule-laced charges that the
scientist in question is "looking for little green men" as
opposed to studying puzzling observations and traces). Anything
else, however desirable (and I have no quarrel with thoughtful
theorizing; as a ufologist and thinker, I value it), has to be
secondary. If I had to predict who will win the race in the end
- SETI (all theory) and ufology (all data) - I'd have no problem
placing a large bet on the second. SETI's extinction will be its
failure, ufology's extinction its success.


Jerry Clark