From: Luis R. Gonzalez <lrgm.nul>
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 23:16:50 +0200
Fwd Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 08:17:23 -0400
Subject: Re: Khoury Case - Gonzalez


>From: Cathy Reason <CathyM.nul>
>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 19:09:35 +0100
>Subject: Re: Khoury Case

>>From: Luis R. Gonzalez <lrgm.nul>
>>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>>Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 15:10:08 +0200
>>Subject: Re: Khoury Case

>>To me, a believer (in this
>>context) is any _ufologist_ who think that UFOs and abductions
>>are manifestations of non-human intelligencies. On the contrary,
>>a skeptic would be any _ufologist_ who think they are only
>>manifestations of our own mind, but nothing psychic, of course.

>I don't want to get involved in this protracted discussion over
>alleged alien DNA, or whatever it is; but I do think this
>definition of "skeptic" is a clear abuse of language - and by
>that I mean any language in which the concept of "skeptic" has
>any meaning, not just English.

Well, if you have a better term, let me know it.

>What matters is whether ufologists, including those "who think
>[UFOs and abductions] are manifestations of our own mind", are
>postulating entities already known to science, or entities which
>are new to science. If psychological explanations of "UFOs and
>abductions" involve entities new to science (and from what I can
>see, nearly all of them do) then it really does not make sense
>to regard the people who espouse such explanations as
>"skeptics".

Psychological explanations of UFOs and abductions _do_ involve
ideas new to science, if only because Psychology is a young
science (and some still discuss if it is really a science). But
we are "skeptics" in the sense that (as in my limited usage of
the word) we do not think you have to appeal to the existence of
non-human intelligences to finally explain them. Science have
not all the answers yet, but when it got them, they would be not
so much surprising. For instance, and I do not want to start a
new debate, I am convinced that Randles/Estes/Come hypothesis is
a valid one for explanation of a lot of the so-called abduction
phenomena.


Luis R. Gonzalez