NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Continuing on with Dr. Szydagis' article on "debunking the debunkers" I'll offer up some thoughts on point #2. I'm calling this a kind of Straw Man necklace or hat. Szydagis is responding to an actual misguided quote, but it's not really from a debunker or a debunk of anything specific, nevertheless, Szydagis attempts to place this idea around the neck or onto the head all debunkers.
The actual quote as used by Szydagis is as follows and is footnoted as (75):
As seems to happen elsewhere in the Szygdagis article, the quote is a little out of context. Here is the paragraph the line is pulled from:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAopNJMbFEI
As I alluded to above, I'm not aware of Chris Impey as an online or YouTube debunker. I found 8-10 videos with him, most of which are live Q&A sessions on astronomy and a panel discussion I'm going to go back and watch about life on other worlds. From the video description:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNgZsc4Y_2E
In his short article, Impey's debunking is limited largely to this paragraph (bold by me):
Still, having established that Impey apparently speaks for all debunkers, Szydgis seeks to debunk the claim, and giving how poorly worded the line is he's using, it's not that hard. But what he chooses to highlight to counter the claim is enlightening. As in the rest of his article, he pulls out old and often overhyped cases, seemingly unaware that there are good explanations for a many of them, if not outright debunks. As his article is about "debunking the debunkers" I'll offer up the approriate debunk for the cases listed. If one debunks the debunk of the debunkers is it a de-debunk?
First up is Jaime Maussan and the Mexico Eclipse UFOs:
Next up is the 2004 Mexican Airforce video, also hyped up by Maussan:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/mexican-air-force-ufo-video-oil-rigs.10837/
Then he actually goes with the Chilian UFO encounter!
How is Szydagis unaware of this? He's going after debunkers and this is a classic debunk. His footnote 80 just leads to a short news story, probably originally from Kean, in January of 2017. He is either woefully ignorant, locking himself in an echo chamber of the most credulous UFOlogist, or disingenuous.
He includes the Airel School case from Africa:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/th...-ufo-sighting-has-it-ever-been-debunked.5389/
And here:
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4760
Then there is Rendlesham Forest:
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham.html
Note that all the cases Szydagis lists above as evidence for UAP activity outside the US that is ignored by debunkers, were in fact debunked! His own list counters his main argument, or at least it would if he acknowledged that the debunks exist.
The rest of the section goes on to talk about how, since things in sciences like cosmology can't be replicated, there is no need to have replication in the study of UAPs:
All EC from the Szydagis article: https://uapx-media.medium.com/addre...-criticisms-against-studying-uap-5663335fe8c8
The actual quote as used by Szydagis is as follows and is footnoted as (75):
The footnote takes us to an article by Chris Impey at UofA titled:External Quote:It's curious that Asia and Africa have so few sightings despite their large populations, and even more surprising that the sightings stop at the Canadian and Mexican borders.
External Quote:
I'm an astronomer and I think aliens may be out there – but UFO sightings aren't persuasive
As seems to happen elsewhere in the Szygdagis article, the quote is a little out of context. Here is the paragraph the line is pulled from:
External Quote:
I'm an astronomer and I think aliens may be out there – but UFO sightings aren't persuasive
Note that "Asia and Africa have so few sightings" is a hyperlink that takes us to a YouTube of an animated map showing UFO reports as dot of light from 1906 through 2014 that is screen grabbed below. While still poorly worded, Impey is reacting to the map showing the large concentration of sightings in the US and UK, compared to the rest of the world, something he should have clarified. Even so, it still shows sightings in Mexico as well as South America and Africa, just far fewer.External Quote:There's a long history of UFO sightings. Air Force studies of UFOs have been going on since the 1940s. In the United States, "ground zero" for UFOs occurred in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico. The fact that the Roswell incident was soon explained as the crash landing of a military high-altitude balloon didn't stem a tide of new sightings. The majority of UFOs appear to people in the United States. It's curious that Asia and Africa have so few sightings despite their large populations, and even more surprising that the sightings stop at the Canadian and Mexican borders.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAopNJMbFEI
As I alluded to above, I'm not aware of Chris Impey as an online or YouTube debunker. I found 8-10 videos with him, most of which are live Q&A sessions on astronomy and a panel discussion I'm going to go back and watch about life on other worlds. From the video description:
External Quote:Topic: Astrobiology- How strange life might be? Life on Earth is found in surprising places: in high and arid deserts, on the sea floor near volcanic vents, and even deep within rock. The discovery of biological adaptation to extreme conditions makes it very likely that variations on biology will exist on moons and planets around many of the billions of Sun-like stars in the Milky Way. The talk addresses the issue of even more unusual forms of life, where the biological basis may be different or unrecognizable.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNgZsc4Y_2E
In his short article, Impey's debunking is limited largely to this paragraph (bold by me):
All EC from Impey: https://theconversation.com/im-an-a...ere-but-ufo-sightings-arent-persuasive-150498External Quote:The absence of evidence for intelligent aliens is called the Fermi Paradox. Even if intelligent aliens do exist, there are a number of reasons why we might not have found them and they might not have found us. Scientists do not discount the idea of aliens. But they aren't convinced by the evidence to date because it is unreliable, or because there are so many other more mundane explanations.
Still, having established that Impey apparently speaks for all debunkers, Szydgis seeks to debunk the claim, and giving how poorly worded the line is he's using, it's not that hard. But what he chooses to highlight to counter the claim is enlightening. As in the rest of his article, he pulls out old and often overhyped cases, seemingly unaware that there are good explanations for a many of them, if not outright debunks. As his article is about "debunking the debunkers" I'll offer up the approriate debunk for the cases listed. If one debunks the debunk of the debunkers is it a de-debunk?
First up is Jaime Maussan and the Mexico Eclipse UFOs:
A quick check of footnote 76 takes us to the very Scientific authority, Unsolved Mysteries. So, we have actor Robert Stack and known huckster Jaime Maussan probably hyping bad footage of Venus as a genuine UFO. Astronomer Tim Printy pretty much debunked this back in 2003:External Quote:First of all, it ignores the huge cluster of sightings during a total solar eclipse in Mexico City in 1991, with the seemingly same object (silvery disk) sometimes observed at different angles by different people. This was covered by the classic Unsolved Mysteries series with Robert Stack and by famous Mexican journalist Jaime Maussan (76).
http://www.astronomyufo.com/UFO/mexico.htmExternal Quote:This is VENUS! The other videotapes are not as clear and are too far zoomed in/cropped. If the originals were checked and giving a full viewing, I am confident the results would be more convincing.
Next up is the 2004 Mexican Airforce video, also hyped up by Maussan:
The footnote just leads to a video uploaded to military.com with little information. It's likely oil rigs flaring and is discussed here:External Quote:More recent sightings south of the U.S. border can be examined as well, such as a Mexican Air Force pilot's 2004 encounter (79).
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/mexican-air-force-ufo-video-oil-rigs.10837/
Then he actually goes with the Chilian UFO encounter!
This case is a poster child for a clear and reasoned debunk. Even noted UFOlogist and activist, Leslie Kean, who originally "broke" this case, had to eventually admit it was just a distant Iberian Air jet. Skeptiod's @Brian Dunning summed it up this way:External Quote:South American governments have great interest in UFOs, most notably Chile, after an encounter between a Chilean air force pilot and a spherical UFO (80),
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4838External Quote:Mick West, who runs the Metabunk website, wrote up an analysis of how this all went so wrong for Chile and so right for Internet crowdsourcers and published it for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, later in 2017, and included other examples of large communities quickly solving puzzles that small numbers of experts in the wrong fields could not.
How is Szydagis unaware of this? He's going after debunkers and this is a classic debunk. His footnote 80 just leads to a short news story, probably originally from Kean, in January of 2017. He is either woefully ignorant, locking himself in an echo chamber of the most credulous UFOlogist, or disingenuous.
He includes the Airel School case from Africa:
Discussed here:External Quote:...but Africa is mentioned as low on sightings without considering quality, not just quantity. The author of (75) should have been more careful — he did not mention the Ariel school alleged UFO landing in Ruwa, Zimbabwe. There have been countless news stories, books, and now a documentary (82). Almost a hundred students were witnesses and stick to their (independent) stories into adulthood.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/th...-ufo-sighting-has-it-ever-been-debunked.5389/
And here:
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4760
Then there is Rendlesham Forest:
Discussed here as likely a light house and some confusion:External Quote:Turning to Europe: what about Britain, especially the 1980 Rendlesham Forest incident?
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham.html
Note that all the cases Szydagis lists above as evidence for UAP activity outside the US that is ignored by debunkers, were in fact debunked! His own list counters his main argument, or at least it would if he acknowledged that the debunks exist.
The rest of the section goes on to talk about how, since things in sciences like cosmology can't be replicated, there is no need to have replication in the study of UAPs:
Not being a cosmologist, I'll let someone else tackle this.External Quote:The concept of "reproducibility" is a hallmark of the scientific method, and so it is a common sub-argument against UAP studies: you cannot reproduce strange encounters; thus, you mustn't study them. That reasoning is fair when applied to psychics claiming to view the future, but not to UAP. We have just established that sightings occur in different countries. There are also "common shapes," implying reproducibility in descriptors. (Although the U.S. government thinks shapes should be classified! Why? (91)
Most damning of all: not all of the established sciences can rely on reproducibility in its most pure or direct form anyway! Take, for instance, cosmology — without access to the multiverse (if it even exists, of course), we have only 1 Universe or cosmos to study, with 1 Big Bang and 1 Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). We can do computer simulations, of course, and come close to reproducing the conditions of the Big Bang in the highest-energy particle (LHC) or ion colliders (RHIC), but that's not the same as having multiple universes or many CMBs to study. Yet, cosmologists can still do their work.
All EC from the Szydagis article: https://uapx-media.medium.com/addre...-criticisms-against-studying-uap-5663335fe8c8