I don't understand why so many people think aliens are made up. Out of all the planets in the universe it's doubtful we are the ONLY one with life. So why do so many people say it's stupid to believe in them?

Comments

• What if the proof was say, a large number of people claiming to be eye-witnesses?
  
  Well then you'd probably say they're all crazy.
  
  But why would you say that?
  
  Well, because there's no proof.
  
  Oh wait.

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  by Captain4876 on June 25th, 2011

• Just because we haven't found the "proof" doesn't mean that the proof is not there!

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  by Texaspete on June 25th, 2011

• @Captain - Eye-witness testimony has been proven to be the most *unreliable* way to find out what happened at a given scene. People interpret things differently and, if allowed to talk about it with each other soon after it happens (and this usually happens), will usually modify their recollection to match the general consensus. Crazy? No. I'm sure they think what they remember is what actually happened. Reliable? Nope.
  
  @Texaspete - If the proof is not found, then it is not a proof.
  
  As I said before, there are fairies dancing the the Holy Grail. Isn't my word and recollection of events good enough for you to believe me? If you won't believe me, then why would you believe anyone else who can't give your concrete evidence of an event?

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  by CannedHam on June 25th, 2011

• Until it either Proven or disproved, I will keep an open mind on the subject!

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  by Texaspete on June 26th, 2011

• Well CannedHam, you are intentionally lying about the fairies for the sake of your argument. :P I am able to make this logical deduction because the point of your argument is to show that it is reasonable to believe that aliens have not been sighted.
  
  If however, a large number of people saw these fairies, then it would lend some credence to the claim.
  
  If I were to say, for example, "I saw an explosion in a nearby building" you would have less difficulty believe my claim even though you had no concrete evidence. This is because in you have some intuition for explosions. Explosions are something accepted by the general public, so you have no problem with the existence of explosions.
  
  Implicitly, you have already decided what would be reasonable or unreasonable to believe simply based on your intuition; but your intuition does not imply truth. The truth is, there was no explosion in any building nearby my house. That was a lie.
  
  Now suppose for a moment that we had 2 eye-witnesses. One to an explosion, and one to an alien abduction. Why would it be more reasonable to accept the testimony of the eye-witness to the explosion than the testimony of the eyewitness to the alien abduction, simply because you have experience with the concept of explosions?
  
  Why is the abduction eye-witness more likely to be mistaken, when the explosion eye-witness is not? Simply because you have an intuition for seeing explosions? Surely not.
  
  My argument is not to prove the existence of aliens, but to show that it is reasonable to believe in the existence of aliens, based on eye-witness account.

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  by Captain4876 on June 26th, 2011

• Cap'n, If someone said they saw a building explode, I can ask them where it was, go on down, and check out the damage for myself. This is a case of someone giving eyewitness testimony that can be back up with independently verifiable facts.
  
  It is inherently unreasonable to believe in the existence of aliens simply because someone, or a bunch of people, said they saw one. Check out the "Reconstructive Memory" section on this webpage: http://www.simplypsychology.org/eyewitness-testimony.html

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  by CannedHam on June 26th, 2011

• I feel you are being dishonest. If we were on msn, and I told you that a small explosion had gone on at a house nearby, you wouldn't feel the same initial skepticism to my claim- even if I had given you nothing with which to verify what I had said, such as my address or personal details.
  
  You could never verify my claim by looking into it yourself, yet you'd believe it before you'd believe that aliens exist.
  
  Now, suppose you decided then that neither the explosion nor aliens were reasonable beliefs based purely on eye witness accounts; then surely that must exclude everything else based on eye-witness accounts. if we were to be consistent, this would remove a large portion of history from reasonable belief.
  
  My argument is that it is just as reasonable to believe that aliens exist as it is to believe an explosion at my neighbour's house (if the only evidence for either is eye witness testimony). By showing that a concept is reasonable, i do not mean "proving" it. That is something quite different.

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  by Captain4876 on June 26th, 2011

• Dishonest? Not at all. I don't believe a lot of what people say, either F@F or online, if I have no way of verifying it myself. Some things are in the realm of reasonable because there are independent, third-party ways to verify it.
  
  If you said a house near yours exploded, I could ask you for the relevant information (location, date, time) and shlep myself to your hometown and look at the damage. The problem with belief in alien life is that there is no way to verify it aside from the proclamations of those who believe and this drifts into the area of faith.
  
  Faith is belief without proof. I'm a Christian but I cannot produce God to satisfy an atheist's demands for tangible evidence. I may have experienced a miracle moment akin to the manifestation of Our Lady of Guadalupe but cannot show it to someone else.
  
  People who believe in alien life are in the same cleft fork. They *know* there are aliens *somewhere* but cannot show proof that can be examined and confirmed. Some *know* they saw a UFO, a NEO, or an ALF but cannot pony up the proof to someone else.
  
  We're just playing ring-around-the-rosie now, so I'll end with this:
  
  There is no proof that alien life exists, either on Earth or elsewhere. In the absence of proof that can be independently verified, people who claim there is alien life are acting on faith, not fact.

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  by CannedHam on June 26th, 2011

• CannedHam--
  
  re. "Eye-witness testimony has been proven to be the most *unreliable* way to find out what happened at a given scene."
  
  That's something of a half-truth, I'm afraid. It only applies in fairly brief experiences and with untrained observers. Trained observers (especially those with combat experience) have a much better track record and are far more reliable.
  
  But more importantly, the problem isn't a factor when we're talking about pro-longed and more involved experiences. For example, in the case of an innocent bystander who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a bank-robbery that turns into a shooting, his testimony is far from incontestable; but consider this case: the witness is the broth of the accused, knows of his pentient for violence and ill-gotten gain, and testifies that on the day in question his brother, obviously agitated, came pounding on his door begging to be taken in "until the heat dies down", and while there brandished a smoking firearm and a satchel with $20k in cash, and subsequently told his bro he'd knocked over a bank and shot a security guard, and they'd spent the next several hours trying to convince his bother to turn himself in. Both of these are eyewitness testimony. Anyone who claimed that the latter example should be discounted because "eyewitness testimony has been shown to be unreliable" would be laughed out of court.
  
  People who think they've seen a UFO of ET origin for a few seconds, they fall into the first category. But a person who (without the aid of "memory regression", drugs, or hypnosis) says he spent several hourse to several days as the guest aboard an ET spacecraft, having wonderful conversations with the alien crew, and being treated to the grand tour of the solar system, he is either a fraud, delusional, or is telling the truth; "eyewitness misperception" isn't a significant factor here.

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  by Stormarm on July 7th, 2011

• Your answer is excellent, some people want believe thus they illogically criticize you.

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  by Kobayashi-san on August 5th, 2011