[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Others, particularly those investigating paranormal activity, ESP, UFOs,
the so-called "fringe" sciences tend to hate the organization.
CISCOP has also attacked cold fusion on several occasions. I would describe
them as pathological skeptics.
See:
http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/CSICOPoverview.htm
Their main targets appear to be studies of the paranormal, UFOs and the
like. I myself have no interest in these fields, and I doubt there is
anything to the claims. However, since I have not examined such claims
carefully I would never pass judgment on them or attack them. A person must
be careful not to express strong opinions (positive or negative) about a
subject he has not studied carefully, and he must be even more parsimonious
with contempt, derision or dismissal. Such strong revulsion should be
reserved for the small number of bad ideas that actively harm society.
UFOlogy is, at worst, harmless whimsy. Kneejerk skeptics such as CISCOP
should learn a lesson from Hippocrates: First do no harm.
By the way, it has been reported here that "India Daily matter of factly
discusses their military contacts with an ET UFO base located remotely in
the Himalayas! You read the newspaper and it reports cricket scores, stock
quotes . . ." Believe me, this proves absolutely nothing. Newspapers
everywhere are full of bunk and cannot be trusted. Look at what they write
about cold fusion. Or try this test. Pick any subject you know a great deal
about, or some controversial public figure. (Do not select a very famous
person whose life has been documented in detail, such as FDR, but rather a
lesser-known figure such as Alfred Kinsey.) Now use Google or better yet a
public library to look up old newspaper articles about the subject. You
will find they are a fun-house mirror -- a mixture of distortion, error,
and made-up nonsense.
American mainstream newspapers used to be even more distorted and
irresponsible than they are today. In the 1930s movie newsreel makers and
Life magazine writers would invent stories out of whole cloth and stage
events. I recall one zany example broadcast on TV a few years ago. It was
during an interview with the newsreel maker, an affable guy and his 80s.
The newsreel showed an old lady in Texas wearing a blindfolded, shooting
off a pistol. The cutaway shot showed bottles being blasted off a fence.
The newsreel voiceover said "she is such a crack shot, she never misses
even while blindfolded!!!" Then the scene cut to the present, back to the
interview with the newsreel guy, who is laughing and saying: "Ah, that was
fun . . . We used to stage stuff like that during slow weeks." It never
occurred to him that the audience would take it seriously. This was the
1930s version of "The Daily Show," or a grocery store tabloid. These
standards still prevail in Third World countries, and to a lesser extent in
Japan. Even NHK documentaries have been revealed as "yarase" (staged fake
news).
- Jed
