People
keep seeing UFOs. According to this report, more than 1000 UFOs were
seen in 2014 in Canada alone. But just as there are many UFO
sightings, there are many web pages and web posts that aim to debunk
UFO sightings. In case you might like to write one or read one
yourself, I will let you know some of the top tricks of the ace UFO
skeptics.
Technique
#1: Total denial
The
technique of total denial is a mindless technique that is often
surprisingly effective. It works like this: no matter how much
evidence has accumulated to suggest that some phenomenon is real, you
simply declare that no such evidence exists. This technique is often
shamelessly used by deniers of ESP. Ignoring thousands of published
accounts supporting such a phenomenon, as well as more than 80 years
of laboratory experiments, many producing extremely convincing results, a skeptic will just flatly state: there is no evidence
whatsoever for ESP. The main advantage of this technique is that it
can be effective if used as a sound bite. Rather than taking the time
to dispute some mountain of evidence for something, which is unlikely
to be very convincing, you can simply claim there is not the
slightest bit of such evidence. This type of total denial is not at
all fair, honest, or candid, but it often works well.
Technique
#2: Under-reporting
This
technique is widely used by modern skeptics. It works like this:
given a very specific account of some paranormal phenomenon, the
skeptic describes that phenomenon in a watered-down way, a way
designed to make it as easy as possible to assert that the report is
due to some known natural causes.
Here
is an example of this technique in action. In the famous Enfield
poltergeist case, one of many astonishing incidents was when Daily
Mirror photographer Graham Morris reported Lego toy bricks flying
around very fast in a room. Here is how Morris reported the incident
in a newspaper account dated September 10, 1977 (very soon after the
event):
When
I went into the living room I saw toy bricks flying through the air.
One of them hit me on the head. Nobody seemed to be throwing them.
They were coming at the speed of bullets.
In
the same case, a constable saw a chair rising up half an inch off the floor and mysteriously moving 3.5 or 4
feet. She checked the chair for wires, did a marble test, and found nothing that could
explain the movement of the chair. The account can be found at 2:08 in the video here.
But
when this incident is described by a skeptic trying to debunk it,
these compelling details are omitted. The skeptic describes Lego blocks
flying about, without mentioning them moving as fast as bullets, and
without mentioning the witness saying no one was throwing them. The
skeptic mentions the constable seeing the chair moving, but makes no
mention of how far it moved, and does not mention that the constable
checked that there were no wires attached. Carefully censoring out
these compelling details, the skeptic then proceeds to argue that it
was all caused by some little girls playing tricks, a theory that
makes no sense in light of the details that have been censored out.
Below
are some hypothetical examples of under-reporting, as a skeptical
debunker might use.
Original account | Under-reporting of the account by a skeptic |
“I saw a transparent ghost who looked exactly like my father,” she said. “It even wore my father's favorite sports T-shirt.” | She reported seeing something that she associated with her father. |
“I had a vision of my mother getting hit by a green car,” she said. “That same day I found she did get killed by a green car.” | She thought of her mother on the same day she died, before hearing of her death. |
“I saw some weird flying saucer hovering over my field,” he said. “I looked at the field, and saw a gigantic crop circle.” | He noticed something abnormal in his field, and he concluded that some UFO had something to do with it. |
Technique
#3: The smorgasbord
This
is a kind of “everything but the kitchen sink” technique used by
skeptics when they don't have a good explanation for something. The
smorgasbord technique consists of listing a wide variety of possible
explanations, in hopes that quantity will make up for a lack of
quality. For example, some one trying to explain a ghost sighting
may say that it is caused by “mist, a hallucination, fraud, mold
spores, drug use, hysteria, memory confabulation, vision problems, or
an optical illusion.” None of these actually work very well to
explain a ghost sighting, but when you make a long list a list of
possible explanations, it often sounds impressive.
Technique
#4: Attack the witnesses, through accusations or insinuations
This
is one of the favorite techniques of modern skeptics, one that they
often ruthlessly apply. The idea is to disqualify or discredit the
witness to some paranormal phenomenon. One crude application of the
technique is to accuse a witness of being a fraud or someone who is
hallucinating. Or, being a little more subtle, the skeptic may try to
insinuate that the witness is some zealot or enthusiast whose account
cannot be trusted because it reflects some emotional state of the
witness. If all fails, the skeptic tries to insinuate that the
witness is crooked, confused, crazed or “carried away” by some
emotion.
Now
let's look at an example of how these techniques might be used. Below
is a hypothetical account of a UFO sighting.
Now
here is a typical way in which a modern skeptic may try to debunk
such a report.
I
can identify some of the sleazy tricks used in the debunking above.
One trick is under-reporting (technique number 2 discussed above).
The original report discussed compelling details such as a giant
flying disk, as well a sighting by more than 40 witnesses. But these
compelling details are censored from the skeptic's account of the
incident. A sighting of a giant disk seen by 40 witnesses is
under-reported, described as merely “seeing something in the sky he
couldn't explain,” and described as if it was seen by only two
witnesses.
Another
trick used is the smorgasbord technique (technique #3 discussed
above). Lacking any good explanation for the reported sighting, the
skeptic throws out a wide assortment of possible explanations,
without explaining how any one of them can plausibly explain the
sighting in question.
Still
another trick used is the “attack the witnesses” technique
(technique #4 discussed above). Apparently lacking any good basis for
discrediting Ellerton as a witness, the writer makes a crude attempt
to suggest that Ellerton's report cannot be trusted because he is
religious. Think that skeptics rarely engage in attacks this crude?
Try reading wikipedia.com, where this is done frequently.
The
final trick used is the “total denial” technique, in which the
writer brushes away six decades of inexplicable UFO reports by
asserting that there is “no evidence whatsoever” that UFOs exist.
This
UFO report and its skeptical rebuttal are hypothetical, but the
argumentative techniques described here are really used, and used
abundantly. Beware of them.
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