Stanton T. Friedman Pseudo-Science of Anti-Ufology
NEED TO LOOK AT EVIDENCEMost graduate students are taught to begin a new research project with a literature search. See what hasalready been published before doing ones own work. No sense reinventing the wheel and certainly don'tmake claims that can be destroyed by those more familiar with relevant past publications. Yet one of the mostcommon and distressing aspects of the pseudo-scientific anti-Ufological literature is the failure of the pseudo-scientists to do their homework before putting their mouths or computers in gear. I am referring to evidenceabout large scale studies of sightings, landings, abductions, multiple witness radar visual cases, saucer crashes, government cover-ups, etc. As somebody very much concerned with advanced nuclear and spacetechnology, I have been appalled by the silly pseudo-scientific statements that have been made about spacetravel, high acceleration travel and interstellar travel. As the original civilian investigator of the RoswellIncident, and a long-term investigator of the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, I am equally appalled at theunscientific arguments made against these two bell-weather cases. The common features of these attacksinclude:A.A failure to look at the literature that is available about all of these.B.An unwillingness to recognize that the "specific details of how something is to be done" are verymuch more important than broad general notions about the laws of physics.C.An enormous arrogance in thinking that if certain things were true or certain technologies were real,these all-wise pseudo-scientists would know about them. They don't, so the notions must not be true.None of this is to say that there hasn't been a lot of pro-UFO garbage published as well. ButUfologists tend to be critical of their own kind. The pseudo-scientific anti-Ufologists never seem towant to critique another debunker no matter how false the claims. They repeat the claims rather thanpointing out the fallacies.Some of my concerns go back to the time I spent in industry on highly classified advanced technologyprograms for big industrial concerns. Everything you wanted to publish outside the company, or at aprofessional meeting, had to be approved by more than one level of management. After all, the company'sgood name was involved. Double-check everything. Equally relevant for me were the weekly sciencecommentaries I did (for 6 years) for the Fredericton, New Brunswick, CBC radio station. I covered a hugerange of topics and, since some people would believe me no matter what I said, I felt I had to check thingsout. I read widely and covered, medical, nuclear, Ufological, technological, etc, topics. I found that often thesummaries and conclusions at the beginnings of the articles did not accurately reflect the actual findings.Axes were being ground. I found government agencies had no qualms about being pseudo-scientific, if itsuited them. For example, I had done a radio piece on the importance of adequate intake of magnesium toassure a healthy cardiovascular system. Then I was surprised to see that the Canadian government hadissued a new Recommended Daily Allotment that I felt was much too low. I found the person who had writtenthe justification and wondered why there was no mention of the importance of Mg to a healthy heart. He saidthere was no connection. I rattled off some references. He changed direction and said there were noepidemiological studies. I asked about the outstanding work of Dr. Heikki Karppanen of Finland. Thegovernment "expert" hadn't heard of any of HK's six studies. HK had found a region of Finland where thepeople lived entirely off their own land and their Mg intake was determined by the local geology, since theamount in beef, grain, water, etc reflected local numbers. The greater the Mg level, the lower the heartdisease problems. Such studies would be very hard to do in the USA or Canada. The official was speakingfrom ignorance. Sounded very much like a conversation with a pseudo-scientific anti-Ufologist.I did a report on another highly touted study supposedly showing that everybody should reduce his or her intake of cholesterol. The small print in the back showed that the study was of the effectiveness of acholesterol-reducing drug. The very large scale, long term, double blind placebo controlled (and veryexpensive) study included only men over the age of 40 whose cholesterol levels were in the top 10% or so.The results, highly touted in the press, could not at all be interpreted as showing that men and women, youngand old, should use their drug. As a matter of fact the death rate was higher for stomach cancer amongstthose on the drug than on the placebo. What is that old line about statistics and lies?2
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