Anyone care to discuss Skinwalker Ranch?

[Cherchez la Femme]

[csziggy]

1. If tha's the place I saw a show about, the people who did the show were idiots

The claims they were testing were that lights appeared at the same time every night, moved in the same direction and disappeared the same way. Every night. Before they even showed the lights, I'm thinking it sounds like airplanes on regular routes.

Sure enough, even on their crappy video, I could see the wing and tail lights.

As for the creatures and cattle mutilations and ghost, there was absolutely no evidence shown, just lots and lots of stories.

[Cherchez la Femme]

2. Yes, lots of stories

however many from trained scientists.

I don't know what TV show you watched, I haven't watched TV for years now.
Most television is junk, I didn't even like half of what I would see on even the Science Channel,
the History Channel is great if you don't care about actual history but right-wing KKKristianity
--and if you were unlucky enough to watch the Sci-Fi (or whatever it's called now)

:::::shudder:::::

All the so-called programming is for the purpose of hype and BS, AFAIC.

Even the Skinwalker Ranch website's database of photographs
http://www.skinwalkerranch.org/media/index.php?cat=2
are precious poor quality; still, better than nada.
I do wish they've tried to put these 'anomalies' (giant wolves who don't appear to take damage even when shot, "orbs" {gah I hate that term!} "portals" {ditto!}, UFO's, bizarre tracks/footprints, etc.) they've caught on film to some, even rough, kind of scale.


However, I find the amount of similar/almost identical eyewitness accounts
--not only through different owners, neighbors, aboriginal peoples, scientists, etc. but also through time
very compelling and worthy of more & better research.

We are but babies in any kind of understanding of quantum physics, alternate universes, quantum entanglement, dark matter (to name but a few fields of study); yet it seems to me that if even a fraction of these Skinwalker 'stories' turn out to be fact (and I tend to hold run-of-the-mill 'stories' vs. stories from trained scientists as different as a regular old layperson's imaginative 'theory' vs. Scientific Theory) it's just possible our body of knowledge could be approaching a sort of explosion.
I can't help thinking about the difference between the pre-B. Franklin era of our 'understanding' of electricity and our current knowledge of it.

After all, there will always be many more things than dreamed of in our philosophy...


But then, too; this could just all be a huge load of hooey
However, if they're at least attempting to use the scientific method regarding these anomalies, I'm at least going to try to pay attention...


Edit: oh yea, skip the 'Hollywood' movie about Skinwalkers that came out a couple years ago, too.
Junk. Pure & unadulterated.

[immoderate]

3. Scientists are easy to fool.

The things that people do to fool them, do not occur to them.

--imm

[Cherchez la Femme]

4. Is that supposed

to be some final, all-encompassing skeptical 'explanation' for (what you consider to be) anomalies?

Is that supposed to refer to ALL scientists?
--with that argument, you've "proved" that, let's say, Evolutionary Scientists are also easily fooled

therefore proving Creationism! Yay!

And is it only scientists who are easy to fool, not laypeople?
Or both?

But, by that tone, YOU are not easy to fool;
therefore not a scientist? Or not a scientist NOR a layperson?
But then what? Oooh my head hurts.
Or is it that you're just too clever for such naughty people?


Surely you can't mean only scientists with theories that you have a problem with who are "easy to fool" and the rest are perspicacious & legit; can you?
Are they CSICOPeans all? --an org which, BTW, was NOT created and led by "scientists" but, by profession, by Secular Humanists (Which I have no problem with... just sayin')
Are those scientists who are quite aware of rife fraud especially in fields intersecting with the paranormal, people such as Susan Blackmore stooges
and one should think
don't belong to an org such as CSICOP alongside the true rarities such as Randi, Kurtz, Loftus, Tyson, Sagan along with the many pseudoskeptics: debunkers-for-debunking's-sake, deliberately ignoring evidence when it doesn't fit their contentions, goalpost-moving...

...those self-regarded rarities , these legends in their own mind
akin to, just to mention a few: Nickell, Hyman, even Klass?

Truly, how fair is it to be "biasing odds against" testing subjects,
claiming this was completely "appropriate because (subjects) claims were unlikely to be true" instead of designing fairly and letting the quantum chips fall where they may? (replication a given)


Oh but wait: Blackmore IS a member!
Nor is she, and many members with her, known for debunking but for rigorous scientific testing and also happen to be as knowledgeable regarding methods of fraud as any other colleague?

Crap, now it's a migraine. Thanks bub.

Seriously though!?
Gotta ask: Did you forget a sarcasm tag?


Highly amusing post, any road!

[immoderate]

5. I'm not sure what "phenomenon" you are defending.

Last edited Sat Dec 10, 2011, 02:16 PM - Edit history (1)

I remember reading the book by Puthoff and Targ about their experiments in remote viewing. They were published in scientific journals like Nature. (They had me pretty well convinced.)

Randi explains in his expose, that scientists are not expecting the amount of bamboozling on the part of claimants. This is illustrated somewhat by the way magicians fool audiences because they have difficulty imagining how much effort is being put into fooling them.

I have had a few people that attempted to cold read me. It probably works on many people, but I can spot the technique and trip them up. You, OTOH, may take the opportunity to get reacquainted with dead ancestors.

CSICOP long ago changed to CFI, and I am a member, and most of the daily controversy is with homeopaths and anti-vaccers. I know Randi, and I know that the $1M challenge is real, and that he has been wanting to drop it for some time, as the frauds avoid it, and most of the applicants are truly deluded people, so it's rather sad. (Exceptions are the dowsers. They design their own test, fail it, and then rationalize the failure.)

Evolutionary scientists have been fooled many times. They are certainly mare wary of fraudulent fossils than they were for Piltdown man.

Your rant against "pseudo-skeptics" requires some sort of backup. What evidence has been ignored? What do you have except, "Mysteries are mysterious."?

On edit: Looked at reports about that ranch. What about that ranch makes any reports of UFOs, sasquatches, orbs, portals, mutilations, or spirits, more credible without evidence? Or more immune to the antithetical arguments they generate?

--imm

[beam me up scottie]

6. You are out of line and violating this group's Statement of Purpose

Statement of Purpose

Discuss issues related to skepticism, science and pseudoscience, and the role of rationalism in society. Non-skeptics are invited to participate, provided that they do so in a respectful, non-disruptive manner.

immoderate is and always has been one of the most respectful members of DU, you shouldn't be amused, you should be ashamed.

There are other groups on DU3 that welcome woo, perhaps you should try them.

[SidDithers]

8. I think you took a wrong turn somewhere...nt

Sid

[Kablooie]

7. Geez. I thought that a was a place where no one wears clothes.

[Katashi_itto]

9. Here is a list of articles about the Skinwalker ranch.

http://parasearcher.blogspot.com/search/label/Skinwalkers