Have you ever seen a UFO?

[johnnycakes]

Re: Have you ever seen a UFO?

It depends on to whom you look for work on this subject. Do you, for example, feel that Carl Sagan is “crazy” or that the work of the SETI Institute is “unintelligent” ?

First off, I, in no way, intended to imply that you thought alien driven UFOs exist. I was dealing with the subject matter in its entirety and as it is usually discussed which is in the most sensational and least scientific way.

As for the absence of of evidence not proving absence, then what do we have to go on? Faith? Imagination?
You cannot prove a negative. All we can go on is hard evidence and there isn't any.

There is no evidence that Zeus existed or Santa Claus yet lots of people believe(d) in them and other characters of the imagination. I'm not saying that you do but it seems that there are a lot of non-scientific minds who do
Given the vast distances and time the likelihood of visitors is highly improbable and I doubt that serious scientists give much thought or spend much time on the thought of possible extraterrestrial visitors.

The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is involved with sending signals out into the universe seeking a response and is only peripherally related to the UFO business except in the movies.

Carl Sagan was abducted by aliens and is no longer here.
He is billions and billions of parsecs away.

[R_C]

Re: Have you ever seen a UFO?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Given the vast distances and time the likelihood of visitors is highly improbable and I doubt that serious scientists give much thought or spend much time on the thought of possible extraterrestrial visitors.</div></div>

I suspect Copernicus work was initially received with a degree of enthusiasm not too far from yours for concerning ourselves with matters fundamental to understanding our origins and existence.

<span style="font-style: italic">&quot;About 1532 Copernicus had basically completed his work on the manuscript of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium; but despite urging by his closest friends, he resisted openly publishing his views, not wishing—as he confessed—to risk the scorn &quot;to which he would expose himself on account of the novelty and incomprehensibility of his theses.&quot;</span>

Oddly enough, Galileo ran into similar but more serious trouble with the Catholic Church.

So it turns out then that thinking and theorizing about the improbable (according the limits of scientific understanding of our time) has exposed those who would do so in the past to scorn in some instances and heresy in others.

Lets see how this plays out jc.