Date: July 22, 2008
To: The usual suspects
From: John Bryant (john@thebirdman.org)
Re: Birdman's Weekly Letter #490: Wondrous Phenomena: Steve M
Debates the Birdman
Contents: Opinion (as always)
Note to new readers: If you want to know more about me or my 40
books, please visit my website at http://www.thebirdman.org
. To subscribe or unsubscribe to Birdman's Weekly Letter, just
send me a note. If you are a subscriber and haven't been getting
it regularly, see the instructions on the Daily Reads page of my
website. NOTE ALSO that we may have removed you from our
subscription list if we have had our mailings to you returned
more than once. This material is copyright by the author, but may
be distributed for nonprofit use in electronic format provided it
includes author's name, notice of copyright, author's email
address and website, and a Birdman's Weekly Letter subscription
invitation. For all other uses, permission must be obtained from
the copyright holder.
SPECIAL NOTE:
Should the present Letter or any future Letter get truncated, you can always read the complete copy on-line at http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Temp/Temp-BirdmansWeeklyLetter.html provided only that you read it within the week that it is posted.
Wondrous Phenomena: Steve M Debates the Birdman
[Steve M writes to Birdman on Weekly Letter #487:]
Hello John,
I hope this note finds you well.
Years ago, I became interested in paranormal phenomenon and decided to write an article on Ivan Sanderson and his group in New Jersey. It was an eye-opening experience. Half an hour of one-on-one conversation all but reversed the impression I had previously formed based on watching and listening to many, many hours of TV and radio appearances.
In short, I became a skeptic and in the process made a study of all the topics you mentioned - UFOs to crop circles. Bottom line: While the universe is stranger than we imagine and very likely stranger than we can imagine, there really is no "overwhelming" support for the fantasy prone tales you listed.
I tell you this only because I respect your views and hate to see you going down a path that is most definitely a dead end.
[Birdman responds:]
Nice to hear from you, Steve -- was thinking about you the other day and wondering if I were going to have to send you another peanut in order to get your attention.
Anyway, I have been reading on ufos and other paranormal-type activity for many years, but my conclusions are the opposite from yours. I have read many of the skeptics; indeed, I have known some of them personally, and indeed if you read my book on Religion, Science and Superstition, you will find a debate between me on the one hand, and two of the CSICOP people on the other -- Phil Klass and Gary Posner -- where I wiped the floor with them. (If you are familiar with the literature, you know that Phil Klass is 'Mr Skeptic' when it comes to UFOs, and CSICOP is the Big Bertha of skeptic tanks). Personally I have no dog in the fight -- I am not looking for the Space Brothers to save us from ourselves, or any other quasi-religious thing -- so in this sense I am unbiased in he matter. But actually, the two most powerful arguments I have discovered are crop circles -- can you really believe that these things were created by a couple of guys from the pub with a board and some string? -- and the probability argument, which I elaborated in an article in the Mensa Bulletin, and which you can find in the book of mine I mentioned. (Mensa, btw, waited TWO YEARS before publishing it -- just too hot to handle, I guess). So I am a battle-scarred veteran of the UFO wars, but nobody has upset my equilibrium yet -- not even so formidable an opponent as yourself. Indeed, my personal opinion is that you relied on TV for your info -- intellectual junk food, most agree -- and then got buffaloed by a CSICOPian or other reptilian of the skeptic tank crowd who didn't bother to cite the opposition's arguments, but do what most so-called skeptics do best -- lie, lie, lie. Indeed, these guys DO have a dog in the fight, because they are desperately seeking a way to avoid acknowledging that their comfortable 'scientific' picture is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese with worms. To which I can only say, Swing low, sweet chariot.... Hey, do those negroes know something the white folks don't???? -j
[Steve replies:]
The PEAR project - as you know - had nothing whatever to do with Princeton University aside from occupying an office in the Engineering building. To say it was a "scientific" investigation is probably an assumption based on its proximity to a center of science. In any case, after almost 30 years and some $10 million in privately collected funding, they have come up essentially dry. Having been part of academia, I know full well how biased the system can be but I also know that truly significant results can't be ignored. They have a way of coming to light despite the greatest opposition. On a couple of occasions, I got some truly remarkable results. Unfortunately, I never got them a second time. Such anomalies are, alas, part of the process.
As for Corso and Marrs, one must consider the source. Corso's first person account of behind the scenes action at the highest levels of government is truly riveting...assuming you believe what he says. And Marrs is similar in that he's so tangled up in so many conspiracy theories that you have to wonder about his tendency to see mischief at every turn. Needless to say, both write for a living so it's not as though they don't have a good reason to tell a good story.
That some crop circles are "way too complex for a board-and-string" may well be so...but that doesn't make for an extraordinary event. It may simply be that you and I don't know much about making designs in wheat fields. A ship in a bottle looks impossible to me...but there it is.
When it comes to your having "out-classed both Klass and Posner" I don't doubt that but, then again, I wasn't there was I?
If you don't want to have this conversation, forgive my follow-up. It's just that when someone you respect says something you find puzzling, you just naturally want to sort it out. Perhaps we both ought to keep a more open mind when it comes to the paranormal. I know I'd be delight to hear of some really good evidence. Indeed, it would make my day.
[Birdman responds:]
Dear Steve:
Reading your letter is the first time that I have actually been induced to sit down and consider the subject of epistemology, ie, the philosophy of knowledge, which is to say, the subject of how we believe, and what we ought to believe. This is a huge subject, and it is also ultimately very subjective, and for those reasons I don't plan to give you any long answers. Instead I will just give you a few 'random remarks' as they come to me.
First, especially in the area of psi experiments, conclusions depend on probability theory. As Disraeli is famous for saying, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, and in my view it is this area which is ultimately the weakest, tho most people don't get into it because it takes a lot of brainpower. BUT...if you believe the statistics, then -- in my view -- you can't escape agreeing that psi phenomena exist. I can't understand why you reject the PEAR project's results, because they are -- as I understand it -- just about the most solid results in the field. I would guess you would have to look hard to find a credible critique, but prove me wrong if you care to. In any event, you did not actually cite any serious reason for your rejection of PEAR (having little relation to the University is not a serious reason, and may indeed be exactly the opposite), and my guess is that is because you don't have any.
Returning to epistemology, most people's worldviews are very narrow, with expectations of what is true equally narrow. So that means that they are strongly disinclined to accept 'wondrous' things. But the fact is that the most wondrous thing is the most undeniable: The existence of the universe, and of life and consciousness. When you think of wondrous things this way, it opens your mind a bit, and makes wondrous things such as psi seem as nothing and trivial.
Another matter which needs to be considered here is bias. For me, I have been an atheist since age 11, and have always had a scientific and mechanistic orientation (witness my book Systems Theory, which I began writing in my teens). But I am now a believer in the Wonderous Phenomena, so that says something about the power of the information I have encountered. And suggests also that you need to get better informed.
One further point is the quality of the critics, especially CSICOP. Some of these folks are fine people, Phil Klass for example, or James Oberg (who volunteered to sponsor my own investigative project with the group), and my former college roommate Barry Singer (yes, Jewish). (But Barry is slipping, for some time ago he declared his interest in hunting Bigfoot.) But others are skags. Paul Kurtz could use a shot or two of Old IQ; Martin Gardner is a bit narrow at the mind; James Randi is (according to the late Scott Rogo) a liar and faker (hey, isn't that what magicians are supposed to be?), and Stephen Barrett is just one of the most downright nastiest SOBs I have ever encountered. In addition, CSICOP is plagued with ugly incidents, from the investigation of Michel Gauquelin's Mars effect to the revolt of Marcello Truzzi and his supporters who founded a competing journal (The Zetetic Scholar) which unfortunately failed. And then there is the treatment of revisionism, which was introduced by my friend Lou Rollins to associate Robert Schaeffer, but got nowhere. AND -- if this doesn't clinch matters -- Gary Posner, and probably other CSICOPians, embrace the Official Government View of the JFK assassination! (We won't ask what they think of 911.) In short, a motley crew, but not one I would trust with my wife, much less my life.
As I am fond of saying to my critics, Steve, "You can lead a horse's ass to 'oughter' but you can't make him think." In this case, that's the View From Here.
Keep poppin' dem Viagras and don't be fuckin' any Niagras. -j
[Steve did not reply]
Freedom
isn't free! To insure the
continuation of this website and the survival of its creator in
these financially-troubled times, please send donations directly to the Birdman at
PO Box 66683, St Pete Beach FL 33736-6683
"The smallest good deed is worth the grandest intention."
Please
contribute today - buy our books - and spread the word to all
your friends!
Remember: Your donation = our survival!
* * * Back to the Home Page of John "Birdman" Bryant, the World's Most Controversial Author * * *