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>I know the History channel is complete trash, but this series was apparently done in collaboration with MUFON. The history channel is not complete trash. They

>I know the History channel is complete trash, but this series was apparently done in collaboration with MUFON. The history channel is not complete trash. They have good experts on there and their productions are beautiful - what are you comparing them against? >These things are almost certainly worthy of study, but the entire field of interest needs to be completely cleansed of the woo and pseudoscience that plagues it. Yeah, the guy who invented Newtonian physics believed in an all-powerful Creator-God who created the world in a week or so. It would be fun to see you sit down with him and explain to him that the basis of his worldview was, in your opinion, 'woo'. >The other thing is that actual science isn't very sexy. Actual science also doesn't explain very much. It punts on the question of consciousness and on the question of ultimate things - the two most significant questions that a person seeking 'scienza' could probably ask.

cowboysauce 6y ago
>The history channel is not complete trash. They have good experts on there and their productions are beautiful The History channel uncritically presents any wild ideas that get them viewers. Here are some of the things they presented during an episode on Native Americans and aliens: * Native Americans are descended from aliens To start, I'm going to gloss over the unsavory implications of saying something that could be re-worded as "certain ethnic groups aren't fully human". They gave absolutely no evidence for this, no explanation as to why native Americans in particular and not Europeans or Asians. The entire thing reeked of the "noble savage" trope. Plus the ignorance in assuming that there weren't dozen of different native tribes. * Alien spacecraft use native reservations as refuges from the government because of existing treaties The evidence they gave for this was an eye-witness who claimed to see a craft that was being followed by a government helicopter, only for the helicopter to break off its pursuit after the craft crossed onto native land. So, these crafts can travel between stars, but can't outmaneuver a helicopter? Also, call me cynical, but I can't imagine that the government would deign to respect native treaties in such a situation. What could the tribal government even do to protest a violation of such treaties? Who would take them seriously? * Native Americans can telepathically summon/control UFOs, allegedly due to their alien heritage I'm an American and yet I can't summon predator drones. I can't even summon an Uber without a credit card. Seriously, what kind of authentication system is that? * The aliens gave the natives medical knowledge Except when it really matters, like during those smallpox epidemics. They couldn't even share knowledge about variolation? >Yeah, the guy who invented Newtonian physics believed in an all-powerful Creator-God who created the world in a week or so. It would be fun to see you sit down with him and explain to him that the basis of his worldview was, in your opinion, 'woo'. And yet you never see chemistry textbooks based on Newton's alchemical theories. You do see textbooks on Newtonian physics because the work that Newton started was empirically tested over centuries and when its predictions failed, new theories were created and empirically tested to supersede them. >Actual science also doesn't explain very much. Science explains the ebb and flow of the tides. It explains the dance of eclipses and the never-ending cycle of the seasons. What explanation comes from a psychic who claims to channel the spirit of a 10,000 year old alien who lived in Atlantis?

cowboysauce 6y ago

>The history channel is not complete trash. They have good experts on there and their productions are beautiful The History channel uncritically presents any wild ideas that get them viewers. Here are some of the things they presented during an episode on Native Americans and aliens: * Native Americans are descended from aliens To start, I'm going to gloss over the unsavory implications of saying something that could be re-worded as "certain ethnic groups aren't fully human". They gave absolutely no evidence for this, no explanation as to why native Americans in particular and not Europeans or Asians. The entire thing reeked of the "noble savage" trope. Plus the ignorance in assuming that there weren't dozen of different native tribes. * Alien spacecraft use native reservations as refuges from the government because of existing treaties The evidence they gave for this was an eye-witness who claimed to see a craft that was being followed by a government helicopter, only for the helicopter to break off its pursuit after the craft crossed onto native land. So, these crafts can travel between stars, but can't outmaneuver a helicopter? Also, call me cynical, but I can't imagine that the government would deign to respect native treaties in such a situation. What could the tribal government even do to protest a violation of such treaties? Who would take them seriously? * Native Americans can telepathically summon/control UFOs, allegedly due to their alien heritage I'm an American and yet I can't summon predator drones. I can't even summon an Uber without a credit card. Seriously, what kind of authentication system is that? * The aliens gave the natives medical knowledge Except when it really matters, like during those smallpox epidemics. They couldn't even share knowledge about variolation? >Yeah, the guy who invented Newtonian physics believed in an all-powerful Creator-God who created the world in a week or so. It would be fun to see you sit down with him and explain to him that the basis of his worldview was, in your opinion, 'woo'. And yet you never see chemistry textbooks based on Newton's alchemical theories. You do see textbooks on Newtonian physics because the work that Newton started was empirically tested over centuries and when its predictions failed, new theories were created and empirically tested to supersede them. >Actual science also doesn't explain very much. Science explains the ebb and flow of the tides. It explains the dance of eclipses and the never-ending cycle of the seasons. What explanation comes from a psychic who claims to channel the spirit of a 10,000 year old alien who lived in Atlantis?