4 ms·

It's certainly possible to disprove they are alien. By not ruling it out, it's saying there is no present evidence to reject that hypothesis, which is a meaning

by gfodor 5y ago

It's certainly possible to disprove they are alien. By not ruling it out, it's saying there is no present evidence to reject that hypothesis, which is a meaningful thing to say. It would be trivially rejectable if we had any intel it was another country, for example.

WalterBright 5y ago
You have no evidence that Joe Biden is not a pod person. Is that a meaningful thing to say?
- tzs 5y ago
  Actually, I have evidence that Joe Biden is a pod person! The statement "Joe Biden is a pod person" is logically equivalent to the statement "All things that are not pod persons are not Joe Biden". I've examined tens of thousands of things that were not pod persons and none of them were Joe Biden, thus providing evidence for the second statement, and hence for the first statement. (For those curious about this kind of evidence, it is called the Raven paradox [1]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox
- gfodor 5y ago
  No, but if you assume the closure of explanations which includes "aliens" or "pod people" are interesting enough, failing to rule those out is meaningful, despite the fact it doesn't imply a specific conclusion is true (like aliens or pod people) If we could disprove Joe Biden was a human, and couldn't disprove he was a pod person, alien, ghost, or leprechaun, that indeed would be an interesting set of conditions.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Maybe you should alert CNN to the fact that science hasn't yet ruled out the possibility that Joe Biden is a pod person.
    - gfodor 5y ago
      Your snark is duly noted, thank you for your contributions.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        You're welcome!
- tombert 5y ago
  We absolutely have evidence that Joe Biden is not a pod person (just not absolutely "proof"). No one has ever demonstrated the existence of pod people (assuming that by "pod person" you mean 1950's-esque scifi comics pod people), and we've seen lots of evidence that Joe Biden is a human. Since we know humans exist, but we don't have any reason to believe that pod people exists, that does serve as evidence that Joe Biden is not a pod person. I feel like you're purposefully conflating terms here.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > I feel like you're purposefully conflating terms here. Not at all. But go ahead and believe those fuzzy blobs (pictures of UFOs are somehow always fuzzy blobs) are aliens if you like. Do you know why the UFO pictures are always fuzzy blobs? Because if they were clear pictures, we'd recognize they are birds/balloons/drones/Venus/whatever.
    - tombert 5y ago
      > But go ahead and believe those fuzzy blobs (pictures of UFOs are somehow always fuzzy blobs) are aliens if you like. I think you might have gotten your usernames mixed up. I said I don't think they're aliens. I don't disagree with you, I think every case of "alien" sightings are probably either camera artifacts or experimental aircrafts or people not knowing about how plane lights work.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Do you think this merits credulous attention from "serious" news media? Maybe, if they put it in their "Today's Horoscope" section. After all, can't rule out astrology being true, either.
        tombert 5y ago
        > After all, can't rule out astrology being true, either. It can (and has) actually. Whenever astrology has been tested, it has failed to hold any predictive properties. As such, it can be ruled out. You know this, because if you didn't then you wouldn't have used astrology as an example. > Do you think this merits credulous attention from "serious" news media? "Merits" is a loaded term and I don't think either of us are qualified to know what that means, but I'll take a shot at it. This was an officially requested report by government officials that was requested by congress and a sizable chunk of the public. The report was released. People are interested in what the report has to say. If the news is there to report on what people find interesting, it certainly has met that criteria. Now, what differentiates this from something like "The Weekly World News"? I think mostly who requested and released the report. This wasn't just some quack on Joe Rogan or Twitter or something, this was the United States Military: the most powerful and most-funded military on the planet. I really do not think this is hard to parse, but just to be clear, here's an example: If I broke my leg tomorrow, and CNN reported on it, I would think "jeez, must be a slow news day". If Joe Biden broke his leg tomorrow, it would not be weird at all for CNN to report on it.

by gfodor 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

You have no evidence that Joe Biden is not a pod person. Is that a meaningful thing to say?

tzs 5y ago
Actually, I have evidence that Joe Biden is a pod person! The statement "Joe Biden is a pod person" is logically equivalent to the statement "All things that are not pod persons are not Joe Biden". I've examined tens of thousands of things that were not pod persons and none of them were Joe Biden, thus providing evidence for the second statement, and hence for the first statement. (For those curious about this kind of evidence, it is called the Raven paradox [1]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox
gfodor 5y ago
No, but if you assume the closure of explanations which includes "aliens" or "pod people" are interesting enough, failing to rule those out is meaningful, despite the fact it doesn't imply a specific conclusion is true (like aliens or pod people) If we could disprove Joe Biden was a human, and couldn't disprove he was a pod person, alien, ghost, or leprechaun, that indeed would be an interesting set of conditions.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Maybe you should alert CNN to the fact that science hasn't yet ruled out the possibility that Joe Biden is a pod person.
  - gfodor 5y ago
    Your snark is duly noted, thank you for your contributions.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      You're welcome!
tombert 5y ago
We absolutely have evidence that Joe Biden is not a pod person (just not absolutely "proof"). No one has ever demonstrated the existence of pod people (assuming that by "pod person" you mean 1950's-esque scifi comics pod people), and we've seen lots of evidence that Joe Biden is a human. Since we know humans exist, but we don't have any reason to believe that pod people exists, that does serve as evidence that Joe Biden is not a pod person. I feel like you're purposefully conflating terms here.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > I feel like you're purposefully conflating terms here. Not at all. But go ahead and believe those fuzzy blobs (pictures of UFOs are somehow always fuzzy blobs) are aliens if you like. Do you know why the UFO pictures are always fuzzy blobs? Because if they were clear pictures, we'd recognize they are birds/balloons/drones/Venus/whatever.
  - tombert 5y ago
    > But go ahead and believe those fuzzy blobs (pictures of UFOs are somehow always fuzzy blobs) are aliens if you like. I think you might have gotten your usernames mixed up. I said I don't think they're aliens. I don't disagree with you, I think every case of "alien" sightings are probably either camera artifacts or experimental aircrafts or people not knowing about how plane lights work.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Do you think this merits credulous attention from "serious" news media? Maybe, if they put it in their "Today's Horoscope" section. After all, can't rule out astrology being true, either.
      - tombert 5y ago
        > After all, can't rule out astrology being true, either. It can (and has) actually. Whenever astrology has been tested, it has failed to hold any predictive properties. As such, it can be ruled out. You know this, because if you didn't then you wouldn't have used astrology as an example. > Do you think this merits credulous attention from "serious" news media? "Merits" is a loaded term and I don't think either of us are qualified to know what that means, but I'll take a shot at it. This was an officially requested report by government officials that was requested by congress and a sizable chunk of the public. The report was released. People are interested in what the report has to say. If the news is there to report on what people find interesting, it certainly has met that criteria. Now, what differentiates this from something like "The Weekly World News"? I think mostly who requested and released the report. This wasn't just some quack on Joe Rogan or Twitter or something, this was the United States Military: the most powerful and most-funded military on the planet. I really do not think this is hard to parse, but just to be clear, here's an example: If I broke my leg tomorrow, and CNN reported on it, I would think "jeez, must be a slow news day". If Joe Biden broke his leg tomorrow, it would not be weird at all for CNN to report on it.