What you're saying sounds completely uncontroversial[1] to me, but there are several claims in here that are impossible or really difficult to validate. I see c

What you're saying sounds completely uncontroversial[1] to me, but there are several claims in here that are impossible or really difficult to validate. I see claims like this a lot, and they are often of the shape "most people x" or "the vast majority of x y". The only time that these claims can be anything other than gut feelings is the case where the speaker is somehow aware of all of the events in the set. Something like "I took 100 samples and 99 of them met the conditions". This is going to seem pedantic, and I think you'll get a pass from people with the same preconceptions who don't habitually ask "do I really know this?". > Most people have a preconception that aliens do not exist, for example. Testable hypothesis, and one I might assume myself. Is it true? Realistically, I have no clue, and I have no reasonable way to judge whether you do either. > the vast majority of human beings (not all) have not had an experience involving extraterrestrials, nor do they trust another human being who has Same as above. I think it's incredibly difficult to know much of anything specific about "the vast majority of human beings". And then the ambiguity on what constitutes "the vast majority" makes it more of a quagmire. There are billions of us. A fraction of a percent is vast. The vast majority might as well be infinity when it comes to our ability to know things about it. Would you agree? I think these claims would be much more robust if you put some constraints on them: ie the vast majority of people in my social circles/media consumption that I trust to have shown me what they really believe. But you'd sound a little kooky if you said that, and it wouldn't be that powerful of a statement. All that said, I believe your conclusions. I just have a fascination with picking at people's (and my own) confidence in uncontroversial claims that are hard to substantiate. [1] My favorite types of things to poke at, which probably does make me a bit of a kook. Edit: I have tried to eliminate "most people x" and "the vast majority of x y" from most of what I write for these reasons. It still comes out inadvertently sometimes. Edit2:I missed one: "most of the time it serves us really well". Same comment.