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The first author is Avi Loeb, who thinks this: > In 2018, he suggested that alien space craft may be in the Solar System, using ʻOumuamua as an example. In 202
by botanical 3y ago
The first author is Avi Loeb, who thinks this:
> In 2018, he suggested that alien space craft may be in the Solar System, using ʻOumuamua as an example. In 2023, he claimed to have recovered material from an interstellar meteor that could be evidence of an alien starship, claims some experts criticized as hasty and sensational.
> On August 24, 2023, The New York Times published an article about Loeb and his search for signs of extraterrestrial life, and how he became the "world's leading alien hunter".
So take the claims with a spherule of salt
- Mystery-Machine 3y agoThanks for pointing that out! What are your thoughts on the latest UFO congressional hearing? Do you think these people just turned their careers and image to shambles because they just wanted some sensationalism or do you give people any benefit of the doubt?
- sixstringtheory 3y agoNot the person that you asked but I think they’re full of it. Maybe they like to believe that the American government is powerful enough to control beings in possession of technology capable of interstellar travel. I don’t buy it. Or the cheese is just sliding off their cracker. Happens to many otherwise very bright folks.
- spondylosaurus 3y agoI always think about how Ben Carson was one of the most skilled (if not the most skilled) neurosurgeons in the world, so knowledgeable about the human brain and so deft at operating on it that he was able to separate conjoined twins in a then-unprecedented procedure... and is also a creationist who believes that the Egyptian pyramids were biblical grain silos.
- istjohn 3y agoLinus Pauling is another example. The only person to ever receive two unshared Nobel prizes, considered one of the top 20 scientists of all time, and he was a huge proponent of megavitamin pseudoscience.
- spondylosaurus 3y agoOh man, I forgot about Pauling... another victim of Nobel disease: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease
- defrost 3y agoYet another disease not directly susceptible to deworming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin#History
- waihtis 3y ago"Nobel prize winner and superior neurosurgeon criticized as quacks by two internet users" Perhaps the reason they could stretch their domain expertise so far was precisely because they kept their mind open. "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." - Einstein
- defrost 3y agoDo please try and avoid (deliberate?) bad paraphrasing. Both were widely recognised as more than a bit kooky outside of their core strengths. "When a mind is opened that far, the brain often falls out." - Tim Minchin.
- waihtis 3y agoYou are making exactly the same point I was making. * sans the quote from a random comedian
- 3y ago
- junofan 3y agoYeah but wasn’t Grusch at the NRO investigating UAP? Seems like whistleblowing on UAP is within his domain expertise.
- s5300 3y ago>> that he was able to separate conjoined twins in a then-unprecedented procedure... Didn’t the twins like. Die? This is always brought up. Ben Carson separating twins. But like. They died. Multiple sets of conjoined people he operated on died I think. Why do people always bring this up without mentioning that the twins died To the best of my knowledge Ben Carson is and always has been a giant self aggrandizing douche who definitely has and had equals in his field
- maxbond 3y agoAccording to Wikipedia[1], one of them did survive (but was "profoundly disabled" and "never learned to speak or feed himself") but yeesh, it doesn't seem like a huge success, and their mother regrets electing for the surgery - which makes it seem like the doctors believed they would have survived and lived a reasonably normal life (under the circumstances) without the surgery. If that's the case, then it seems like a total ethical violation to even offer the surgery. But maybe that isn't so and it's her trauma talking there, I don't really know. Carson's Wikipedia article [2] mentions several other sets of twins, one operation resulting in a "normal neurological state," 2 resulting in the death of both twins, and another resulting in one dying and the other being "legally blind and [struggling] to walk." I don't know what to make of all that, but you're right, that is more murky than the narrative I've heard previously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_and_Benjamin_Binder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_and_Benjamin_Binder [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Carson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Carson
- spondylosaurus 3y agoI know with the Iranian twins who died (adult conjoined sisters), they were advised that it was a super risky procedure but wanted to go through with it anyway. Some of the other twins he's operated on had mixed results (i.e., one twin thrived but the other didn't, or both only lived a few years after being separated), but I think at least a few pairs have done pretty well. My understanding is that separating craniopagus twins has a pretty high risk of complication/failure, even when you know what you're doing. I also know for a fact that Carson's pioneered hemispherectomy as treatment for severe childhood seizures, and some of those kids are now happy and healthy adults: https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/jessie-hall-medical-miracle-half-brain-removed-johns-hopkins/ https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/jessie-hall-medical-m... Don't get me wrong, I don't like the guy as a politician. But he knows his way around a brain.
- adolph 3y ago> . . . Ben Carson was one of the most skilled (if not the most skilled) neurosurgeons in the world . . . and is also a creationist who believes that the Egyptian pyramids were biblical grain silos. There is something to be said about applying Gell-Mann amnesia more broadly than journalism alone. In a speech in 2002, Crichton coined the term "Gell-Mann amnesia effect", after physicist Murray Gell-Mann. He used this term to describe the phenomenon of experts believing news articles written on topics outside of their fields of expertise, yet acknowledging that articles written in the same publication within their fields of expertise are error-ridden and full of misunderstanding. . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- EdwardDiego 3y agoConspiracy theories that require large numbers of public servants working in concert effectively and stealthily, without any leaks or whistleblowers, are presumably created by people who have never worked in the public service. > Or the cheese is just sliding off their cracker. Happens to many otherwise very bright folks. IIRC, as your intelligence gets higher, the friction of your cracker lowers.
- hindsightbias 3y agoHN has taught me that Gov’t is utterly incompetent in every domain and that the MSM all a propaganda organ. Except of course when the Venn diagram of what I Want To Believe intersects.
- colordrops 3y agoManhattan Project, and many NSA projects until Snowden. You also don't know about the projects that didn't leak. You are basically saying that security clearance is worthless. It is indeed possible and there is a lot of precedent for large projects with long life spans that didn't leak. The "government" isn't a monolithic entity. It contains individuals and groups of a range of competencies.
- EdwardDiego 3y ago> Manhattan Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs Won't point out all the double agents for the KGB that infested western spy agencies, (and vice versa) it's more of the same, really, and there's too many names to type. And those are only the ones we know of... But yep, the NSA is a good counterexample, however also a poor one as they primarily operate in the signals/digital space, where passive monitoring is the default, and where paper trails are far easier to not leave. As a thought experiment, extrapolate from the NSA to "the Bush administration did 9/11, jet fuel can't melt steel, it was a controlled demolition" conspiracy theory that implicitly requires government agents lining massive skyscrapers with explosives without being noticed, without anyone having a moral crisis, especially no-one in the "crash a plane allegedly filled with American citizens into a building in New York" division. And you'll quickly see how the NSA's quiet operations in the small don't scale to the level of competent and silent government required for faking a moon landing, or ensuring no-one knows about aliens amongst us etc etc.
- tptacek 3y agoSome things to keep in mind about these UFO hearings: 1. The reports are all second- and third- hand. To my knowledge, no DoD employee has testified to anybody in Congress that they personally witnessed extraterrestrial technology or "biologics". 2. The exception here is a "Jonathan Grey", who hasn't testified before Congress, or, for that matter, been identified; he's one of David Grusch's sources, under a pseudonym. 3. Some of the people testifying believe a lot of other things besides this UFO stuff --- Grusch for instance has peculiar beliefs about interdimensional travel, and is also certain that the Vatican is deeply involved in this cover-up. 4. We know about Grusch's testimony because the Pentagon cleared it, where "it" refers to what would be the single most significant military secret ever held by the government of any country.
- UncleOxidant 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lamontcg 3y ago> Do you think these people just turned their careers and image to shambles because they just wanted some sensationalism or do you give people any benefit of the doubt? They can also very earnestly believe what they do and simply be wrong. You're setting up a false dichotomy where someone must either be a deceptive charlatan or else be correct. Third possibility is deeply held and incorrect belief. Stockton Rush believed very earnestly in his submersible, he wasn't a simple charlatan, he really had earnest beliefs about it and he literally bet his life on it. He is also dead now because physics decided to show him that he was just wrong. There's no reason to doubt that Lee Sukbae and Kim Ji-Hoon thought they really had a room temperature superconductor, but they were wrong.
- netsharc 3y agoIf only congress doesn't already have plenty of people who are actually making careers out of shaping their own image to be grotesque sensationalist monsters... (Depending on which side you view them from)
- retrocryptid 3y agoNo. UFO evidence provided to congress is bunk. I know this because before we came to your planet from Zeta Reticuli, we made sure to build spacecraft that would be indistinguishable from optical artifacts produced by classified targeting systems of your primitive air vehicles.
- wredue 3y agoSince when has personal risk ever stopped people from doing things, especially clearly mentally ill people.
- civilitty 3y agoThe Chief Scientist of US Space Operations Command "confirmed that the velocity estimate reported to NASA is sufficiently accurate to indicate an interstellar trajectory" [1] using "additional data available to the Department of Defense" which I assume is classified. As far as I can tell this paper isn't making any extraordinary claims about extraterrestrial intelligence [2] (which Loeb is infamous for), it's just confirming that the chemical composition - the ratio of beryllium, lanthanum, and uranium specifically - doesn't match any known minerals or alloys in our solar system. There are thousands of known minerals so it's not out of the question that they're wrong. [1] https://twitter.com/US_SpaceCom/status/1511856370756177921 https://twitter.com/US_SpaceCom/status/1511856370756177921 [2] The second to last sentence notwithstanding: "Another possibility is that this unfamiliar abundance pattern may reflect an extraterrestrial technological origin."
- thekevan 3y agoOther still disagree that the evidence claiming the object was interstellar is a done deal. >Skepticism about the endeavor flared at a recent Asteroids, Comets, Meteors Conference that occurred while the deep sea expedition was underway. There, Dr. Desch argued that had the fireball been moving as fast as reported, there would have been nothing left to find Also: >Dr. Brown also presented at the conference, describing a recent analysis using data from an assortment of instruments to crosscheck measurements for 17 of the objects listed in the same NASA fireball catalog used by Dr. Loeb and Mr. Siraj. His results, which have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, indicate that the catalog data often gets directions and speeds wrong and that the size of the error for speed measurements increases for objects with greater speed. July, 2023: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/24/science/avi-loeb-extraterrestrial-life.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/24/science/avi-loeb-extrater...
- pyinstallwoes 3y agoSo he’s arguing that with a certainty of 9.9999% they’re still mistaken? Anyone want to help the math on that?
- StackOverlord 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pyinstallwoes 3y agoExcuse me? Take a scientific report with measurements with a grain of salt? Why must an opinion cloud a scientific observation of collected measurements? Put the salt away.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoI would hope all science is always taken with a grain of salt, that’s the hallmark of science.
- madaxe_again 3y agoThe guy believes he has been spoken to by aliens in his dreams. Unfortunately this means pretty much anything he authors can be safely disregarded as the ramblings of someone in need of psychiatric care. These nodules are the result of terrestrial geology.
- z7 3y ago>The guy believes he has been spoken to by aliens in his dreams. Source?
- hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago> The guy believes he has been spoken to by aliens in his dreams. What defines a good scientist is an open-minded attitude and going beyond the accepted status-quo. Who knows, maybe some aliens really contacted him in his dreams? But a scientific study has its rules anyway, and if methodology is correct, the author can believe in a spaghetti monster.
- tsimionescu 3y agoAnyone can lie, and someone who believes extraordinary things may well be more likely to do so, even to themselves. So, based on the author's reputation, it could well make sense to apply more or less scrutiny to a paper.
- Karellen 3y ago> Let us keep our minds open by all means, as long as that means keeping our sense of perspective and seeking an understanding of the forces which mould the world. But don’t keep your minds so open that your brains fall out! There are still things in this world which are true and things which are false; acts which are right and acts which are wrong, even if there are statesmen who hide their designs under the cloak of high-sounding phrases. -- Prof. Walter Kotschnig, 1940
- uptie 3y agoYou're poisoning the well for what reason?
- adolph 3y agoThere's poisoning the well and there's tempering expectations. I think the parent comment is more of the latter in that is speaks to the author's other works that are announced with great hype but haven't played out as definitively as the early hype claimed. This is a problem everywhere and acknowledging that this author in particular is a standout isn't a terrible thing--they just might be right this time.
- jdiff 3y agoThe well was "poisoned" by Avi. He makes similarly unfounded leaps in this instance, as he has in very many instances in the past. There's no foul play here, just the reputation he has earned for himself.
- sproketboy 3y ago[dead]