When does something become not a pseudoscience?

Pseudoscience and the Paranormal
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We’re being asked to consider all kinds of crazy things from the highest levels of authority and academia.

This is an open and honest question in which I pose no definitive answers. I think for me it’s if the current President at the time is at the podium (or equal authoritative representative or body like the UN) definitively claiming “they’re here” or something like that Harvard study making definitive claims backed by the scientific method ready for peer review.

Is there a harm when it comes to evidence collection and investigation by calling something a pseudoscience while it’s being investigated by reasonable people with appropriate credentials? Where do you draw the line? Even things like bigfoot and telepathy are linked to some of the more “legitimate” investigations into UFOs/UAPs.

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Those ‘highest levels’ show that for once the politicians are more honest than academia. Harvard is engaging in pseudoscience.

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For me, in many cases, the difference between science and pseudo science is not the topic studied but who makes the study and how.

an anthropologist who studies magic is a scientist. An archaeologist who studies the ancient monuments of Egypt is a scientist. But a man who studies them and tries to demonstrate that they have been built by ET using magic is a charlatan.

[Robert Charroux - Wikipedia]

[Erich von Däniken - Wikipedia]

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Those ‘highest levels’ show that for once the politicians are more honest than academia. Harvard is engaging in pseudoscience.

I’m an amateur astronomer so this Harvard thread didn’t start with UFOs for me, but rather with the very first time we detected an interstellar item with Pan-STARRS in 2017. I would have fought you on everything up until the UAP investigations in this Galileo Project. When Avi Loeb was suggesting Oumuamua could be alien technology he actually had incredibly good scientific reasoning in a subject I understand reasonably well. In fact I still hold his hypothesis as having the strongest evidence out of all of them suggested even if I don’t think it’s really an alien space-sail.

The point is he was using the scientific method and having his results peer reviewed which frankly haven’t really been credibly challenged. If he can use his paper(s) (and now book) to get people to say, “Hey we could have flown a probe there and done good science and found out, aliens or not it’s an interstellar object acting weirdly” that to me is a job well done. As far as I can tell the biggest problem is for actual astrophysicists who are sick of talking about aliens. Tough cookies I say, if it gets probes on space rocks.

This UAP stuff though? I don’t know, part of me says it’s a bridge too far, part of me says if the government is asking us to take it seriously, this is who want telling us if it’s BS or not. It all depends on what they conclude, I guess. There is value in Harvard telling us the government is brainwashing us over aliens as far as I’m concerned.

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For me, in many cases, the difference between science and pseudo science is not the topic studied but who makes the study and how.
an anthropologist who studies magic is a scientist. An archaeologist who studies the ancient monuments of Egypt is a scientist. But a man who studies them and tries to demonstrate that they have been built by ET using magic is a charlatan.

But what about a guy like John Mack? The guy was asking us to believe in alien abductions. Where is the line? At what point does an un-provable, far-fetched hypothesis need re-examination at its root?

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His field of study is legitimate. As always in science, his conclusions are debatable. At least, even if he made methodological mistakes, he did not cheat.

What is interesting is that the paper shows that the way the people tell theirs encounters with the " out of the usual world " is shaped by their culture.

A first people member sees it as an encounter with a spirit, a middle age western man will tell of his encounter with an angel or a devil, or the virgin, or a saint from past times, and a modern man with an ET.

Probability that these people have really lived an experience is high.

It is not because they have lived such an experience that the way they tell it makes it true.

[Joan of Arc - Wikipedia]

And there are many crooks in the field.

[Carlos Castaneda - Wikipedia]

[Lobsang Rampa - Wikipedia]

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Just use Sherlock Holmes. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Harvard didn’t even eliminate the possible. The naturally possible. A single pixel with an oscillating light signature was NOT ET. The probability of somebody else’s space junk tumbling by and being detected, even tho’ it’s out there, is ten sigmas to the left. ʻOumuamua was at least 100m long. Nobody’s interstellar junk is that big by two orders of magnitude. There are at least ten dead alien probes drifting at 0.01%c in our galaxy, easily ten million. We’ll never, as in never, see one. As we will never, as in never, pick up a radio signal.

And only a woo powered ET ship can enter our atmosphere. That’s less likely than God.

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What is interesting is that the paper shows that the way the people tell theirs encounters with the " out of the usual world " is shaped by their culture.

That’s the weirdest thing, even in cases where you would expect witnesses to all have the same story if they were making it up, people have subjective experiences. It would lead one to believe that everyone is having a psychotropic experience or something similar. Like when everyone smokes weed and feels differently.

I forgive Mack in the end because his conclusions were, “they at least believe they’re having real experiences and I can’t account for some of the things they’re saying.” He never came out and went, “aliens are real, UFOs visit people regularly, JFK was shot because of aliens.” In the end it’s very clear he also came to it as a clinician, a caring one, which does matter when you judge someone on their merits I feel.

Just use Sherlock Holmes. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Harvard didn’t even eliminate the possible. The naturally possible. A single pixel with an oscillating light signature was NOT ET. The probability of somebody else’s space junk tumbling by and being detected, even tho’ it’s out there, is ten sigmas to the left. ʻOumuamua was at least 100m long. Nobody’s interstellar junk is that big by two orders of magnitude. There are at least ten dead alien probes drifting at 0.01%c in our galaxy, easily ten million. We’ll never, as in never, see one. As we will never, as in never, pick up a radio signal.

Man, trust me, I know the science on this one, it’s a lot more nuanced than that. This was an extraordinary object on many, many levels with features we still don’t understand. I’ll sit here and agree with almost everything you say on the UAP side but the chances of us seeing something like Oumuamua were minuscule, it sped up with no evidence of a natural propulsion and its dimensions are seemingly impossible for how we understand things.

There’s a huge difference between saying some alien civilization did something a million years ago and that’s passing through our system because life must be everywhere and saying, “an alien stuck a probe up my cow’s butt and then flew off at literal light speed.” It’s also a provable hypothesis, if we cared, which I think is a huge point of his. If it’s some kind of astronomical object we don’t understand, let’s go understand it! Oumuamua ain’t coming back!

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Hey matt, I trust science. Period. I trust you completely, but not in the same way.

What nuance?

What features?

The chances of us seeing something like Oumuamua are running at annual. They will increase with our detectors.

The fact that it sped up at perihelion is evidence of natural inherent propulsion from multiple natural mechanisms. Light pressure, outgassing and losing bits off the back of the truck. Nothing else is needed. Nothing else is possible: It’s been travelling from the direction of Vega, for entirely probabilistic reasons, in the Castor Moving Group for at least a quarter of a million years. Which does not mean it originated there.

No technology lasts 1% of that apart from stone buildings. Apart from woo of course.

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The chances of us seeing something like Oumuamua are running at annual. They will increase with our detectors.

Yes but we did the math before hand and have done a lot of space observing. The odds of this happening were something like 100-100,000,000:1 in comparison to what we expected to see. Part of attempting to account for it surely must include detritus from other life as it would be hubris to assume we’re alone, correct? Remember, “where is everyone” was Fermi’s reaction to his mathematical expectations, not some country side road account of a flying saucer.

The rarity of the object, at least in comparison to what we expected at the time definitely opens it up for every valid hypothesis. I would be less willing to give Avi Loeb the benefit of the doubt if he wasn’t the only one offering verifiable hypothesis rooted in logic and sound thinking for what we were seeing.

The fact that it sped up at aphelion is evidence of natural inherent propulsion from multiple natural mechanisms.

The only natural process we’re aware of that’ll increase velocity due to being closer to the sun are out gassing comets, there is no evidence of this gas.

Light pressure

The only objects we’ve ever observed that get pushed from light pressure to this degree are man made ones. In fact, we got real excited about an object pretty recently that was demonstrating similar incredibly odd behavior and that’s because it wound up being a staged Saturn-V rocket body from the 60s. (key point: man made)

losing bits off the back of the truck

You’ll need to explain this one. You don’t lose bits off the back of the truck in space, in fact because you’re in a micro-gravity situation anything that breaks off will re-coalesce around the larger object, not be left behind.

Nothing else is possible: It’s been travelling from the direction of Vega, for entirely probabilistic reasons, in the Castor Moving Group for at least a quarter of a million years. Which does not mean it originated there.

If you’re going to try and infer what a civilization with millions of years on us technologically will be doing with near limitless manufacturing potential, that’s where I’m out. We could speculate endlessly, doing what this is doing? If I had to write a story though, it’d be about an alien civilization who put relay probes into orbit, hundreds of thousands of them on similar interstellar orbital passes that came close to the inner planets and scanned them all. This would happen at acceptable intervals, likely in the 50-100 year range as clearly life needs close observation for technological breakouts.

But that’s a story.

Have you heard a good talk with Avi Loeb or read his book? This was the talk back in 2018, not really academic but also better than average “pop-sci” that got me on board with his “good science.” Since then I’ve followed his papers, the competing papers and his responses and I still hold all of his explanations as the best formulated and most plausible.

But that’s not how science works and if you asked me if I think it’s an alien artifact I’m going to say no. It’s still good science though and for me, this is how alien life would/could/should be discovered. Very different from this UAP stuff they’re now looking at.

The biggest problem with this UAP study is now we have to wait for evidence collection with finite resources. If Harvard is going to take on something that people are asking if it’s a pseudo science they need to either be 100% sure there’s some kind of proved hypothesis on the other side or jettison the issue quickly because the facts clearly indicate, not real. The “we’re not using US military sensors” is going to be crippling.

I’m telling you dude, if you dove into this subject you would feel a lot more like me demanding immediate answers and wanting people held accountable for the frenzy or immediate proof shown for these completely unbelievable claims.

This talk from a few days ago is believable, even to people like us because of the context of who he is, what he’s saying and the idea that all the US-politicians and intelligence directors are taking their lead from this guy specifically. But then again people like us understand what we’re being asked to look at and still say, “well this just has to be 100% bullshit.”

Someone has to account for this nonsense.

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The increase in velocity was about 40 mph. [At PERIhelion, my bad, on top of 200,000 mph. An increase of 0.2%, entirely due to natural causes as no unnatural ones avail after a voyage of millions and quite reasonably billions of years.]

Hardly woo.

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The increase in velocity was about 40 mph.
Hardly woo.

You’re putting me in an awkward spot of defending a hypothesis I’ve said I don’t agree with so poking holes probably isn’t going to yield a good debate.

I will say 40mph is extremely significant from several standpoints, especially when considering interstellar space travel. That 40mph is easily the difference between hitting the next system you’re supposed to or not, for instance. The other standpoint is the fact that it’s well outside the realm of what would be expected given what’s observed.

The latter is obviously the more scientifically compelling data but again, just because we have a good hypothesis doesn’t mean it’s the likely outcome. My point overall and I feel like a broken record isn’t that this actually was alien tech, but given our understanding of biology and cosmology it’s reasonable to consider these hypothesis as these are the kinds of things we expect to see based on our current understanding.

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There is no debate. You put yourself in that awkward spot using pseudoscience.

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There is no debate. You put yourself in that awkward spot using pseudoscience.

No, I’m trying to draw a line between two things that clearly fall on opposite sides of the line of pseudoscience or at the very least deserve distinctions in their gradations and thus wholly relevant to my question of when is a pseudoscience a pseudoscience.

Smattering of primary sources Oumuamua investigation/evidence/papers in extremely loose narrative order:

Smattering of primary sources for UAP nonsense:

So my current hypothesis in all of this is if you can’t look at the above and at least acknowledge the differences in approach then you may be purposefully being obtuse. Which is cool, that’s what debate is sometimes, I’m guilty of it every time I open my mouth so I’m not one to judge.

I guess what I’m trying to say is the former example is how I would expect for science to approach and validate extraordinary claims, through actual science representing hard working people dedicating their lives, degrees and meaningful reputations to do it. The latter costs no one of repute anything and adheres to no established standard of anything.

I’m not asking you to say Oumuamua was alien, I’m asking you to consider if it may be reasonable to hash out astrobiology in this manner, as opposed to on Fox News from a Trump DNI.

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There is no warrant whatsoever to include xenobiology in any circumstances until we develop woo. Or we land a probe on Europa that scoops up ice, drills a hole, samples water, as far down to the crust 100 miles below as possible and brings it home. On second thoughts - Kim Stanley Robinson’s perfect Aurora - DON’T bring it home.

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Dunno what to tell you if you’re not going to engage. The JWST is going up there in part to answer some of these questions and the next generation of space telescopes will be built for its specific purpose. If looking at celestial objects for signs of life bother you, buckle up, it’s the theme of astronomy for the next few decades.

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It can have no impact on SETI whatsoever and I’ve buckled down to rationality which says that we will never detect ETI despite the fact the universe crawls with it. It’s you who cannot engage with rationality. I can’t engage with irrationality. The JWST is for scientific research, not woo.

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It can have no impact on SETI whatsoever and I’ve buckled down to rationality which says that we will never detect ETI despite the fact the universe crawls with it. It’s you who cannot engage with rationality. I can’t engage with irrationality. The JWST is for scientific research, not woo.

You’re getting dangerously close to ad hominem. I keep trying to respond back in tone and bringing it back down but just want to call it out straight up. You’ll note with JWST I said “in part” and frankly if you wanted to break that down it’s that we didn’t really start detecting exoplanets until after it was hatched.

Do you think I’m making this stuff up? It’s been decided. This is what we’re doing with space telescopes in the near future. Here is NASA’s website stating not even “in part” but rather “one of the main uses of the James Webb Space Telescope will be to study the atmospheres of exoplanets”

None of them are claiming they’ll have a eureka slam dunk moment for life. All of them are good science and pieces of evidence towards a bigger picture.

We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one perhaps but you’ve shown yourself to be truly close minded which is vehemently anti-intellectual and without reason, my friend.

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There is no basis of disagreement. We have different rationalities. Oh, and what’s that in the final sentence? My mind is completely open to any intellectual proposition. Please make one. Please invoke one by anybody else who says that we can detect life outside the Solar system. Or will be able to using the laws of physics if we spend enough money on it: scale it up. Please publish any link by any credible source that can say how and when we’re going to get to a big enough telescope array, including radio to detect artificial radio, to analyse an exoplanet atmosphere or surface to prove life. All the above is empty handwaving. What have you got? What’s NASA got? What’s JPL got? Anyone? What will they have when? And not like economic nuclear fusion, forever 30, 20, 10 years asymptotically away.

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There is no basis of disagreement. We have different rationalities.

Mine is rooted in all of the great thinkers of the ages who have broken free from the yoke of ignorance who have continually proven themselves as the forefront of human knowledge of the natural world. It’s backed by the leading science organizations and institutions on the planet during a golden age of discovery doing the actual work.

The world is flat, no don’t check
The universe revolves around the Earth, no don’t check
Earth is 6000 years old, no don’t check
Life doesn’t exist anywhere but on Earth or we can’t detect it, no don’t check

Do you really want to be in that last category?

My mind is completely open to any intellectual proposition. Please make one. Please invoke one by anybody else who says that we can detect life outside the Solar system. Or will be able to using the laws of physics if we spend enough money on it.

This is where you’re losing me completely and why I’m saying you’re not engaging in the conversation in good faith. I never wanted to try and argue about any of the science I was bringing up. All I was trying to do was give two examples on the margins of pseudoscience to serve as a point of discussion on classification.

Your response to this discussion has been, “This is all nonsense, all search for life has been nonsense, all current search for life is nonsense and all planned future search for life is nonsense and I will stand here and disagree with everyone who says otherwise no matter the authority or Ph.D”

Are you starting to understand my frustration? I want your opinion as someone who does think Avi Loeb is wrong for pursuing this line of science, I was trying to get to peoples underlying opinions of it as a pseudoscience, in fact. But you can’t even acknowledge the difference between two completely unrelated items and instead lump them both together as equal and dismiss without serious consideration. You could have acknowledged the differences and still come to the same conclusion, but that was too much.

I keep saying I don’t believe this object was an alien artifact yet you keep trying to get me to argue that it is. My only position, the one I’m making an intellectual proposition about, is that these theories should originate from actual tenured Ph.D holding theorists from trusted institutions like Harvard with results that are openly debated among scholars. By refusing to acknowledge a single point about the evidence in the “pro” column on Oumamara and instead attacking the merits of looking for said life, you have doomed yourself as irrationally biased on the whole subject as how do we discuss what alien detritus would look like without discussing it?