I have to laugh. UFO bits, the web log of R. Lee (aka The Red Queen, aka, Natasha, aka–aka etcetera and so fourth.) She has yet another rant on Susan Clancy. This is I believe her third or fourth one.
Clancy’s certainly rubbed UFO believers the wrong way. Not surprisingly. Ms Clancy’s gotten a fair amount of hate mail and some rather extreme reaction because of her stance on this subject. R. Lee is one of the more sober, thoughtful voices in the UFO biz – which gives one an idea of what some of the lunatics might be saying.
For example;
(Lee;)
If one is talking about false memories purposelly induced for the experiment; telling someone they were hurt in a car accident that never happened, for example, then this makes sense.
But we don’t know the alien abductions “really” happened, or what happened, or how, where, it happened. Or, who (if anyone, or, thing) is behind it.
To use this false memory theory as the solution to the Alien Abduction Thang is, hmmm, well, snarky. (Hey, I’m not an academic, I can use goofy terms like that.)
Well Ms lee; Clancy doesn’t use false memory as a solution to the Alien Abduction Hypothesis. (Which doesn’t make much sense anyway.) She uses false memory as one *possible* explanation and states quite clearly that this is the most probable explanation, at least for the people she interviewed.
BTW, I thought Ms Lee as an academic herself would understand that, my mistake!
Anyway, R. Lee’s weblog article is all about ranting about Susan Clancy. Why? I ask.
Clancy wrote a book that’s why. She wrote a book about alien abduction but more specifically, it’s about people who believe they have been abducted by aliens. In her many interviews with alien abductees she’s concluded that they are probably making most of their stories up. That these people probably did not get abducted by aliens, no matter what they believe.
I mean, how dare someone even mutter such nonsensical unscientific crap?
Well, it actually is scientific to ask questions like. “How come we can find no evidence that alien beings have repeatedly gone into someone’s home when a local police department can prove conclusively that Uncle Harvey napped in your easy chair last Thursday and took a swig from your carton of eggnog? How come a forensic guy can detect a contusion from over ten years previously but can’t detect major invasive surgery by alien beings?
Is because there were no aliens?
That’s all Susan Clancy asked.
But, if I’ve learned one thing from the Red Queen, it’s that no one should ever ask such questions. Asking questions is like grinding up Indian sacred cows and serving them at the Calcutta MacDonald’s. You just don’t do it. In fact if you’re a skeptic you SHOULD just keep your damn mouth shut! Off with their heads! Do as I say and not as I do (swish –CRACKA!)
Even if asking questions is one of the cornerstones of scientific and engineering endeavors for real researchers and people who actually like to get to the bottom of things.
Am I right Red Queen?
Of course I am, you know it and I know it! And I’m a bad person because you believe it.
(BTW, I was going to just make a polite comment on your web log but you, um just erase them. So my longer, less polite comment is here. That’s what you get for covering your ears hon. )
(Lee)
“Hmm, well, I don’t “believe” in alien abductions. I don’t know what the hell is going on. But I do know that I’ve experienced some very weird things, that no one has answered for me: missing time, cover memories, and more.
So if I went to a hypnotist, which I’ve considered, it would be to find out what happened back then, whatever it was. What is wrong with wanting to find out what the HELL happened?
The debunkers and “skeptoids” of the world would prefer it if we all just went away. Kept quiet about all of this wiggly high weirdness.”
Actually no, I’m for one am delighted that believers keep the world in wiggly high weirdness. This would be such a dull place without you all!
I’m fascinated with weird junk too. I think UFOs are the coolest thing since the SR71. I think the idea that aliens might be visiting the Earth is extremely provocative and that big hairy-stinky hominids trot around our forests undetected is a fascinating idea.
(Clancy)
“In one New York Times article my research was labeled as biased and political, even though it was peer reviewed and published in reputable journals. I was attacked.”
(Lee)
“Ahem. Simply because it is peer reviewed by minds of similar thought – – there ain’t no such thing as alien abductions, damnit!” — doesn’t mean one can’t be critized, or, er, “attacked.””
This is true. It’s really OK to criticize but, let’s say I mention that someone has crazy colors on their page which distract from the content (such as it is.) That’s far different from saying the author is a jerk, a psycho or whatever. The first one is criticism, the second is an attack. The words biased and political are kind of prejudicial when reviewing a scientific piece, especially in the New York Times. Actually they are kind of rude, even in an op-ed piece. Remember we are not talking about Bob Lazar or Stanton Freedmen here (both of those guys are firmly in the UFO believer camp.) Clancy has a PhD and she is doing real work in her field, unlike well – those other two I mentioned.
She probably felt insulted, I certainly would! In any case, I saw nowhere in her book any statement that there is no such thing as aliens, simply that it’s very likely the abductees she interviewed had never encountered any. She doesn’t believe that aliens have ever visited the Earth because? There is no evidence that they have ever done so.
Yes, Clancy is skeptical about aliens but I ask, what’s wrong with that. It’s more open minded than believing, is it not?
Let me repeat that so the full extent of the indignation can sink in. People who believe that aliens abduct people tend to be closed minded of other possibilities while skeptics tend to be more open minded. Open minded to the possibilities that aliens could be here simply; they don’t see any good evidence.
See, when you believe in something no matter how good intentioned you are. You can no longer be open minded about it. A believer must go around and find evidence to support and validate their belief. A believer who claims that he or she is open minded is simply lying to themselves. You can’ believe and have an opened mind at the same time, the two are mutually exclusive.
In other words, were I to discover that there was good evidence to support the alien abduction idea I would immediately acknowledge that aliens are here abducting people. I am open to the possibility either way.
So, to make a long rant even longer.. I don’t have a problem with any woo-ish believer saying whatever they like. I might mock them, I might tell them they are full of crap and exactly why. But I will never tell them to shut up.. I will never tell them to go away.
That the Odd Emperor and you’re just,
.whoever the hell you are!
I have always thought the P/P’s (psychiatry/psychology) as being a fraudalant “science.” Imagine what Dr. Clancy would have said about the first man to say that the world was round back in 300 B.C., imagine what she’d say back in 500 A.D. when someone said that man would fly some day, imagine what she’d say today if someone said that our creators are E.T.’s and that they come and go while checking on their progress.
Hey, good comment!
I’m not a big fan of “P/P†fields either but you might want to do a little reading. See, at one (rather short) period in my life I became interested in becoming in becoming a Psychologist so I’ve done a bit of reading.
People tend to lump Psychology and Psychiatry together but they are very different. Psychiatry is a codified medical field, dealing with the hardware (really—wetware) of the brain. Psychology is more of a quasi science, not because they don’t do science well, because the human brain defies quantification. The human brain is extremely complex, has many redundant systems and is so plastic that it’s difficult to even map the areas where many functions take place.
But, this is what I find funny. Psychologists have to go to school. to get licensed. I belive there is a four year degree involved. If people (this is me thinking logically BTW) don’t like psychology because it’s junk science- pseudo-science or whatever, one would think that the same people would just despise say. Bud Hopkins. A man with no formal training (outside of some graphic arts degree) who psychoanalyses people and tells them that they were abducted by aliens? Does that seem right to you?
Regarding the historical stuff you mentioned, that’s kind of an appeal for the future and I don’t think it’s a terribly good argument. I pretty much know (or can imagine) what Clancy would say if someone said “our creators are E.T.’s and that they come and go while checking on their progress.â€
Same thing I would say.
Got any evidence?
Sorry, no evidence that would hold up in court, but millions of UFO sightings should be considered. As should the similarity of stories given by contactees indicating E.T.’s interest in our genetics. And as should the cuneiform tablets from Sumer that insisted that their creator “gods” were like you and me, and that they went up to heaven and back down to earth on a regular basis. Indeed, we were created in their “likeness.” As for Bud Hopkins, I think his books should be in the fiction department.
OK, but think about how you are presenting your argument for a moment.
1) No evidence means no proof QED.
2) “Millions of UFO sighting with no physical evidence is next to useless, we can’t say what people are seeing so how does one begin to quantify the data? A million pieces of bovine fecal matter is still poop no matter how you pile it. But, a single rose will always be a flower.
3) ET interest in our genetics? Don’t you think that going from “no good evidence†to declaring Extra Terrestrials not only exist on the Earth but you know what they are interested in is a huge- big mofuken logic jump?
4) What kind of gods do you think the Sumerians should’ve had? Weird Lovecraftian multi-tentacled monsters or human-like people? Most advanced classical societies populated their pantheons with human-like beings. Just like we do, nothing strange about that.
5) Bud Hopkins? Here I agree with you. With all due respect for the guy he’s not a trained shrink, his books are laughably unscientific and yet, he writes cannon for the UFO business. It would be funny if so many people (like Whitley Strieber IMO) had not been convinced that their half-remembered dreams etc.. were aliens. I think the guy has harmed a lot of people. He should be branded for what he is, a well meaning duffer who misdiagnosed people because he never went to freaking school and learned how to do it for real.
Now does this make me cynically against the idea that UFOs are alien space craft and all that? Certainly not! I’m excited by the idea but not excited enough to lie to myself about it, as so many other people have done. Science can and will get to the bottom of this whole thing but first, the UFO biz-religious-fantical-nutball-circus needs to step back and allow it to work.
Then they need to accept what the evidence tells us, not the other way around.
I found this post really educational. thankyou terribly much!