104 lines
6.7 KiB
Plaintext
104 lines
6.7 KiB
Plaintext
>> Fr. Lucien Kemble is a Franciscan friar living in Alberta, Canada.
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I am grateful to Jim Speiser for introducing me, via some lengthy and
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stimulating exchanges at the last two CSICOP conferences (Boulder and Pasa-
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dena), to this UFO debate. As an advanced and avid amateur astronomer and
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one who is keenly interested in and fairly well-read in many areas of sci-
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ence, I have followed the UFO controversies since their inception. I have
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also been interested in all phenomena of the natural world, as a Francis-
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can Friar and priest, follower of St. Francis of Assisi, sharing his great
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love for the physical universe. Drawing on scientific methods of critique
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and on the necessity of rational bases for what is called "faith", both
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scientific and religious, I have discovered a complementarity, not a con-
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tradiction, between science and faith. But that is another story.
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As regards the UFO debate: I think it absolutely necessary to make
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some important distinctions and to clarify usage of terms. I have been
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asked very frequently, "With your telescope and viewing of the heavens,
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have you ever seen any UFOs?" Without being facetious, I usually reply,
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"Yeah, lots of them. Why, just the other day I saw an unidentified bird
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flying down the valley. And once I saw a tiny, strange, periodic flashing
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in the sky for which I had no explanation." I know what is behind such
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questions - the universal confusion between UFO's and flying saucers or
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Extra-terrestrial Phenomena (ETP's). It needs repeating ad nauseum that
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UFO's are, by definition, precisely unidentified and therefore, even
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though they demand full examination, they ought not be, but usually are,
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identified via wishful thinking with an ETP, spaceship, alien visitations,
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etc.
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But, in spite of this persistent confusion, there ought to be always
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as full an investigation as possible, without an a priori acceptance or re-
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jection. Most people are usually let down when their supposed ETP is ex-
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plainable or explained simply in terms of a very natural, but to them un-
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familiar, down-to-earth phenomenon. To such people, rational, critical ex-
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planations are so much "taking the fun out of life." There is always room
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for "fun", but not at the expense of clear thinking.
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A second necessary distinction in this, as in other areas of inquiry,
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has to do with an ambiguous use of words such as "skeptic," "criticism,"
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"judgement," etc. Too often these and like words seem to carry, quite
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wrongfully, the idea of condemnation of a person. When the statement is
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made, "you are so critical!", it is usually meant as a reproach. In reali-
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ty it should be considered a compliment. True criticism, critique, is a
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quality whereby the critic uses his full powers of intelligent inquiry,
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taking nothing for granted or by gut reaction, feelings, etc., but who
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evaluates, weighs, judges. He takes into account all pertinent facts, ex-
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cludes all contradictory evidence, and at least tries to avoid personal
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feelings and interest, preconceived opinions, etc. One may have a so-
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called right to one's opinion, but that opinion becomes objectively valid
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only when it conforms to critically evaluated data.
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A third distinction has to do with weighing possibilities against
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probabilities against certitude. There are few of the latter, but one
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really gets into hot water, especially in the UFO/ETP debate, when one
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begins with a mere possibility and expands it, e.g. "Inhabited worlds are
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POSSIBLE. Therefore there are PROBABLY hundreds of more advanced civili-
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zations. Surely, then, ET's and spaceships HAVE to exist (CERTITUDE). A
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capital principle in logic is never to cross the border from one assertion
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to the next. A "possible" remains only that, and neither it nor a probable
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becomes a fact. To date, as regards UFOs being anything but naturally ex-
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plicable phenomena, there are no hard certainties or facts or, for that
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matter, even probabilities.
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A fourth clarification, and an important one, deals with things that
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can be known but not proven. Generally, knowledge is gained via three path-
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ways: evidence; rational proof from assured data or principles; faith, of
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any kind. Physical hands-on evidence is, of course, fundamental, provided
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illusion, sense-defective collecting of data, etc., are excluded. ET ori-
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gins of UFOs are out of the question so far, as regards hard evidence.
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Rational proof or intellectually critical evaluation, is of the utmost
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importance as a human pathway to truth. The third mode knowledge is the
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one that gives us trouble because of our western bias concerning an imag-
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ined faith/reason exclusivity and contradiction. But, looked at object-
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ively, most of our ordinary knowledge indeed comes to us via some kind of
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faith. St. Paul gives a good definition of faith by calling it the "sub-
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stance of things unseen, but hoped for or trusted in." As an example, I
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personally did not see Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon - all I did see
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was TV coverage of an event which now KNOW to be true. I take it on faith
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or trust in the reliability of TV networks (which can be verified). Such
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coverage can be reliable in this respect (in spite of so many other unreli-
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abilities of TV as truth purveyors. In short, the value of any knowledge
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gleaned through faith is going to be as strong as the reliability of my
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source. I may not fully comprehend all that I do believe, nor even be able
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to prove it for that matter, but I must always be ready with good reasons
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to prove WHY I believe. Anything less is gullibility. And the same applies
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to the opposite, i.e. one must back up one's rejection of any reported
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phenomenon with as solid reasons as one would want for acceptance.
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In the UFO/ETP debate, then, it would seem that there are two extreme
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camps: the fervent "believers" with nothing to really back up their asser-
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tions; the "scoffers" who dismiss without any real reasons for doing so.
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In this, as in so many other areas of supposedly extraordinary phenomena,
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one has to be open to full, unbiased research, sifting of facts, ridding
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oneself of bias one way or the other and, in general, trying to be as ob-
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jective as possible.
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In specific areas, the arguments against UFOs being ETP's and the
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option, for the time being, for their explanation as purely earthly, mater-
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ial phenomena, are many and convincing. But that's for another time.
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Respectfully submitted,
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LJK
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