I've seen a few things in my life I couldn't explain including something most people would call a ghostly apparition. Our brains are surprisingly bad at processing information it doesn't understand. Sometimes you just need to be willing to investigate closer because the ghost I briefly saw turned out to be a shadow cast from a tree that resembled a human form and my brain saw a man wearing a hat and a trenchcoat standing over my bed.

@paul1967 yes, often the things turn out to be something perfectly normal. I once had all my hair stand on end because outside my window at 2 AM was the devilish sound of a demon .. a real DEMON ! - which turned out to be a Possum. I was new in New Zealand and had never heard one before. They would really make a good sound track for demons. Now I have one of those in my ceiling, I never once thought it was a ghost.

@ZebZaman Not to be critical but you said "often the thing turns out to be something entirely normal, but I would say it's always something perfectly normal. Sometimes we fail to ascertain what the natural answer is, but when that happens, we should say something occurred, I just don't know what it was, and stop at I don't know, instead of adding to it with so that was a ghost or demon or Alien spacecraft.

@paul1967 except when air force pilots and people working the radar and all say they saw crafts not of human or known origin, with behaviours quite outside the range of what is deemed possible by our technology. I take their word for it . Not like LSD addled hippies mistaking a garden gnome for an elf. But I'm certain this line of mine will not change your mind. I wish people would be more open to things outside their normal reality. Watch "disclosure" and tell me they are all paid actors and lying ... na, I don't think so.

@ZebZaman No, I agree that they're not paid actors. You talk about being open-minded and I want you to open your mind to this and let me know how you feel about what I'm saying. There is a big a leap from saying not human to Alien spacecraft. People are prone to making fallacious statements, and this one is called the argument from ignorance. Basically, it's saying it must be "this" because I can't think of anything else it could be. Something is traveling in a way we can't explain. It appears to be traveling in a manner that can't be explained by human technology. What is it? Ask yourself, does an object that can move faster than human technology mean aliens are aboard flying around in our airspace? Have all other known and unknown possibilities been examined? Maybe it is space aliens, I'm not saying it's not, What I am saying is, I have no reason to believe it is. I don't know what it is because I have nothing to base that on. I don't believe in God for the same reason.

@paul1967 yes.

@ZebZaman I swear I'm not trying to harass you at all I just don't understand what you mean by Yes.

@paul1967 if you see something you cannot explain with the parameters known to you, it is better to say: I don't know what it is, rather than give it another sort of reasonable label. We are trying to keep our world in some sort of order. so, labels of sorts are a crutch to manage our reality. I agree we should not jump to conclusions. But we may disagree on how much science (popular science at that) has fully explained.

@ZebZaman Well, all I can say and I will leave it at this, I think the point your missing is that it has nothing to do with how much or how little science knows. It has to do with how we go about trusting what is valid to believe and what is what we want to believe. Is there a good reason to accept aliens are flying around Earths atmosphere? Do we have any examples of aliens or their spacecraft? Finally, I'll ask, is this something I want to be true? Or is it true for valid reasons? I see no reason to conclude that it is, even though I would very much like it to be true. I really think this is the fundamental difference between people who believe in a God and people who don't. Faith is a poison for the mind, and it cripples our ability to reason. I thank you for the conversation and if you have anything you want to add I'm here.

Going off on a tangent here but... Anti vaxxers often have good reason to distrust the medical community. Look at the opioid epidemic for instance. It's literally been brought about by doctors giving patients medicine to "help" them and it's ruined millions of lives. Then you have that big scandal recently about how.much data has been falsified on scientific research for decades. The general public has no good reason to trust the medical community,researchers included, as we all are aware that profit always trumps our personal well being. Now their grasp of science and the scientific method may be shaky but I think they see which way the wind is blowing and are simply doing what they can to fight back against a faceless, uncaring juggernaut.

That isn't a good reason. A good reason is the evidence support vaccines do real harm, in particular compared to the good they do.

They have a great reason to trust them on this, the evidence is FUCKING ROBUST. And if they had good bullshit detectors they'd know all this was true.

You demonstrate exactly the need for good critical thinking skills, so the public not be deceived.

@Blindbird or they could just be paranoid crackpots. How can you believe vaccines don't work (not you, personally) when you see how many people died of influenza, small pox, polio, whooping cough, mumps, et al before and after vaccines were developed for them?

@Blindbird I read a lot of things on the Internet and I find it very difficult to determine what is correct and what is just BS. Where do we go from here?

@ScottAHurst the point is that they don't trust the people publishing the studies or the doctors administering the vaccines. If you want people to believe you,you have to be ethical and honest.

@dc65 With the deepest sincerity I can muster, pick up a copy of "Demon Haunted World" and read it. It isn't the last stop in critical thinking, but it's an amazing beginning.

This is literally the mental toolkit to solve that problem. Your skills at detecting BS will improve immensely. It's the greatest self-help book that ever existed. Truly.

@Blindbird Ethical and honest results are crapped on by wing nuts every day.

The problem is that tools to know who you should trust are not taught in school. Or rather what to trust, no ONE is to be trusted. But figuring out which of competing ideas best comport with the evidence best discovers the truth regardless of the messenger.

That Fox News exists at all is a testament to how badly the US needs a giant dose of formal skepticism.

@ScottAHurst I absolutely agree that critical thinking should be taught earlier and more aggressively in schools. Unfortunately public education seems geared towards grinding out obedient workers and not much more.

a short-circuit in the neural pathways and our brains are not perfect they malfunction

Well said.

because God or gods is part of the supernatural world so probably if one exists other should exist or vice versa. As we understand the brain better these kind of questions will be answered.