The problem with Iron is that it's inflexible - hardly the stuff of which true skeptics are made. True skeptics are more like quicksilver - always moving, always searching, always willing to look at new evidence, and always open-minded.
As Sakulich's latest reveals, "Iron" is exactly the right description for his type of "skepticism."
"A stunning survey of the latest evidence for intelligent life on Mars. Mac Tonnies brings a thoughtful, balanced and highly accessible approach to one of the most fascinating enigmas of our time."
--Herbie Brennan, author of Martian Genesis and The Atlantis Enigma
"Tonnies drops all predetermined opinions about Mars, and asks us to do the same."
--Greg Bishop, author of Project Beta
"I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in the search for extra-terrestrial artifacts, and the political intrigues that invariably accompany it."
--David Jinks, author of The Monkey and the Tetrahredron
"Mac Tonnies goes where NASA fears to tread and he goes first class."
--Peter Gersten, former Director of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy
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(Includes my essay "The Ancients Are Watching.")
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3 comments:
IMHO, real experts like Paul K. shouldn't waste their time on intellectual small fry like Sakulich. Too easy, for one thing. (AT any rate Paul K. certainly makes it LOOK easy!) I'd rather see him go after a big fish in the SETI pond lie Seth Shostak. These "mainstream professional scientist" types are the ones doing the most damage to the cause of taking the UFO phenomenon (or UAPs) seriously anyway -- researchers like Harvard psycologist Clancy, our old friend Seth, et al., not science journalists (or whatever) with a tenuous grasp of facts and logic at best. Still, I did like the challenge at end. I'm sure Paul K. would mop the proverbial floor with Sakulich.
On the other hand, isn’t it strange when people go after others for saying in effect, “hey; there’s really a lack of evidence thing going on here, don’t you think?”
Take Clancy for instance, what drove her conclusions? Was it emotion and the insistence of a thousand screaming abductees or a systematic analysis of data leading to a prosaic conclusion? You need not agree with her but at least she’s doing the work. If she returns disagreeable conclusions, is it the messenger’s fault? Is it her methods or could it be the data itself?
You need not agree with her but at least she’s doing the work. If she returns disagreeable conclusions, is it the messenger’s fault? Is it her methods or could it be the data itself?
I agree about her doing the work, although by the title, her book would seem to be aimed as a kind of putdown of John Mack's previous book on abduction cases. In fact, this is really my problem with mainstream researchers like Clancy -- they always seem to have an ax to grind; specifically, their primary motivation for the research seems to be to "debunk" an entire field (in this case, the abduction area of Ufology). I grant you that it sounds as though Clancy has actually done some interesting work, and I think it at least provides a useful benchmark against which to measure abduction experiences. However, at the same time, based on her public pronouncements about her research, the thrust of it does seem to be to dismiss the possibility that abduction experiences result from real encounters with nonhumnan entities (of whatever provenance). That kind of motivation stems from scientism, the essentially (and paradoxically) metaphysical belief that the material universe is the sum total of existence, and not science as a method and (only one) way of knowledge.