m wrote:
>> Lawrence R. Mead wrote:
> >
> > m (mbackues at micron.net) wrote:
> > : chkcorea wrote:
> > [much crap deleted]
> >
> > For you two crazy advocates of alien abduction, where are the purported
> > conscious abductions and in what medical/scientific journal were they
> > reported in?
> >
> > I didn't think so.
> >
>> The only scientific publication I read is _Science_, and no, they don't
> run reports of alien abductions. I also don't think that abductions
> have anything to do with intelligent non-human beings called 'aliens',
> though I'm not going to try to explain my perspective on this now. I do
> however have an observation to make about two assumptions contained in
> your question. The assumptions are:
>> 1) Advocates of alien abduction are crazy.
> 2) Reports of abductions lack credibility unless they appear in
> scientific or medical journals.
>> Clearly, no respectable scientific or medical journal would run papers
> written by people who are considered crazy, so it is not possible for
> reports of abductions to appear in such publications. The absence of
> such reports in such publications is then used to support the assertion
> that advocates of alien abductions are crazy.
>> A person could call this circular reasoning, though I wouldn't use the
> word reasoning this way.
>> ****
>> I do concur that many or even most people who are interested in or have
> been involved with 'abduction' experiences are missing a few screws, so
> to speak. Just as the people who want to get stoned are generally the
> ones who get stoned, the people who are fascinated by or fearful of
> 'paranormal' phenomena are generally the ones who get tangled up in it.
> The fascination itself involves a kind of insanity. The mental
> incompetence of many of those who have such experiences does not
> demonstrate that the experience is not 'real' however. This would be
> much like interviewing a few dozen prostitutes, finding out that they're
> not as mentally competent as most people, and then deciding that pimps
> don't exist. There is of course other evidence for the existence of
> pimps besides taking the word of prostitutes, but such evidence would
> not be found if the possible existence of pimps was dismissed before
> additional evidence was sought.
>> Personally, my assumption that pimps exist isn't based on physical
> evidence of their existence which I trust. I assume that they exist
> because I can predict their existence based on what I understand of
> human thinking. Everyone has to look for whatever kind of evidence that
> they themselves can trust however.
>> Mark
