Guest DWA Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 (edited) He was drawing lines in the sand trying to force it to remain something safe for science: just an upright ape. Where the discussion really went off track was talking about the waves of fear people report. He was very insistent this was a result of pheromones. All I did was ask how a chemical could be causing these light-switch off/on fear/no-fear changes in people that were 100-150 yards away ... upwind. He got kinda huffy that I would dare to question his foregone conclusions. I was somewhat surprised to find that my report was published. I'd tell you which one it is but they included far too much personally identifying information that I thought would be kept confidential. Another strike against filing reports IMHO. MIB I hear you. Amateurs are pretty much the whole field, and lots of mistakes are getting made. I feel one makes one's contributions where one can; if you are a researcher - or even just intelligently discussing the topic on a forum - you are already there, IMHO. I should add that it's unfortunate indeed that on a topic the mainstream refuses to recognize, proponent scientists (and amateur researchers too) are committing the mainstream's main sin: jumping to conclusions not backed by evidence. Scientific no-no there, folks. Edited January 26, 2015 by DWA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 It speaks to me mostly of the long standing dysfunction of the BFRO as a serious research org. Several factors are at play. One is that investigators might get priority on the juicier hotspot trips and get priority of the good equipment if they point score by knocking out so many "investigations" which are basically just phone followups in the main part. However, what appears on the site is not the real good stuff, that gets held back and may actually end up with field investigation. Only cold trail and not suspected to be especially active area reports get put out. Also reports tend to get processed by area of interest of investigator. There could be piles sitting for some locales, just because they haven't got anyone in the area who cares. Then yet another thing is that some reports may be deliberately sanitised of interesting details, either because that's a research focus at the moment, or regarded as a "trade secret" of the org. Not sure these days if there's anything left there but follower types, and newbies who haven't had their wallets milked dry and figured it out yet. Anyone with half a clue bailed a long time ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIB Posted January 26, 2015 Moderator Share Posted January 26, 2015 (edited) I should add that it's unfortunate indeed that on a topic the mainstream refuses to recognize, proponent scientists (and amateur researchers too) are committing the mainstream's main sin: jumping to conclusions not backed by evidence. Scientific no-no there, folks. True enough. Actually, I think the process is ok-ish if the steps are identified properly. The real issue IMHO is people stating as a conclusion what should be identified as a hypothesis. Hypothesis - design / perform experiment - present results - draw conclusion. Somewhere in there should be an explanation as to how the specific experiment pertains to the hypothesis. I don't see any issue with saying "I think this is what is happening" if it is clear you are stating it as a hypothesis rather than stating it as something already verified and substantiated. Even active, though incomplete, work to validate the hypothesis gives a person some level of authority to speak from. That includes people who are not in the field but are crunching a lot of data to identify patterns. MIB (Hopefully this doesn't come off as preachy ... totally off the cuff here. ) Edited January 26, 2015 by MIB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WSA Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 Only after I took about a hundred depositions did I stop using a checklist. It is a simple tool, and anyone doing repetitive questioning of witnesses should have one. If these investigators are left to just wing it the results will be, well, sort of like they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DWA Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 (edited) True enough. Actually, I think the process is ok-ish if the steps are identified properly. The real issue IMHO is people stating as a conclusion what should be identified as a hypothesis. Hypothesis - design / perform experiment - present results - draw conclusion. Somewhere in there should be an explanation as to how the specific experiment pertains to the hypothesis. I don't see any issue with saying "I think this is what is happening" if it is clear you are stating it as a hypothesis rather than stating it as something already verified and substantiated. Even active, though incomplete, work to validate the hypothesis gives a person some level of authority to speak from. That includes people who are not in the field but are crunching a lot of data to identify patterns. MIB (Hopefully this doesn't come off as preachy ... totally off the cuff here. ) Well, stuff needs to get said. Finding out what stuff is is, well, science, and one never advances into the research with one's conclusions in hand. Which is, of course, what the mainstream is doing here. Sans research. Only after I took about a hundred depositions did I stop using a checklist. It is a simple tool, and anyone doing repetitive questioning of witnesses should have one. If these investigators are left to just wing it the results will be, well, sort of like they are. And that's what they're doing, winging it, usually with the prayer "that's a sasquatch, I just know it," which has kept some reports and followup from noting whether the subject was even bipedal let alone big dark and hairy. Edited January 27, 2015 by DWA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DWA Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 And here's an example - and there are many - of a report that goes [thwack], resoundingly, on the pile science needs to address, supporting detail or no: http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=46604 She saw enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DWA Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=47412 Interesting, Stan. But what questions did you, um, ask? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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