Why science ignores UFOs

Copyright 2017, InterAmerica, Inc.

Aside from the loopy fringe that dotes on UFOs, and that ufology is anathema to the very idea(s) of science, UFOs get short shrift from scientists for these reasons….

A lettered response from Steven Weinberg to the editors of The New York Review of Books in the April 6, 2017 issue, brought on by comments about his January article, covered here too, “The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics” bemoans the ongoing discussions (and confusions) about quantum among physicists.

Weinberg cited some of the controversy and ended his missive, on Page 42, with this:

“Jeremy Bernstein … thinks … there is no trouble with quantum mechanics as it stands.”

But then Bernstein offers an anecdote that seems to indicate otherwise:

“A visitor to Einstein’s office in Prague noted that the window overlooked the grounds of an insane asylum. Einstein explained that [the asylum housed] the madmen who did not think about quantum mechanics.”

Physicists are actively engaged in the weird vicissitudes of quantum mechanics; they don’t have time (or desire) to pursue the weird vicissitude of the UFO phenomenon.

Some physicists, whose books are reviewed by Jonathan Taylor, in the issue of TLS (referenced in my previous post here), are immersed in the difficulties with the concept of time, one (James Gleick) writing in his book, Time Travel: A History, “ … no physicist [now] ‘believes in’ absolute time …” [Page 5, TLS, March 10, 2017]

The review, by Taylor, supplies an aggregation of the problems science has with time that was once rather clear from Newton’s “definition” (time called duration) of linear time in Philosophiæ  Naturalis Principia Mathematica [1687].

Time is another ongoing conundrum for science.

Then there are cosmologists, who eschew the idea that UFOs contain alien (extraterrestrial) visitors, seeking hints of life on far-flung planets in our galaxy or the universe altogether. No time (or desire) to knock down a UFO to see what’s inside.

Those scientists in the social or biologic disciplines are overwhelmed with the quirks in humanity, disallowing any time (or desire) to see if UFOs have a relationship to the madnesses or distortions of humanity.

Neurologists and psychologists, not to mention philosophers, are consumed with consciousness: what is it? How does it function? Why?

Of course, you know that many physicists, engineers, computer technicians, et al. are wrapped up in AI (artificial intelligence) or quantum computing, both taking hold in human society whereas UFOs have no such hold on human society, despite the delusion by you and me that UFOs are important or relevant to humanity.

Nope. Science doesn’t have an inclination to pursue UFOs. What’s the payback for doing so?

There are just too many other perturbing aspects of life and civilization that supersede UFOs.

Scientists have neither the time or interest or wherewithal to pursue UFOs. Why would they?

RR

Flying Saucers are Real?

Copyright 2017, InterAmerica, Inc.

The Times Literary Supplement for March 10, 2017 had reviews of these books about Science Fiction:

But the book circled in green – Flying Saucers are Real! The UFO Library of Jack Womack [Anthology Editions, PB, $40] – is about UFOs (flying saucers, obviously.

But it’s not a paean to flying saucers in the way that Donald Keyhoe’s book, with the same title was.

Mr. Womack merely [sic] reproduces book covers, drawings, cartoons, old clippings, interviews, and other ephemera about flying saucers over the years.

The book is a memorandum of flying saucer history pretty much and the reviewer, Jonathan Barnes, writes, “Among the plethora of kooky delusion, something more solemn can be discerned” which is a regurgitation of the old sci-fi themes of “international fretting …  that a brand “of robust interventionism may appear in the skies and set to work” [again].

That is, the flying saucer theme is akin to sci-fi novels, like War of the Worlds, that tell us extraterrestrials may be coming to enslave or kill humanity.

The books are reviewed for two pages, but Womack’s book gets a scant partial column, highlighted in orange:

This, for me, shows that anything to do with UFOs or flying saucers is paltry, even in the context of a genre that should be a bolster of the idea that alien species can or do show up on Earth.

Flying saucers, as a mainstream topic, is relegated in the same way that a book about it is relegated to a few column inches in a review flush with commentary about science fiction.

No one really cares about UFOs (or flying saucers) any more, except for the delusional clique who visit blogs like this or attend seedy conferences about the enigmatic but inconsequential phenomenon.

RR