Crop circles and intelligent design

Is the suggestion that aliens make crop circles ruled out because it seems dumb, or because extensive investigation has ruled it out as a possibility -- by refuting something related to the claim?

All of the above

Its dumb the only way aliens can communicate is by drawing stuff in our crops common thats pure bullshit, id sooner believe that you tube freak who communicates with aliens and uses you tube to communicate with the president.

It has not been ruled out 100% but so ha sent the theory that magic leprechauns cause gravity.

Just about everything that was claimed by crop circle proponents has been refuted, things like you cant make crop circles by hand whiteout looking from above, the crop stems exploded no they dindt the formations usually shown are made when the crop tries to grow up again t words the sun.... .

You ... you mean magic leprechauns are NOT responsible for gravity ?!?

As to drawing stuff to us for communication ... maybe they think that's all we can understand ... oh wait, you can only really see them from the sky so maybe they're not even intended for us.

Maybe the aliens are so advanced that they view us the same way we view dolphins -- entertaining and sort of smart, but nothing special.

Do you have a reference for the refutation of the exploded stems, and elongated thingamagigs and the iron spheres -- unfortunately I can only find the pro-non-human-origin data at the moment. Never mind if not, I'll just keep looking.

Peter writes: Is the suggestion that aliens make crop circles ruled out because it seems dumb, or because extensive investigation has ruled it out as a possibility -- by refuting something related to the claim?

Why do aliens get special consideration? Is it equally possible that crop circles are caused by fluctuations in he Matrix? Or caused by herds of immaterial celestial and otherwise undetectable cows farting in unison? Or by gods trying to communicate with us? Or by leprechauns? Fairies? Maybe crop circles are the result of pixie dust spillages?

Is there not a near infinite array of unfalsified causes that could equally be cited? Isn't it reasonable to describe any one of these baseless propositions as "very unlikely".....?

We know that humans can and do make crop circles. Until there is an evidential basis for considering some other source of crop circles I would suggest that deep skepticism towards baseless claims about aliens, pixies or any other such source is more than justified.

Peter writes: You ... you mean magic leprechauns are NOT responsible for gravity ?!?

Well they haven't been falsified as the cause............

So where does that leave the 'magic leprechauns cause gravitational effects' theory?

There are items which we do know for certain, and can count as fact. E.g. pure water at standard pressure boils at 100 C, the bus pulled away just as I got to the stop and I didn't board that one.

But even in these cases, we have to accept that we could in principle be wrong. Our memory may have failed us, we may have become confused.

Is the suggestion that aliens make crop circles ruled out because it seems dumb, or because extensive investigation has ruled it out as a possibility -- by refuting something related to the claim?

Extensive investigation revealed

1) Absolutely no evidence for spacecraft landings or any other alien intervention. We have no idea HOW aliens might have created the crop circles or WHY.

2) Hundreds of pranksters, their tools, markings consistent with human pranksters on the scene. We even know HOW they have done, it has been filmed being done - and known human made crop circles have been identified by 'experts' as being alien caused crop circles.

That is to say: There is no evidential difference between a human created crop circle and a crop circle where we are unable to definitively identify the culprit.

Therefore, alien made crop circles are no more evidentially supported than crop goblins. There is no good reason to posit aliens being involved. The only reason that remains is a bad one: Cultural influences, such as the Roswell cover-up, media hysteria and the resulting popular idea that aliens travel in saucer shaped craft.

It is absolutely no different than the medieval Vampire scares.

So its not that it seems dumb. It is that it is unparsimonious, unfalsifiable, and based on no evidence. The only 'reasons' to suggest aliens in the first place are bad ones that make no rational sense.

How do we know that crop circles don't pre-date us?

Pre-date humans?

Then they wouldn't have been "crop" circles would they.

How do we know contrails don't pre-date us?

All this is is a whole bunch of woo. I think it is has been sufficiently explained why already.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

We can say several things that increase our confidence.

First, crops did not exist before us.

Second, we have about 6000 years of history with no mention of crop circles.

Third, ALL evidence of crop circles begins in the 70s and so we see crop circles as something less than 50 years old.

Sorry, the evidence says with a very high degree of confidence that crop circles only existed since human pranksters.

Same story, nudder verse.

We have evidence that crop circles are man made and modern only and no evidence of any other possible way they could be made.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Incorrect, as several have already pointed out to you in this thread.

If you can't be bothered to read what's already been written, what's the point in anyone continuing to try to explain it to you?

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson

We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate

...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist

If the sequence I stated is 'incorrect' as you said (and which I agree with) then the fact that we CAN create crop circles is not evidence of crop circles being man-made.

That's all I was saying in relation to that point.

I cannot imagine them being anything other than man-made ... but niether that, nor our ability to create them is evidence.

jar writes: We can say several things that increase our confidence. First, crops did not exist before us. But presumably the plants that we later cultivated (or something very like them) was. Savanna's of open grasses etc. So not very helpful. Second, we have about 6000 years of history with no mention of crop circles. As I have found recently it depends on who you ask and how they interpret things (hmmm ... that sounds familiar from somewhere). There are suggestions (I haven't corroborated them mind) that Ancient Egyptians mention something which could be crop circles, and there are 17th century books that appear to describe the circles in the crops (again I haven't dug that deep ... possibly all a pile of non-crop-related-farming-waste). Third, ALL evidence of crop circles begins in the 70s and so we see crop circles as something less than 50 years old. Not necessarily ... Sorry, the evidence says with a very high degree of confidence that crop circles only existed since human pranksters. Human pranksters have been about for several thousand years though .... Same story, nudder verse. We have evidence that crop circles are man made and modern only and no evidence of any other possible way they could be made.

The main thing that I have seen with this thread is that the rigour required for the evidence of human manufacture of crop-circles is far less than that demanded of creationist 'science' (and I include ID there -- possibly contentiously).

Does any other explanation simply exceed the credibility threshold for cultural reasons?

Why do we discount aliens?

Personally I cannot imagine why an alien would come all this way to draw a crop circle ... but then I cannot figure why people would (secretly in the night ... never taking credit for some beautiful art).

The likelihood of non-human intelligent life in the milky way is not small given the 200-400 milliard () stars that we estimate.

So (unless there is some very hard, objective evidence) why DO we discount aliens?

I would suggest that even if we had several independent witnesses saying they saw aliens drawing a crop circle whilst partying with a keg of their favorite tipple that the scientific community would discount it instantly and without evidence.

But why?

Arguments from incredulity are not acceptable in ides/theories that conflict against current scientific wisdom, so why can they be used to support the status quo?

The explanations of why are all basically arguments from incredulity based upon fallacious projections.

Being unable to accept any other possibilities is not proof that they are not credible.

'in principle be wrong' : it's the repeatability that does the trick though (although we cannot rule out that the universe is actually random and without order and we are just in a pocket that seems orderly at the moment I suppose).

In (1) in your post .... since we don't know what to look for we cannot say there is no evidence.

In regards to (2) just because we can create something doesn't mean that's how it came about.

Alien crop circles are also no more evidentially supported than human-made ones if all the evidence is 'we can create them ourselves.'

I'm NOT supporting alien-crop-circles ... I'm questioning the ruling out of a suggestion without investigation -- I thought that was the domain of the YEC not the scientist.

It must be in wikipedia ... surely

We know that humans can and do make crop circles. Until there is an evidential basis for considering some other source of crop circles I would suggest that deep skepticism towards baseless claims about aliens, pixies or any other such source is more than justified.

But this is actually hitting the guts of my continued posting!

How can we rule out something without evidence that refutes it?

We can state that it's not believable ... but that isn't a scientific position.

Stephen Hawkin once said 'I would never say that time travel was impossible, because the person I speaking to might be from the future' or something like that. I take that to mean that he cannot rule it out as a possibility due to lack of evidence/knowledge.

That is a scientific position.

We don't need an evidential reason for considering some other cause .... the potential causes (hypotheses) are simply ideas based upon thoughts about an observation.

They have to be worked into a form that meets the criteria of scientific investigation (which is NOT the case with Alien Crop Circles so far as I know) and then figure out detailed observations that would be contrary to that hypothesis .... i.e. try to disproove it.

That's not what has happened in regard to crop circles ... no investigation has ever really been done because the opinion is automatically 'human pranksters'

Peter writes: jar writes: We can say several things that increase our confidence. First, crops did not exist before us. But presumably the plants that we later cultivated (or something very like them) was. Savanna's of open grasses etc. So not very helpful. Second, we have about 6000 years of history with no mention of crop circles. As I have found recently it depends on who you ask and how they interpret things (hmmm ... that sounds familiar from somewhere). There are suggestions (I haven't corroborated them mind) that Ancient Egyptians mention something which could be crop circles, and there are 17th century books that appear to describe the circles in the crops (again I haven't dug that deep ... possibly all a pile of non-crop-related-farming-waste). Third, ALL evidence of crop circles begins in the 70s and so we see crop circles as something less than 50 years old. Not necessarily ... Sorry, the evidence says with a very high degree of confidence that crop circles only existed since human pranksters. Human pranksters have been about for several thousand years though .... Same story, nudder verse. We have evidence that crop circles are man made and modern only and no evidence of any other possible way they could be made. The main thing that I have seen with this thread is that the rigour required for the evidence of human manufacture of crop-circles is far less than that demanded of creationist 'science' (and I include ID there -- possibly contentiously). Does any other explanation simply exceed the credibility threshold for cultural reasons? Why do we discount aliens? Personally I cannot imagine why an alien would come all this way to draw a crop circle ... but then I cannot figure why people would (secretly in the night ... never taking credit for some beautiful art). The likelihood of non-human intelligent life in the milky way is not small given the 200-400 milliard () stars that we estimate. So (unless there is some very hard, objective evidence) why DO we discount aliens? I would suggest that even if we had several independent witnesses saying they saw aliens drawing a crop circle whilst partying with a keg of their favorite tipple that the scientific community would discount it instantly and without evidence. But why? Arguments from incredulity are not acceptable in ides/theories that conflict against current scientific wisdom, so why can they be used to support the status quo?

I'm sorry but you are simply wrong.

The demands made on Creationists and Intelligent Design are actually no different than those placed on crop circles.

And you certainly should know better than your posts indicate.

Aliens are discounted until there is some evidence that there are aliens.

Fantasy is discounted because it is fantasy.

You even summed the reasoning up in this post when you said "We have evidence that crop circles are man made and modern only and no evidence of any other possible way they could be made."

It really is that simple.

Until the ID and Creationists present testable and verifiable evidence in support of the existence of their Creator and Intelligent Designer and a method/model for that critter to influence living things, there is simply nothing to consider.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!