{"id":1216,"date":"2014-03-12T18:35:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T00:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2025-04-11T23:42:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T05:42:14","slug":"ufos-and-auto-mechanics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/2014\/03\/12\/ufos-and-auto-mechanics\/","title":{"rendered":"UFO’s And Auto Mechanics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I find it annoying when people accuse those who disagree with them of being stupid, crazy, afraid, or otherwise flawed. The assumption seems to be that no one could possibly disagree with them on rational grounds. This is arrogant bullshit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

For example, UFO enthusiasts routinely accuse people \u2013 especially scientists \u2013 of being afraid to face the truth about UFOs. A similar attitude prevails among those who believe in psychic phenomena, free energy, or almost anything not generally accepted within the scientific community. Scientists are \u201cafraid\u201d of the truth, and therefore refuse to even look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I propose a much simpler and probably more accurate explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your car develops some problem \u2013 an unfamiliar noise, odd behavior, something that may indicate trouble \u2013 you take it to a mechanic. If it\u2019s something unusual, you might invite him to take the car for a short drive to see (or hear) for himself what the problem is. He may recognize the problem and be able to fix it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the noise is intermittent, only happening once in a while, your mechanic may not hear it during his spin around the block. If he doesn\u2019t hear it, he may not be able to say what the problem is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, if he drove your car every day, sooner or later the noise would manifest and he could probably identify it. The problem is, he\u2019s got other cars to fix and can\u2019t spend a whole lot of time listening to your car. How long should he reasonably be expected to listen for your mysterious noise, when he\u2019s got other things to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If he returns your car with a shrug, saying he didn\u2019t hear anything, is he afraid of the truth? Or is he just honestly saying that, during his test drive, he didn\u2019t hear anything unusual?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to what is said about them, most scientists love a good mystery. No scientist gets famous by staying within the domain of what is already known.  The unknown is where the Nobel Prizes live.  Sure, some scientists really are afraid of the truth, just like with real people. But most are curious and willing to entertain bold, new, and even bizarre ideas. They just need convincing evidence of the new notions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s pretty much like your mechanic when he doesn\u2019t hear that rattle or grinding noise that\u2019s been bothering you. He\u2019s not hidebound. He\u2019s not afraid of the truth. He\u2019s not part of a cover-up. He just didn\u2019t hear the noise, and doesn\u2019t want to spend valuable time driving around listening for it, when he\u2019s got other things to do right now..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I find it annoying when people accuse those who disagree with them of being stupid, crazy, afraid, or otherwise flawed. The assumption seems to be that no one could possibly disagree with them on rational grounds. This is arrogant bullshit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1219,"href":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions\/1219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/random-musings.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}