Forgetting the basics of rational, logical argumentation and
thought is one of the tragedies of our world.
A couple of individuals who apparently wasted a lot of time
reading pop culture about ETs, mysteries, pseudo-science, wrote that our friend
Norio Hayakawa doesn't gives evidences included with the denial of the ETH
mythology.
ETH believers would like to maintain that the presence of
extraterrestrial civilizations in our planet, is somehow controversial in terms
of the burden of proof. It is clear ET Aliens are /persons/entities that have been proposed to exist, therefore
the burden of proof is on those who claim one exists.
Believers, however, are so sure of the existence of ET
visitors that they claim that those who do not believe in their Aliens must
somehow "prove" that ET do not exist.
This is one of the cheapest fallacies. It’s obvious that IF
someone tells us that there are pink flying elephants in the skies of New York,
he must proof his/her claims.
It is ridiculous to ask me evidences that pink flying elephants
do not exist.
That is why logic established that the burden of proof. The British
mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell gives the following sample of how
this fallacy works:
"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars
there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody
would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the
teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.
But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion
cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human
reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.
If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed
in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into
the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would
become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the
psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
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