Elaborate Pareidolia and other Mysteries

I just want to try do what I think I do best, and that is to make a logical case on my own terms, as to why the artificiality hypothesis, although still in its preliminary stages, is proceeding along a legitimate path and that, without casting aspersions against anyone, arguments against it as it stands today, are either specious, in the case of "elaborate pareidolia theory," (EPT), or biased, in the case of "officialdom," or at least some workers involved in the process. But I agree with Tom that it is probably counter productive to tick off the very people we are depending on for that data we need to pursue the project. (Besides, they are doing some great work). So I intend mainly to focus on the idea that EPT is an invalid scientific argument. I will make every effort to do so politely, but in order to make the case, I have to go through the process. I hope all concerned will take it in the spirit of free inquiry.

If I succeed, it won't mean that I've proved artificiality, it will just mean that we may be proceeding in the right direction.

Neil

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br />if [MSSS/JPL] fudged that recent Cydonia Face, and stuck a mound in the forehead, not only would that be evidence of "spinning", it would be downright criminal.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">What they do is never that overt. I've noticed that, if the image is stretched horizontally by just a factor of two, the "horn" no longer looks quite so manufactured. The feature on the forehead starts again to resemble an eyebrow, and one can see the "Face" again as it would naturally appear when viewed from near the ground on the west side. -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by neilderosa</i>
<br />without casting aspersions against anyone, arguments against it as it stands today, are either specious, in the case of "elaborate pareidolia theory," (EPT)<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I usually keep Merriam-Webster Online open in a web browser window, anytime I'm posting, or reading some scientific text. That way I'm sure about what I'm saying. If you look at the definition of "specious", what you just did was the equivalent of saying:

"Without casting aspersions against anyone, let me cast an aspersion against the arguments of elaborate pareidolia theory" (and presumably the proponents of it).

www.m-w.com/dictionary/specious

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br />What they do is never that overt. I've noticed that, if the image is stretched horizontally by just a factor of two, the "horn" no longer looks quite so manufactured. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Ok, I got you. Yes, by changing something like aspect ratio, or converting from arithmetic to logrithmic scale, (or vice versa) one could easily get that effect, and say "oops forgot to put the scale back to where it was." Good point.

rd

A lot is known about the megalithic ruin known as Stonehenge. But if we looked at it as innocents, as we are now looking at certain objects on Mars, we might ask ourselves, “is this man made or natural, and how do we know it? Geologists and archeologists would soon give us facts to draw upon. They may say, that an ice age glacier left behind rocks in unusual configurations. It might leave a large boulder that looks like this, standing on end. The glacier might even leave one large stone resting atop another in a way that seems very “unnatural” but in fact is natural. A glacier is just one natural process to consider; geologists know of many others. So lets say for the sake of argument, and just to consider the preliminary evidence for the upturned megaliths, that it is possible for natural processes to have crated Stonehenge. But what are the odds against it? We then get into the deductive, inductive, and statistical reasoning, and we are already fairly certain of artificiality: because not just one but many huge stones are standing on end; because they are not standing in a random pattern but in a circle; because there are huge slabs of stone resting on the megaliths, again not in a random manner but uniformly, in a way to complete the part of the great circle still standing. In addition, there are ruins of huge wooden posts that were once part of the complex; and so on. Couldn’t we still say that all of this could occur naturally given enough time and enough “coincidence”? We could, since we are still making a mere empirical, or “a posteriori” argument, but the odds against it are nearly infinite. Later we may get into "a priori" or deductive models such as: there will be similar megaliths in places where there have never been glaciers; certain "astronomical instrument/complex" models will explain the positioning, orientation, and purpose of the megaliths. (to be continued)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> I usually keep Merriam-Webster Online open in a web browser window, anytime I'm posting, or reading some scientific text. That way I'm sure about what I'm saying. If you look at the definition of "specious", what you just did was the equivalent of saying:

"Without casting aspersions against anyone, let me cast an aspersion against the arguments of elaborate pareidolia theory"<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

My Webster’s dictionary says: "specious; seeming to be good, sound, correct, logical, without really being so." (Referring mainly to the “logical”) that is not an insult but a statement of the fact I'm going to try to demonstrate. One can say or do illogical things and still be a nice person. OTOH "aspersion, a damaging or disparaging remark, slander; innuendo." I'll try to avoid that and Tom will press the delete button if I don't succeed.

There will be a lot of claims to specious reasoning but I'll try to watch the aspersions.

ND