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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 07:39:57 [Permalink]
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There is more than one way to cash in on crop circles. Breakfast anyone?
Crop Circle Cereal
Crop Circles are widely acknowledged as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century. The global fascination with this phenomena continues to gain in momentum as the sheer number of sighting increases. Crop formations have been found in more than a dozen countries worldwide since 1990; including Japan, Australia, Canada, United States, Russia, England and other European countries.
Southern England is still the main area that crop circle formations appear over 90% of the reported 5000+ circles. Some of the most intense activity is in a 40 mile radius of one of the world's most famous ancient monuments Stonehenge. Thousands of these simple circles, Celtic crosses, and increasingly complex pictograms have been discovered in southern England's crop fields since 1978. One of the most popular theories regarding the formation of these circles has to do with some form of extraterrestrial and/or extradimensional alien intervention. The scientific community has yet to come up with any solid evidence as to the cause of this fascinating phenomena, although many interesting theories have been presented. |
By the way, I use the above picture as one of my screen savers... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
 Posted - 05/13/2008 : 07:45:56 [Permalink]
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Well... all he is saying is 'I believe that there are some bacteria running around somewhere'.
Seems like a totally defensible position to me.
Although, I do agree that the scientifically un-educated might not understand it that way... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/13/2008 : 08:00:01 [Permalink]
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From Kil's link"
"Crop Circles are widely acknowledged as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century. The global fascination with this phenomena continues to gain in momentum as the sheer number of sighting increases. Crop formations have been found in more than a dozen countries worldwide since 1990; including Japan, Australia, Canada, United States, Russia, England and other European countries.
Southern England is still the main area that crop circle formations appear over 90% of the reported 5000+ circles. Some of the most intense activity is in a 40 mile radius of one of the world's most famous ancient monuments Stonehenge. Thousands of these simple circles, Celtic crosses, and increasingly complex pictograms have been discovered in southern England's crop fields since 1978. One of the most popular theories regarding the formation of these circles has to do with some form of extraterrestrial and/or extradimensional alien intervention. The scientific community has yet to come up with any solid evidence as to the cause of this fascinating phenomena, although many interesting theories have been presented."
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 08:34:10 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
| bng.... you're into the whole UFO thing, and you didn't know about the crop-circle guys? Seriously? Damn man, there have been television documentaries! |
Dude, you're into the television thing and you haven't read the Kama Sutra, Shakespeare's sonnets, John Donne, The Rubiyat of Omar Khayam, George Boole's An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, Dante's Inferno or the complete works of Dylan Thomas? The television I watch is basically news. There are only so many hours in a day!
Anyway, the existence of an entire industry concerned with the making of crop circles is indeed a new revelation to me! I am fascinated at the scope of the projects, the technology, the artistry, the fact that millions and millions (shades of Carl Sagan) of people have no clue that this industry exists and has for some time! I didn't.
Mabuse is freezing his ass up there in the arctic circle, but he's no dope, and he thinks these things are planned out on a beach somewhere! All the big deal Skeptics like Joe Nickell spend a whole lot of time pontificating on how these can not be UFO's (correct, of course), but fail to mention that Crop Circles are a fucking industry!
Filthy is about as much of a Renaissance Man as anybody on this Forum, and he obviously didn't know of Crop Circles Incorporated!
Hell, Dude, we all can't be as omniscient as you! You're obviously gifted, and besides, you have cable!
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 08:56:43 [Permalink]
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Nope, new one to me, although it doesn't come as all that much of a suprise. Really, I lose patience pretty fast with the UFO whackos and so, don't follow it closely, but after all, some folks'll believe anything and others'll surely turn those beliefs into a business. 'Tis the way of things....
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 09:02:21 [Permalink]
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bngbuck.....
bng said...| No monetary reward, and probably a considerable cost to do the really big ones! |
bnFUCKup, you're right on the "considerable cost" part, but dead wrong on the "no monetary reward" part! A lot of the really big, complicated ones are commissioned for purely commercial or promotional reasons. And obviously, some pretty big bucks are involved.
The technology has gone far beyond boards and ropes, it turns out. CAD, GPS, laser measurement, projection techniques - this ain't out of a barn in Kansas, anymore, toto! |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 10:27:43 [Permalink]
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Filthy.....
The're ferocious, filthy (excuse me) little fuckers, fit for fools to fiddle with!
Clicker counters are crazy! It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it! Offer obeisance up unto the UFO über UFO'er |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 10:28:15 [Permalink]
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| Thats the problem with morons, they'll take a perfectly reasonable statement like that of the astronauts and turn it into a confirmation of Roswell. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 12:46:03 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Thats the problem with morons, they'll take a perfectly reasonable statement like that of the astronauts and turn it into a confirmation of Roswell.
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What, Roswell exists! Who says it doesn't? It's li'l green guys watching pornographic probing and having monstrous, masturbatory ejaculations over somebody's grain field, causing a patterned ergot infection that's nonsense!
BigPapa, you really should word these things better.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 16:55:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Thats the problem with morons, they'll take a perfectly reasonable statement like that of the astronauts and turn it into a confirmation of Roswell.
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Yes, and what the morons, and even a lot of folks on the other side of the argument fail to realize is that proving/disproving alien visitors falls into the same category as that of proving/disproving the existence of God. Until & unless the deity/visitor can be produced, it is not possible and all argument is rendered futile.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 18:02:39 [Permalink]
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I kind of disagree with you on this one Filthy...
I know, I know, absence of evidence is never evidence of absence... But I don't consider that the absence of evidence wait the same in both case as God is; by definition not subject to natural laws while aliens would be.
Not conclusive in either case, but it is like saying that disproving the existence of unicorns is the same than disproving the existence of a yet unknown specie of insect deep in the Amazonian forest.
In both case we have the same evidences (or absence of evidences) and I guess that in both case the burden of proof is on proving the existence but... The strength of this assumption is not nearly as definitive.
At least that's how I see it...
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 18:57:13 [Permalink]
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As long as the Amazonian insect is on the other side of the world, and extremely unlikely to travel anywhere outside the jungle, its existence is for me purely academical and for all practical purposes irrelevant.
The same goes for aliens. I'd be fascinated to know about them, but since it's very improbable they'll ever make it here... Crop-circles have mundane explanations, and so Occam's Razor will effectively rip fantastical alien explanations to shreds.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/13/2008 : 19:02:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
I kind of disagree with you on this one Filthy...
I know, I know, absence of evidence is never evidence of absence... But I don't consider that the absence of evidence wait the same in both case as God is; by definition not subject to natural laws while aliens would be.
Not conclusive in either case, but it is like saying that disproving the existence of unicorns is the same than disproving the existence of a yet unknown specie of insect deep in the Amazonian forest.
In both case we have the same evidences (or absence of evidences) and I guess that in both case the burden of proof is on proving the existence but... The strength of this assumption is not nearly as definitive.
At least that's how I see it...
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Ok, God is not subject to the Laws of Physics but the aliens would be. That's a given, however, there is a varible: time & distance. there is no known planet near enough to us for contact unless it was done with a huge ship capable of housing myriad generations of crew. If we postulate that the ship might have a way of exceeding light-speed, we run right smack into dem ol' debbels, de Laws o' Physics & Br'er Einstein again. Ouch!
This doesn't exactly put the aliens at the right hand of God, but for the sake of discussion, they're pretty close.
The unicorn and the insect are a different proposition. Unicorns are myths, you and I both know it (with the exception of the invisible pink one in Valient Dancer's garage). But you and I also know that the rain forests of the world contain a staggering number of undescribed species, especially arthropods. I'll bet that you and I could easily find a previously unknown insect or arachnid and even get get to name it. If it bites, my ex would be a good "in honor of."
Apples & oranges, eh?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 05/13/2008 20:02:48 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 21:46:37 [Permalink]
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bng said:
| Dude, you're into the television thing and you haven't read the Kama Sutra, Shakespeare's sonnets, John Donne, The Rubiyat of Omar Khayam**, George Boole's An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, Dante's Inferno or the complete works of Dylan Thomas? |
I haven't?
Odd, I'm sure I've read more than three of the works you mention in that short list.... and at least a handful of Thomas' poems and some selected verses from Khayyam. (Do not go gently... and all that) I'm obviously not as big a fan of poetry as you, but I still consider myself well read. Not on the same scope/scale as an English Lit major, but I can't go for any long time (days) without reading something.
In addition to a small number of hours a week (4 or less, not counting commercials since I record any TV I watch on my DVR and pass the commercials... waste of damn time) of television, I read at least 2 novel length books. Mostly for entertainment, and mostly sci-fi/fantasy, but for every 5-10 of those I try to read something informative or educational. In addition to textbooks.... (still slowly workin on that next degree). My other TV watching is limited to having one of the news channels on in the background when I'm studying or arguing with you here.
** I'm fairly sure you meant the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, wouldn't want to jump to any conclusions though.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2008 : 22:03:22 [Permalink]
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Simon said:
I kind of disagree with you on this one Filthy...
I know, I know, absence of evidence is never evidence of absence... But I don't consider that the absence of evidence wait the same in both case as God is; by definition not subject to natural laws while aliens would be.
Not conclusive in either case, but it is like saying that disproving the existence of unicorns is the same than disproving the existence of a yet unknown specie of insect deep in the Amazonian forest.
In both case we have the same evidences (or absence of evidences) and I guess that in both case the burden of proof is on proving the existence but... The strength of this assumption is not nearly as definitive.
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First, can I beg of you to improve your formatting? Paragraph breaks! For example, if your post looked like this:
I kind of disagree with you on this one Filthy...
I know, I know, absence of evidence is never evidence of absence... But I don't consider that the absence of evidence wait the same in both case as God is; by definition not subject to natural laws while aliens would be.
Not conclusive in either case, but it is like saying that disproving the existence of unicorns is the same than disproving the existence of a yet unknown specie of insect deep in the Amazonian forest.
In both case we have the same evidences (or absence of evidences) and I guess that in both case the burden of proof is on proving the existence but... The strength of this assumption is not nearly as definitive.
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...it would have been MUCH easier to read!
Then:
In the case of ET life, we can make a circumstantial case. There are billions of main sequence stars (like our own) at about the same distance from our galactic center in our galaxy alone. There is no reason to suspect that the conditions that formed our solar system are unique, even within our own galaxy. We have detected hundreds of large planets like our gas giants, so it seems the formation of planetary systems is common. We know there is at least one other planet in our own solar system with liquid water, Europa. When you look at the number of possible places in our galaxy (say nothing of the rest of the universe) that could have similar planetary systems to our own, it seems safe to make a tentative hypothesis that predicts other life out there.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Crop circles again......
