If the U.S. Government is actually holding alien spaceships in Area 51 and keeping that information secret, then why would it let you (Cecil) reveal the so called truth…stated by you that there truly aren’t any crafts? And I wish not to get a response of how you have been paid. Here is the column link: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_040.html
Maybe I have a reading disability, but I can’t find a clear statement in the column stating there truly aren’t any crafts. He pretty much states those who think so are idiots, but not that they are definitely absolutely wrong.
Then again, only aliens would post in Book Antiqua, so…
No, True Earthlings post in Comic Sans. 
A new poster, perhaps, but apparently a long-time Straight Dope reader if s/he’s expecting a wise-assed answer. I don’t think I want to know the manner in which Cecil has been paid, either. Those aliens are a bit too quick on the draw with their anal probes for me to want to know more. :eek:
I never said that there was a clear statement in what Cecil had to say but around here when Cecil gets a question and answers it he adds a little of his own opinion to it which in this column: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_040.html makes the statement that there aren’t any alien spaceships in Area 51. And another note to my little friend Naita…I prefer the classical and very stylish Book Antiqua font over any other ordinary or custom stupid looking font out there.
I’m 6’1", so unless you’re at least 6’3" I’m not your ‘little friend’. (Begging the question of whether I’d be your friend at all.)
Regards to the actual topic though, let me repeat myself with a little sugar on top:
Cecil doesn’t say there aren’t any spaceships, he just says those who think there are have f— all evidence there is. Now if you have the evidence of such spaceships that Cecil says is missing I suggest you present it, otherwise you will be getting nowhere in this forum.
Without having ever been to Area 51, or having worked for any arm of the U.S. government associated with it, or knowing in detail what goes on there (except that the testing of new military aircraft seems to be a pretty good guess), I can still say the following:
[ul]
[li]Thousands of people have been claiming that alien spaceships are kept at Area 51, including some who worked for the U.S. government. To my knowledge, none of these people has ever been prosecuted for it. Thus the government obviously does not care about the issue, and doesn’t consider it a state secret — assuming momentarily that it’s even true in the first place.[/li][li]Cecil often implies or declares outright that something the government has said is a bunch of hooey. He hasn’t vanished yet, let alone stopped doing it.[/li][li]And that’s mostly because — however much fun it is to imagine our government has turned authoritarian — we still have freedom of speech in this country. We, collectively, attack the government all the time. As a testament to this, the Internet and television landscapes are littered with every nutty philosophy under the sun. In fact I suspect the U.S. is the world’s leading exporter of nuttiness.[/li][li]As a general rule, conspiracies of secrecy last in inverse proportion to the number of people in the conspiracy. To claim that the U.S. government has had alien spacecraft for nearly 60 years, and that no one has blown the whistle with hard evidence in hand, shows a poor understanding of human nature and the incompetence that afflicts every bureaucracy.[/li][li]In particular, the government is horrible at keeping secrets. We couldn’t keep the atomic bomb a secret from the Russians, and that secret was actually an important one. So if there are any flying saucers in our skies, my first bet would be that they’re Russians. Or Chinese.[/li][li]Occam’s Razor: the simplest explanation for all this is that no alien spacecraft have visited Earth — that the constant claims otherwise come from overactive imaginations and wishful thinking. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and all that.[/li][/ul]
I believe Cecil is paid by the Chicago Reader.
Oops. The OP asks how Cecil is paid.
I would guess that he uses direct deposit. If he doesn’t, he should: it’s really superior to currency or checks.
The OP asks not to be told how Cecil is paid. You might have really pissed him off now. Beware little friend!
Hey, for those of you who have posted and have gotten your point across, I’m pretty sure you are proud of yourselves for putting up such a great ‘destructive offensive’ or ‘protective defense’ (which is one of each of there purposes anyway), but i’m glad that even though swallowed by the might of your posts I have gotten my point out to those who care which i’m sure there might be posts from those who don’t (not saying that there will be from those who do) and I am not one of such nature to continue on in this seemingly endless arguement about aliens and their spacecrafts (which has continued since it’s start many or as earlier stated my probably not so little friend Bytegeist…nearly 60 years ago) and I wish not to be contained in this endless fight so see ya on the next go 'round! ( which might be pretty soon so watch for my name on the furom list!)
[…wince…]
Ockham’s Razor is not about simplification; it’s about necessity. In reducing 16/64, the simplest thing to do is cancel the 6s. But it’s not the right way.
Occam’s Razor is the premise that given two competing theories, the simpler one is preferred.
So: Alien spacecraft have been visiting Earth and one or more has crashed and has been taken to a secret military base. There is an incredibly huge cover-up by the government, and private citizens who claim to have had ‘close encounters’ with aliens cannot point to any evidence that cannot be explained by terrestrial means. (e.g., ‘disturbed earth’ could have been disturbed by a spaceship – or it could be done with a shovel.)
Or: Alien spacecraft are not visiting the Earth, and the secret military base is or was being used to test secret military technology that was invented by us Earthlings.
Of the two theories, the second one is simpler and thus preferred.
Not exactly, Lib is right, Occam doesn’t talk about simplicity, he talks abut the necessity of unproven links in the chain.
To me the best translation of William’s little saying is something like this:
“One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything”
This is often simplified to something like:
“The simplest explanation is always best”
Wikipedia, for example, does exactly this in their article on Occam’s Razor .
But they are not really the same thing. Occam was saying that adding an unknown or unproven entity to an explanation of something was a bad idea. The more your explanation relies on these unknown entities, the more likely it is to be in error.
So in your example of aliens visiting earth, I believe Occam does favor the human engineered secret military bases and aircraft, not because it’s simpler, but because it relies on known factors. We know there is a military, we know they conduct research, we know sometimes that research is kept secret, and we know that sometimes they have technology beyond what we see everyday.
The alien explanation requires a completely unproven entity: the aliens themselves.
So according to Occam, an explanation that requires five steps is preferable to one that takes two steps if one of those two steps requires some unknown process or person. Liberal’s 16/64 math problem illustrates this nicely.
All right, that’s a fair correction.
Actually the simplest thing to do here is what Calvin would do: write down “I don’t know”, and then go play outside. Or maybe skip the first step entirely.
In any case, I don’t agree that the division problem is a valid example of Occam’s Razor. Deciding whether we’ve been visited by aliens, and whether Area 51 is involved in a cover-up, has to do with gathering empirical evidence and judging the various explanations for it. The division problem on the other hand has to do with whether you’re correctly adhering to mathematical definitions, about which there is no ambiguity — not in this example certainly.
“Canceling like digits” will never be a correct algorithm for finding the quotient of two numbers, no matter what new observations might be made in the future. In fact you could prove the algorithm’s incorrectness using mathematics.
I’ve opened a new thread in GQ on Occam’s Razor:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6447705#post6447705
Enjoy.
Speaking only for myself and not the others…
I’ve merely been articulating my opinions as well as I am able — tossing in a pinch of wise-ass humor too for personal entertainment. I’m not here to make myself proud though, nor do I think in “offensive” or “defensive” terms.
But I do get a little exasperated, a little tetchy even, when people are willing to posit swarms of alien visitors, with all that that would entail, and they point to the government’s reticence as some kind of proof that (1) aliens really are here, but (2) all talk of it is being stifled, perfectly or nearly perfectly, for decade after decade by hundreds and thousands of people. To top it off you’ve accused Cecil of being part of, or at any rate being cowed by, this alleged vast conspiracy, apparently just because you find his position contrary to your own. For some reason his skepticism couldn’t possibly be earnest.
It’s easy to say such grand, colorful things. Not always so easy though to back them up with hard evidence and persuasive reasoning, which I’m afraid is what a lot of people besides me on this board are going to ask of you. (They ask it of me; I see no reason I should let anyone else squeak by.)
Sorry, that isn’t worded right. Let me amend that to: I don’t agree that the division problem is a valid example of how Occam’s Razor — the “fake” version involving simplicity, or the authentic one involving excess unknowns — could be misapplied. (And that’s because algorithm correctness isn’t decided by anything like Occam’s Razor, etc.)