Science article : UFO group sociology (nice!)

[uair01]

This afternoon I wasted an hour at the Dutch Royal Library by searching for Fortean science articles in serious scientific magazines. I’ve spread these “pearls” – or maybe “turds” – over several sections of this forum.

The Flexibility of Scientific Rhetoric: A Case Study of UFO Researchers
Anne Cross
Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring 2004

A very funny article about ufologists. Unfortunately I cannot reproduce all the 33 pages here but it certainly doesn’t condone any UFO theories:

[...] Fringe researchers can make their cases for legitimacy using a variety of strategies — few of which involve actual research. Outside of the scientific community, scientific-sounding explanations and proclamations of expert statuses hold sway. Ambiguities about what constitutes science can be capitalized upon by groups like the UFO research community that assembles shards of legitimacy using science as a cultural template.

But then it turns – in an almost loving manner – to all the wonderful, weird pseudo-science that the ufologists have produced, that we Forteans love so much:

[...] The study of UFOs—known as ufology—was removed from the agenda of the scientific establishment in the 1960s. Despite this—and despite the fact that its methods and findings differ sharply from those of mainstream science, ufology survives today as an independent research community that models itself after mainstream science. This article attempts to explain how UFO research has survived as a source of claims — claims accepted by some audiences as scientific — despite its rejection by conventional science. Using a science-heavy cultural strategy, ufology has managed to create an alternative scientific world and a support base in which the truth-claims it advances are accepted as scientific. By taking the symbolic frame of science and replacing the content with its own set of completely different facts and theories, ufology effectively re-appropriates the cultural meaning of science to support its own endeavors.

I dare to include only one of the many anecdotes. But most of the article contains funny moments like this, sandwiched between sociological jargon:

UFO conference speaker James Gilliland (whom a conference program described as “minister, counselor, energetic healer, and frequent guest on radio and TV shows”) stressed that people should look within for answers to all questions:

It’s not me. I’m not really that important. What’s important is within you. Not your guru! You are your own teacher. The god—the goddess—is within you! (1999).

Audience members made affirmative comments, like “Uh-huh!” and “Yessssss!” and “That’s right!”, giving the presentation the feel of an evangelical sermon—a feeling enhanced by the speech’s content:

With an open mind and a loving heart,weare able to see the creator in all of creation … When we eat an orange, we eat the meat and spit out the seeds. Now, how do you know what to eat? Which are the seeds and which is the meat? (He puts his hand over his heart.) It’s here. (ibid.)

“Yesssss!” replied the crowd.

And – as most of us – I tend to skip appendices of books and articles, but in this case I’m green with envy when I read what fun the researcher must have had collecting evidence for this article. Shouldn’t we invite her to write an article for the Fortean Times?

METHODOLOGICAL APPENDIX

• I attended twelve major UFO conferences in ten states—Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wyoming. The names of the conferences and organizing groups are omitted to protect the confidentiality of the subjects of participant-observation research.
  
  During two conferences I observed the merchandise exhibition areas while acting as a souvenir T-shirt vendor.
  
  I trained with a national UFO research organization and became a certified “UFO Field Investigator” and “consultant in sociology.”
  
  I participated in four local chapters of a national UFO organization, attending local UFO meetings in three New England states and one Midwestern state.
  
  I served as a volunteer and presented at UFO meetings.
  
  I attended day-long and weekend-long UFO research training seminars and workshops, and went to rural areas with large groups on “sky watches” in search of UFOs.
  
  I was analyzed for signs of “alien abduction” by specialists and attended a day-long self-hypnosis training session designed to “assist each participant to become the principal investigator of his or her UFO/ET encounters.”
  
  I visited four UFO museums and research centers.
  
  Daily, I monitored the major UFO research Internet sites and on-line discussion groups. The sites monitored include those of the Mutual UFO Network (www.mufon.com; www.rutgers.edu/»mcgrew/mufon/index.html); Society for Scientific Exploration (www.jse.com); National Institute for Discovery Science (www.accessnv.com/ nids); International UFO Congress (www.ufocongress.com); International Center for Abduction Research (www.abductionresearch.com); Institute for UFO Research (www.frii.com/»iufor); Center for UFO Studies (www.cufos.org); and Flying Saucer Review (www.corpex.com/users/archmage/fsr/fsrhome.htm) (accessed August 1997 through September 1999).
  
  During this time period I also hosted an Internet site focusing on UFO research and indexed it with several UFO Internet rings. I monitored traffic on this site and used it to solicit contact from UFO researchers and consumers of UFO research findings.
  
  I assisted members of the UFO community in programming their UFO related sites and developed a group of contacts on the Internet with whom I maintained e-mail correspondence, and in some cases telephone and postal letter contact.
  
  I examined the primary source literature of the UFO research community, including (1) a sample of back issues of major UFO journals and printed “symposia proceedings” over a fifty-year period, (2) classic and contemporary UFO research books taken from several “recommended reading” lists of UFO study groups, (3) a sampling of videos of conference presentations of UFO researchers over a fifteen-year period, and (4) UFO manifestos and independently published papers.

And finally a reference to methodological books that might be interesting to read, even though they're "classic" science:

Data was coded and analyzed in fieldnotes following the methodologies outlined by Emerson, Fretz and Shaw in "Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes" (1995) and drawing also on Katz’s essay, “A Theory of Qualitative Methodology: The System of Analytic Fieldwork” (1988) and John and Lyn Lofland’s "Analyzing Social Settings" (1984).

I used content analysis worksheets and bibliographic summaries to organize Internet, archival, and bibliographic research. Interviews were recorded. Additionally, notes were taken during the interviews. After reviewing the tapes and notes, the data was recorded and coded in the same manner as the fieldnote data.

 

[Human_84]

What exactly uhmmm.........?

 

[Graylien]

1) As is usual in these cases, she seems to have completely ignored the European psychosocial school of Ufology (as expounded so eloquently by Magonia).

2) Even five minutes spent trawling the vituperative UFO Updates mailing list will show you that there is no such thing as a cohesive "UFO research community".

3) James Gilliand is hardly a mainstream UFO researcher. You might as well judge the standards of UFO research by the ravings of David Icke.

And I might add that both Psychology and Sociology themselves have been accused of being pseudosciences. Both are a mass of conflicting theories, ideologies, and differing interpretations of statistical data - much like Ufology, in fact.

 

[Jerry_B]

Nevertheless, it is true that science and ufology rarely meet, if at all, and that in it's place there is a variety of pseudo-scientific frameworks that have been created to attempt 'explain' various things. Even what's in Magonia is pseudo-scientific, despite it's less wide-eyed approach.

I agree that the article that uair1 has brought to our attention seems to focus on a few areas of the whole subject of ufology in order to make it's case, but it wouldn't be all that tricky to do the same within the less wilder areas of the subject and still draw similar conclusions. Yes, psychology and sociology can seem rather wooly at times, but at least they're based on some solid theoretical foundations and approaches, which are quantitive. The same cannot be said for ufology - it's too disperate and lacks any sort of underlying cohesive analytical framework.

 

[Graylien]

Certainly Ufology isn't a 'hard' science - simply because of the lack of hard scientific evidence. But that doesn't mean that all UFO research is inherently unscientific. Both CUFOS and the troubled BUFORA, for example, attempt to get as much information as possible out of UFO witnesses using simple non-leading questionnaires. Then they try to find a rational explanation for the sighting; in which they are successful 80-90% of the time (although Ms Cross seems under the impression that Ufologists immediately assume that every odd light in the sky is the 6:15 from Zeta Reticuli). Exactly what else can they do?

MUFON, on the other hand, do indeed make some pretty preposterous claims, such as blithely announcing that “The scientific data shows that our planet is being visited by other intelligences on a regular basis”.

 

[Jerry_B]

Certainly Ufology isn't a 'hard' science - simply because of the lack of hard scientific evidence. But that doesn't mean that all UFO research is inherently unscientific. Both CUFOS and the troubled BUFORA, for example, attempt to get as much information as possible out of UFO witnesses using simple non-leading questionnaires. Then they try to find a rational explanation for the sighting; in which they are successful 80-90% of the time (although Ms Cross seems under the impression that Ufologists immediately assume that every odd light in the sky is the 6:15 from Zeta Reticuli).

Hmm - I still would call that pseudo-science. I think this is just an attempt to give a veneer of being scientific or perhaps using some sort of scientific method, but it isn't. Psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists may all skirt around the edges of ufology, but they can only look at it all in terms of a social phenomena. The 'actual' phenomena that ufology tends to make claims for is still very much 'out there' in terms of being any sort of proof as far as science is concerned. It's no more scientific than, say, ghost 'research' (and the various paraphenalia that sometimes goes with that).

 

[Human_84]

Certainly Ufology isn't a 'hard' science - simply because of the lack of hard scientific evidence. But that doesn't mean that all UFO research is inherently unscientific. Both CUFOS and the troubled BUFORA, for example, attempt to get as much information as possible out of UFO witnesses using simple non-leading questionnaires. Then they try to find a rational explanation for the sighting; in which they are successful 80-90% of the time (although Ms Cross seems under the impression that Ufologists immediately assume that every odd light in the sky is the 6:15 from Zeta Reticuli).

Hmm - I still would call that pseudo-science. I think this is just an attempt to give a veneer of being scientific or perhaps using some sort of scientific method, but it isn't. Psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists may all skirt around the edges of ufology, but they can only look at it all in terms of a social phenomena. The 'actual' phenomena that ufology tends to make claims for is still very much 'out there' in terms of being any sort of proof as far as science is concerned. It's no more scientific than, say, ghost 'research' (and the various paraphenalia that sometimes goes with that).

Exactly. Ufo research is just as scientific as any other paranormal research. What else is to be expected?

 

[uair01]

And I might add that both Psychology and Sociology themselves have been accused of being pseudosciences. Both are a mass of conflicting theories, ideologies, and differing interpretations of statistical data - much like Ufology, in fact.

In fact, the article is fair enough to elaborate on the “power games” scientists play to defend their “turf” and guarantee their income (an interesting perspective!) – but then it also investigates similar games the ufologists play:

The question of how scientists jockey for advantage over competing truth claims-makers has produced studies about the nature of mainstream scientists’ power.

Such studies have examined practices of boundary maintenance (Gieryn 1983; Gieryn, Bevins and Zehr 1985), professionalization, and monopolization of legitimacy (Cole and Cole 1979; Latour and Woolgar 1986; Mulkay 1980; O’Connor and Meadows 1976) as components of scientists’ efforts to increase their ideological legitimacy and to make their field of authority impermeable to other truth claims-makers.

Other studies find that research programs that do not fit within the norms of mainstream professional science are cast out, along with their practitioners. The bodies of knowledge they produce become “rejected knowledge” (Collins 1983, 2001; Pickering 1993).

A long line of research demonstrates that scientists consistently engage in practices aimed to broaden and defend their intellectual turf and that professional scientists have increased their status by promoting their activities as unique and their claims as objective (Gieryn 1999, 1992; Gieryn et al. 1985; Moore 1996).

And it contains an interesting - and in fact, very irritating footnote:

Studies examining amateur scientists have found that the mainstream scientific community has gradually usurped or co-opted outsiders attempting to do science and that the boundaries between outsider and professional scientists serve the interests of conventional scientists.

For example, the professionalization of French economists is said to have happened when modern practitioners overtook the practice from amateur aristocrats and organized as professionals in order to draw an income (Mulkay 1980).

Likewise, in Britain, amateurs were permitted to remain meaningfully involved in the field of geology only until professional geologists no longer needed their financial support (O’Connor and Meadows 1976).

Professional astronomers are said to have kept amateur astronomers involved in mainstream astronomy only to assign them mundane tasks involved in furthering professional astronomers’ research agendas (Rothernberg 1981). 2See also Ben-David and Sullivan 1975; Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay 1983; Latour 1987; Latour and Woolgar 1986; Lynch 1985; Shapin 1995.

 

[Jerry_B]

Exactly. Ufo research is just as scientific as any other paranormal research. What else is to be expected?

I think you've missed my point. What I'm saying is that ufology isn't scientific at all. Approximations to some form of scientific method within the field of ufology are pseudo-scientific. The same can be said for research into ghosts - in fact, that's even more tenuous.

 

[dreeness]

Ufology is not science. Unless the definition of science is to be stretched to encompass history and journalism, which seems hardly necessary or justifiable.
Ufology is the specific history of reports of unidentified flying objects, and the reports themselves are journalism.
In much the same way, Forteanism is the specific history of reports of unexplained phenomena, and the reports themselves are journalism.

 

[Graylien]

If science only deals in hard facts and in experiments which give exactly the same results every time you do them, then neither psychology or sociology should be classed as sciences. If, however, we agree with the dictionary and define science as "The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena", then they are indeed both sciences. As is Ufology, which deals with the "observation, identification and theoretical explanation" of UFOs.

Now you may well argue that most Ufology is bad science, and that most Ufologists are too blinded by their own prejudices to carry out truly objective research. But that's a slightly different issue.

 

[Jerry_B]

Ah, but the phenomena that psychology and sociology deal with are tangible, to all intents and purposes. UFOs do not have that luxury. As a phenomena, it's so disperate and nebulous that it pretty much defies any sort of tangibility. Trying to measure this, when no-one who looks at it really agrees on what they're looking at in the first place, is impossible. Thus, any measures to try and quantify it in scientific terms are bogus.

It's the same as the various 'detector'-type devices used by some ghost hunters - such things assume that there's a tangible thing/force/etc. to measure in the first place, even though it's never been formally identified in any way, let alone a scientific way. What's being 'detected' is an assumption. There are no formal scientific rules for being able to ascertain whether something is a ghost or what makes up a ghost, thus any devices for 'detecting' them are pseudo-scientific.

As it's not even clear that UFOs have any tangible existence, any attempts to quantify them are also pseudo-science.

 

[Human_84]

Exactly. Ufo research is just as scientific as any other paranormal research. What else is to be expected?

What I'm saying is that ufology isn't scientific at all

Exactly. I'm going to invent a word.... The amount of scientificness that it is, is just as much as any other type of paranormal research (which just so happens to be as scientific as paranormal research can get).

 

[Jerry_B]

Paranormal research isn't any more scientific than ufology. It relies on the same sort of pseudo-science.

 

[dreeness]

Then again, there is no reason we cannot expand the definition of "science" well beyond what would usually be considered the snapping point. Lawyers, cajun chefs, Olympic atheletes, hot rod customizers, karate experts etc could all be described as "scientists", if the descriptions were framed with enough imagination and verve. Why anyone would want to this, beyond the obvious value as a nifty semantic exercise, is very much an open question.

Ufology is a specific branch of history, and journalism. History and journalism (and for that matter cajun cuisine and hot rod building) are not usually considered to be "sciences". History and journalism are usually considered as "not sciences", that is to say, non-sciences.
The definitive history of the Crimean War might be as "non-scientific" as all hell, however it would be impetuous to infer from this that there was no Crimean War, or that the unabashedly non-scientific chronicle of such a conflict is somehow "pseudo-scientific".

 

[Jerry_B]

Well, there's more evidence for the Crimean War than there is for UFOs

 

[dreeness]

Oh sure, but only if you consider historical evidence (ptooey) to be evidence at all. And if you do happen to hold any regard for historical evidence, you must abandon all hope of ever writing for Magonia, the gates of that particular obscure newsletter shall be forever barred to you.

(from the aforementioned UFO Updates)

http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/upd ... -021.shtml

Now, most people might think that the term "mothership" was stamped securely into the popular imagination by contemporary media coverage of something called "World War 2". D-Day, Okinawa, stuff like that, apparently this "World War 2" was a bit of a big deal at the time. Most people might think that people picked up the term "mothership" from newspapers, magazines, radio broadcasts and newsreels describing this "World War 2" brouhaha.
Most people would be wrong.

Magonia adepts realize that the term "mothership" originated in the UFO literature of the 1950s, and wizened veterans or piles of brittle newspaper clippngs that seem to suggest otherwise are to be dismissed with a wave of the doctrinaire tentacle.
John Rimmer (who is a Magonian and certainly not a twitchy cephalopod) knows this, dare anyone disagree?

 

[rynner2]

History is more or less bunk Henry Ford, 1916.

It certainly isn't scientific or proveable in any way, and the further back you go, the more dubious is it. Documents, if not actually forged, may not tell the truth in any case, or at best might be 'economical with the truth'.

If there are no documents, we have to rely on archaeology, which may not tell us much beyond generalities. A lot of injured skeletons and discarded weapons may well mark the site of some ancient battle, but doesn't necessarily tell who was fighting who, for what reason, or who (if anyone) won the battle.

UFOlogy relies almost entirely on witness statements and dodgy photos which can be (and usually are) denounced as false by skeptics.

In fact, very little in human life is 'scientific'. Life would be unspeakably tedious if it was...

"I went to the pub last night..."
"Prove it!"
"Well, I met Joe there, he'll tell you..."
"And How do I know Joe is telling the truth?"

etc

etc

etc!

 

[Graylien]

And no-one's ever proved the existence of the unconscious mind. Yet its alleged existence is the very foundation of psychology. We deduce that it exists because it appears to explain how people behave. (Just as we deduce that the (unproven) Big Bang happened because it appears to explain how the Universe behaves) Nevertheless, the term "the unconscious" is - like the term "UFO" (or, indeed, the term 'string' as used by string theorists) - a metaphor rather than a fact.

 

[uair01]

This is a very interesting discussion, thanks.

A question that bugs me is:
- Why are UFO witness reports regarded as bad source material?

Pro:
- I'm reading the great book "Unexplained Mysteries of the 20th Century" (Janet Bord, Colin Bord) and I read the many witness reports on "lake monsters", "weird roadside subhumans", "ufo visitors" and "intelligent light balls". The cases are all very weird but I really don't see how one could do any scientific research on them. Even assuming they're all true, then it's impossible to realize any kind of reproduceability. They're all "one offs".

Contra:
- We value the role of "election observers" (see Liberia). But what else are these than "witness reports"? Why do these count and UFO reports not? Is it because they can be summarized into a consistent report?

It's too bad that I haven't found a very convincing scientific report about "why" people see things that they interpret as UFO's. Do you know any good ones?

 

[sunsplash1]

And no-one's ever proved the existence of the unconscious mind.

That's just one theory. Among many. We don't even know what Consciousness is for goodness sake! Let alone what an unconscious is, or might be. Most of us can't even agree on what the meaning of the word(s) is or are...


Sociological explanations (of anything really) by themselves are just bollocks piled upon bollocks, upon bollocks. It's a load of bollocks all the way up...

 

[Jerry_B]

Pro:
- I'm reading the great book "Unexplained Mysteries of the 20th Century" (Janet Bord, Colin Bord) and I read the many witness reports on "lake monsters", "weird roadside subhumans", "ufo visitors" and "intelligent light balls". The cases are all very weird but I really don't see how one could do any scientific research on them. Even assuming they're all true, then it's impossible to realize any kind of reproduceability. They're all "one offs".

Contra:
- We value the role of "election observers" (see Liberia). But what else are these than "witness reports"? Why do these count and UFO reports not? Is it because they can be summarized into a consistent report?

The things is there is that the process (in this case, voting) is a known process. If it wasn't, we'd have no elections nor democracy Because this process is known, it's thus quantifiable. The observers were trained to know how this process should be overseen, and their reporting back on what happened is assumed to be reliable quantifiable data about a process which is understood.

You can't say the same thing about observers of a UFO - the process behind what they're observing is not known, outside of the remit of the eye and the visual part of the brain registering 'something'. The actual thing they're observing isn't a known process, and so is not quantifiable.

If science - for the sake of this thread's argument - chose to define the process that is a UFO, then observers of such a process could be relied upon for providing quantifiable data.

 

[Human_84]

Paranormal research isn't any more scientific than ufology. It relies on the same sort of pseudo-science.

Right on.

Regarding the other posts in here, lets not forget the faith aspect. With science there aren't really circumstances where something is beleived by some people and others have a different viewpoint since science is black and white generally. With paranormal things, people can have extreme beleifs and be absolutely 110% sure the phenomena exists without it being proven by mainstream.

I think that science and the paranormal are apples and oranges seeing how the paranormal is so elusive.