Hacker News Reader

Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

Being notable for something doesn’t make you credible in everything.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

Exactly: that remind me Kary Mullis, a Nobel Prize (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Use_of_hallucinoge...). I had a colleague AIDS denialist, he told be that AIDS doesn't exist and that's a fact because Mullins sayd so. So I read about this man that is a brilliant biochemist but with no title or specialization or experience to qualify him as AIDS expert. Reading about his personal life, I learned he was also an hallucinogens addict.About that, he also claimed "to have been rescued from a fatal accident by a person travelling in an astral plane, and to have conversed with an alien disguised as a raccoon" (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2019/08/19/kary-mulli...). So I asked to my colleague: "what's your opinion about aliens?", his response: "they are among us, I'm sure: Mullins sayd so!". :-)

And yet this is the former head of a space agency talking about space aliens. He's within his field of expertise.

The inventor of PCR is about as “within his field” on HIV as this guy is on aliens.

The field still seems fairly undifferentiated, so 'space agency' seems to cover space travel, astronomy, satellites, and anything else outside the atmosphere. Who else is more credible, someone from SETI?

Anyone with actual proofs, I think. We have to filter the source according to the type of information: a political tabloid isn't a good source of information for science, even if someone post it on HN. An accredited scientific journal is a good source. Furthermore, it's necessary looking for "red flags" in our source (critical reading): if the source has few verifiable facts or no verifiable fact at all, maybe it's a case of "alternative fact" (aka bullshit). The search for alien life is taken seriously by the scientific community and a researcher has all the motivations to be part of the history proving the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. If you ask me, I am "probabilist", I think that they could be out there. I'm waiting for evidences. This article is not.

If aliens existed and we knew about it, who would know? The head of Israel's and USA's space defense programs.

Sure. “He’s full of it” is still an option, though. I’d argue it’s the likely one. People have been killed for revealing lesser secrets.

My priors would say 99% odds he's full of it, but you have to admit that if he's not (and if he really was the head of Israel Defense space division, makes him 1 of a very few people who would know), then this would be the biggest story in the history of the earth.

So shouldn't we at least take a look? The Top Story on HN right now is about a finance deal between Uber and Aururo. Pretty sure that even though that one is almost certainly true, it's expected impact on the world relative to this is zero.

Agreed, this is fascinating and potentially huge. This comes months after the Pentagon released UFO footage for the first time (not necessarily alien, but unidentified). Wonder if there could be a coordinated effort to slowly disseminate the information to the public slowly instead of all at once.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/us/politics/pentagon-ufo-...

> If aliens existed and we knew about it...

That is an absolutely enormous "if".

And yet, who could be more credible? As long as all we've got is someone's word, he seems nearly as good as it gets.

He is as good as it gets. That’s just not very good without corroborating evidence.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com