[frankquist]

Say that you are interested in investigating puzzling phenomena, and you have the money. What more logical step is there than to approach your senate majority leader friend?

Such oddball connections are probably the only the way such a program would ever get funded.

Edit: well, obviously he didn't have the money. Misspoke. I meant the means (a company with the required infrastructure).

[volgo]

No, the logical step is to stop and think whether or not you should use public money to do this.

If he raised some VC funding, he can go hunt Minotaur for all I care. But this is my money he's using to do this. No thanks

[dawnerd]

I’d rather my tax money go towards huntin aliens than fighting wars TBH. I mean yeah, there’s lot of other things I’d like to see funded but this seems like a drop in the bucket when we’re talking the grand scheme of things.

[golergka]

> No, the logical step is to stop and think whether or not you should use public money to do this.

People in first-world countries are usually OK with spending public money on science. So, if you consider it legit science (and he does), it makes perfect sense for him to lobby spending public money on it.

[harry8]

Legit science. More likely for the money to go to MIT than a politician's friend?

No really, show us the public tender and the evidence that the money was well spent by tender won on merit alone. Or we are going to assume it is totally corrupt. Onus of proof used to be the other way around but Washington, yeah, it really does stink like that. This is why outsider populists like Sanders and Trump are popular. Everyone has had enough of this garbage.

[piyh]

The merit is researching potentially existential threats against humanity. It's not testable science, but if it leads to the next manhatten project, we discover that another country has advanced tech, that we aren't alone, or get a null result I am OK with it.

[loblollyboy]

Hunt Minotaur lol

[glenstein]

For me, the logical next stop would be to pause and think very long and very hard about why the subject isn't treated as legitimate by mainstream science.

[almost_usual]

What’s there to think about? Scientists are not credulous people and that’s a very good thing. There are plenty of research projects dedicated to searching for other forms of intelligent life and none of them have yielded any evidence.

This is unexplained phenomena which could be the result of diminished mental acuity or other unexplained physical events. I’m not sure how these theories should be made anymore legitimate without more evidence?

[frankquist]

I don't think that would be your logical next step as it doesn't logically follow from the earlier steps. My post started with "Say that you are interested in investigating puzzling phenomena, and you have the money.". So my post presupposes that interest. You don't have that interest (at least not in the same way) so your point is moot. You can't say "Say that you have an interest. Your next logical step would be not to have the interest".

[glenstein]

Nothing really "logically follows" from what you said since you were speaking informally rather than proposing an airtight logical syllogism. And since this is a conversation, I don't have to choose to follow along with whatever premises you choose to stipulate if I don't think they adequately reflect the reality they're attempting to model, or if I don't agree with you that they presuppose the things you think they presuppose.

[putlake]

What we often fail to realize -- esp. in our tech bubble -- is that science is now mistrusted by the mainstream in society.

[duckMuppet]

I think it's more to do with the those claiming things in the name of science that puts many people off.

Science is a process, a method by which we can answer certain types of questions. To often people hear things like settled science, or the science is crystal clear, not up for debate.. These are political posturing and have little to do with actual science. It's absurd, and some people realize this.

As with any science, data comes in late, or sometimes not at all. There are quite a few FDA prescription drugs that were approved and later recalled, some with devastating effects on their consumers.

The truth is, science is done by people, people who are infallible. People who make mistakes, who see things from a certain point of view, or who don't have all the data yet. Additionally, prediction models can be tweaked to say exactly what you want to, with devastating effect on our community.

You can't say anything though. Even in grad school labs, to make certain statements or even hint about things can lead to problems with your advisor, or research, or worse yet, peers.. Academia is a great place, at least it has been for me, as long as you keep your head down and focus on research.. i dont think it's the best place now if you truly want to question everything. I wouldn't even venture where you could go for that now.

I think this has led to a generalized mistrust, and it falls on all of us. The reality is that data is always changing, models change, etc.. People who put policies into legislation need to balance not only the aspect of the science, but the overall big picture; cultural, societal, expectations, desires etc. as well. That's politics. I think it was Russ Roberts who said you can engineer a bridge, but you can't engineer society in the same way. And i think that's right, too Often we miss that.

[dTal]

FYI, you meant "fallible". "Infallible" means they don't make mistakes.

[eveningcoffee]

I think that when many people here think of science then it is the science, the methodology.

What you are describing is the science, the institution and this is perhaps also how wider public perceives it.

[maksimum]

Using "science" makes your statement too broad.

[pmarreck]

Fallacious appeals to shame, in all likelihood

[oboopfmlrmnmn]

Yeah, good luck with your long hard think

[sandworm101]

>>>Say that you are interested in investigating puzzling phenomena, and you have the money. What more logical step is there than to approach your senate majority leader friend?

You spend your own money rather than ask taxpayers to fund your fantasy. There is more than enough open source intel on atmospheric phenomena out there. And plenty of "UFO researchers" willing to work.

[richardknop]

I guess that as a private citizen he would not have access to a lot of tech and information Pentagon has, no matter how much money he can spend. So spending money lobbying to get Pentagon create a program like this might be better approach rather then trying to carry out investigations on your own.

[eplanit]

Or, say you are a major donor to your senate majority leader friend. What more logical step than the senate majority leader getting millions of taxpayer dollars funneled to your company to investigate puzzling phenomena. With your income increased, you're more able to keep donating to the friend in the senate.

[garmaine]

Bob Bigalow actually is a hard core ufologist for the record. No need for cynicism here I think. He just wanted access to DoD information on the subject.

[nerdponx]

Or it's a giant graft program.