Freaky Friday presentation: UFOs -- Science and Society
Final聽of聽4 Freaky Friday presentations by Don C. Donderi (retired 9I制作厂免费 Psychology) that shine scientific light into the dark corners occupied by UFOs and UFO聽debunkers:
UFOs聽 -聽 Science and Society
This lecture reviews the UFO phenomenon on聽society.
Donderi鈥檚 analysis is based on a widely known work, The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions, written by Thomas Kuhn in 1962. Donderi
will also discuss the quantitative aspect of the accumulated UFO
evidence by describing the role of Bayes鈥� theorem in evaluating the
probability of a scientific hypothesis. And finally, to explain the
general scientific attitude towards the UFO evidence, Donderi
describes the contribution of Leon Festinger鈥檚 cognitive dissonance
theory to understanding the scientific reaction to the UFO
phenomenon in general.
Followed by the film Contact based on the Carl Sagan novel
of the same name, which explores a few questions relating to
extra-terrestrial intelligence, including whether or not we are
prepared to decipher messages from another world -- and whether in
the case of the main character, played by Jodie Foster, the
"experience" of meeting extra-terrestrials is real or not.