Instigator / Pro
4
1294
rating
75
debates
18.0%
won
Topic
#1385

Resolved little green men visited long ago

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
6
Better sources
2
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
0
2

After 2 votes and with 10 points ahead, the winner is...

oromagi
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
One day
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
14
1922
rating
117
debates
97.44%
won
Description

New evidence points to visitations from space long ago https://start.att.net/news/read/article/business_insider-alien_civilizations_may_have_explored_the_galaxy_a-newscred2/category/news

Round 1
Pro
#1
Anyone remember chariots of the gods by kurt voneget, yeah like that
Con
#2
Thanks to billbatard for instigating this debate- one of my favorite topics.


RESOLVED:Little Green Men Visited Long Ago

DEFINITONS:

LITTLE GREEN MEN is "the stereotypical portrayal of extraterrestrials as little humanoid-like creatures with green skin and sometimes with antennae on their heads. The term is also sometimes used to describe gremlins, mythical creatures known for causing problems in airplanes and mechanical devices. Today, these creatures are more commonly associated with an alleged alien species called greys, whose skin color is described as not green, but grey.

During the reports of flying saucers in the 1950s, the term "little green men" came into popular usage in reference to aliens. In one classic case, the Kelly-Hopkinsville sighting in 1955, two rural Kentucky men described a supposed encounter with metallic-silver, somewhat humanoid-looking aliens no more than 4 feet (1 m) in height. Employing journalistic licence and deviating from the witnesses' accounts, many newspaper articles used the term "little green men" in writing up the story." [1]

VISITED [verb] is the past participle of visit
VISIT [transitive verb] is "to go to (a place) for pleasure, on an errand, etc" [2]


LONG AGO [adverb] is "At a time in the past, especially the distant past." [3]

PRO does not explicitly define Earth as the Little Green Men's destination but this is clearly implied by context.  Therefore,

EARTH is "the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life." [4]

BURDEN of PROOF

Wikipedia suggests:

"When two parties are in a discussion and one makes a claim that the other disputes, the one who makes the claim typically has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim especially when it challenges a perceived status quo.  This is also stated in Hitchens's razor. Carl Sagan proposed a related criterion, the Sagan standard, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". [5]

In this case, PRO as instigator and claimant of extraordinary suppositions bears the entire responsibility of proof.

CON interprets this resolution to mean that PRO intends to prove that residents (stereotypical in appearance) of at least one exoplanet have at least entered Earth's atmosphere at sometime in the past.

PRO offers two pieces of evidence.

ITEM #1:

PRO cites a recent Business Insider article offering a fairly terrible and  click-baity interpretation of an excellent recent study published in The Astronomical Journal: "THE FERMI PARADOX AND THE AURORA EFFECT: EXO-CIVILIZATION SETTLEMENT, EXPANSION AND STEADY STATES."

The study offers several plausible scenarios explaining why any hypothesized space-faring extraterrestrial intelligence has not yet visited Earth.  Most importantly for our purposes, Carroll-Nellenback, et al. proceed from the assertion that no evidence for alien intelligence currently exists, Hart's "Fact A," etc, and attempt to account for that fact in a galaxy where some hypothetical settlement has nevertheless taken place.

"Our first conclusion shows that if diffusive stellar motions are accounted for it appears almost unavoidable that if any interstellar-space-faring civilization arises, the galaxy will become fully settled in a time less than, or at very least comparable to its present age."
That is, if any human-like expansive civilization had arisen even only one or two billion years ago, they had so much time to explore the whole galaxy that the civilization has either failed or never existed.  Any expansion modeled on human like progress encompasses the Milky Way in a few million years so even if only one human like civilization pops up every few million years, Earth should theoretically have been visited often enough to leave trace evidence and no such evidence has been found.  

Unlike Carroll-Nellenback, PRO is not exploring possibilities here.  PRO has affirmatively asserted that alien intelligence exists, even to the point of offering physical characteristics.  Business Insider may have taken the paper's publication as an opportunity to re-visit a lot of sensational woo but Carroll-Nellenback absolutely refutes PRO's claim- no evidence of aliens exists.

PRO has self-refuted the resolution with the first evidence submitted.

ITEM #2:

In R1, PRO (barely) argues:

Anyone remember chariots of the gods by kurt voneget, yeah like that

In the absence of any citation, CON assumes that PRO is conflating Von Daniken's  widely condemned 1968 non-fiction book, "Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past" with at least one work of science fiction by the great Kurt Vonnegut. [7]

Regarding "Chariots of the Gods," Wikipedia notes:

"Von Däniken's book, and much of his subsequent publications as Gods From Outer Space and The Gold Of The Gods, have drawn largely negative receptions from the academic mainstream despite being popular best-sellers. Many scientists and historians have rejected his ideas, claiming that the book's conclusions were based on faulty, pseudoscientific evidence, some of which was later demonstrated to be fraudulent or fabricated, and under illogical premises.
and

"A 2004 article in Skeptic magazine states that von Däniken plagiarized many of the book's concepts from The Morning of the Magicians, that this book in turn was heavily influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos, and that the core of the ancient astronaut theory originates in H. P. Lovecraft's stories "The Call of Cthulhu" and At the Mountains of Madness." [7]
Since his conclusions have been shown to be fabricated and plagiarized from works of fiction, Von Daniken's wild suppositions can be safely disregard as proof of any sort.  Vonnegut's works make no factual claims supporting PRO's resolution.

ITEM #2 offers no evidence worthy of the name.

In R1, we have self-refutation followed by fictitious claims.  PRO's resolution stands as entirely unproven.

I look forward to PRO's response in R2.


Round 2
Pro
#3
Its kinda like proving god doesnt exist despite me longing for the non existence of god, i know it is not objective to deny the real possibility that god exists and is an incredible ass hole, as much as i want there to be space aliens i know there is no solid proof  but there is a certain logic as to why 

"A new explanation for why we haven’t found extraterrestrial life: since the stars of the Milky Way whirl around a central point, passing nearer and farther from one another over millions of years, aliens might be waiting to visit until the journey is shorter.
That’s according to a new study in The Astronomical Journal arguing that spacefaring lifeforms might just be biding their time. And following that same logic, the University of Rochester and Columbia University researchers behind the paper argue that it’s possible extraterrestrials visited Earth millions of years ago, when our stars were closer — long enough ago for the evidence to have vanished."  https://futurism.com/the-byte/aliens-already-visited-earth

Con
#4
Thanks, billbatard

RESOLVED:Little Green Men Visited Long Ago

DEFINITONS:

None of CON's definitions were challenged.  All of CON's offered definitions stand.

BURDEN of PROOF

PRO has not challenged CON's findings, PRO has the full burden of proof here.

ITEM #1:

IN R1, CON argued that Carroll-Nellenback, et al.'s 2019 paper in the The Astronomical Journal, "THE FERMI PARADOX AND THE AURORA EFFECT: EXO-CIVILIZATION SETTLEMENT, EXPANSION AND STEADY STATES" [offered by PRO as evidence] refutes PRO's claim of extraterrestrial visitation to the extent that the paper states unequivocally that no such evidence as yet exists [Hart's Fact A].   

CON has stated that PRO's own evidence contradicts PRO's resolution.  In R2, PRO does not address CON's finding directly but concedes 

"i know there is no solid proof."
ITEM #1 is resolved to CON's satisfacton: both sides agree that no proof exists for extraterrestrial intelligence, much less proof that little green men visited long ago.

ITEM #2:

In R1, CON argued that ITEM #2 (all of PRO's R1 argument) cited no credible evidence and offered no argument in need of response.  In R2, PRO dropped the argument entirely.

ITEM #3:

IN R2, PRO (perhaps unintentionally?) revisits Carroll-Nellenback's recent paper by citing a different news journal's article about the same study.  Since CON has already included a direct link to the unabridged study, links to abstracts and links to news articles about the study ought to be unnecessary.  PRO cites one of the paper's several theories that might explain a Milky Way that is well explored by alien intelligence but leaves no trace of such exploration in our solar system's geochemistry.  Even compensating for variable stellar motions, the Milky Way should have been fully settled by some humanlike expansionist intelligence within the Milky Way's lifetime.

"Our first conclusion shows that if diffusive stellar motions are accounted for it appears almost unavoidable that if any interstellar-space-faring civilization arises, the galaxy will become fully settled in a time less than, or at very least comparable to its present age. In particular, we confirm that the conclusions of Newman & Sagan (1981) that settlement fronts can “stall” for timescales longer than the age of the Milky Way are not valid for real systems of stars with thermal velocities, as suggested by Brin (1983); Ashworth (2012); Wright et al. (2014). Thus if the practical and technological impediments to interstellar settlement are overcome, then the “wave” of settlement should sweep across the entire Galaxy." [1]
None of which impacts the agreed upon ITEM #1 - we agree no evidence of any interstellar space-faring civilization yet exists.  Carroll-Nellenback's theories are compelling but as the paper states unequivocally, theories are not evidence.

Like ITEM #2, ITEM #3 is not really offering evidence so much as discussion points.

Since no new evidence has been presented, PRO's resolution remains refuted in R2.

CON looks forward to PRO's R3 response.

Round 3
Pro
#5
were you alive one million years ago, then how can you know for sure? you dont
Con
#6

Thanks, billbatard

RESOLVED:Little Green Men Visited Long Ago

DEFINITONS:

All of CON's offered definitions stand.

BURDEN of PROOF

PRO has the full burden of proof.

ITEM #1: dropped by PRO.

ITEM #2: dropped by PRO.

ITEM #3: dropped by PRO.

ITEM #4:  PRO argues in R3 that CON cannot state with confidence that an alien visitation did take place one million years ago, leaving no detectable trace. 

CON agrees with PRO that no such statement is supportable but CON is fortunate in that CON has no obligation to disprove such an event under the terms of this debate.  As stated in R1 and repeated in R2, the burden of proof of entirely PRO's to establish that little green men visited Earth one million years ago.  While the absence of evidence does not serve as evidence of absence, PRO has to affirmatively establish the visitation of green men to win this debate.

As in prior rounds, PRO's resolution remains entirely refuted in R3.  Con extends all arguments.


CON looks forward to PRO's R4 response.


Round 4
Pro
#7
there is no way for you to disprove the little green men
Con
#8
Thanks, billbatard

RESOLVED:Little Green Men Visited Long Ago

DEFINITONS:

All of CON's offered definitions stand.

BURDEN of PROOF

PRO has the full burden of proof.

ITEM #1: dropped by PRO.

ITEM #2: dropped by PRO.

ITEM #3: dropped by PRO.

ITEM #4: dropped by PRO.

PRO has failed to engage CON's argument.

ITEM #5:  PRO argues,

"there is no way for you to disprove the little green men"
OBJECTION: Argument from Ignorance

Wikipedia advises:

"Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic.    It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true.

This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes the possibility that there may have been an insufficient investigation to prove that the proposition is either true or false.  It also does not allow for the possibility that the answer is unknowable, only knowable in the future, or neither completely true nor completely false.  In debates, appeals to ignorance are sometimes used in an attempt to shift the burden of proof. In research, low-power experiments are subject to false negatives (there would have been an observable effect if there had been a larger sample size or better experimental design) and false positives (there was an observable effect; however, this was a coincidence due purely to random chance, or the events correlate, but there is no cause-effect relationship)." [1]
At maximum, our power to effectively test for the presence of some other intelligence or even life is extremely low powered.  We humans still have not even performed all of the experiments necessary to say for certain that no other life exists in our own Solar System, far less would be our capacity to effectively test the entire Milky Way for life and then intelligent life.  The answer is knowable given sufficient time and technology but as yet unanswered as PRO's one source of argument and only evidence ,"THE FERMI PARADOX AND THE AURORA EFFECT: EXO-CIVILIZATION SETTLEMENT, EXPANSION AND STEADY STATES" firmly attests. [2]

ITEM #5 is classic fallacy and that only.

As in prior rounds, PRO's resolution remains entirely refuted in R3.  Con extends all arguments.

Con looks forward to PRO's summation.


Round 5
Pro
#9
Forfeited
Con
#10
Thanks, billbatard

RESOLVED:Little Green Men Visited Long Ago

DEFINITONS:

All of CON's offered definitions stand.

BURDEN of PROOF

PRO has the full burden of proof.

ITEM #1: dropped by PRO.

ITEM #2: dropped by PRO.

ITEM #3: dropped by PRO.

ITEM #4: dropped by PRO.

PRO has failed to engage CON's argument.

ITEM #5:  dropped by PRO.

PRO forfeited R5.

All of CON's arguments stand uncontested by PRO. 
Therefore, PRO recommends that VOTERS award arguments to CON.

Thanks to billbatard for instigating this debate.

Thanks to VOTERS for their kind consideration.

Please VOTE CON.