How to Ignore Scientists and Still Discover True Facts About Reality

When science becomes useless in advancing our understanding

By MARTIN REZNY

As a historic UFO hearing fast approaches in the U.S., and as Barbieheimer dominates the theaters, I can’t help but think about the effectiveness and accuracy of the scientific method and of the academia as a whole.

Sure, there’s still a chance that all the whistleblowers are wrong about there being aliens visiting Earth and about there having been a U.S.-led global UFO technology reverse engineering program for the last 70+ years.

But there’s also a decent chance that aliens are here and we do have some of their tech, but scientists somehow missed it.

How on Earth, or anywhere in space, really, does a civilization jump 1000 years in technology with its leading physicists being none the wiser? Worse than that, with its leading physicists being so sure that such a thing is impossible, that they mock anyone who claims anything of the sort?

If the scientific method is the only/best way we have of learning true things about the universe, how could it not even be responsible for getting us the best tech? Clearly, there must be other solid ways of gaining knowledge or technology in the universe. Like from other beings in the universe.

You could say that those beings surely must have gotten them using something very close to modern science, and on some other day I probably would have granted you that, but you know what, maybe not. Maybe they mainly used some of the different methods of gaining knowledge.

What might those be, you ask? Well, in no particular order, some of those approaches might be philosophy, journalism, police investigation, debate/law, fiction writing and other creative arts, intuition, revelation, and military intelligence. I’m sure I left out a bunch.

In the case of UFO reality, if it is a thing, it seems that military intelligence got a serious jump on everyone and then covered everything up; that the intuition and revelation people figured out what’s going on early by directly reaching out to the cosmos; that the journalists and cops got wind of what’s happening eventually by talking to people; and that the law people will be those who will force the truth out of the shadows and into the light.

The last people to still be in the dark on this would be the scientists.

Their defense? Well, they have certain standards of evidence that haven’t been met (by others). So they didn’t feel like investigating. And tried to stop anyone else from investigating. And will keep resisting evidence once it is presented until it reaches unspecified “extraordinary” levels.

Once again, sure, there’s still some chance all the UFO stuff isn’t real. But the problem is that if it is real, if it were real, this is how the scientific community would remain ignorant of it. As well as hinder everyone else’s progress. In a case like this one, science may literally be the worst method.

I mean, let’s just think about it. It’s not like the success rate of science at facts is 100%, and the success rate of everything else is 0%. Science is also not ideally suited to attack all of the problems humans find worth solving, as many of those deal with subjective personal phenomena.

Most quests to discover something start with a good old hunch. Not evidence, not even a theory, not even a testable hypothesis. An untestable, fuzzy hunch, which may or may not turn out to be true in the end. Most people focus on “may” in that sentence. Scientists focus on “may not”.

I haven’t seen it precisely articulated anywhere, but it seems to me that particularly skeptical scientists believe that if someone turns out to be right on a hunch, that it doesn’t count somehow, that they don’t deserve credit for anything we gained thanks to them. But when someone turns out to be wrong following the right procedure, that should be celebrated.

Except, when one is wrong, we don’t gain anything, for as long as they believe they’re not wrong and force everyone to act, or, especially, not act, on the basis of that (wrong) understanding. And it turns out scientists can remain comfortably wrong, and in power, for many decades. That’s a long time of not having access to truths that could instantly solve big problems.

Ideally, one should strive to get hard evidence at some point that would satisfy even the most ardent scientific skeptic, but that’s just not how inquiry starts, or gets traction. All of the other approaches to gain knowledge are better at working with hunches, and therefore starting.

Here’s a summary of how the other methods *work* (for scientists):

1. Philosophy — an endless definition exercise. Sounds very detached from reality and impractical, but keep refining definitions long enough and you start inventing things like mathematics or the scientific method. The real truth discovered by philosophy is a truth of logic, as any reality must be based on some kind of fundamental rules. This lends itself more to advancing the big picture understanding of the universe, rather than to solving any particular case, however. Still, an individual following solid logic is less likely to be distracted or fooled.
2. Journalism — find and tell a story by talking to people and verifying your sources. This method’s strengh is that it has a powerful driving motivation, curiosity, harnessed much more personally here than it is in science. Where science is content in finding a new fact about space rocks, a journalist has to go for no less than “Are we alone?” or “What’s being covered up?” Journalists can put too much trust in testimony and overhype things, but they’re relentless at poking at human secrets that the people want to know, in a way that nobody else can be.
3. Police investigation — discover and solve crimes by following procedures based on centuries of experience of officers dealing with lawbreakers. Scientists can certainly help detectives determine whether a crime has occurred or who did it, but criminology and forensics are not exact sciences, and regular police work isn’t done by criminologists. The driving motivation here is suspicion, coupled with a purpose to protect people from harm, always against an adversary. Detectives can get the science wrong or become corrupt, but their work is vital.
4. Debate/law — explore the value of an idea through structured dialogue and persuade others of it. Usually, this involves two opposed sides and a neutral judge. The art of rhetoric is thousands of years old, but no less relevant to the modern society than it was to ancient ones. Scientists may see rhetoric as fairly arbitrary as far as truth-determining methods go, if they don’t understand that what any evidence means must also always be settled by a debate. Scientific data doesn’t have any value by itself. People give it value, or meaning, through informal argument aimed to persuade other people, with all their idiosyncrasies and biases.
5. Fiction writing and creative arts — come up with new things that could be real, or reflect real things in new ways, on the basis of personal imagination, observation, or experience. Technical terms for these two modes of artistic invention are “diegesis” and “mimesis”, respectively. If the term “invention” implies to you something that isn’t true, remember that new scientific technologies are also called “inventions”. A work of fiction tends to be something new and not literally true, but often containing a true insight into real possibilities. Some fiction later comes true, after all, and not only by being self-fulfilling. If aliens have been here this whole time and we got their tech and covered it up, then a lot of science-fiction was truly prophetic, or accurately imagined real possibilities.
6. Intuition — follow your own insight and gut feelings. There’s not much more to add here, except that the efficacy of this method varies wildly depending on the level of quality of any given person’s insight or gut. However, that doesn’t mean that nobody has ever had good sense of intuition, as most scientists seem to assume. If your intuition is often wrong about things, you can still try to identify another person whose intuition has a very good track record and put more weight to their hunches. In any case, anyone probably can improve how good they are at listening to and following their own intuition. Intuition can be very valuable in uncertain situations as a means of detecting deception.
7. Revelation — ask the universe for answers and listen. If there’s no established evidence yet, if there’s no person who knows what you need to know, and if you can’t figure it out by yourself, but you do need to know, then the only thing left is to ask a greater power for help. This is as far removed from the scientific method as you can get, but if there literally are advanced alien beings in orbit listening in on our thoughts, such an approach can be incredibly effective, however offensive the very concept might be to skeptical scientists. There have been scientific discoveries inspired or motivated by faith, or even dreams, so, why not, as long as you’re not asking god who should be more persecuted.
8. Military intelligence — investigate every potential threat using any means necessary, and never tell anyone more than they need to know. Yes, I know I said the order of these wasn’t particular, but the truth is, I saved the most successful approach for last. Until now, you didn’t have a need to know, so, tough luck. This will require more than just a paragraph.

How Intelligence Finds, and Owns, the Truth

The motivation here is also a protection of one’s country, on the surface, but realistically, it’s usually a mix of honest paranoia with some sort of dishonest power fantasy. There are good guys among the spies, but they’re probably in the minority, less powerful, and even they tend to subscribe to the Machiavellian mentality of trying to win by all means necessary.

The standard skeptical assumption of scientists that one shouldn’t assume malice, but instead incompetence, and that conspiracies therefore don’t happen and that secrets can’t be kept, actively enhances the effectiveness of the intelligence approach. Scientists tend to be used as so called “useful idiots” by intelligence officers. It’s part of a common intelligence strategy of using the vices of people to control them. In this case, the vice is ego.

The reason why nothing can escape the notice of a competent intelligence agency is that they simply can’t leave anything to chance. If somebody says they saw a flying saucer, and a reputable scientist assigns that account a probability of 1% of it being anything worth investigating, then a military inteligence agency must investigate. It’s low chance, but high risk.

Ultimately, if scientists want to understand this in their own terms, it’s game theory. If people all over your country keep saying they saw something fantastical, then as the military intelligence agency, you have 100% chance of gaining nothing by not investigating it, a non-zero chance of gaining a lot by investigating it, and a non-zero chance of being 100% fucked if you ignore it. And you know your rivals did the same math.

The comparative disadvantage of this approach mainly applies to the situation in which you do find something that you then need to research. By not telling any more people about it than the absolute necessary minimum, you’re increasing the lifetime of the secrecy, but you’re greatly limiting the speed at which you will be able to do any reverse engineering or mass production. It’s still a game theory problem — you must believe that you will be able to gain something before the secret is likely to leak.

In order to further extend your exclusive hold on the truth you discovered, and thus maximize any advantage you can gain, you’re also compelled to engage in deception, misinformation and disinformation, bribery, intimidation, assassination, and so on. That’s the “all means necessary” part. If you’re doing all that really well, and you control what scientists think, and the secret is hard to believe, it seems 70-ish years is the limit.

You could definitely use the scientific method as part of the reverse engineering process, particularly if the problems to solve fall under physics and are within reach of our current material science. But even then, you could try other things. You could try to capture and interrogate the aliens who made the damn things. You could try diplomacy, trade, archaeology, or psychics. For reference, see the Stargate Project, and Stargate SG-1.

Seriously, I’m increasingly convinced that Stargate SG-1 is some sort of cover-up/soft-disclosure documentary series. Everything in that show is mirrored in some experiencer or whistleblower account that is now being disclosed. Not in specific detail, but in the general concept. With the only exception being the stargate itself. So far. I suppose I should write a whole detailed article about this conspiracy theory of mine. But I digress.

The ultimate advantage of the military intelligence approach to figuring out the truth is precisely that it is willing and able to do so by all means necessary. They will often go with science, unless it’s too slow, or restrictive. They will gather all available information from all sources, and even a lot of the unavailable information. They’ll use legalism or persuasion when it suits them. Heck, they’ll try satanic rituals, just in case. Why? Because the price of failing to get to the truth first is too great.

Comparatively, scientists are hobbyists. They just don’t care as much. They’re not going to die, or get people killed, if they get something wrong. I mean, they can be wrong so much it kills them or harms a whole lot of other people, but they don’t look at it that way. Scientists are not nearly paranoid enough, about the consequences of their own (in)actions, or about what other people will do if they get ahead of them. I guess it’s not surprising then that in the game of truth, the scientists lose to spies.

Or so it has been so far, at least. If this UFO thing has some truth to it, and it comes out, extraordinary evidence and all, I can’t wait to see the scientists of the world get mad as hell about the appropriate thing — them being gaslit for generations by obscurants. Who knows, maybe that will give rise to some new form of academic intelligence. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see.