UFOs are in today's news again. Step up DUers. If you have had a sighting, lets us all know.

[Silent3]

100. While talk of UFOs results in comments from various viewpoints...

...in my experience, the proof demands you talk about here:

I have never gotten the impression that a skeptic who is mocking the topic of UFOs believes in alien life beyond Earth because there is, as yet, no proof of such which is the skeptic's entire argument.

...are, from most skeptics I encounter, about proof of alien visitation, or that a sighting of a UFO is indeed likely to be sighting of alien activity. Not just about whether alien life exists.

Although we don't really know enough about how life started on Earth to be sure of anything, a good lesson that the scientifically-minded have learned over time, after finding out that one's own people aren't at the center of a flat world, that the Earth isn't at the center of the solar system, that there's a whole galaxy beyond own little not-so-special solar system, and that our galaxy is just one of trillions, is that the safest bet is to bet we aren't so special or unique. If life can happen here, it can probably happen anywhere that conditions are favorable.

This isn't proof of the existence of alien life, just an argument in favor of its likelihood. It's a poor skeptic (or just a straw man parody of a skeptic) who treats lack of definitive proof of X as practically the same thing as proof that X does not exist.

(The biggest thing to give one pause about the existence specifically of intelligent alien life is the Fermi Paradox. While I still would guess intelligent alien life out there somewhere is more likely than not, the Fermi Paradox does make me wonder just how lonely and far from the that life we might be, if it's out there at all.)

On the other hand, proof of alien visitation is quite another thing. With the evidence there being of very poor quality, and with provable cases of people being fooled by much more mundane events, and the known foibles of human psychology, Occam's Razor favors mundane events over alien visitation whenever and wherever solid proof does not exist, no matter how passionately some people believe their own experience "proves" otherwise.

What I have seen are comments to the effect "why would alien life do this or that?" and "do you realize the type of craft required to travel that distance?"

Comments of that sort are the poorest of arguments against alien visitation. It seems a fair number of people get off on decrying how terrible humanity is, and will use UFO talk as an opportunity to vent their disdain for our species with comments like "why would they bother visiting us?" -- which even misses the point that a visit might be necessary first before even forming an opinion if we're "worthy" of attention or not.

It's also not wise to project human levels of patience for possible long-term projects, or human conceptions of what constitutes "too much effort" onto alien life that could have greatly advanced technology, especially since it's not even that hard to extrapolate probing the entire galaxy, and even beyond, from current human technology.

I'll admit I can be disdainful of some UFO believers because I think developing a skeptical mind, and learning that "personal experience" is not the gold standard of knowledge and understanding, is an important element of maturity and of being a good citizen.