From: Jerome Clark <jkclark@frontiernet.net>
Date: Mon, 01 Feb 99 10:59:17 PST
Fwd Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 12:56:57 -0500
Subject: Re: Abduction - The Issue Of Reality


>From: Kevin Randle <KRandle993@aol.com>
>Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 09:52:20 EST
>To: updates@globalserve.net
>Subject: Re: Abduction - The Issue Of Reality

>>From: Greg Sandow <gsandow@prodigy.net>
>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>>Subject: Re: Abduction - The Issue Of Reality
>>Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 18:13:13 -0500

>>>From: Kevin Randle <KRandle993@aol.com>
>>>Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:53:44 EST
>>>To: updates@globalserve.net
>>>Subject: Re: 1999 UFO Alien Abduction Conference Announced

>>>>Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 10:13:53 -0800 (PST)
>>>>From: Rebecca Keith <xiannekei@yahoo.com>
>>>>Subject: Re: 1999 UFO Alien Abduction Conference Announced
>>>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>

>>Stuart Appelle, in his lengthy JUFOS paper on the abduction
>>evidence, suggests that non-abductees should be asked to imagine
>>details like this, to determine whether there's some mental
>>template or cultural predisposition that leads people toward
>>these repeated abduction details. If you ask non-abductees what
>>color the uniforms would be, and most of them say that they're
>>blue, then it's much less impressive when abductees report that.

>Which is what Alvin Lawson did and was castigated for "leading"
>his subjects into an abduction scenario. Yes, Lawson's work can
>be seen as flawed (yet it is cited in some of the psychological
>journal articles),


I think the problem with Lawson's work was best summarized by
the late D. Scott Rogo, who wrote:


"His process of selection was ... about as scientific as asking
subjects to describe an imaginary cat, collecting reports of
real cats, extracting whatever common descriptions there might
be, and then concluding that all cats are imaginary."


Kevin is certainly right: Lawson's severely flawed work is cited
uncritically in some psychological journal papers, proving that
scientists are not beyond the opportunistic use of bad science
to combat hated ideas.  I hope that Kevin's forthcoming book is
honest enough not to be entirely one-sided: in other words, to
criticize critics as vigorously as it criticizes proponents of
the abduction phenomenon (not, by the way, "the abduction
phenomena").

Jerry Clark