Episode description

Yes, this is me asking David Deutsch about the supposed "evidence" of UFOs that are the US Military's release of footage from jet aircraft that have become known as "Tic Tacs". I do not mention this in the video, but the best explanation I have seen of at least some of this stuff is by Mick West who was able to reproduce at least some of the images: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le7Fq... Neil deGrasse Tyson also makes broadly similar remarks to David in this podcast with Sam Harris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBVg5... Whatever the case, the deeper point is the more general one. When we do not know the explanation for a set of observations, then we have a problem. Not a solution. In this case, we seem to have either very prosaic solutions (as Mick West explains - in the form of camera effects) or perhaps something we "don't know". What we do not have is "evidence for" something amazing. Namely alien life visiting us in their spacecraft. The only way "evidence for" actually works is when it *rules out* every other theory. That is, in fact, the purpose of evidence in science. For more on that, see here: http://www.bretthall.org/general-rela... and here: http://www.bretthall.org/philosophy-o... #Tictacs #UFO