Reply #15: Rationalism is funny that way. Apply it one place, and soon it is a habit.

[eallen]

I don't believe space aliens are kidnapping people and (a) giving them rectal probes, (b) stealing them away for distant zoos, or (c) implanting their seed, to return them as pod people, and for the same reason I don't believe in Yahweh: no evidence. Of course, you asked about the possibility of extraterrestrials, which is a different matter. For that, you have to calculate the Drake Equation. There are a couple of terms there that are still hard to fix.

The problem with LIHOP is that its meaning is so fuzzy that virtually any slip-up prior to 9/11 can be claimed as evidence for it, which the conspiracist then uses to leap to the less proven claims that travel under that acronym. Sorry, but that's not rational.

I'll press two other points. First, conspiracy theorists have a strange understanding of what would make them right. If we are visited in our lifetime by an alien civilization, that will not corroborate all the many folks who have held a wide variety of views about extraterrestrial activity prior to that. To be factually right means being right on the details, not just adhering to a range of conspiracy theories, even if some future event could have been one of them.

Second, I think conspiracy theorists and cranks undermine the political parties they support. Not necessarily by much, since they generally are on the fringe, and everyone realizes that.