Alien encounters 'within twenty years'

guardian.uk ^ | 6/27/11 | Reuters

[MichaelP]

I hope that I am alive to see it. It would be a world game changer...

Mike

[Jack Hammer]

We have an alien culture already, right here in the US - it’s called ‘congress.’

[tarheelswamprat]

"The fact that they haven’t is evidence that they don’t exist"

Good thinking.

No, it isn't. It's backwards, and it's faulty logic. The correct logical statement is "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Lack of evidence doesn't "disprove" anything. It merely means that the theory, argument, etc. remains unproven for lack of supporting data.

[garjog]

“”The fact that they haven’t is evidence that they don’t exist”

Good thinking.

No, it isn’t. It’s backwards, and it’s faulty logic. The correct logical statement is “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. Lack of evidence doesn’t “disprove” anything. It merely means that the theory, argument, etc. remains unproven for lack of supporting data.
____________
Yes, my point. The claim that alien civilizations exist is unproven. I didn’t say that a lack of evidence disproves the case. But the lack of evidence for alien visitation makes the case weak: Out of a billion planets and the likelihood of advanced races, we would expect lots of visitations. We don’t have those visitations. Therefore, alien civilizations probably don’t exist.

You claim my neighbor has a puppy mill in his basement. But, I never hear any barking. I doubt your claim is true.

[tarheelswamprat]

You’re into pretzel logic territory, FRiend. No point in continuing this. Fare well.