0
The title of the event: “Alien Abduction Experiences: Normal Science or Revolutionary Science?’’A confab featuring National Enquirer editors? A gathering of “X Files’’ devotees?
Hardly.
It was the subject of a panel discussion yesterday at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science, and it showcased credentialed scientists discussing the reasons alien abduction — think UFOs — may or may not be a genuine phenomenon.
The speakers — including a university dean and a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist — acknowledged the topic was scarcely standard fare for an august conclave of researchers. But that, they said, was exactly the point. After all, from Galileo to Edison to Einstein, doubt has shadowed some of the world’s deepest thinkers.
“If we’re not open to the possibility that things we regard as preposterous might be true, then we’re going to miss the discoveries,’’ said Dr. Roger K. Pitman, a Harvard psychiatrist.
Not that Pitman was there, at the Sheraton Boston Hotel, to make the case in favor of space aliens. In fact, he is among Harvard researchers who have reported that people asserting they were abducted are more prone to false memories than people making no such claims.
Stuart Appelle, dean of the School of Science and Mathematics at the State University of New York Brockport, wasn’t arguing one way or another about the existence of human-abducting aliens.
Source
