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I was kind of goaded into my mocking mode, which is never very difficult to do.

I don't believe that we have been visited by alien civilizations. I would like to see some proof before I do believe that.

I happen to believe that limitations imposed by time and space preclude actual physical contact with an alien civilization, but would welcome proof that I am in error. If contact is as wide-ranging and verifiable as some UFOlogists assert, I don't think a sliver of incontrovertible evidence is an unreasonable request.

I do hold out hope for some contact with an alien intelligence, though I believe that, if it does occur, the same limits of time and space will make that conversation distinctly one-sided. We will detect some alien communications by a long since dead civilization amongst themselves, and will attempt to respond. And in a few hundred million years, some other civilization may hear our response, but our existence as a species will have long since flickered out by then.

I think our universe is likely teeming with intelligent life, each existing in its own little bubble of time and space, with little hope of meaningful conversation outside that circle.

But of course, I could be wrong.

"I was kind of goaded into my mocking mode, which is never very difficult to do."

Hey, but then you wouldn't be you! That would be most unfortunate. :)

"I don't believe that we have been visited by alien civilizations. I would like to see some proof before I do believe that."

I would say I don't believe that we have NOT been visited. All I know is that one can't logically dismiss the notion since they haven't personally seen a visitation.

"I happen to believe that limitations imposed by time and space preclude actual physical contact with an alien civilization, but would welcome proof that I am in error."

Imagine that it's the early 1940's, and there is this theory that there is something called an atomic chain reaction. Far out stuff being presented by a German Jewish expatriate to the President. You believe it's a fantasy - would you have been right or wrong? Prior to the Trinity blast, or Hiroshima, right or wrong is a matter of belief on YOUR part, not the scientists at Alamogordo. That's where FTL propulsion is at this point, but without an apparent government crash program to develop it, a la the Manhattan project. The first work by a Dr. Alcubierre opened the theoretical basis of warp drive physics, and in the ensuing decade it has been under refinement. Real stuff, admittedly exotic, but quite real. Will warp drives be developed by humanity in our lifetimes? Who knows? But it is a sure bet that science is beginning to realize for the umpteenth time that barriers are meant to be broken. FTL travel is just another nut to crack.

"If contact is as wide-ranging and verifiable as some UFOlogists assert, I don't think a sliver of incontrovertible evidence is an unreasonable request."

Sometimes proof requires development. Sometimes proof is denied. I have not seen a platypus, except in pictures, but I don't feel I can wholesale deny the existence of the baffling creatures. Then again, I don't have to believe in absurdities that spring up like sown-together animals from a freak show, either. Once again, balance.

Once again, my philosophy is that our universe is not simply broken down into the physics we "understand" today or into some sort of pop-fiction notion of otherworldly things we can't yet truly know.

I'm very interested in what Petah Jennings has to say, but i suspect it will be merely entertainment. And it'll be Bush's fault! ;)

What I fail to detect yet, is whether you appreciate that

THERE REALL ARE topics, dynamics, contingencies, situations, areas of reality

about which 'proof' is highly tricky; if not hazardous; if not greatly difficult; if not inherently challenging to sociologically or power politics impossible . . . . etc.

to come by.

And regarding such situations and realities, insisting on an overly strict level of proof can leave you in a very vulnerable position--vulnerable in a list of ways--the loss of pride eventually being amongst the least of them.

By the time that level of proof surfaces in a readily available format, forum, group, public discourse etc. the die is cast and many options are thereby automatically forever blocked off. Such options as may exist decrease probably geometrically the closer such things get to the surface.

The atomic blast in New Mexico beginning such things was but one example of such a thing.

I would be greatly comforted if I could have cause to believe that you understand the hazardous position that you insist on remaining in--somewhat unnecessarily. One doesn't need to forsake reason or even great skepticism to reside in a place of fair-minded balance on the topic.