[RoosterRedux]

Poor Carl Sagan let his love of the limelight blind him to his own confirmation bias.

It is very UNscientific to set out to prove (or debunk) an event or theory because your own bias is going to amplify confirming evidence and obscure evidence that doesn't.

This is what leads scientists today to bemoan the fact that research nowadays is mostly bogus because it is funded by the government for the purpose of proving or disproving a theory or hypothesis instead of merely looking for the truth (whatever it may be). In other words, scientists get grants to give the funder of their work what they paid for. Otherwise, they would be out of business shortly.

COVID has pulled the curtain back on the state of research in the scientific world today.

It can't be trusted because it isn't objective out of the gate.

[Joe Brower]

You oddly conflate two totally disparate events, a supposed UFO abduction from the early 60s to the official 'reaction' to the Covid scamdemic 60 years later. That's quite a leap. Suffice it to say that science was much more actual 'science', even in the 90s, that what it is today, which is as you point out little more than a veil of legitimacy pulled over raw politics. Amazing what difference a few decades makes.

Sagan's primary focus in his book was to apply strict scientific theory to all the superstitions, hoaxes, unsolved mysteries and so many other unfounded beliefs that continue to plague mankind. And under that cold Occam's razor, the tale of Barney and Betty Hill, as interesting as it may be, fails strict scrutiny.

Yes, scientists are only human, and as such do have their own biases. It is a measure of the scientific mind as to how well this primitive urge is resisted. You go off on bias, yet exhibit an enormous amount of bias in your own post. Perhaps you did not notice. Biases are like that.