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Oh, now this makes it complete! Definitions trotted out as if they were proof of your thesis. Do you sometimes post under another name or are you "doing" somebody whose style you admire?

You make a point of missing my point. In explaining the origin of something like a lot of flattened corn, the default assumption for most people is never going to be "little green men" for whom there is nothing but anecdotal evidence. I'm telling you where the bar is set whether you want to hear it or not. In statements like those that follow, however, you clearly assume that it's LGMs until somebody shows it ain't.

You appear to be either threatened by the idea that these circles exist and weren't created by "hoaxsters". (Where's the evidence for anything else?)

He didn't say undergraduates COULD do it. He said that this so-called "Occam's razor" theorem SUGGESTS that undergraduates were MORE THAN LIKELY responsible. That is a far cry from undergraduates actually having done it.

I wondered if you were familiar with Occam's Razor. In fact, I guessed not. Yes, Occam's Razor suggests what should be the default assumption and what should have the burden of proof. It doesn't tell you what is true, although it should give you ideas.

One way to describe Occam's Razor is that you don't unnecessarily multiply conjectures. Confronted with two explanations which seem to work equally well so far, choose the simplest, the one with the fewest so-far unverified elements. Your theory needs alien spaceships which have only the sort of anecdotal evidence that exists for ghosts, yetis, Bigfoot, chupacabras, the Monkey Man of India, that sort of thing.

There are other forms of Occam's Razor. The common saying that "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck" is one. For most people, your crop circles quack like a prank.

Definitions trotted out as if they were proof of your thesis.

You apparently needed to be educated as to the meaning of the word "delusional", as you were throwing it around in an invective manner, yet the word more appropriately applied to your own behavior.

Do you sometimes post under another name or are you "doing" somebody whose style you admire?

So OTHER people have found it necessary to post you definitions? That doesn't that surprise me. And no, I'm not somebody else. Do you hear voices?

In explaining the origin of something like a lot of flattened corn, the default assumption for most people is never going to be "little green men" for whom there is nothing but anecdotal evidence.

We aren't talking about "lots of flattened corn". The formations in question are a far cry from simply being a flattened field of crops. Why don't you take a look at the complexity involved in the following formation, and tell me again that it's just flattened crops, in this case wheat..

Additionally, I've never mentioned anything about "little green men". I find it amusing that you use that disparaging term when you apparently are in favor of trying to find "little green men" via the SETI project. Why would you feel the need to search for ET when you dispagarge those who might wonder about crop circles?

You continue to have this irrational, unfounded belief that ALL crop circles are man-made hoaxes. Even the "Circle Makers", argueably the best hoax team ever assembled, cannot duplicate the symmetry and geometric precision of GENUINE crop circles. When given several DAYS in New Zealand to construct a authentic looking crop circle, they fell short of the symmetry and precision of REAL formations. The stalks of wheat in their formation were broken, not bent at 90 angles as in the real thing. Also missing were the EM field changes, increased background radiation, and celluar changes within the wheat. REAL crop circles have been seen that were formed in less than 45 minutes in broad daylight, as in the Julia formation shown below which was formed in July of 1996.

Additionally, that formation was right next to a busy highway, so any pranksters would have been noticed.

You might just want to take a peek at the link below, which shows a crop circle being formed in less than a minute.

Crop Circle forming

I wondered if you were familiar with Occam's Razor. In fact, I guessed not.

From What is Occam's Razor?..

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate", or, "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily".

Many scientists have adopted or reinvented Occam's Razor as in Leibniz' "identity of observables" and Isaac Newton stated the rule: "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances."

The most useful statement of the principle for scientists is,

"when you have two competing theories which make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler is the better."

So here we are with crop circles being formed with perfect geometric precision and symmetry at night within a span of 4 hours. There is celluar changes in the crops, they are bent at 90 angles without damage or sign of being trampled. There is increased background radiation, and there are magnetic field disturbances as well as RF emissions in the MHz range. Not even including the video that I've linked above, Occam's Razor would suggest something other than Doug and Dave (a pair of geriatric gentlemen who've claimed to be the perpetrators of crop circle hoaxes, one of whom died in 1998) is responsible for these formations. If you look at even the "Circle Makers", formerlly known as "Team Satan", who've never been able to reproduce the symmetery and geometric perfection of GENUINE formations, again, Occam's razor would eliminate THEM from the list of possibilities.

You quack like you're in denial. The GENUINE formations are obviously formed by forces MUCH more complex than planks and ropes, and appear to created by entities that might just be trying to get our attention. If you admit the fact that more than likely there ARE extraterrestrial entities (as you desire to search for them through the SETI project), what makes you think they aren't capable of "signalling" us in this manner?

As such, I'm in agreement with your closing remarks..

Yes, Occam's Razor suggests what should be the default assumption and what should have the burden of proof. It doesn't tell you what is true, although it should give you ideas.