Normally this is a good approach, but a problem with the UFOs are aliens theory is that there is a massive amount of evidence (much undoubtedly crap) the most important of which is likely classified top secret so you have to put a lot of weight on what other people (especially those with direct access to those with top secret security clearances) say they believe.
The best photos of my house from space are also classified, yet I don’t live in total ignorance about what my house looks like from above.
If the classified photos of my house did show something surprising (maybe I’ve got some graffiti that I’ve never noticed), I would update my beliefs, but because I have pretty good evidence about the top of my house already, I don’t need to wait around for the best possible photos, and in fact I can give pretty good predictions of what those photos will look like.
Suppose my house is in some declassified Navy photos and there’s a bird over my roof. If someone claims that my roof has a picture of a bird on it, this is very bad evidence for my house actually having a picture of a bird on it, and very good evidence for this person having made a mistake.
Normally this is a good approach, but a problem with the UFOs are aliens theory is that there is a massive amount of evidence (much undoubtedly crap) the most important of which is likely classified top secret so you have to put a lot of weight on what other people (especially those with direct access to those with top secret security clearances) say they believe.
The best photos of my house from space are also classified, yet I don’t live in total ignorance about what my house looks like from above.
If the classified photos of my house did show something surprising (maybe I’ve got some graffiti that I’ve never noticed), I would update my beliefs, but because I have pretty good evidence about the top of my house already, I don’t need to wait around for the best possible photos, and in fact I can give pretty good predictions of what those photos will look like.
Suppose my house is in some declassified Navy photos and there’s a bird over my roof. If someone claims that my roof has a picture of a bird on it, this is very bad evidence for my house actually having a picture of a bird on it, and very good evidence for this person having made a mistake.