Ufo Design Flaws

When conducting a scientific experiment, it is important to keep in mind certain key components such as random sampling, random assignment, control group and internal validity threats. However, much of the research and experiments that have been done about the possibility of aliens have not followed good experimental guidelines. For instance, a main concern with many experiments about aliens is the use of purposive sampling. The specific target individuals are those who believe in UFO’s or extraterrestrials, and those who claim to have been abducted by aliens. This creates a problem of sampling because no matter what the actual experiment may be, the sample only consists of believers which is not an accurate representation of the population. According to Rice …show more content…
Sure enough, the participant was very quick and eager to say that he spotted another UFO. This experiment shows the flaw of having both a small number of subjects and purposive sampling of only believers. I do not think it would be ethical to hypnotize people on believing they have been abducted or not, therefor, I believe the best course of action will be to focus on design flaws of small amount of participants as well as purposive sampling. In order to over come these design flaws, I would propose a different yet similar experiment. First, I would randomly sample individuals and ask them if they believe in UFO’s to ensure I have both believers and non believers. I would then have each person look at the balloons from a distance and ask them what they think it was. If more believers think it is a UFO then perhaps this is because confirmation bias causing only believers to see what they want to see which can contribute to the pseudoscience. This study may show that the belief in this pseudoscience is in fact more about wanting something to be true then it is about actually experiencing or seeing something. This study would overcome both the small amount of subjects as well as the purposive sampling