Bigfoot Research--Still No Evidence (Continued)

[Guest Admin]

Please continue here.

[Guest DWA]

Then there's this from LarryP:

"As a result of that fear, there are a lot of people in the Western world whose entire worldview is predicated on a mental addiction to what they perceive as physical data."

Set aside the kneejerk reaction to the f-word, and he's right. It accounts for much of what we see here.

Look at how long Ketchumflap has been going on! [taps shoulder] Um, anyone here have an actual bigfoot that provided that sample? If no one does there is no proof; it's just another "primate, unknown" result. Those have happened more than once. But since DNA is all tech-y and lab-coat-y, everybody talks about Ketchum...and nobody about how Meldrum and Bindernagel are testing the great ape hypothesis (tons of testable evidence) and finding it valid.

So there is testable evidence. But it's not lab-coat-y and test-tube-y and no it isn't proof, so it gets ignored.

If you want this hard physical evidence you are clamoring so hard for; might want to encourage scientists to pay attention to tracks (testable presumption: what made these can be found here, if you look) and sightings (concentrations set up the testable presumption: these are the best places to look) so you can get it.

This doesn't seem hard, to some of us.

[dmaker]

^^ Bindernagel and Meldrum have skipped proof and jumped right to BF exists. Unless one is currently publishing a handbook to an imaginary creature, I'm pretty sure Meldrum doesn't care about proof. And again, I have never said that evidence cannot be considered until proof is obtained. If I had a nickel for every time you've crammed words in my mouth, well I'd be vomiting nickels all over the place. Please stop that, or get a premium membership and I'll meet you in the Tar Pit someday where I am not forced into civility, because that is really getting under my skin. Consider all the evidence you want to consider. It's obvious you're moved by it and I'm not. Hey, Larry P. Let's go find an antique desk forum and debate the existence of such. That should be fun for about 5 minutes until someone posts some convincing photographic and video evidence to prove the claim(s). The same thing could happen here if only such evidence existed.

[Guest DWA]

^^ Bindernagel and Meldrum have skipped proof and jumped right to BF exists. Unless one is currently publishing a handbook to an imaginary creature, I'm pretty sure Meldrum doesn't care about proof. And again, I have never said that evidence cannot be considered until proof is obtained. If I had a nickel for every time you've crammed words in my mouth, well I'd be vomiting nickels all over the place. Please stop that, or get a premium membership and I'll meet you in the Tar Pit someday where I am not forced into civility, because that is really getting under my skin. Consider all the evidence you want to consider. It's obvious you're moved by it and I'm not. Hey, Larry P. Let's go find an antique desk forum and debate the existence of such. That should be fun for about 5 minutes until someone posts some convincing photographic and video evidence to prove the claim(s). The same thing could happen here if only such evidence existed.

You have no idea how much posts like this get under my skin.

(Talking right past my points always does. And how many times has that happened now.)

But unlike you, I seem to be having fun here. So no big.

Read up and come up with a respectable basis for the huffiness, or save it for the TP.

Edited March 20, 2013 by DWA

[dmaker]

^^ I've addressed your points a zillion times. I understand the difference between evidence and proof. I have explained that in this thread until I am blue in the face. But you ignore that because it is your number one accusation when dealing with skeptics. So rather than lose your most often used bullet in your arsenal, you just keep putting words into my mouth and firing away. It gets irksome. I have asked repeatedly for you to stop doing that.

[Guest LarryP]

Hey, Larry P. Let's go find an antique desk forum and debate the existence of such. That should be fun for about 5 minutes until someone posts some convincing photographic and video evidence to prove the claim(s). The same thing could happen here if only such evidence existed.

I could always post a link to a photo and/or video of my antique desk, dmaker.

But that always leaves open the possibility that I just photoshopped something that bears a remarkable likeness to an antique Maple wood writing desk.

Which could then lead to the " bring me" the actual desk along with "proof" that it is in fact verifiable as an antique desk which you actually own along with a peer review that concludes "undeniably" that it is an actual antique that belongs to you.

[dmaker]

Doesn't have to be "your" antique desk. Proof of even a single one, or a piece of one, owned by anyone would suffice. Bah, you can see where that is going. It's ridiculous to compare this to mundane things like desks, or dogs, or cats, or hats or bats.

BF is an outrageous claim. Having a desk is not. Unless of course you are saying it's made of BF bones. So really who cares? It's an exercise that is painfully obvious in what you are trying to say, lacks any cleverness at all, and is above anyone with a grade 5 education. So can we please move off of the silly desk analogy?

Supporting evidence for the claim that BF is a living, breathing creature exists. In fact, there are tons of it. The problem is that none of it, not a single iota yet, has been ultimately confirmed. Even if you separate the wheat from the chaff. And you are left with the cross referenced reports by eye witnesses who are above suspicion in circumstances that lend credibility to the sighting. I.E, someone with no reason to lie, perhaps trained in observation ( LEO, Military, hunter, etc), unlikely to misidentify ( hunters know what animals look like), containing traits that an animal that fits the shared description would likely exhibit, and so far away from regular human traffic as to make a deliberate hoax very, very unlikely. In other words not Rick Dyer's rib eating BF behind Home Depot or the family of BF living in my backyard, etc. Take away the fringe and the obvious hoaxes and misidentifications, and yes you are left with some compelling, anecdotal evidence to support the claim. The problem is that type of evidence can never be used to prove anything in the scientific context. So keep separating the wheat from the chaff of the reports, and the tracks and the audio samples. Keep doing that for years in fact. Many people have. But you will still be no closer to actually proving the animals' existence than you are right now at this moment. That type of evidence cannot accomplish that goal. It can lead to the goal, sure, if the goal be real and obtainable. It hasn't done it yet, and I just happen to think it never will.

Edited March 20, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest DWA]

^^ I've addressed your points a zillion times. I understand the difference between evidence and proof. I have explained that in this thread until I am blue in the face. But you ignore that because it is your number one accusation when dealing with skeptics. So rather than lose your most often used bullet in your arsenal, you just keep putting words into my mouth and firing away. It gets irksome. I have asked repeatedly for you to stop doing that.

Nope, you don't get it, and I have explained [...continue quoted post from word 'explained' to end and note you don't have to change a word, as I am not a 'bigfoot skeptic' but a real one]

It is incumbent upon science to address this issue, whether scientists get that or not. (Some do.) The 'skeptical' demurrers aren't skeptical at all; they are credulous and naive in the extreme, more than anything else in that they think significant time has been spent on this issue. (In practical terms, none has; this is a FACT; and if you don't get that, then, well, see what I mean?)

If one acknowledged the immediately preceding paragraph as true - and doing otherwise means one hasn't read up significantly, and needs to - the silliest premise on this site, the OP title, could have been put to rest about 185 pages ago. But that's bigfoot skepticism for you. Pick the wrong people to focus on...and laserfocus all your attention on them. Whatever attention you pay to the serious people, don't confront, directly, a single thing they say.

Do I have that right?

I do.

Because, if one has any reason to doubt what I have said, one has to back it up. This is just what we expect people to do in any serious discussion. But haven't I said and said and said that.

List all the field studies that took more than a weekend. All of them. In history. (Hint: three.) Come up with all the man-days spent in the field, in NA total, last year. (No this is your premise; so it's your assignment.) Come up with all the time Meldrum gets to spend on this at work. (Hint: ask a noted skeptic.) Come up with...

(No, I don't need to do this for you. See: I'm paying attention.)

Edited March 20, 2013 by DWA

[dmaker]

Not intending this as a concise response, but there are plenty of amateurs who have spent years and years in the field looking. Some with more than 30 years under their belt. That accounts for..what exactly in your eyes?

[Guest DWA]

Right. How many field days? How many of those consecutive? How many of these people even knew how to look for what they were looking for? How much cooperation was there, compared to backbiting/sniping/hoarding/refusal to cooperate?

Do I really need to hazard the answers to those questions?

Building the amateurs up and tearing them down when it suits you doesn't help any. What has resulted from the mainstream abdicating its proper place in this discussion is chaos and rampant misinformation. You aren't uncovering a rabbit with that.

As any bigfoot skeptic could tell you. And on that point, they'd be right.

Edited March 20, 2013 by DWA

[dmaker]

I've never once built up or tore down the amateurs. They are what they are. You do that constantly. You praise the Wood Ape Conservancy ( TBRC) all the time. Are they not amateurs? Yet when it suits you, you lay the blame for the state of the physical evidence at the door of science because amateurs are not capable of bringing in the goods in your opinion. You have expressed this many times in this thread. Unless I am mistaken and the Wood Ape folks are all Phds?

[Guest DWA]

I've met Alton Higgins of NAWAC. If he were at the other end of a football field from you, you'd recognize him as a scientist. I've met several others of that group, too. There are mainstreamers I'd put in line behind practically any NAWAC member I've met when it comes to this topic.

But for the 500th time:

This group has executed two of the three bigfoot expedtions in history. Grand total time spent on the three expeditions: three months. Give or take. (It's "take.") And that's gotten us both the single best piece of evidence there is - no negative takes that hold water, in over 45 years - and copious data that, once they get enough time away from their real jobs to process it, will probably advance the field far more than that film did. (Maybe almost as much as that film should have.)

If mainstreamers were doing this...we would expect at least that much.

And if they were doing this...and had gotten cracking when they should have...we wouldn't have waited a half-century to get that.

[dmaker]

Actually, the time spent in the field mantra is YOUR claim, not mine. Upstream you very loudly proclaimed it a FACT. So if it's a fact that hardly any time is being spent on this, then you should be able to produce reports of the number of participants, their credentials, the dates of the expedition, etc? Since you claim this as a fact, then surely you must have something to back up that claim? See, this is actually your assignment, not mine. So please,list the details of the field studies that you feel are insignificant.

Now when I say there have been plenty of hours spent by amateurs, it's not hard to back that up. The opening sequence for Finding Bigfoot has a claim of hunting these animals for 25 years, no?

[Guest DWA]

Finding Bigfoot can claim anything it wants.

Nope, your assignment. Know why you're getting it?

I don't need to convince you.

But you need to do something other than needlessly carp. There is something.

I'm satisfied, utterly.

(FACT.)

Satisfy yourself.

(Not a finger will they lift. But They Are Right. yum hum.)

Edited March 20, 2013 by DWA

[dmaker]

I've met Alton Higgins of NAWAC. If he were at the other end of a football field from you, you'd recognize him as a scientist. I've met several others of that group, too. There are mainstreamers I'd put in line behind practically any NAWAC member I've met when it comes to this topic.

But for the 500th time:

This group has executed two of the three bigfoot expedtions in history. Grand total time spent on the three expeditions: three months. Give or take. (It's "take.") And that's gotten us both the single best piece of evidence there is - no negative takes that hold water, in over 45 years - and copious data that, once they get enough time away from their real jobs to process it, will probably advance the field far more than that film did. (Maybe almost as much as that film should have.)

If mainstreamers were doing this...we would expect at least that much.

And if they were doing this...and had gotten cracking when they should have...we wouldn't have waited a half-century to get that.

So have you magically conferred advanced degrees on these people like you did for Beringe because it suits your argument? Or when you decry amateur, we're somehow supposed to know that doesn't really mean amateur, but actually means something that is only really defined by you and seems to change from time to time?