Debunk The Debunking

[Guest]

That's a load of bull. If YOU are making an assertive claim, it is on YOU to produce evidence to support that claim.

That is the biggest problem I have with "skeptics" on this topic: one standard for "believers" (prove it prove it prove it!) and another for themselves (we don't gotta prove nothing!)

Easy Muldy, you're going to lose a load if your'e not careful

[Guest]

Happy Holidays to all and safe travels.

[Sasfooty]

The more Fortean/supernatural claims are fairly recent developments and are typically associated with habituation claims which I also find problematic since they cannot yet be verified/corroborated, have been subject to significant hoaxing IMO (e.g., Carter Farm),

The supernatural claims are by no means a recent development. Native Americans have legends of them as being "shape-shifters" from ancient times. (I can't verify those beliefs, since I've never seen one shape-shift.)

I find habituation labels problematic, myself, as I have never claimed to be an habituator. I just happen to live in their territory. When we moved here, they didn't go away, but I certainly didn't habituate them, nor them, me.

I am observant enough to notice their behavior, & if you notice something long enough, you are likely to learn about it.

I do believe that more extravagant claims of this nature are part of why this particular subject is dismissed by the mainstream Scentific Body Politic.

A wise man once said "Magic is just science that hasn't been discovered yet."

[Drew]

Sorry Drew, the MTI document does not state equivocally or provide photo evidence that a body has been recovered for each item on Sas's latest and much bracketed list, much less his and other earlier assertions about 'all wildlife', or 'all large mammals', or, or or......back to the original 'only BF is immune' statement. Most of the photos in the document actually show live animals, not corpses.

The point was and remains that the goalposts were moved, several times with respect to 'roadkill' and then 'roadkill with a recoverable body'.

And just to point out, the WARS database itself, which none of the skeptics have directly pointed to, should be the likely proof source since it will indicate reported roadkill which presumably resulted in a recoverable body. Even that though would only be evidence that every animal for which there has been a roadkill event with recoverable body, has been a roadkill event with recoverable body - kind of a circular reasoning if you get my meaning.

My point was that an opinion, several opinions in fact, were stated as fact, and when challenged were repeatedly bracketed and clarified until it could reasonably be argued (from 'all' to a list of less than two dozen species).

That is textbook moving goalposts, which has been my primary point.

I have found evidence of all of Saskeptic's animals, plus the wild burro and wild horse.

The BFF is filtering out one of my links, and crashing my web browser, so I will try to do this link by link.

Red Wolf - http://books.google.com/books?id=5gnWHLaUsqUC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=red+wolf+roadkill&source=bl&ots=wClPgu_Q5P&sig=LBVXmurAGIQWwpp3M7p45v2hF0I&hl=en&ei=-NsLTaHFBo-u8AbHkoD5DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Pronghorn antelope- http://skytruth.mediatools.org/gallery/514?q=gallery/514

Edited December 17, 2010 by Drew

[Drew]

Bighorn Sheep - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/e/a/1999/06/09/SPORTS12750.dtl

Desert Bighorn- http://www.azdot.gov/TPD/ATRC/publications/project_reports/PDF/AZ588.pdf

[Guest]

Just a reminder to everyone enjoying this thread. The title of this thread is "Debunk The Debunking" not "Debunk The Skeptic".

If you don't remember what the thread is supposed to be about, then please go back and read Infoman's opening post.

It is a thread for both the proponents and skeptics to discuss the ways bigfoot is debunked.

It is not a thread to rant about the skeptics.

Don't you proponents worry...... the staff doesn't intend to let the skeptics rant about you either.

[norseman]

This is hilarious!!! Are you saying that no matter what we observe & know, we have to hide it, & pretend it doesn't exist, so as not to scare off the scientists?

Claiming that bigfoot is a shape shifting entity may scare off science............yes.

I guess we should be looking for creepy people that sleep during the day and have muddy feet?

[Guest]

Can I just ask a question here? Am I the only one that thinks like this? That this is beyond silly?

If you only include certain animals for roadkill statistics how is that going to tell you anything about the big picture for why there is no bigfoot road kill?

The conclusion would only be erroneous because other factors were ignored such as:

1.) time of day

2.) what time of year

3.) weather conditions

4.) condition of the driver

5.) condition of the animal

6.) animal agility

7.) animal size

8.) animal stature

9.) amount of traffic on that road

10.) where is the road in relation to the immediate environment

11.) what kind of vehicle was being driven

12.) condition of the road being driven on

13.) the population of the animal involved

14.) how many human's have been hit on this road

15.) which collisions were fatal and which were not for both human and animal

16.) what kind of tires were on the vehicle

17.) did it have anti lock breaks

18.)How fast was the vehicle going

19.) how fast was the animal going

Straw Man Fallacy=

# Person A has position X.

# Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).

# Person B attacks position Y.

# Therefore X is false/incorrect/flaw

Scientific method-To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical, and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.

Therefore the road kill discussion that involves limited variables that would affect the outcome for the conclusion is looking like a straw man fallacy posing as pseudo science.

Edited December 17, 2010 by Jodie

[xspider1]

+ + Sasfooty and infoman. It's nice that you both can be polite, patient and interesting at the same time!

-1 for me because I took the statement: "unlike all our other wildlife"

to mean:

"unlike all our other wildlife".

I have to read more between the lines I guess.

[southernyahoo]

Claiming that bigfoot is a shape shifting entity may scare off science............yes.

Those scientists scare too easily, you wouldn't want them out looking for bigfoot anyways.

[Guest]

Jodie that has been my aim all along - I did not start the 'all animals' element of the roadkill discussion with my admitted strawman, it was stated by several of the participating skeptics, who offered personal opinions as facts that allowed me to create the strawman.

If you ignore all of the he-said she-said in between, there is only thing that can be said with certainty, those roadkill events that left a recoverable body, are roadkill events that left a recoverable body - nothing more.

It was not reasonable to say 'only BF does not leave a body' as was posited by several skeptics. When challenged, the 'all of our wildlife are roadkill' started to get whittled down until it ultimately became a definable list of just over a dozen specific species.

The list is not and was not ever important. The issue was not the list, it was the logic (or lack therof) that 'lack of a body following a reported collision with a vehicle is proof BF don't exist, or a strong argument against their existence'.

You correctly point out there are way too many variables with respect to animal/vehicle impacts, and as has also been opinted out, there are unknowns about the bone structure etc, but we can say that the vast majority of sightings describe a powerfully built animal. Unlike an Elk that usually ends up falling onto the windshield when its legs are taken out, BF would be more like a very large human. Is it a glancing blow, does the animal react properly and in teh right direction to minimize injury?

I think at this point the 'no roadkill = no BF' argument, while curious, should be considered a red herring.

[Guest]

Well I couldn't agree more.

[Guest]

Sasfooty - you bring up an interesting point about aboriginal tradition with respect to BF that finally lets me share an observation in context, and I look forward to where this one might go.

It has long been a skeptical tactic in the past, with BF and Yeti specifically, to point to the more supernatural elements of aboriginal tradition for these animals as a means for dismissing the whole thing as some 'silly native superstition'.

The problem with this particular approach is that as I understand it, the line between mystical and physical is blurry for ALL animals and even inanimate objects, but barring the Great Spirit, all descriptions find an observable basis in the real world . The mystical component within aboriginal tradition ascribes the ability to speak to animals like bear and wolves for example, does that mean these animals don't exist?

Does talking about the spirit of the tree, mean trees do not exist?

In other words, do these supernatural/mystic elements, when taken in context with the belief systems of the aboriginal peoples, invalidate the real world animals, objects and phenomena they describe? If so, we need to scrap the Linnaen Catalog altogether.

Edited December 18, 2010 by infoman

[Sasfooty]

-1 for me because I took the statement: "unlike all our other wildlife"

to mean: "unlike all our other wildlife".

I have to read more between the lines I guess.

Hehe...You also have to consider who said it.

[Sasfooty]

Sasfooty - you bring up an interesting point about aboriginal tradition with respect to BF that finally lets me share an observation in context, and I look forward to where this one might go.

It has long been a skeptical tactic in the past, with BF and Yeti specifically, to point to the more supernatural elements of aboriginal tradition for these animals as a means for dismissing the whole thing as some 'silly native superstition'.

I don't quite understand where you want to go with this. I personally don't think native beliefs are silly superstition, but that probably isn't what you are wanting to discuss.

The problem with this particular approach is that as I understand it, the line between mystical and physical is blurry for ALL animals

That's true. I've done a lot of observing of wild animals & I have no doubt that some of them are telepathic. The more I observe them, the more blurry that line becomes.

The mystical component within aboriginal tradition ascribes the ability to speak to animals like bear and wolves for example, does that mean these animals don't exist?

I don't understand what you mean by this...