Debunk The Debunking

[Guest]

Drew,

----You stated: "the rarity of the creature does not mean it can avoid road kill. There are approx. 100 Florida panthers, and they document a dozen or so roadkills per year in Florida."

Thanks for the info. But now you have me worrying about the panther population in Florida. That is a high decimation rate for such a small population.

[indiefoot]

I start from the argument that road kill DOES happen to other large North American animals. That's not an assumption, those road kill reports are backed up with pictures of road kill. Except for bigfoot, that is.

Yes, I find it puzzling that bigfoot seems to be the only critter in NA that doesn't end up on the short end of the stick, so to speak, where vehicles and trains are involved. (yes, even cows). We don't need to make excuses for any other animal, only bigfoot. Bigfoot is the all encompassing animal -- big like a bear/moose, smart as a human, more agile than a deer/cougar, and as rare and elusive as a wolverine. It just doesn't make any sense.

RayG

It doesn't matter what the reason or reasons are, drawing any kind of inference is flawed logic. One more time in case anyone missed it.

Appeal to probability: assumes that because something could happen, it is inevitable that it will happen. This is flawed logic, regardless of the likelihood of the event in question.

http://en.wikipedia...._to_probability

[Guest]

But bigfoot does leave footprints unlike the imaginary dragon in your flour.

It is feasible for bigfoot to be more agile than other animals and humans. It is not feasible for a dragon to float.

What invisible bigfoot? Only your dragon is invisible.

Bigfoot is flesh and blood according to my father. It would leave a heat signature. Your dragon is not real.

WHERE IS THE ANALOGY AS IT APPLIES TO BIGFOOT?

So why is there no roadkill? In truth it is probably multiple factors that cause this, just as it is for any environmental situation. I gave you all the known factors for looking at the frequency of roadkill, at least that I could think of, for getting a better idea of the overall situation in a previous post. This would have a direct affect on how statistics for individual road kill would fit into the big picture. That is not pleading. Basing what information I have on bigfoot, I gave you several possibilities based on verifiable information. That is a hypothesis that could be tested given time and money, not a straw man fallacy. You can't take one isolated variable (no roadkill) and make a determination about bigfoot's existence, that is a failure of logic.

[xspider1]

Ray -

This stumbling block for skeptics is easy to step over. The following figures relating to humans are fairly solid. I welcome you, or anyone else to substitute their own BF numbers and see what result they get.

Approx. 5500 human pedestrians are killed by motor vehicles in the US every year.

There are 311,000,000 people in the US.

Say, just for instance, that there are 31.1 thousand BF in the US (1/10,000 the number of humans).

If BF are just as likely to be killed by a motor vehicle as human pedestrians then, the number of Bigfoot killed by motor vehicles in the US in one year would be 5500/10000 = .55

That is less than 1, as you can see and, I’m guessing that Bigfoot are far less likely than human pedestrians to be killed by a motor vehicle. A hundred times less likely would mean that approx. ½ of a Bigfoot would have been killed by a motor vehicle in the last 100 years (if there were just as many motor vehicles 100 years ago as there are now).

So, numbers that are either very true or, at least very possibly true, can account for many things that at first glance might seem impossible.

Edited December 19, 2010 by xspider1

[Guest]

My trail cam thoughts.

The mountain lion incident in Indiana (and other rare animal photos) should show a couple of things. First, there is no known cougar breeding population in Indiana. It is unclear if this cougar was one lone cat that is passing though or a release. Either way, there is not a huge population of big cat in Indiana, yet the camera was able to find him and other elusive hard to find animals.

My experience with trail cams is that they see a whole lot more animals then I do. I have been surprised in seeing animals that I did not know were in the area I hunt. Bobcats have never been seen by anyone who frequents my hunting area but the cam saw them. Of course the cam shows big bucks that I never see myself (the curse that is the trail cam).

I have had humans caught on camera, always family or a neighbor. Both have had pics taken without their knowledge.

I have never had a cam stolen but it does happen (BF tosses camera?). I spend no effort camouflaging my camera and I suspect most deer hunters don't. I have also had difficulty in finding cameras after I have put them up. They certainly don't stick out like a sore thumb all the time.

If BF behavior is in fact random and unpredictable then I would expect the first trail cam photo to come from a deer hunter and not a BF researcher. The trail cam density in the whitetails range should be directly proportional to the hunter density (Whitetail hunters likely make up the vast majority of cam purchases). I don't know how many camera's are in the field, but it is mostly considered an indespensible tool to the hunter. Personally, I only consider my gun to be more important than my cameras. Where hunters used to talk about seeing a buck run in front of their car at night, now those hunters are showing pictures of that buck. The same should at some point happen with BF if he is out there. Also, the competition in the industry suggests that the industry is growing. There will be more eyes in the woods next year then today.

The same arguments made by the skeptic for lack of roadkill can be made for the lack of trail cam photos. That is the whole "every other animal is roadkill" argument. BF's ability to avoid cams should be significantly less than his ability to avoid cars and roads.

I find trail cams to be a more likely tool to confirm bigfoot than roadkill (I don't require a "slab monkey"). Just one camera will see more animals then the number of roadkill for that area. Best of all BF does not have to die after the cam gets him. Of course roadkill is a tool that has been around for a long time and trail cams just became feasible to the general pop in the last ten years. Cams also can go where BF is instead of BF having to go to the road.

It should be said that at some point the Google Earth type tech combined with computer scanning will be used to count and catalog all large wildlife. I suspect that when that tech arrives BF will find a way to avoid having his pic taken.

[Guest]

First, there ARE trailcam pics that could very well be a BF (the Jacobs photo for example), but "skeptics" immediately dismiss them out of hand like they dismiss all other proffered evidence. And then they repeat the same tired old demand for [type] evidence.

There is no pleasing "skeptics", because they will twist and bend every rule of debate, reason and logic in order to continue to deny deny deny...

[Guest]

I'm not familiar with all the bigfoot trailcam pics. If disputed trailcam pics do exist then several things should be clear. Cams are capable of being concealed well enough for BF to not see them until after it is too late and not all BF destroy a cam immediately after the pic is taken. That is to say BF's ability to avoid trailcams is not without fail. Would you agree with that?

Edited December 19, 2010 by alduflux

[Guest]

I dismissed the Jacob's photos and I am not a skeptic.

There is no pleasing "skeptics", because they will twist and bend every rule of debate, reason and logic in order to continue to deny deny deny...

Back to your ranting, again, I see.

[Guest]

I'll just say this because I think I've made a reference before this thread somewhere else on the forum.

Any place you hang a game cam is the wrong place where the shadowfolk are concerned.

One, they probably watched you or heard you set it up. Two, they don't have a handle about cameras, but they obviously know that it makes a noise whenever an animal walks near it. And, three, it won't take them long to figure all this out. A friend of mine put one out and got 862 pics of a pencil moving in and out of the brush.

Why did your friend think it was bigfoot? Any idea where a bigfoot would get a pencil, or any ideas why it would use that to set the camera off? How much time did it take to get 862 pics of a pencil? That is someone with a lot of patience whether it was bigfoot or a person. It's a little over 14 hours of playing with a camera if it's set at 1 second intervals.

[Incorrigible1]

Are "shadowfolk" corporeal, flesh and blood creatures?

[Guest]

Might be applicable:

I was not going to comment any further on this.. it seems like everybody has a piece of the puzzle.

My original thoughts :

A good way to learn more about BF is to listen to what people say about it. If you listen to enough people, you will see patterns.

If you listen to what methods are being used that result in experiences, and try them yourself, you might be surprised. But if you

do not listen, then you have shut another door. If you cannot experience some of the things people continue to talk about, and a growing number of them I might add, then no wonder people shut the door. It is impossible emotionally for BF to occur with many people until it is experienced. Then talk about a door opening. I just hope people get the chance to experience some of what is going on. If you will not take the time to do this....it is your door.

I know a lot of people who upon their initiation to the idea that there were some actual living giant primates around completely rejected the idea as real, but continued to investigate, first with other people, who shared their stories, which is all they are intially. Upon getting to areas where there are sounds, unusual things going on, and then footprints .. over time someone in the group gets an observation. NOW its a different ballgame. If you know what to look for, compare your notes with others... it IS an interesting trail.

People get tired of repetition.. we have out of focus game cam pictures, we have pictures that show part of something messing with the camera..

Sunflower has an example of something that shows patience.. good luck without it. It is kind of interesting to me how many want that one bit of proof via a photo that almost for sure is going to show something from an awkward angle (Jacobs photo)(whatever it might be) or something badly out of focus. The pattern is interesting. Many researchers have decided it is not worth it to try to use the game cams because of the interference with other observations and interactions. That also may be a factor in why there might be less images than expected.

[Guest RayG]

But bigfoot does leave footprints unlike the imaginary dragon in your flour.

While it is claimed that bigfoot leaves footprints, to date no actual foot has been matched to suspected footprint.

It is feasible for bigfoot to be more agile than other animals and humans.

Why?

It is not feasible for a dragon to float. What invisible bigfoot? Only your dragon is invisible.

Bigfoot is flesh and blood according to my father. It would leave a heat signature. Your dragon is not real.

WHERE IS THE ANALOGY AS IT APPLIES TO BIGFOOT?

The 'dragon in the garage' was an example of special pleading, not an analogy, and I even pointed out the special pleading being used for bigfoot when I said:

Instead of being invisible, floating, heatless, and incorporeal, bigfoot is too big, too elusive, a genetic gymnast, too intelligent, etc. etc.

I never claimed bigfoot was invisible, heatless, or floated, so you have taken what I wrote and misrepresented it in order to utilize a straw man argument.

You can't take one isolated variable (no roadkill) and make a determination about bigfoot's existence, that is a failure of logic.

I've made no such determination. I questioned why there is no bigfoot road kill, because it seems every other NA animal has ended up as road kill, no matter how smart, agile, big, rare, or elusive. Invoking unproven special bigfoot behavior, characteristics, or capabilities to explain away a situation that can't otherwise be explained is the basic underpinnings of special pleading.

RayG

[Painthorse]

The problem with game cams is that they are only able to cover a small area of "real estate". The issue with: There's so many game camera's out there and no good clear pics to boot".

I'm tired so hope this makes sense.

Has anyone ever tried to guestimate for example, (on a small scale): 1000 acres and 50 game cameras set within. Due to the fact that the cam has a limited viewing area, the amount of view that the cam can manage is very limited.

It's all guess work on where the best place to set the cams, water source, food source, game trails, yada yada yada.

Yea, there's a bunch of cams out there...but there's a helluva lot more acreage.

*****A better example would be: How many cams would it take to "completely cover" "1 full acre". I'm no Einstein, lol, but would be really curious if someone could do the math to figure that one out!!!

[Guest]

Plus of the game cams placed, which are strategically placed as PH says? Is the target even there in the first place ????

Ray.. good question.

[xspider1]

Good point Painthorse! I'm no digital camera expert but, I'm sure that it would take 10's of game cams to 'cover' 1 acre, in terms of the word 'covering' to mean 'capture BF images that would be genuinely considered'. And that's if the 1 acre had no trees. A thousand acres or 10's of thousands of acres?? That's a few billion more game cams than we have, even if everybody was working off some master plan to film Bigfoot.

Edited December 19, 2010 by xspider1