Debunk The Debunking

[Guest]

I spend a lot of time debunking what few experiences I think I might have had. I think that is a healthy way to approach the situation. After you rule out the possible, the impossible becomes more plausible. I guess you have to look at all the factors and variables in your particular area that could explain a situation before jumping on the bigfoot wagon, which goes without saying. Debunk your own experiences first, and if you can't, move on from there. I think that is the main point. How many die hard skeptics, not fence sitters, are actually out there investigating, I wonder? And if any of these things happened to them, how much bias would they have for explaining it away if they have already decided bigfoot doesn't exist?

[Guest]

Especially if they saw the physical capabilities that accompany many of the reports of these creatures in action.. speed, negotiating difficult terrain. Or one from a distance just covering ground that .. would be impossible for an individual in a ghillie suit..or track athlete to do. An up close one on one might even make the exclamation mark even more pronounced..

[Guest Cervelo]

I'm not sure how to word this but here gos. This is no reflection on anyone but how many people on this fourm are here more or less just to "argue" the point and not actively outdoors, hiking, hunting, fishing ect? I think it is possible they are out there. If a bear can survive in an area so could a Bigfoot. I also think all size estimate are grossly high. This is based on my own personal experience every fish, deer and a recent close encounter with a buzzard look huge until after the fact. I do believe most reports including my own experience are misidentifications. But when someone who says I saw a Bigfoot when their out and about at less say less than 50 yrds there is only a few choices that what gets my attention. As far as wandering around at nite in the woods, give me a break. I always get a kick out of the the ghost hunters when they go lites out yes I will see/hear a ghost to if you plop me in a basement alone in the dark and I've heard and seen plenty of werid stuff in the woods at nite to the point of packing my stuff up and ******* it out to my truck. But that doesn't mean it was biggie it could have been my really smart dog telling me there's something in the woods that wants to eat us let's go. My point of view is skeptical of most of the evidence so far but intrigued enough to go find out for myself and it's a blast just being out there!

[indiefoot]

Three common tactics used by skeptics are:

Appeal to ignorance: (argumentum ex silentio) appealing to ignorance as evidence for something. (e.g., We have no evidence that God doesn't exist, therefore, he must exist. Or: Because we have no knowledge of alien visitors, that means they do not exist). Ignorance about something says nothing about its existence or non-existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Lack of scientifically accepted evidence says nothing about the existence of Bigfoot, it only proves there is a lack of scientifically acceptable evidence.

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. The fallacy is often used to exploit paranoia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_probability

Saying that evidence is suspect because someone has hoaxed evidence in the past is a fallacy.

Poisoning the well: (or attempting to poison the well) is a logical fallacy where adverse information about a target is pre-emptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person is about to say. Poisoning the well can be a special case of argumentum ad hominem, and the term was first used with this sense by John Henry Newman in his work Apologia Pro Vita Sua.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

This is very evident in the case of Dr. Melba Ketchum.

[BobbyO]

Yet bf is frequently seen on or near highways.

But isn't their rarity and limited exposure to roads undermined by these thousands of encounters, a great many of them occurring on or near roads?

RayG

They are seen on or near Highways but i don't really think it's frequently..

I don't think limited exposure to Roads is being undermined by the Reports on or near Roads either, that's just where the people are as overall as opposed to 50 Yards to either side of a Road Highway where people are not generally & we can't seriously think that a good % of a Sasquatch day/night is spent on or near Road's..

They cross them, they may even use them as a way of travel at times too but it's about majorities & minorities & i can't see how anyone would think that the majority of their time is spent on or near Roads &/or Highways.

[Guest]

They cross them, they may even use them as a way of travel at times too but it's about majorities & minorities & i can't see how anyone would think that the majority of their time is spent on or near Roads &/or Highways.

I can see this if the person saying it is skeptical about the subject, and wants to make a general statement without providing any statistical evidence. But then... wouldnt it be from purported encounters, and not from any "officially accepted" evidence itself? Statistics of the times people claimed to have seen this creature on or near a roadway. The way I see it, the skeptics dont have much to go on. Its easy for believers, especially those that have witnessed firsthand the reality of the existence of this magnificent creature.

Photographic evidence is not an accepted Scientific method of proving the existence of this creature. I dont think a photo or video will ever convince everyone. Slab Monkey.

Thats a demeaning word for this animal. But i imagine it comes from the frustration at not being able to convince people, that what they witnessed was not in fact a Bigfoot.

I think it will take a specimen to Debunk the Debunkers. And most of this high falutin talk aint worth doodly squat. But it seems to pass the time alright.

Skunkfoot

[BobbyO]

I can see this if the person saying it is skeptical about the subject, and wants to make a general statement without providing any statistical evidence. But then... wouldnt it be from purported encounters, and not from any "officially accepted" evidence itself? Statistics of the times people claimed to have seen this creature on or near a roadway. The way I see it, the skeptics dont have much to go on. Its easy for believers, especially those that have witnessed firsthand the reality of the existence of this magnificent creature.

Photographic evidence is not an accepted Scientific method of proving the existence of this creature. I dont think a photo or video will ever convince everyone. Slab Monkey.

Thats a demeaning word for this animal. But i imagine it comes from the frustration at not being able to convince people, that what they witnessed was not in fact a Bigfoot.

I think it will take a specimen to Debunk the Debunkers. And most of this high falutin talk aint worth doodly squat. But it seems to pass the time alright.

Skunkfoot

Yeah for sure, in my opinion there virtually isn't any " evidence " out there, in the public doman anyway, at all.

We are only summising on so much where this subject is concerned.

We use Databases, the same Databases, for arguments for & against the existence of this subject yet within those Databases i'm sure there are Mis ID'S, outright Lies, Hoax's & Sightings of North America's most incredible Animal..

None of us know what's what though, which is crazy when you think of it like that & a real head scratcher.

[Incorrigible1]

......Photographic evidence is not an accepted Scientific method of proving the existence of this creature. I dont think a photo or video will ever convince everyone......

A few good photos or video would do wonders. We could be talking about those instead of being left only with the default by-few-other-decent-submissions PGF. I've grown weary of those claiming special occurrences, nearby habitation, and special knowledge providing a myriad of time-worn excuses for not providing anything but their stories.

[Guest]

They are seen on or near Highways but i don't really think it's frequently..

I don't think limited exposure to Roads is being undermined by the Reports on or near Roads either, that's just where the people are as overall as opposed to 50 Yards to either side of a Road Highway where people are not generally & we can't seriously think that a good % of a Sasquatch day/night is spent on or near Road's..

They cross them, they may even use them as a way of travel at times too but it's about majorities & minorities & i can't see how anyone would think that the majority of their time is spent on or near Roads &/or Highways.

It gets back to that question of for everyone seen, how many others are not seen? I don't know how it is anywhere else in the United States but in my area most highways and interstates are built over ancient game trails paths used for eons by both Indians and wildlife. It would make sense for bigfoot to travel parallel to our interstates if the need arose, plus lots of roadkill that doesn't make it necessary to hunt. I still think they mainly use the rivers and tributaries because of the need for water, but if convenience dictates, I can see them traveling along side the highways and interstates down here in the south.

[Guest]

A few good photos or video would do wonders.

Bravo, I agree. I know they will not serve as proof, but they would be encouraging.

[Guest]

Why is there no fossil record of a North American primate?

I see that question a lot on here. I am not as up on all the different branches of primates that I should be to really engage in a debate about this but I did do some research on how fossilization occurs. It's a crap shoot really, and conditions have to be just right. For every fossil formed, this is just a small percentage of what actually existed and not a complete catalog by any means.

Basically what I found was that during the cretaceous period large segments of North America were covered by a shallow sea, mainly in the west coast and the southern portion of United States pretty much as far north as Kansas. There were primates located in Wyoming in the forests that existed at that time.

Fast forward to the Pleistocene era. There were 11 glacial events world wide, 4 were major events. The flora and fauna were particularly hard hit by this era in North America. During the lower Pliestocene era only the fossilized remains of Homo Erectus can be found,not complete by any means, and as I understand it, none in North America. But there is a site called The Calico Dig that is controversial and may indicate a hominid presence in North America as far back as 200,000 years ago:

http://www.calicodig.org/text

So no skull, as of yet, has been found, but that doesn't mean it isn't out there. There have been very few searches in North America for fossilized hominid remains because it is believed that we have not been here on this continent long enough to have a fossil record. Dates are being pushed back all the time. Here in my area of the country clovis points have been found on the Savannah River that date back to 40,000 BC.

Take into consideration the weather conditions and topography of North America through the ages that may not be conducive to fossil formation, the lack of research for an ancient hominid presence in North America, the limited number of hominid fossils that exist in comparison to what is estimated to have actually existed period, and the numerous missing transition fossils still yet to be found before assuming that a fossil record for a primate doesn't exist in North America. It is equally possible that it just hasn't been found yet.

Another possiblity is that if a bigfoot species still exists or existed in the recent past, and the migration theory over the Bering Strait is accurate, why would it be out of the realm of possibility that bigfoot migrated to North America just like human's did? I've never understood why that point is overlooked in the debates I've read.

You're arguing on the wrong basis from the beginning, Jodie. I fell into this trap some time ago myself.

There is one good reason why there are no bf fossils available:

Bigfoot did not evolve in North America...

The best explanation for a G Blacki presence in N America is, as you stated, migration over the Bearing Land Bridge, probably around the same time as Asiatic humans did.

This is critical to understanding the fallacy of "show me the fossils". The sea level at the time BF's ancestors would have migrated was much MUCH lower than today. Much of the habitat that would have supported BF at that time is now underwater.

Now that we have only a potential 100-200,000 year timeframe for a BF presence, not "millions and millions of years", we turn to the factors you talk about (soil conditions, etc), arguments which are supremely well supported by the paucity of higher primate fossils in many catagories from the place they DID evolve: Asia.

The best ancestral match to a bf like creature we know, G Blacki, evolved in Asia. And it is only represented by a couple of teeth and a mandible. Using standardized measures of species longevity, Bob Matin, a paleoprimatologist, has estimated that some 8-9,000 primate species exist that are not yet documented in the fossil record. The known and documented species represent ~5% of all extinct primate species, a condition he describes as "as if Paeleontologists have been trying to reconstruct a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle using just fifty pieces." (Meldrum, LMS, p102.)

Meldrum notes among other things, the relative paucity of chimpanzee fossils, even in areas of high known chimpanzee occupation over a considerable period. The first chimp fossil was not found until 2005, consisting of a single molar and a pair of incisors. The individual lived ~545,000 years ago. At one dig site, after finding 5 partial fossils initially, it took forty-three months before they found another. This was in an area of high chimp population and activity. (Meldrum, LMS, p104-105)

Yes, never mind the fossil record, as you say, no remains of a recent bigfoot have ever been found. No road-kill. No nothing.

That seems to defy logic, unless one accepts that bigfoot bury/hide/dispose of their dead, though we have no evidence of that.

RayG

No need to resort to "burying their dead". That's where the same conditions that account for the relative lack of fossilized animals in general in those habitats comes into play. The combination of fairly rapid decay, scavenger action, and the acidity of the soils means bodies break down fairly quickly, leaving no body intact to discover.

As for road kill, run the numbers. We have at best maybe what? 100 reports a year? How many of them are along roads to begin with (some yes, but not all). Now consider how many car hours there are spent on America's roads and then the overall probability of even SEEING one, let alone hitting it severely enough to kill it immediately.

Doing the math, lets assume a traffic rate of 50 cars on average per mile per hour. That's 50 car-miles/hour. That's 1200 car-miles/day for that one mile stretch of road. According to Federal Records, in 2008 there were 2,734,102 miles of paved roads in the US. That works out to 328,092,440 car miles/year. Assuming that ALL bf reports were along roads (which they aren't), that would work out to a 1 in 3,280,924.4 chance of even SEEING a BF on/near a road.

Every other factor you introduce (seen from but not crossing), (seen crossing, but at a distance), (seen crossing closely, but car stopped/swerved), etc REDUCES that chance (that is, INCREASES the odds against). Doing the math, if half the reports were "no crosses", then the odds would be 1 in 6,561,848.8, 1 if half the remainder were "cross but not close" then 1 in 13123697.6, and half the remainder from that were "close but avoided", 1 in 26,247,395.2.

Those are "back of the envelope" calculations based on an arbitrary number of 100 reports total/year and using the 1/2 figure for each step. I'm betting that the number of reports involving roads are actually smaller to begin with.

Edit to add: What is with this board? I've been trying to post this for DAYS. I can often read the board, but when I try to post it just jams up...

[gigantor]

Thoughts on ‘not enough habitat’

A common skeptical argument with respect to the existence of Bigfoot is that there is not enough potential habitat for a breeding population (size unknown but estimates range from several thousand to potentially tens of thousands) of large primates in the continental United States.

I'm a skeptic, but have never used that argument. In fact, let me help you "debunk" it.

According to the Department of Agriculture's Land Use Inventory:

There is plenty of habitat, notice that this chart does NOT include Canada. Federal land includes National Parks and Preserves like Yosemite and Yellowstone, which is a huge amount of land.

Edited December 12, 2010 by gigantor

[gigantor]

I didn't see it when I posted the chart, but apparently, Alaska is NOT included either!

[Guest]

Nice work infoman & everyone. Years ago, John Green made a reference to a lot of reports in Montana and so few in Idaho across the border. He asked Is it that much different ? What IS the difference? His answer: You have to have people to make the reports. If thick forests are devoid of people..for whatever reason.. then.. information.. is often none to scarce.

Edited December 13, 2010 by treeknocker

[GuyInIndiana]

It should be obvious even to most 'believers in Bigfoot' that most reported sitings are in fact mis-identifications and/or the result of hoaxes.

Based on WHAT?