Debunk The Debunking

[norseman]

Saskeptic wrote:

So, as I've written many times, the lack of bigfoot from the fossil (and recent) record does not prove that bigfoot doesn't exist, but it is certainly problematic. For me personally, it's compelling enough to be a primary reason contributing to my general skepticism that there is a biological bigfoot behind the cultural one. It would be refreshing to have proponents to whom I've pointed out these problems on multiple occasions simply acknowledge, "yes, this is a problem" and move on. I do likewise with facets of the bigfoot phenomenon for which I have no good explanation.

We have some teeth and some fragments of jaw bone to prove the existence of Gigantopithecus Blacki.......that's it.

The fossil record for the ancestry of Homo Sapien could fit into a suitcase.

Is it a problem that no Sasquatch fossils have been found to prove they exist? At least some point in history? It would be nice, for sure, yes, to find fossil evidence. But new species are located and type specimens are collected all the time that didn't "ping" us from the fossil record that they were there.

And with the theory that N-S America was colonized from animals that walked across Beringia during the last ice age from E. Asia. Couldn't we at least accept Gigantopithecus Blacki as a possible suspect for the possible existence of Sasquatch? Isn't that part of the fossil puzzle you seek? Now it would be nice to find a similar fossil in the Americas to positively identify that the species made the trip with the rest of the pack. But there IS a animal in the fossil record that closely seems to resemble an animal that people are reportedly seeing currently.

And they just found a new Homo species in Russia (plus Homo Florensis recently):

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100324/full/464472a.html

Its genetic material told another story. When German researchers extracted and sequenced DNA from the fossil, they found that it did not match that of Neanderthals — or of modern humans, which were also living nearby at the time. The genetic data, published online in Nature1, reveal that the bone may belong to a previously unrecognized, extinct human species that migrated out of Africa long before our known relatives.

I think the future is looking quite bright to expand our knowledge of our ape ancestors in the fossil record. And I certainly hold hope that something may pop up in N-S America as well.

[Guest]

Bigfoot are apparently no ordinary animals*, and like ninjas, they are gifted in the art of agility, stealth, concealment, and camouflage, hence my reference to them as wood-ninjas.

Well alrighty then...

Jodie: I just don't see how fossils and missing humans was relevant to the road kill discussion, regardless of how many threads have talked about fossils or missing humans.

Dead is dead whether it is mineralized or fresh

Please understand my reluctance to accept your opinion as a source for substance-related pedestrian deaths. I was hoping you might have provided some actual study results, like the Pedestrian fatalities and alcohol study by the Department of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation, Forensic Medicine, Umeå University, in Sweden.

Not a problem but nothing about Sweden could be equated with what goes on in N.A. The CDC is a good place to look for stats that are relevant, I should have linked you since you specifically asked. I'm on my work computer and for some reason it won't let me open another window to copy the link at the moment.

[Guest]

Since I am not a proponent of habituation claims I would kindly ask that references to these types of claims/experiences which are not directly related to the topic at-hand be used in threads more suited to that discussion.

WRT the question about dogs tracking Squatch. In order for a dog to be a good tracker it needs to have been trained, and it needs a scent sample - tracking dogs work best when they have been trained well with repeated exposure to specific types of scents which leads to in some cases very specialized hunting/tracking dogs.

That said, there are some reports indicating dogs behaving scared, there are some reports of dogs behaving aggressively, and some of the aggressive dogs have been reported to be attacked or even killed. The more aggressive dogs have been either guard dogs on their own turf protecting their people or their territory, or on very rare occasions when hunting/tracking dogs have been used. The dogs have never reportedly come out on top in these encounters, but a few I recall did survive.

Again though, the behaviors described, both for the dogs as well as the Squatch, are within accepted patterns of behavior for higher animals encountering something new.

As for the roadkill issue, I do recall several reports, mostly early 70's vintage if I recall correctly, where a vehicle has reportedly collided with a suspected Squatch. None of those reports included any dedicated attempts to find the animal as I recall, since most were in montane areas, at night, with the animal or its' suspected relatives reportedly still in the area and making a great deal of noise. There may even be a few police reports, since I believe at least one of the vehicles involved might have been either a Sheriff or Highway Patrol patrol car. This could be a fun data mining effort.

We have to keep in mind that the importance of species discovery for many of us here, was not as high up on the list for folks with no previous interest or involvement, who had just struck something big and hairy in the middle of the night, and could hear either it, or more like it, making a big ruccus.

[Sasfooty]

Since I am not a proponent of habituation claims I would kindly ask that references to these types of claims/experiences which are not directly related to the topic at-hand be used in threads more suited to that discussion.

Sorry.

[Guest]

southernyahoo: I'm not buying either the gymnastic bigfoot[1], or the slide-rule bigfoot[2]. Both amount to nothing more than special pleading.

RayG

For the sake of future brevity:

[1] gymnastic bigfoot = instincts honed from birth by the harsh realities of survival in the wild, allowing them to develop a better sense of kinesthesia so they may leap out of the way of oncoming traffic

[2] slide-rule bigfoot = smart enough to realize that anything the size of a car carries more mass and kinetic energy than their lessor static bodies can withstand in an impact

Ok Ray, You can accept or not accept as you see fit but the basic info I gave you regarding the physics of rolling to defray harm was sound. Why would that not be a rational explanation for the discussion of "Why is there no roadkill bigfoot?"

[Huntster]

I suppose they could rub a stick into a stone to start a fire, especially if they can't buy lighters.

Yeah. I'm sure nobody ever leaves cigs & lighters laying around anywhere so they could pick them up.

Well, if you have neighbors who are interacting with them as well, I suppose somebody could be giving them cigarettes.

That would be pretty irresponsible, wouldn't it? Cigarettes are being now recognized as being more dangerous than nuclear weapons.

I wonder if they're smoking Marlboros? If so, you ought to warn them about the dangers of smoking.

I wouldn't know. All cigarette smoke smells the same to me.

Of course, I wouldn't know (because I'm not a scientist), but the scientists are telling us that Marlboro cigarettes were the worse of the bunch. And we all know that scientists are here to help us.

I wonder if they're trading for tobacco like aboriginal peoples did? Maybe they'll eventually figure out that firearms are an asset?

Maybe so. Lots of people leave gifts for them. Could be somebody leaving tobacco.

I'd be interested in leaving them a gun. Maybe they would have a quarrel, and we'd end up with a carcass without actually having to shoot one.

But, then, if they're smoking, that's a foregone conclusion anyway, right?

[Guest]

Sorry.

Why are you apologizing? You have as much right to speak about your experience as anyone else does and the subtopic was dogs and sasquatch. I was interested in hearing what you had to say.

[Guest Gambit]

[1] gymnastic bigfoot = instincts honed from birth by the harsh realities of survival in the wild, allowing them to develop a better sense of kinesthesia so they may leap out of the way of oncoming traffic

[2] slide-rule bigfoot = smart enough to realize that anything the size of a car carries more mass and kinetic energy than their lessor static bodies can withstand in an impact

Even my dog knows how to dodge something thrown at him...so far he seems to do it without a slide rule, consideration for his mass vs the mass,

speed and resulting energy of said ball, or even training from Bela Karolyi.

[Sasfooty]

Why are you apologizing? You have as much right to speak about your experience as anyone else does and the subtopic was dogs and sasquatch. I was interested in hearing what you had to say.

Because it was heading in a bad direction. It's his thread, & he has the right keep it on track.

If Hunster wants to continue our little discussion, maybe he could start a thread & call it "Debunking Habituators" or "I Don't Believe Bigfoot Smokes".

Then we can discuss whatever he wants to.

[Guest]

Alrighty, that's a bit of posting etiquette I missed- if you start a thread you dictate what is and isn't posted in it.

[Sasfooty]

Alrighty, that's a bit of posting etiquette I missed- if you start a thread you dictate what is and isn't posted in it.

Well, not everybody is, but I'm trying to be agreeable.

Been too "feisty" lately.

Edited December 15, 2010 by Sasfooty

[Guest]

Ok Ray, You can accept or not accept as you see fit but the basic info I gave you regarding the physics of rolling to defray harm was sound. Why would that not be a rational explanation for the discussion of "Why is there no roadkill bigfoot?"

Is the point that a reason being offered for the lack of bigfoot roadkill is that bigfoots know to roll their bodies or something so that when they get struck they are far less likely to incur significant injury? If so, this is not a rational explanation because it is a textbook example of the logical fallacy of special pleading. In other words, you've invented something about bigfoot to explain away something troubling about it, in this case, its absence from roadkill. Unlike all other large mammals in North America (including us), bigfoot doesn't get seriously injured when hit by a car. The far more parsimonious assumption, in the absence of some significant evidence to the contrary, would be that the same thing happens to bigfoot as happens to all those other species. To suggest otherwise is, as Jerry Seinfeld might say, "a pretty big matzoh ball hanging out there."

Of course, this doesn't mean that your idea is wrong, only that the available evidence suggests so. Maybe some unique quality of bigfoots really does keep them from getting seriously injured when hit by an automobile, and that is the reason we have no bigfoot roadkill. Until we can get one and run some crash tests with it, however, I'm going to stick with notion that a bigfoot is just as likely as a human, bear, deer, moose, or black angus to die when struck by an automobile.

[Guest Spazmo]

I think the answer to why there is no BF roadkill is simple:

We don't know.

And this is used fairly in most cases by skeptics. Ok, they don't get hit by cars (or at least they haven't died from a collision and left a body that was later examined).

There are plenty of possibilities why this is, but the simple fact is that we just don't know why, or if it has already happened.

[Guest]

Is the point that a reason being offered for the lack of bigfoot roadkill is that bigfoots know to roll their bodies or something so that when they get struck they are far less likely to incur significant injury? If so, this is not a rational explanation because it is a textbook example of the logical fallacy of special pleading. In other words, you've invented something about bigfoot to explain away something troubling about it, in this case, its absence from roadkill. Unlike all other large mammals in North America (including us), bigfoot doesn't get seriously injured when hit by a car. The far more parsimonious assumption, in the absence of some significant evidence to the contrary, would be that the same thing happens to bigfoot as happens to all those other species. To suggest otherwise is, as Jerry Seinfeld might say, "a pretty big matzoh ball hanging out there."

Of course, this doesn't mean that your idea is wrong, only that the available evidence suggests so. Maybe some unique quality of bigfoots really does keep them from getting seriously injured when hit by an automobile, and that is the reason we have no bigfoot roadkill. Until we can get one and run some crash tests with it, however, I'm going to stick with notion that a bigfoot is just as likely as a human, bear, deer, moose, or black angus to die when struck by an automobile.

It might die depending on the circumstances. The reports I've read about a bigfoot being hit by a car always say that it was a just a clip rather than a full on frontal impact. Why is it always just a clip? Most of the witnesses state that the bigfoot was moving fast, or that they crossed the road in two strides, or that they, the driver, slammed on brakes or swerved to avoid the fast moving creature that just jumped in front of their car. There have been a couple of reports where the car was dented but I don't know what kind of damage bigfoot got from that. As usual, he ran off. I have some thoughts on why bigfoot seems to be able to leave a scene when he should obviously be hurt, but I guess that would be considered more of a guess than the conclusion I threw out there based on what the witnesses who occasionally hit bigfoot have observed.

[Guest]

Sorry.

No apology required, just did not want to go too far down the rabbit hole, thanks for understanding.

Not dictating jodie, it was just a request to keep from derailing the thread. Sasfooty was offering mostly related to the dog question then it was expanding into smoking and such, that is all I was reacting to.