Creature Suit Analysis - Part 9 - A Study of Probability

[MikeZimmer]

I may be generalizing, and if I am I'm sure I'll hear about it, but my impression is Suitniks are those that know these creatures do not exist and therefore, by default, the film must be of a man in a suit. Any idea or notion that it may be a real creature is swiftly knocked to the ground by this group, because, as we all know, BF is just a fairytale.

Sam

That "suitnik" argument is of course, sometimes looks like a classical case of "begging the question" or "circular reasoning". Circular reasoning is used a lot, but seldom is it presented in such a straight forward fashion that you can see the circularity immediately.

***

Moe: Sasquatch does not exist.

Joe: Why do you feel that; there are sighting reports, extended sighting reports, multiple witness sighting reports, multiple trackways, and a least one video that probabilistically appears to be genuine.

Moe: All sightings, tracks and other evidence are either:

1 - hoaxing

2 - mis-apperception,

3 - delusion

4 - the result of other psychopathology

Joe: Have you demonstrated that all evidence brought forward falls into one of these categories?

Moe: It is not necessary, at least some alleged evidence has been shown to be such

Joe: How do you know that all evidence falls into the category of mistakes?

Moe: Because Sasquatch does not exist.

So, I may be accused of presenting a straw man here, but after reading internet chatter for months in various forums, I don't think that I am.

Regards

p.s., it is interesting to see those who disparage the provenance of the Patterson/Gimlin film and at the same time feel that Sasquatch may in fact still exist. These are logically separate beliefs.

[Bill]

Mike:

Thank you for your caveats.

I suppose everything plugged into the human brain, can be argued as subjective at that stage of the process.

In my personal point of view, I see the sciences as existing on a sliding scale of "hard" (mathematics as he most "hard, followed by the physical sciences of chemistry and physics as almost as hard), and then the not so hard sciences in the biology group, getting softer with the paleo sciences (where amazing conclusions seem to be born out of remarkably sparce data) and finally the "social sciences" as the softest, because of the highest number of variables (individual humans themselves being highly variable).

But I would love to see a revision of the scientific method whereby there are levels of proof, and probability factors into the earlier levels and repeatable or testable data is needed to push any hypothesis to the higher levels of certainty. That's mostly wishful thinking, though, because the scientific establishment isn't going to change their method any time soon, as far as I can see.

But I thank you for seeing the merit for my probabilistic analysis, and I would agree, it could, and indeed should be made more rigorous in subsequent drafts.

Soundman:

A few years back, I set up a website called "The paleoanarchist" with a lot of notes on my views of both paleontology studies and the problems with the scientific community, and one article was called "begging for dollars". It dealt with the sad plight of scientists trying to maintain their integrity while trying to get funding through the usual channels (grants, etc.) and having to either shut up and not rock the boat if a more esteemed colleague had a stupid idea needing to be challenged, but he was a peer review powerhouse, so he'd kill your grant if you criticized his dumb idea, or you might have to inflate your hypothesis and even fudge your data to get a positive conclusion that showed you are a winner, a proven researcher, to get new grants.

Either way, you'd have to sell your integrity to get some measure of success in the system, hoping with that success, you could buy back your integrity. Viscious circle some people never break free of.

Sadly, you are right in that there's very little money for doing the crypto/BF research well.

Let me get rich, and i promise I'll change that.

Mike:

Your next post, the circular logic thing. Reminds me of the feedback loops in human origin studies of the 70's. Amazingly popular then, even though it was junk science through and through.

Bill

[Guest SoundMan]

Sadly, you are right in that there's very little money for doing the crypto/BF research well.

Let me get rich, and i promise I'll change that.

Bill

Bill,

Permission granted. Get started now!

Soundman

[Bill]

Soundman:

"Permission granted. Now get started"

Yes, sir.

The attached illustration is an airship, and the whitish cylinders are heluim filled.

The volume allows for an airship gross weight of 90,000 pounds. it can hover at treetop level, and navigate both day and night.

The six spherical structures on the hexagon corners are the research units, each housing people, cameras, focused audio, heat detection thermographic imaging, etc. (full array of visual and audio devices to locate and identify living species). And two adjacient spheres can focus on one location below, to triangulate the recording and determine distance, allowing the imaging to scale the size of the species sighted. Computers and new software record all the audio and visual data collected with GPS data and sensing device orientation for precise location determination of species sighted, and the imaging or audio from multiple sources, allowing the distance or scaling, is also layered into the data files.

The system is actually for doing wildlife census studies of wilderness areas, and it can be used to find both known existant and cryptid species alike.

Now, if I haven't got enough money for the helium, do you think people could chip in with some hot air?

Bill

[Guest soarwing]

That "suitnik" argument is of course, sometimes looks like a classical case of "begging the question" or "circular reasoning". Circular reasoning is used a lot, but seldom is it presented in such a straight forward fashion that you can see the circularity immediately.

***

Moe: Sasquatch does not exist.

Joe: Why do you feel that; there are sighting reports, extended sighting reports, multiple witness sighting reports, multiple trackways, and a least one video that probabilistically appears to be genuine.

Moe: All sightings, tracks and other evidence are either:

1 - hoaxing

2 - mis-apperception,

3 - delusion

4 - the result of other psychopathology

Joe: Have you demonstrated that all evidence brought forward falls into one of these categories?

Moe: It is not necessary, at least some alleged evidence has been shown to be such

Joe: How do you know that all evidence falls into the category of mistakes?

Moe: Because Sasquatch does not exist.

So, I may be accused of presenting a straw man here, but after reading internet chatter for months in various forums, I don't think that I am.

Regards

p.s., it is interesting to see those who disparage the provenance of the Patterson/Gimlin film and at the same time feel that Sasquatch may in fact still exist. These are logically separate beliefs.

- - -

Exactly right.

I think that most "skeptics" of the PGF on this forum are pretty careful in that they present their arguments in a way that avoids making a positive claim. In that sense, there are only a few "real" suitniks on the board - people that make positive claims of a hoax without providing conclusive evidence.

Dfoot being a prime example. So it's definitely not a straw-man argument - it just doesn't apply to all the skeptics.

For example, Skeptical Greg does a masterful job of arguing the suit side of the PGF argument without falling into fallacy. He has stated to me that he "allows for the possibility" of bigfoot, but his screen name makes it clear what side of the fence he's on - argumentatively. I think in his mind, the possibility of bigfoot being real is FAR less probable than that human beings are clever at making suits, but he seldom resorts to the "no specimen" argument. He has, but it's rare. If he did so, there wouldn't be much for him to say, so I do appreciate the way he engages the "evidence" - as proponents see it first- and then proposes different explanations for it. Some of these explanations seem far-fetched to me I must admit, but yet without a bigfoot carcass or specimen, are his explanations really any more far-fetched than bigfoot itself? I'm really not so sure. At least SG offers reasoned and interesting arguments for his skeptical position. For example, I think he's probably made a find on the flexing calf image. It does appear to me that there could be something in the foreground (maybe a light colored stick or branch?) that partially obscures Patty's calf - making it appear to change shape or flex. It's hard to tell for sure, but the flexing calf might be just a lucky break for Patterson.

But as Mike has pointed out, a lot of the question begging by suitniks is veiled and harder to spot than in his example. Dfoot blended psuedo-evidence and matter-of-fact presentations that SLOWLY - and unintentionally - amounted to a huge and nebulous circular argument. He already had concluded the PGF creature was a man in a suit, and then basically altered and hoaxed evidence to "support" his claims. And then when pressed, all he had really demonstrated was that he had a positive belief that the PGF depicted a man in a suit. In the end, it was a suit because he knew it was a suit - case closed.

[Guest]

Bill; no shortage of free hot air anywhere I've ever been. Love that LTA platform...after you locate the big guy, you'd probalby make alot of money in ecotourism if you could fit a hot-tub into the plan.

Edited February 14, 2008 by dogu4

[MikeZimmer]

2 - mis-apperception,

No matter how much I proof read, I still don't eliminate all of the mistakes.

Read "misperception"

[Guest Apeman]

Now, if I haven't got enough money for the helium, do you think people could chip in with some hot air?

You came to the right forum to ask that question.

[Guest JohnWS]

Didn't really intend raking this over again but I may have been misunderstood (not that it really matters).

There is no conclusive evidence whatsoever that the figure in the footage is a guy in a suit either.

That being the case, the default status of the PGF (for now) should be "inconclusive" - not the positive claim that "it's a guy in a suit".

Granted - the footage is inconclusive.

My reference to 'default guys in suits' comes from the undeniable fact that they do in fact exist outside of the PG footage, and they are the only possible alternative to a real creature (Bill - your earlier reference). A real creature (IMHO) is an extraordinary explanation (though not impossible) and therefore requires extraordinary evidence.

A costume is not an extraordinary explanation. The default possibility/likely explanation (IMHO) should not be an exotic one.

Edited to remove an ill thought out example .

Edited February 14, 2008 by JohnWS

[Bill]

John:

Well, here, the reasoning gets very subjective.

Yes, costumes and suits do exist, but none specifically like what we see in the film.

And large primates do exist, but none specifically like what we see in the film.

So one can argue, yes such a suit can be made, but one can argue that yes, such a primate can exist.

If we really do approach this from a "pure" theoretical point, it simply may be either a real primate or a human in a suit posing as a real primate. It's not a robot (in 1967, a robot fully selfcontained could not walk bipedally without falling over) and not some other living species in a suit (I mention that because I have created suits and costumes for animals to wear to appear as another species of animal, and the figure is too large to be a chimp in a suit and the anatomy rules out a gorilla in a suit, if a trained one existed, which is speculative at best.)

From here, it's all probability, and each person can give weight to the probabilities as their personal hypothesis.

I personally do not see any reason to give a suit more inherent probability than a unknown species probability, as a general default presumption. I choose a level playing field whereby either argument must be proven, and the opposing one disproven, for one to prevail.

You may choose to specify your hypothesis with your own foundation presumptions.

And you may respectfully point out what you feel are flaws or factors not fully considered in my hypothesis, as I may do so with yours. I'll always be pleased to listen to what you have to say, and try to answer you with respectful reasoning as I see the issue.

Bill

[Guest JohnWS]

I personally do not see any reason to give a suit more inherent probability than a unknown species probability, as a general default presumption. I choose a level playing field whereby either argument must be proven, and the opposing one disproven, for one to prevail.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this point then (though my post was addressing Soarwing's possible misinterpretation of my meaning - I understand why wanted to respond).

Edited for typo & stuff

Edited February 14, 2008 by JohnWS

[Guest FuriousGeorge]

I've always had these questions. I've looked around here a bit but there is too much info. Maybe somebody could give me the short answers.

In the time that the footage was shot, wasn't the creature known as the Sasquatch Monster rather than a species of primate? Meaning one immortal being. What I'm getting at is, most "Hollywood creatures" up to that time were male. Why choose a female if it's a hoax?

And since they were on horseback, why not chase her and get minutes of film instead of seconds?

Please help me with these.

Thanks

[bipedalist]

Well to be horseback, the horse has to cooperate, that was a big negatory, when the horse lurches up and falls pinning the riders leg gets up and trys to run off and the other rider has to hold both horses while the film agent chases on foot, I'll let others answer the other parts

[Guest Killain]

I've always had these questions. I've looked around here a bit but there is too much info. Maybe somebody could give me the short answers.

In the time that the footage was shot, wasn't the creature known as the Sasquatch Monster rather than a species of primate? Meaning one immortal being. What I'm getting at is, most "Hollywood creatures" up to that time were male. Why choose a female if it's a hoax?

And since they were on horseback, why not chase her and get minutes of film instead of seconds?

Please help me with these.

Thanks

Furious

I wouldn't place too much emphasis on Hollywood standards. If you recall, during that time frame, every western film had at least one sequence where a horse would nearly unseat a rider because there was a rattle snake crossing the trail! It's a wonder there are any rattlesnakes left considering the wholesale slaughter of the reptiles that occurred on the silver screen! Imagine how the horses would have reacted to "Bigfoot Meets Roy Rogers?"

From a mere imaginative standpoint, the addition of breasts could be considered near genius if artistic license is being considered. It lends credability to the creature. But, was it artistic license, or a real creature? My real question is, IF it was a hoax, why was it the first? I know, someone has to be first, but why a rodeo cowboy and not someone with a little more Barnum and Bailey background?

I go back and forth. One time I'll look at it and say, it simply cannot be! Then, I'll look at it and have a near visceral reaction, and I'll get chills!

K

[Guest soarwing]

Sure, we know that suits exist, but we also know that creatures quite a bit like what is shown on the film also exist - outside of the PGF footage - The question is whether or not these types of creatures STILL exist as living animals. In that sense, upright walking "man-ape" creatures are just as much of a reality as anything else.

Are there known animals that exactly match the PGF creature - assuming that it's genuine? Hard to say because we can't examine the PGF creature in great enough detail and some fossil evidence is just to incomplete to know for sure. For example, Gigantopithecus might be a match. Plus, the PGF animal could share characteristics from several evolutionary "lines". Just like we see in other and more complete fossil "ape-man" examples.

Surviving "ape-men" would be highly surprising to science to be sure, but what additional "extraordinary" evidence supporting the existence of animals LIKE the PGF subject would be required, when we already have that factual evidence? If the PGF depicted a mammal with six limbs or with feathers, then I think we'd get to the level of exotic.

It's not as if with "bigfoot" we'd have to re-write the textbooks to allow for some new form of life or bizarre morphology, as we would for extra-terrestrials or a feathered fish. Descriptions of Bigfoot are what one might expect if an animal LIKE Giganto or A. Bosei - or some further evolved offshoot/hybrid - were alive today.

If the PGF shows a real "ape-man", what it shows is only extraordinary in the sense that the existence of these types of creatures - in 1967 at least - is scientifically unexpected. So I don't look at the PGF depicting a real creature as all that "exotic" of an explanation - However unexpected or unlikely it may be.

I think people - when considering the idea of "bigfoot" - tend to attack the tabloid version of bigfoot more than they factor in the existing and factual evidence that ape-men, while they may be extinct, are certainly real. I think the word "bigfoot" arouses similar reactions in people as do the words "leprechaun", "fairy" and "aliens".