Creature Suit Analysis - Part 9 - A Study of Probability

[Bill]

Tontar:

I suspect all of us, on all sides of the discussion, are secretly hoping we don't go too far out on a limb endorsing one view as conclusive, and then have some revelation disprove us conclusively.

Relying on the more factual and neutral data, as opposed to the more circumstantial arguments, to me is the best way to approach this.

Basically, the research I'm doing now, and the report I'm preparing, will try to keep its focus on the most factual and impartial data so any conclusions drawn from it will be relaible and enduring.

Bill

[Guest]

Remember when bumblebees were supposed to be scientifically unable to fly? BUt still they flew. There are always improbabilities that find contradictions in reality. I am NOT trying to disprove the existence of bogfoot, or claim Patty was a hoax. All I am saying is that it is still possible it was a hoax, even in the face of whatever probability may be presented. I prefer to believe Patty was a real creature. I do, I prefer that, and I tend to lean that way. However, I am not so convinced as to say that it WAS a real creature. I have to leave room for doubt and for the possibility that Patterson pulled off a good one on many millions of people.

If evidence comes to light which ends up illuminating the fact that it WAS a hoax, if Mr's Patterson produces the suit, or the mask, or the plan, or something, or Bob Gimlim finally decides to fess up, where does that leave all the theories which say it was not at all very probable that it was a hoax. I can see some people calling the hoaxers liars, not wanting to believe it was a hoax, and not accepting that it even could be after all these years and all these layers of dedicated thought to prove it could not possibly be a hoax.

If we eliminate all possibility and probability that it was a hoax, if it does turn out that it was a hoax, what happens then? I want to reserve the right to not have had the joke played on me too convincingly, that's all.

On the one hand, I want to respect your stance, but are you really understanding the utter improbabilities suggested?

Turning 1:1000000000000 into something a bit less abstract: that likelihood represents ONE person in the combined populations of 16667 planets the current population of Earth. And that's just based on the pysiological data extracted from the film...keep multiplying out all the construction factors the original author suggested and it gets even bigger from there.

At some point, Occams' Raxor simply DEMANDS that it's a real creature. Your "once chance that it might STILL be a hoax" is little more than a statistical artifact at the scales of probability being discussed. It's literally like jumping off the Empire State Building because there is "one chance in (x)" that you might survive it.

Again, no disrespect intended...

Tontar:

I suspect all of us, on all sides of the discussion, are secretly hoping we don't go too far out on a limb endorsing one view as conclusive, and then have some revelation disprove us conclusively.

Relying on the more factual and neutral data, as opposed to the more circumstantial arguments, to me is the best way to approach this.

Basically, the research I'm doing now, and the report I'm preparing, will try to keep its focus on the most factual and impartial data so any conclusions drawn from it will be relaible and enduring.

Bill

If you don't mind me asking, what's your take on the information in the article I posted above?

[Bill]

Mulder:

"If you don't mind me asking, what's your take on the information in the article I posted above?"

It is an interesting and informative article, and I am using a similar approach in my analysis, trying to fix body height and anatomical proportions, and then going to probability a human exists matching those criteria.

So I would say the analytical approach is a valid one and should be applied to the film analysis. It also contains some data on human proportions and measurements that I did not have, and this data may be helpful in my analysis. Thank you for contributing it.

Bill

[Guest Tontar]

On the one hand, I want to respect your stance, but are you really understanding the utter improbabilities suggested?

Turning 1:1000000000000 into something a bit less abstract: that likelihood represents ONE person in the combined populations of 16667 planets the current population of Earth. And that's just based on the pysiological data extracted from the film...keep multiplying out all the construction factors the original author suggested and it gets even bigger from there.

The author, or anyone else, can arbitrarily add in number of scenarios which would add improbabilities at an indefinitely compounding rate, to make such ridiculous numbers. It changes nothing in real life. Either Patty was a fake, or it wasn't. Simple. Far simpler than 1 in a hundred quadrillion chances might suggest. Personally, I think that some of this research gets into the really crazy end of the pool. I don't mean to be insulting or anything like that, but I've been watching where some of tis stuff goes and it does get crazy. patty is wearing her hair in a braid, she doesn't have a slanted head. She braids her hair, but lets her breasts swing in the air, in the middle of winter, can figure out how to braid, but can't figure out how to wear shoes in he snow, and can take a bullet shot to the thigh, and one to the back, and not even falter in step, not a single flinch. She's black, no she's white, they speak, no they howl, and call blasting whatever it might be is the way to draw them out, unless the call that people are imitating was "hay sasquatch brothers, there's some crazy hairless white dudes coming to pick up your poop". So we have all these brains out there screaming out a warning that they are coming and to go hide fast.

It gets crazy. Really crazy. This math stuff is really borderline to me. I DO like that Bill is doing his best to stay focused on what can be seen as real, a practical subject in a practical background, and analyze to the best of his ability in an unbiased fashion if he can duplicate it, if it seems to be more real than fake, and so on. Theories based on math can be used by anyone to their advantage, so I am MORE skeptical of this kind of rationale than I am of the existence of bigfoot. :-)

At some point, Occams' Raxor simply DEMANDS that it's a real creature. Your "once chance that it might STILL be a hoax" is little more than a statistical artifact at the scales of probability being discussed. It's literally like jumping off the Empire State Building because there is "one chance in (x)" that you might survive it.

Oh, you may feel comfortable believing that, but I am not. Occam's Razor is a principle, a theory, a philosophical tool. It may suggest something is highly probable, or improbably, but it cannot demand or make true something simply by hypothesizing. And I have no problem disputing that the conclusion that Patty is a real, non-human primate, and surviving a jump off the Empire State building are "literally" in the same league. I think the subject matter and the science behind each makes them miles apart.

Don't get me wrong. I also want to believe these are genuine creatures living in the woods. But crunching numbers really is not the way to "prove" it. And to me, no amount of mathematical statistics will ever convince me. I'm sorry, I just see that as a way to mentally remove doubt when no other option is available. No other concrete evidence. Just because one can say "the chances are" is not at all practical, or convincing. As I have said again and again, if the chances are that if one jumps off the Empire State building, one will die, is at all comparable to the idea that Patty was a real animal, what happens IF the story of the century busts out that Patty was indeed, and in fact, a hoax? Does that somehow mean that we can expect to survive a jump from the ESB? We don't REALLY know about Patty. We DO know about jumping from too high a place. We guess about Patty, we postulate, we do math to see if we can prove it, but we still don't KNOW. Math does not convince me. Viewing the film over and over again gives me FAR more insight than any theory of probability.

Again, no disrespect intended...

Thanks, none taken. :-)

If you don't mind me asking, what's your take on the information in the article I posted above?

It's a lot to read, and it leads me on tangents to other websites and other information, like all of this stuff seems to, but I'm trying to get through it all here.

There are always things that are curious to me, such as on this page <http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/nasi2.html> where it shows a chart showing the evolutionary changes from gibbon to human, and it is that author's opinion that the "subject" is between gorilla and human. Now, one ting that I always try never to forget, is that man did not evolve from apes, nor is there an evolutionary chain leading from existing primates to human primates. If one is to accept evolution, then we ALL are equally evolved, apes, gorillas, gibbons, even rats, we all are the result of an evolutionary process that has followed the same passage of time. Gibbons are equally as highly evolved as humans, equally as evolved to suit their environment, having evolved for the same amount of time.

We are related, no doubt, but we are not descended from, any existing primates that we know about. Where does that leave bigfoot? Well, my best guess is that it would be a very close cousin to ours. Not at all between gorillas and humans, nothing is between us because gorillas did not evolve to become us. Gorillas are a completely different and separate line of evolution, we are very distant relatives, having split ways LONG ago and become very different critters. Bigfoot, I would imagine, are no more related to apes than we are. Because they seem to be hominoid, same kind of feet, legs, arms, hands and supposedly faces, then it would be most safe to assume that they ARE hominoid, having similar if not the same evolutionary relatives in our past, and probably not that distant a past. A much more modern split between them and us than our split from the other primates, which are not hominoid. Bigfoot is, if it exists, a form of human. Maybe not a homo sapiens sapiens, but likely something not very different. It does not take a very big difference in DNA to end up with a size and coat difference. Look what can be done with mice in a lab, or chickens. Lab animals with no coat, no feathers, are relatively easy to develop. "WE" may be the anomalies here, the mutated cousin that became something other than what nature had been working on for so long. When you observe all other creatures in the world, we are the ones that seem to have parted ways with our environment the most.

The difference in hands between the apes has more to do with environmental adaptation than some evolutionary timeline. The reason gibbons have such long hands is because they are arboreal, they swing through the trees. A hand like ours would not work. The more earthbound the primates become, the more the hands change to suit that environment. Gorillas are on the ground a lot, and they are still basically quadrupedal, so they need longer arms and more robust hands, but still taking to trees they maintain elements of tree dwellers too. I would think that a bigfoot, being more like us, being bipedal, would not need longer arms like a more arboreal primate. The long arms are for moving through trees and for moving around o all fours. If they move around upright, like us, they don't need super long arms, and really, since they as well as us have been out of the trees for a very long time, and since they are not "in between" us and apes, there's no reason that I would assume that they would need long, ape-like arms. They would not be an intermediary step between apes and humans. That's not how evolution has worked.

But anyway, back to probability. The article says that the odds of flipping a coin and getting a tail is .5 or 50%. The odds of getting a tails three times in a row is now only 12.5%. Probability does not predict reality. We have dogs. Our first litter, we had a 50% chance of blacks, and a 50% chance of brindles. We had 7 pups, and six were black and 1 was brindle. What are the odds? We have another litter now. Again, same odds, and we now have 5 brindles and no blacks. What are the odds?

Now we're back to playing the odds game with the odds of a human standing over 7 feet tall? Based on the Glickman study saying Patty was over 7 feet tall? There are other studies that claim Patty was only 6 feet tall. That is an unfavorable report often enough because it affects the probability factors, and so it is rejected often in favor of the way oversize dimensions of over 7 feet tall, which would then make it a much greater probability that it is not a human.

Numbers games and the science behind it is something that any two opposing sides can play. So I'm not comfortable with the pseudo-logical train of thought of adding statistical probabilities together to come up with a result that anyone opposing or disagreeing with the conclusion would be some sort of mathematical idiot. Whether Patty was real or not, and whether bigfoot exists or not, is not something that can be settled definitively through math and statistics. I think that route is so wrought full of fallacies, hidden beneath what appears to be solid and incontrovertible logic and numerical leverage, that it is deceiving even to those that are not disbelievers. Someone equally as bright can provide an equally large cascade of probabilities that contradict the pro Patty cascade. And the result would be two opposing cascades of logical arguments and numerical sequences, neither of which will prove real or not real.

Personally, I think the Glickman study is flawed, dimensions, proportions and so on. I think it misrepresents what was captured on film. While I might believe that Patty was a real creature, I don't think that the Glickman or NASI study accurately described what was walking the creek and was seen on film.

Ah, and finally, I have been planning on doing some hiking this summer, specifically to go look for prints, and a bigfoot. I'll take baggies of plaster, cameras, both still and video, baggies for hair and sample collection, and so on. And if I do manage to get something authentic, I am sure it would be discredited because I have said I had thought previously about hoaxing a costume, or have had forethought to take plaster into the woods, or have been a prankster in other areas and love a good joke. But I believe that good evidence is good evidence, no matter who collects it. And if I do find something that convinces me that bigfoot is authentic, I won't really care if anyone else believes me or discredits me. I just want to know for myself, put the mystery to rest in my lifetime, for my own peace of mind.

[Drew]

Tontar-

A similar question came up in regards to the foot of a Bigfoot.

Why would a Bipedal creature, require a Mid-Tarsal Break (a trait of apes)?

[Guest]

I think a reason why a BF like creature might require a mid-tarsal construction as has been proposed has been explained by suggesting a compliant foot. Humans use the "spring-like" mechanism of its arched foot to gain efficiency in walking across the kinds of landscape for which we are adapted: the Savanna or perhaps even sandy stretches of beach of shoreline, and considering our relatively gracile form and slight mass and low weights, the arch works pretty well even if some humans have fallen arches...just like some have bad curvature of the spine. A species of primates who already had early hominin feet but instead of adapting to a communal and social lifestyle on the playa or the savannah, instead eschewed social organization by staying more solitary in order to adapt to the inexhaustable but mobile resources of migrating or nomadic animals as they traversed the rugged terrain of the steppe, peidmont and montane regions, and so could perhaps adapt with a foot (as well as a forward slanted posture and longer arms) that was capable of flat travel but was compliant(or otherwise suitable) enough to benefit it in negotiating more diverse and rugged landscapes while carrying its fur covered, bulky, low-surface-to-volume body out after its prey across the truely vast and relatively savanna-and-playa-free landscape of Eurasia...and maybe North America.

[Guest]

Tontar, thank you for a thoughtful and respectful post. Admittedly, I'm reaching the outer boundaries of my amiature understanding of science and it's terminology. So forgive me if my replies are awkwardly phrased.

The article author anticipated your objection as to the assumption of the subject "Patty"'s height by referencing two values further that are independant of height: arm/height ratio and leg/height ratio:

Glickman compared arm length with height. Since this produced a ratio, the value was independent of actual height. In other words, the same ratio would have resulted if “Patty†stood 6?3†or 7?3†because the comparison involved relative measures. The arm/height ratio of the Patterson/Gimlin subject (long arms compared to height) was far outside the human norm and would be expected in only one out of every 52,500,000 people. (As has been noted by Glickman and others, the fact that hand flexion is documented in the Patterson/Gimlin film precludes the possibility that prosthetics were used to hoax a long arm effect.) The leg length/height ratio (short legs compared to height) was also unusual and would be expected in only one out of 1000 people (Glickman 1998). This set of ratios is more typical of the great apes, which possess longer arms than legs, rather than humans, where the reverse is the norm.

Irrespective of height, "Patty"'s body morphology is well outside human norms.

On the general topic of statisitical analysis, I fully understand that improbable things can and do occur. What statisitics tells us is the liklihood of an improbably event occuring, and that I personally am left at a loss as to why some people dismiss it. Of course, people continue to play the Lottery, so I suppose that it's human nature. (Again, no personal slight intended).

As to your question as to why BF would have ape-like arm dimensions, as well as Drew's question about mid-tarsal breaks: this could easily be explained as the BF ancestor adopting bi-modalism as it's preferred locomotion. There are many examples in the sightings databases of BF exhibiting both bi- and -quadraped locomotion.

This could easily explain the retention of both ape arm length and the mid-tarsal break, as well as the necessity for the use of the "compliant" gait.

[Guest Carolina_Dog]

Snip......

As to your question as to why BF would have ape-like arm dimensions, as well as Drew's question about mid-tarsal breaks: this could easily be explained as the BF ancestor adopting bi-modalism as it's preferred locomotion. There are many examples in the sightings databases of BF exhibiting both bi- and -quadraped locomotion.

This could easily explain the retention of both ape arm length and the mid-tarsal break, as well as the necessity for the use of the "compliant" gait.

Sorry, but there is no way Patty's preferred locomotion is 4x4 mode..........if we assume Patty to be a real bigfoot.

We can't have both Patty being real, and bigfoot using 4x4 mode. It's gotta be one or the other.

Besides, Bob would have split out the butt seam if he tried to bend over to get his gloves on the ground!

[Guest]

Sorry, but there is no way Patty's preferred locomotion is 4x4 mode..........if we assume Patty to be a real bigfoot.

We can't have both Patty being real, and bigfoot using 4x4 mode. It's gotta be one or the other.

Says who? The sightings have plentiful evidence of both upright and quadraped locomotion.

Besides, Bob would have split out the butt seam if he tried to bend over to get his gloves on the ground!

Your supposition of hoax does nothing to advance this discussion.

[wolftrax]

The article author anticipated your objection as to the assumption of the subject "Patty"'s height by referencing two values further that are independant of height: arm/height ratio and leg/height ratio:

Irrespective of height, "Patty"'s body morphology is well outside human norms.

It would take a lot more than measurements of the arms and legs from one frame (frame 326) to convince me that Patty's dimensions were outside of human norms.

As to your question as to why BF would have ape-like arm dimensions, as well as Drew's question about mid-tarsal breaks: this could easily be explained as the BF ancestor adopting bi-modalism as it's preferred locomotion. There are many examples in the sightings databases of BF exhibiting both bi- and -quadraped locomotion.

This could easily explain the retention of both ape arm length and the mid-tarsal break, as well as the necessity for the use of the "compliant" gait.

Please provide evidence of a known hominid being able to do this. Not sasquatch reports, but physical evidence from the existing fossils.

[Guest]

It would take a lot more than measurements of the arms and legs from one frame (frame 326) to convince me that Patty's dimensions were outside of human norms.

The dimensions are the dimensions. They are fact.

Please provide evidence of a known hominid being able to do this. Not sasquatch reports, but physical evidence from the existing fossils.

Both Chimpanzees and Orangutangs have been taught to walk erect. Granted that's not NATURAL bi-modalism, but it demonstrates that the physical capacity exists in higher primates.

[Guest Tontar]

Regarding arm lengths. Assuming evolution again, and looking at primitive ancestors of ours, we see longer arm ratios. I accept that as a primitive human ancestor trait. And I also assume that a bigfoot would have shared our own human ancestors in the past, and not ape ancestors, at least not in the "relatively" recent past. So it is possible that they would have maintained arm length where our line lost some arm length. Considering that I am talking about human lineage as opposed to ape lineage, I would be more comfortable with bigfoot long arms being referred to as more ancestral, and not more ape-like. Hyenas also have longer front limbs, but we don't say chimps are more hyena like than humans. So I don't have a problem with bigfoot having longer arms, if they are longer, but I don't think that makes them any more ape-like.

As a not so politically correct comparison between different human races can tend to get is equally insulting and inaccurate, as in we all are human and none of us are closer to apes than others, we may still have some features that are reminiscent of our ancestral heritage, that ancestral human heritage, not monkeys or apes. When we see humans of different races that have pronounced prognathism, we don't say, or well we shouldn't say that they look more like an ape, right? Referring to people as more like apes is a way to degrade them, to suggest they are less evolved, less refined. Even though all our human races are equally evolved. None of us have been working on it any longer than anyone else. We evolve differences, we change from an earlier prototype by degrees, for whatever reason, due to whatever environmental or genetic influence.

Likewise, if bigfoot actually exists, I believe it is equally evolved as we are, over the same amount of time, to fit its environment as perfectly as possible. If that evolutionary process favored keeping longer ancestral arms, then so be it. It has longer arms, not more ape-like arms. If it evolved a heavier coat of hair as we lost ours, then so be it, it has adapted to its environment well. I have far more hair than my buddy Rob, but I don't think that makes me more ape-like, or between an ape and a human.

And as far as the mid-tarsal break in the foot of bigfoot. I think that is a theory, not yet proven. Seriously. Since even bigfoot is a theory until it is proven, proving the anatomical details is a bit like putting the cart before the horse. If it is a hoax, then there is no mid-tarsal break. If it isn't a hoax, and we have one to examine, at that point I think we should truly conclude how the feet work. But so far, I think it is premature to conclude without much doubt that the foot is built this way or that. I still have the feeling that someone's going to announce that it all has been one big joke, and the joke is on all of us who have come up with all these details, of mid-tarsal breaks, bipedalism as well as quadrupedalism, and on and on.

Anyone ever see Galaxy Quest? Sometimes I think that many of "us" are a lot like the kids that had to make sense of the way that sci-fi show worked. In fact, having spent a short bit of time browsing some Star Trek forums, and seen how some people argue about how a Jefferies Tube has to be in order to work properly, or what really happens during a warp core breech. Sometimes I think that speculation about bigfoot is not that different. I have to do a reality check now and then.

Looking at that Randi site and reading a lot of the skeptical views is a bit of a reality check for me. Sure, they can also be blindly determined to undermine the PGF as a hoax, or the whole matter as a hoax, but they also post some good points. Like completely different and seemingly fact based studies about how the arm length is not unusual or beyond the norm for humans.

I'm not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that all the measuring adds up to a definitely non-human set of proportions. And it doesn't have to add up to non-human proportions for me to believe bigfoot is another species of animal, or rather human. I think they can be real, and still be alien to us, and still be human relatives, with human proportions, or closer than many want to claim.

[Drew]

Irrespective of height, "Patty"'s body morphology is well outside human norms.

Would you say that 'Patty's' body morphology is well outside the possibilities of a human in a costume?

PS- FYI Mulder that answer in regard to MTB, was pretty close to what Dr. Meldrum told me personally.

Edited March 31, 2009 by Drew

[wolftrax]

The dimensions are the dimensions. They are fact.

It's a fact that Glickman made measurements of limbs that could very well and most likely are pointing away or towards the camera thus throwing off their measurements, and only did it on one frame restricting his being able to correct those measurements.

Both Chimpanzees and Orangutangs have been taught to walk erect. Granted that's not NATURAL bi-modalism, but it demonstrates that the physical capacity exists in higher primates.

The key word here is they have been taught. They are not natural bipeds, their hips, legs, and feet are not naturally inclined to bipedal walking. Patty obviously has hips, legs, and feet made for bipedal walking (but with a male gait suspiciously). Show a hominid that has this bi-modal locomotion.

Other answers are more suitable, but whoever came up with this bi-modal locomotion had nothing to support it.

[Guest]

It's a fact that Glickman made measurements of limbs that could very well and most likely are pointing away or towards the camera thus throwing off their measurements, and only did it on one frame restricting his being able to correct those measurements.

The key word here is they have been taught. They are not natural bipeds, their hips, legs, and feet are not naturally inclined to bipedal walking. Patty obviously has hips, legs, and feet made for bipedal walking (but with a male gait suspiciously). Show a hominid that has this bi-modal locomotion.

Other answers are more suitable, but whoever came up with this bi-modal locomotion had nothing to support it.

Except that many reliable ordinary people, (who would have no reason to "know" that bi-modalism is not supposed to naturally occur) have independantly reported seeing just that...