Creature Suit Analysis - Part 9 - A Study of Probability

[Guest Carolina_Dog]

Is it time for Poser 7?

Edited April 1, 2009 by Carolina_Dog

[Guest]

..which would be regularly quadrupedal in my book: moving quadrupedally with some regular (albeit perhaps very low) frequency. I do not mean that it would their regular/normal/standard mode of locomotion, just that it happens with "some" regularity- like bipedalism in wild chimps (rare but happening "regularly" during displays, etc.) See what I mean?

Sorry about the semantics.

-A

Semantics...nothing fraks up a good debate more than tossing about terminology, huh?

Mulder-

Your statements that Patty is out of proportion for a human are based on what?

1. Bill Munns has stated that the proportion issue is not even a concern because it looks like Patty falls within human dimensions.

2. If it was out of proportion for a human, it certainly wouldn't be out of proportion for a costumed human.

Go back and re-read the article I posted/linked...the entire arguement and supporting cites is there.

[Guest Carolina_Dog]

And exactly WHY could she not should she choose to?

Your problem is in insisting that Patty is a hominid. If she is in fact more ape than human, (and the traits she displays seem to indicate this) she would be properly classified as an ape.

Probably a poor choice of words on my part.

Yes, if for some odd reason she wanted to she could briefly go 4x4 but it would be so awkward for her she wouldn't do it more than once. Patty in 4x4 would be just as awkward, clumsy, and blind as any of us going 4x4.

Let's just look at the neck for now. It's fairly obvious that her neck will not bend back far enough for her to see where she is going in 4x4 mode. At best she would struggle to advance a few feet then she would need to stop, squat, look around to see where she's going, and advance a few more feet, or run headlong into a tree.

Patty is a pure biped, just like humans, including one with the initials BH.

[Guest Tontar]

Something that I appreciate about the work Bill is doing is that he is trying to analyze a select body of evidence, that being the PGF. Within that specific body of evidence we have a subject which is able to be freeze framed in any number of strides, proportions measured, and so on. While Bill claims that he has no preconceived opinion on whether or not bigfoot is real, or whether or not Patty is real, I do think that some of his methodology leans toward belief rather than pure objectivity. Such as the extrapolation of probability factors which has been claimed in a supporting post that Occam's Razor "demands" that Patty is real. But to his credit, Bill tries ot be objective and I believe that his bias is subtle, and I respect that. It is hard to believe and be totally unbiased.

Okay, and then on the other end of the spectrum there are collections of claims to support bigfoot as real beyond any reasonable doubt, which I find to be seriously in conflict with what I have read in articles, books, seen in photos or films. Claims which support a belief, without substantiating evidence to support that belief. It's fine for people to believe one thing or another, as long as it is clear to them and everyone else that is what they believe. But it's quite another to claim a belief is a reality. ESPECIALLY when it comes to what can very appropriately be called a mythological creature!

Bill is working with the PGF, something that is considered the Holy Grail of all bigfoot evidence. And in that film, there is a subject, which has been argued over for decades. That subject is not more ape than human. Please forgive my language and seeming lack of respect here, but seriously! When anyone can overlay an ape on that film which walks along, gazes back at the camera, swings its arms casually, and even saunters side to side like a dude wearing stiff cowboy boots (which you can easily see in the enhanced and enlarged video clips, the shoulders and upper body rock back and forth with each step), that is anywhere in the same ballpark, or even in the same town as that ballpark, as the overlay of Bob H. as has been seen in various places, then we can talk about Patty being more ape than human.

If we are going to have 40 years of people saying "just look, it's a dude in a fur suit, no question about it", and never in that time anyone saying "hey look, it's a gorilla or a chimp taught to walk like a human", then where does the closest resemblance lie?

To me, it's pretty simple. It's one of two things. It's either a person in a suit, or a hairy form of human relative. Bob Gimlin, who actually SAW Patty, saw her far more clearly than any of us can extrapolate or conjecture from looking at the grainy film, says that it looked human, not like an ape. Now when we have the only surviving eyewitness to the subject in the film say that it looked human, not like an ape, versus someone who says that it looks more ape than human 40 years later, I am going to take the word of Bob Gimlin as THE authority. If Bob says it looked human, it looked human.

It doesn't matter if someone else speculates that it looks like an ape. It doesn't matter if Monsterquest has a guy in an episode that sees a flake in the emulsion of one frame and says he sees it as a low slung, hanging down chimp lip. That is NOT what Bob says he saw, and rewriting history, and reworking film images to produce different than what was seen on site, is detrimental to the entire seriousness of the study, or subject matter.

Trying to find aspects that would prove it is not a human in a suit, has gone the way of trying to prove such a huge difference that it could not even be a relative of a human, that it is so different, it not only can't be a dude in a suit, it has to be an animal far removed from the human branch of the evolutionary tree. Exaggerating the differences between Patty and a human is a strategy. Perhaps even a subconscious strategy, but a strategy just the same. It is a way to prove Patty is for real. The problem is, reality gets changed in the process. Logic gets bent. Reason goes out the window.

If Patty is real, which I suspect she was, and she's likely even dead by now, then observation of the film, statements by the two guys that saw her, and all supporting bits of evidence surrounding her experience suggests and supports her as a form of human, not a form of other great ape. And yes, humans are technically apes, but their form diverged from other apes millions of years ago. Chimps are not gorillas are not orangs, are not gibbons are not humans. we're talking close family relationships, genetic and phenotypical relationships.

I KNOW guys that walk just like Patty. My wife's uncle walks like that, and is shaped a lot like that! The Patty in the film gives no indication of having any other mode of ambulation other than hat which my wife's uncle has, and he has never gone down on his knuckles except maybe to hike a football or pull weeds. he didn't use it as a way to get around. Knuckle walking is a relatively recent addition to the bigfoot myth, bolstered I suspect by those wanting to build additional differences from humans. The more bigfoot is different from a human, the more likely it is real, and not some dude in a suit. The same strategy, the same reasoning.

Patty is what you can see, and nothing more. She is what Bob Gimlin says he saw, and nothing more. She is not knuckle walking, she is not "proven" top be outside human proportions or human capability. Supporters of bigfoot and Patty provide the skeptics all the fodder they need to discredit the existence of bigfoot. Such firm belief, which causes such firm belief in speculation which has no proof, adds layer upon layer of myth to something that may or may not be true. If it IS true, then the layers of myth on top of it undermines the reality. If it IS fake, then the layers of myth on top iof it makes fools of those who add or believe in those layers. The truth and the evidence is far simpler and less complex.

[Guest Tontar]

Or they made it up because they figure it's an ape and it could do that. One makes it up, another reads it and makes it part of their made up story, and so on.

In the end, you have people using it to support a skinny bear and calling it a baby squatch that is quadrupedal as a juvenile and bipedal as an adult.

And the credibility of the field sinks lower...

I agree. And that is not to be pessimistic. Say I "believe". But I don't accept much of the purported sightings or photos. Does that mean I don't "believe"? Nope, just that I am not so eager to believe that I buy every possible bit of proof to support my belief.

Credibility should count for more than it often seems to.

[Bill]

Tontar:

"But to his credit, Bill tries ot be objective and I believe that his bias is subtle, and I respect that. It is hard to believe and be totally unbiased."

Seems a lot of people have been offering opinions about whether I am biased or not, and I respect the reality that each person looking at me and my work/notes is entitled to their opinion of me.

Just for the record, this is my philosophy, which guides my actions.

Every person interested in discovering more about the world we live in has thoughts with varying degrees of "belief" (how much you rely on that idea to be factual). Some things are proven beyond any doubt. I do not doubt gravity or evolution, for example.

But when we seek to learn more about a subject, especially if we choose to research a topic with hope of gaining new undertanding of something which is far from settled (and the PG film is far from settled), we invariably have some "preliminary" ideas about it (whether you want to call those beliefs, suspicions, hunches, hypothesis, or options to consider) and we use these preliminary thoughts to form a hypothesis and plan a course of research and analysis.

A biased person tends to reject data which does not lead to a preferred outcome. A truly scientific person truly follows the data and is not afraid to prove themselves wrong, if the data actually leads them that way.

In the middle, the data newly discovered or analysied may likely lead a person to a different result than expected, neither what the preliminary assumption was nor what the opposite of the assumption was.

That's where i am at right now. My research has literally taken me to a place i never imagined and did not expect or presume in my preliminary thoughts on the film. I have followed the data and it is opening some doors and slamming some shut in an unexpected way. And becuase i respect the ways of science, I let the data determine the outcome.

Word of my current work and findings will likely become well known when I talk at the Yakima event in May. At that time, people will see my work in a diferent light, and see how data (and not any bias) does indeed control the conclusions.

Bill

[Guest Data]

Great work Bill!

Regarding "Is it a fake?":

I personaly think it doesnt matter. Patty did a very good job for BF research and is the one and only unbiased film showing a BF creature. No Horror Beast nor Harry and the Handersons. It looks legid and is needed to keep people hooking up onto the BF issue. If Patty is real we might not even know if BF itself is profen.

[Guest Tontar]

Tontar:

"But to his credit, Bill tries ot be objective and I believe that his bias is subtle, and I respect that. It is hard to believe and be totally unbiased."

Seems a lot of people have been offering opinions about whether I am biased or not, and I respect the reality that each person looking at me and my work/notes is entitled to their opinion of me.

Just for the record, this is my philosophy, which guides my actions.

Every person interested in discovering more about the world we live in has thoughts with varying degrees of "belief" (how much you rely on that idea to be factual). Some things are proven beyond any doubt. I do not doubt gravity or evolution, for example.

But when we seek to learn more about a subject, especially if we choose to research a topic with hope of gaining new undertanding of something which is far from settled (and the PG film is far from settled), we invariably have some "preliminary" ideas about it (whether you want to call those beliefs, suspicions, hunches, hypothesis, or options to consider) and we use these preliminary thoughts to form a hypothesis and plan a course of research and analysis.

A biased person tends to reject data which does not lead to a preferred outcome. A truly scientific person truly follows the data and is not afraid to prove themselves wrong, if the data actually leads them that way.

In the middle, the data newly discovered or analysied may likely lead a person to a different result than expected, neither what the preliminary assumption was nor what the opposite of the assumption was.

That's where i am at right now. My research has literally taken me to a place i never imagined and did not expect or presume in my preliminary thoughts on the film. I have followed the data and it is opening some doors and slamming some shut in an unexpected way. And becuase i respect the ways of science, I let the data determine the outcome.

Word of my current work and findings will likely become well known when I talk at the Yakima event in May. At that time, people will see my work in a diferent light, and see how data (and not any bias) does indeed control the conclusions.

Bill

Bill, I am sorry if I offended you in any way. Simply because I believe that you are biased, as we ALL are to some extent, I was trying to point out that your work and your conclusions are about as unbiased as can be. It was an effort at a compliment, as well as an effort to point out that coming to large scale conclusions filled with a lot of details which are not fully supported by evidence, is at the other end of the spectrum.

As I have said several times now, I believe, I fully respect the work that you are doing. I do. I may still disagree with the part about probability figures, but that in no way reflects poorly on you or your work. I wish that the Roundup wasn't sold out. I did not hear about it before the tickets were all gone, otherwise I would be there in attendance.

I did read what you wrote on your personal website, about how skeptics themselves lose credibility with you by suggesting that they know what you think. That thought was not far form my mind when I suggested that you were biased. I was not trying to put words in your mouth, or thoughts in your mind. In fact, I was hoping that you would comment on the more recent ideas put forth. But in my own life experience, I have yet to find people that are completely without bias about a subject they are passionate about, or are working on. That bias does not necessarily have to taint their work, and I was not claiming that it was tainting your work in any significant way, but just the same I feel pretty confident that each and every one of us who post in this or any forum has some degree of bias which is not always able to be hidden. It may not sour the work, or it may, depending on the discipline of the individual involved, but I don't see the term "biased" as any form of insult.

Respectfully,

Aaron

[Bill]

Aaron:

No offense taken by your remarks. We're cool.

On the bias thing, perspective or point of view is a form of bias (but with no suspicious or demeaning undertones), which is why we should strive for more points of view to reduce the error of seeing things from one point of view, and instead seeing things from a more rounded perspective.

"I was trying to point out that your work and your conclusions are about as unbiased as can be."

I appreciate your commenting on this, because it is my goal.

"fact, I was hoping that you would comment on the more recent ideas put forth."

Specifically, which recent ideas? I wasn't sure which you are referring to.

Bill

[Guest Tontar]

Aaron:

"fact, I was hoping that you would comment on the more recent ideas put forth."

Specifically, which recent ideas? I wasn't sure which you are referring to.

Bill

Well, I suppose we've been going around and around the idea of what patty and bigfoot might be in reality, if she does prove beyond a reasonable doubt to be authentic. I also try to be logical and reasonable when I consider such things, and try to resist extrapolating too far along a path past what might be reasonably supported by evidence, or historical precedence.

For example, and I don't mean to point out a feud between myself and Mulder, but he seems to be of the opinion that Patty would be closer to a form of ape,, while from the evidence I have seen, and from the reports that I have read, I think that the most likely scenario would point to a more human being, and less of an ape or gorilla or chimp like being. To extrapolate a bit more, perhaps recklessly I don't know, if I were to accept the primate evolutionary tree as it currently stands, which has the lineage of man running from the distant past withcommon ancestry among all great apes, with the orangutan diverging into a separate evolutionary path, then gorillas diverging along their path, and more recently chimps diverging on their own path. I would suspect that bigfoot would have diverged from our path somewhere after the chimps did, far enough along our path that it was already very similar in form. That it would therefore belong to the family of man. Or even another possibility is that we branched off their path. I think where one sees the line running determines what branches off of what. In other words, the evolutionary tree is not a line to humans, with all the other apes departing the road to us, by the same token we could have departed the road which led to them. So it's just branching away from common ancestors, if one looks at it objectively enough.

And so, there have been comments that Patty appears more ape than human, or conversely that Patty appears more human than ape. The results of which from my point of view would be what would end up classifying this as a separate species of primate, but with classifications also go relationships, where on the family tree do individual things reside, where did they come from, who are they most related to, and so on.

because bigfoot is still unproven, in that there is no specimen to examine to see anatomically what it is, what it is related to, we make assumptions. Science would require assumptions, or theories, to be based on whatever date is available. When that data is in the form of a film, and I am assuming prematurely that your work will likely point to Patty as being authentic, then the subject of that film is a prized piece of evidence for developing the theory of what patty is, where she belongs in the book of life. I suspect a near human, or a type of human, not a type of chimp, not a type of gorilla.

And honestly, when I see what I am typing here, I have to reflect back on Galaxy Quest, where the kids are calling back and forth discussing where the various corridors would lead in the ship in the television series, or how the warp drive would have to work. Myself, falling into the mode of imagining a larger world of bigfoot than perhaps is there in evidence, real evidence. be that as it may, and as geeky as I suspect this train of thought may be, my rational mind says that IF Patty was real, then she needs ot fit into the biological world somewhere, and based on what I observe in the film, and what Bob and Roger said, I suspect she would have been a form of human.

[wolftrax]

Your problem is in insisting that Patty is a hominid. If she is in fact more ape than human, (and the traits she displays seem to indicate this) she would be properly classified as an ape.

No, I'm afraid what you are saying here is based on your own presumptions.

Brief explanation here:

Hominids classically described an ape that was bipedal. If it walked on two legs, it was considered hominid. This has run the full spectrum with apes that had very long arms to the longer legs and shorter arms seen in homo. As long as they walked bipedally, they were considered hominid.

These days, with DNA evidence showing such a close relationship with chimpanzees, all apes are considered hominids ( Hominidae ).

Anyways, there are a lot of assumptions in the current discussion of this thread that are confusing several different issues. The one I am centering on, though, is the bimodal locotmotion, because it's reached a new level being thrown around but with no regard to any factual historical basis behind it. All examples given, so far, of chimps, orangs, or even gorillas, walking bipedally temporarily doesn't address that their hips, neck positions entering the heads, and the feet don't match what we see in Patty. Patty is a biped. Midtarsal break wouldn't change that. Heavy browridge wouldn't change that. Long arms wouldn't change that. Hairy body wouldn't change that. Patty could be a long way removed from human and it wouldn't change that, she (or he) is a biped. We see many of these attributes in hominids from the past, yet they were bipedal, they didn't have a bimodal locomotion.

Edited April 2, 2009 by wolftrax

[Bill]

Tontar;

I did get into the ape/hominid speculation last year (around May I believe, in a podcst interview with Melissa Hovey), and it had fun speculating on the topic. And I suspect at some point, I'll have to revisit it.

But for now, just to let you know where my head is at, let's look at the phenomenon as a tree, and so we've got the trunk emerging from the ground, the major branches coming off the trunk, the lesser branches sprouting off there, then the leaves and buds, and finally the bird droppings on the leaves. A lot of people are debating the bird droppings on the leaves, some argue about the leaves, and the hominid/ape thing is probably one of the branches.

Last fall, I decided to back off and just look at the trunk and the ground it emerges from. Once I get that figured out, I'll more confidently start doing a new analysis of the major branches. I'm a long way from the leaves, and try to ignore the bird droppings.

Hope this makes sense. Some of my analogies are understood, some get wildly mis-understood. Still, I try.

Bill

[Guest Tontar]

But for now, just to let you know where my head is at, let's look at the phenomenon as a tree, and so we've got the trunk emerging from the ground, the major branches coming off the trunk, the lesser branches sprouting off there, then the leaves and buds, and finally the bird droppings on the leaves. A lot of people are debating the bird droppings on the leaves, some argue about the leaves, and the hominid/ape thing is probably one of the branches.

Last fall, I decided to back off and just look at the trunk and the ground it emerges from. Once I get that figured out, I'll more confidently start doing a new analysis of the major branches. I'm a long way from the leaves, and try to ignore the bird droppings.

Hope this makes sense. Some of my analogies are understood, some get wildly mis-understood. Still, I try.

Bill

Understood! And I very seriously look forward to your upcoming revelations!

Aaron

[Bill]

Aaron:

"Understood! And I very seriously look forward to your upcoming revelations!"

I look forward to finally being able to put them on the record.

Bill

[Guest BigfootXists]

I thoroughly enjoyed your 'Study of Probability', Bill. The thread has also been interesting and you responded eloquently. You are taking a scientific approach, using more applicable knowledge than say, 1:99999999.4 people could bring to the table (:') and, yours is the most un-biased research that, I personally have seen to date. I commend your efforts. Thank-you.

Somebody here said: "Mathematics doesn't convince me" (paraphrased) and, I was reminded of that line in Cool Hand Luke: "Some Men you just can't reach." If mathematics and probability doesn't convince somebody then; I don't really know what to say.

Anywho, can you tell us how much your 'belief' in the PGF has changed since you began looking into it?

(I was more or less told here that I couldn't use the 'b' word without quotes around it, haha.)

And, what do you consider to be the 'hottest' topic surrounding the scientific verification of the Creature in the film?

Thanks again,

BFX