The Sykes / Sartori Report - Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project

[JDL]

There are more than one set of disciplines in science, in political analysis, and in business that routinely use data collected from people to glean useful information upon which to determine courses of action and answers to key questions.  The statistical analyses used are designed to isolate consistent trends from massive amounts of data containing many variables. 

 

These analyses start with the understanding that useful information is embedded within raw data containing significant amounts of "noise", or useless information.  The analyses isolate the useful information, and often multiple analyses are applied to the same raw data set.  When the analyses identify a consistent trend (useful information), they automatically assign a degree of confidence to the trend.  When examining the results of the analyses, both the answers and the degrees of confidence associated with the answers are considered together.  This is done in radio astronomy (how do they really know there's a new planet out there a thousand light years away instead of just cosmic static?), it is done in DNA analyses such as the subject of this thread (the isolation of useful information from massive amounts of relatively poorly understood genetic code), it is done in politics when leaders are trying to select the best course of action to achieve a future goal, and it is done in sales and marketing to identify what products to develop, how to sell them, and where to sell them, among other things.

 

So to say that anecdotal information has no scientific, political, or economic value is a fallacy.  It is used all the time for valuable reasons.  Even paleoanthropology is subject to anecdotal information, because that is exactly what the contextual interpretation of the circumstances surrounding each find amounts to. 

 

If anecdotal information were never used in science, there would only be hard science.  It would all be 2 + 2 = 4.  There could never be multiple hypotheses (essentially multiple interpretations, of which only one can be true) applied to any raw data set in any science.  And a scientific "fact", once determined, would never be replaced by a subsequent "fact".  All scientists would be right all the time if anecdotal information were not part of science.

 

Because science itself uses anecdotal information, science has determined how to manage it to maximize its value.  Science does not, however, casually dismiss anecdotal information with the wave of a hand and a smirk.

 

This isn't the first, or even the fifth, debate over anecdotal information on this forum, just the most recent, and I've got to say the least inspiring, after discussing exactly this issue with skeptical icons over the years like Saskeptic, whom I consider to be both a professional and a gentleman.  These debates are cyclic, and at this point are nothing more than obfuscating noise as defined above.

 

Understanding this will not tone down the less mature skeptics, however.  One has to conclude, after watching the repeated cycles of new skeptics, that there will always be some who are not interested in informed debate, but in simply heckling the forum.

[roguefooter]

Also I have to ask you MIB, where did you come up with your numbers? BFRO has a total of 4851 reports on their website database. Where are the other 40,000 that you're referring to?

[Guest Stan Norton]

JDL: hear, hear. If only I were able to have set my thoughts out in such a coherent manner.

[Guest]

JDL, none of what you said has anything to do with bigfoot. The "anecdotes" of science are made by trained professionals who come prepared and set up parameters. They also give information on how others can observe the same thing. Bigfoot reports are largely campfire stories that can never be followed up on.

[Guest]

They're no more significant that a hundred thousand stones that happen to randomly organize themselves into a three foot high wall a mile long in an area where people are assumed to have never lived.

JDL this is a perfect example of people not understanding the analogy because they dont understand the core process of proper data analysis that the analogy is based on.

[JDL]

JDL, none of what you said has anything to do with bigfoot. The "anecdotes" of science are made by trained professionals who come prepared and set up parameters. They also give information on how others can observe the same thing. Bigfoot reports are largely campfire stories that can never be followed up on.

 

Jerry, if you don't get it, you don't get it.  That doesn't bother me. 

 

The point of engaging subjective skeptics is not to convince them of anything.  That's a lost cause.  It is a matter of preserving the undiscouraged use of this forum by those who have an objective interest in the subject.

Edited November 25, 2013 by chelefoot
Remove personal statement

[Guest]

I don't even get this "Sykes" report, so I'll assume it's going nowhere. Feel free to enlighten me.

[Guest]

Well I guess it's pointless to go through this thread. Real evidence here = 0.

[bipedalist]

Jerry, if you don't get it, you don't get it.  That doesn't bother me. 

 

The point of engaging subjective skeptics is not to convince them of anything.  That's a lost cause.  It is a matter of preserving the undiscouraged use of this forum by those who have an objective interest in the subject.

 

There is a certain savoir faire hanging on this post.  Yes, there is.  It gets to the point that those enlightened no longer feel a need to be sniped at to enlighten others.  Let them put in the time and effort.  

[Guest DWA]

There is a certain savoir faire hanging on this post.  Yes, there is.  It gets to the point that those enlightened no longer feel a need to be sniped at to enlighten others.  Let them put in the time and effort.  

 

Pretty much.

 

'Skeptics' clearly show none of that in their position, which accepts whole the word of 'professionals' that it is clear haven't done their homework.

 

I got here by reading and thinking, two things I am disinclined to do for others.

[Guest Darrell]

Eventually we found Bin Laden and Hussain. Will bigfoot ever be found?

[Cotter]

^Sure, if the gov't spent billions looking for one.

 

(or maybe much less, and they have already got their evidence, they're just not sharing)

[Guest DWA]

Eventually we found Bin Laden and Hussain. Will bigfoot ever be found?

Well, the society at large did accept their existence, and didn't toss evidence of it out of hand.  There's that difference.

[Bonehead74]

It also helped that they both had known associates who we could spy on or pressure (in various ways) for information. Not so helpful with sasquatch.

[Lake County Bigfooot]

I think the Bigfoot Files show will see more than those three episodes,

that was simply to test the waters, Lets see what the paper itself says

and I am guessing that the door will remain open to prove the species

does exist to the scientific world through DNA, we just need one legit

sample. I hope the NAWAC will gather some DNA evidence along the way

toward their ultimate goal, I think we need to stretch our thinking in

order to figure ways to capture their DNA. I know that it is possible,

but we need more brainstorming to devise new methods.

Edited November 25, 2013 by Lake County Bigfooot