Is Science Good Or Bad?

[Guest FuriousGeorge]

I guess another way you could ask the same type of question;

If you met up with and then studied an entire family of BF's who were dying off from some type of human introduced poison, and they were suffering badly, writhing in agony with moaning and screaming and practically begging for help in their bigfoot language, and you deduced that this could be happening across their entire population, how could anyone say "Shhhhh, there there, sorry, you all should be kept a secret"?

Without the last part, it's happened many times before with many other (already discovered) species and the goal is usually the same. Protection....... all done with wonderful science.

[Guest Twilight Fan]

This is incorrect.

Western science "discovered them" only recently, but the native Africans have known they were there all along and have been hunting them for bush meat for centuries. Your proving my point. Because western science KNOWS they are a real species? People in Los Angeles, London, Berlin and Syndney can pool there resources together in a attempt to save the species from further harm. If the mountain gorilla was still a myth then.........native Africans could hunt them to extinction for bush meat and nobody would care.

Right, you've got me on that one. I admit, the bush meat was a bad example. But you're forgetting about western trophy hunter types. People who go on expeditions (or stay within their country) to hunt for sport. To mount the head of their "trophy" on a wall for display. Imagine how many hunters would revel in taking down the legendary Bigfoot! if they ever found out how and where to track it.

This is all very true of course........but a stone age culture cannot support 300 million people in the continental United States. It's great to be in love with a philosophy, but sometimes philosophy and reality are very far apart from one another.

Now you are proving my point: that reality CAN be ugly concerning 21st century views and animals. By taking more than we need from the earth and its species, we exploit them. We farm animals for food now, often neglecting and outright abusing them and not caring how they feel about it. All for the sake of saving a dollar. Factory farms only care about profit, not animal welfare. But I suppose we're getting off topic...

It's obvious to me that I'm not going to convince you, and that's cool. But your mindset and those like you are a mystery to me. I guess I see things from a very different perspective because I'm living it. I see Griz and Wolf sign where there was none 20 years ago.

Convince me of what exactly? That sas is better off being discovered and presented to the world? No, I won't change my POV on that most likely. I think you have valid points but so too do I. These creatures have been better at staying hidden from us than any other on the planet thus far, if they are real. I think they deserve respect for that and we should honor their (perceived) wishes of being left alone.

I guess another way you could ask the same type of question;

If you met up with and then studied an entire family of BF's who were dying off from some type of human introduced poison, and they were suffering badly, writhing in agony with moaning and screaming and practically begging for help in their bigfoot language, and you deduced that this could be happening across their entire population, how could anyone say "Shhhhh, there there, sorry, you all should be kept a secret"?

Errrrrr....Of course I'm not saying we should refuse help to a creature who ASKS for our help in some way or another. That would be inhumane. Until a Bigfoot tries to make contact though, I will continue to assume they'd rather be left to themselves.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Twilight Fan

[Guest FuriousGeorge]

I decided to phrase it this way because this question has popped up may times, and people usually don't understand my point.

Human influence indirectly disturbs too many species to count. How do we know if they are healthy or not? How do we know that we have not harmed their populations like we have done to so many other species? Maybe we have, maybe we haven't. Individuals that are not qualified shouldn't determine the health of an entire species. Science is pretty good at doing that though.

[Guest MikeG]

Mountain Gorillas were once "cryptids" because nobody thought they were anything but folklore. After they were discovered and studied, people began hunting them for bush meat among other things. Just because a new species of ape is found, bipedal or not, doesn't mean that it won't be a target for hunters/crooked scientists or anyone else.

Not so TF.

The small population of gorillas in the Ruwenzori Mnts sits in amongst what used to be a huge population of gorillas stretching as far west as Gabon and Cameroun, and east to the edge of the East African savannah. They don't look greatly different from their lowland cousins, and to everyone in the 19th century, locals, scientists, and white hunters alike, they would just have been "gorillas"........not "mountain gorillas". It was only when in depth studies were done that it was revealed that they weren't the same as the huge population of gorillas that surrounded them. There is nothing cryptid here, just science filling in the gaps in our knowledge in the normal way.

The thing about the mountain gorillas that captured the popular imagination was not the animals themselves, but the location. The Ruwenzories are legendarily inaccessible, and have been the subject of travellers tales and myths for centuries. I'll bet you've heard of the "Mountains of the Moon"? Well, yep, that's them. Victorian explorers lived and died trying to get to them.

Mike

[Guest Shaun]

The OP asks a very interesting question. It's also made me question my own motives for wanting the species to be validated and confirmed by science. Is it so I can say 'I told you so', or to confirm I wasn't seeing things?

If so, is that selfish? Exposing a species that's managed quite happily without our 'help' so far? When i say 'help', I really mean interference...

With regard to the OP. Is science good for Sasquatch? Only time will tell. Personally, I hope so in that it will offer protection. But, homo sapien is a crude, fickle, and reactionary creature. So, who knows?

[Shelly]

Much of the harm done to specific species of animals by humans does not come from humanity as a whole but small groups of poachers, etc. It's actually people that live right where the endangered animal lives. For example, natives hunt Rhino's for their horn. And that has nothing to do with science its superstitious voodoo witchcraft stuff that people still believe in that drives the trade. In the US actually we have done well with a lot of species. Alligators, the wolf, bald eagle, etc. are all making a resurgence after NOT being protected in prior decades.

In general, though, the way science works is to discover things and make them public. I can not think of a single major scientific discovery that was kept secret. It just doesn't happen that way.

[AaronD]

I can not think of a single major scientific discovery that was kept secret. It just doesn't happen that way.

Hello! If it was kept secret then NO you wouldn't know of it

[Guest MikeG]

For example, natives hunt Rhino's for their horn.

I've got some news for you.

Left to their own devices, the locals co-existed happily with rhinos for millenia. Nobody eats rhino. No locals had any use for the horn.

It is only when rich Chinamen or Kuwaitis, and now Vietnamese, came along and paid them more for one rhino horn than they could earn in a year, gave them the guns and the drugs (yes, some aren't killed directly, as gunfire attracts attention.......they are drugged, horn removed, then left to bleed to death)........it is only then that the locals started killing rhinos. They are being paid to do someone else's dirty work.

The rhinos will all be gone in a decade if things carry on the way they are.....it's an absolute nightmare.

Mike

[AaronD]

Mike, is there a reason they don't eat rhino meat? I'd like to try it sometime

[Guest thermalman]

Science is good, if based on facts and not pushing so much theory, conjecture, and hypothesis, as truth without supporting evidence. Theory and such is good science, if left to what it is defined as, and not presented as factless truth.

[Guest MikeG]

Dunno, Aaron. If you try it, you'll be party to poaching, and I hope they throw away the key! Some of those African gaols are interesting places........

[AaronD]

Throw away the key?? Thanks Mike!! LOL

[Guest]

Just in case this wasn't a joke, of course not. Science was the worst thing for Native Americans. When white man took over their lands, we forced their people to change to "our ways" or else we killed them and called them "savages." Modern man ruined their culture and their way of life. I'm not sure how anyone can argue that our arrival was anything less than awful for them.

At the same time, it also brought improved medicine, agricultural techniques, etc, which ultimately benefited them. Issues of cultural imperialsim aside, advancement of knowledge brough material benefit to those N Americans willing to embrace it. That's as far as I'm willing to expound on that, given the new, stricter rules for anything that might be considered "political".

To keep this directly OT: would sasquatch benefit from man's Science in the same way as the N Americans? I doubt it, unless they were put in zoos where they could be regularly examined and treated for disease and injury by trained veterenarian/doctors.

[Guest Twilight Fan]

The OP asks a very interesting question. It's also made me question my own motives for wanting the species to be validated and confirmed by science. Is it so I can say 'I told you so', or to confirm I wasn't seeing things?

If so, is that selfish? Exposing a species that's managed quite happily without our 'help' so far? When i say 'help', I really mean interference...

With regard to the OP. Is science good for Sasquatch? Only time will tell. Personally, I hope so in that it will offer protection. But, homo sapien is a crude, fickle, and reactionary creature. So, who knows?

Glad my thread made you question things, Shaun. Sometimes I try to post things that will make people think or reconsider why they wish something would happen in a certain way.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Twilight Fan

[AaronD]

TF, I'm thinking you maybe should be a school teacher, even a prof. the way you inspire critical thinking