Modern Researchers Are Bypassing Traditional Academia

[Huntster]

You don't need science to discover bigfoot. Matt Moneymaker could do it tonight, could he not?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Since he hasn't done so yet, I'd lean toward "maybe not".

And if he did, who says he's gonna' let you in on the deal? He's a commercial operator. Hell, he might have pulled it off already and is cashing in on it while you play dodge ball here on this forum.

Need I remind you?:

So what about bringing a live gorilla back from Africa? After Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, the public clamoured to see these mysterious primates. But gorillas proved fragile in human hands, and appeared particularly vulnerable to pulmonary ailments. The few that reached Europe almost invariably died shortly after their arrival. America, with its even longer sea voyage, failed to get hold of a live gorilla until 1897, and that one died four days after landfall. The misery of captured gorillas was so apparent, and their mortality rate so appalling, that in 1908 the London Zoo finally refused to buy them; a decision that would stand until 1932.

Victorian showmen had fewer scruples. They knew that a gorilla meant money, whether it was genuine or not, and so they happily showed off any ape they could get their hands on as a "gorilla". But in one of the great odd twists of ape history, it seems one live gorilla had already toured England without anyone realising it.

In 1855, a strange sort of chimpanzee was kept by George W. Wombwell’s famous travelling menagerie. "Jenny" survived a few months before dying of pneumonia in Scarborough in March 1856. The dead creature was promptly sold to Charles Waterton, an eccentric naturalist-***-taxidermist. Waterton was fond of creating fanciful "nondescripts" from assemblages of animal parts, and so Jenny’s skin was altered and stuffed to form a hideous horned simian sculpture titled – for Waterton was an ardent Catholic – Martin Luther After His Fall.

But what the menagerie had been touring with was not a chimpanzee at all. Later examination revealed that Jenny was a juvenile gorilla. The remains of the first gorilla to live outside Africa now survive only as a bizarre taxidermic joke in the Waterton Collection at the Wakefield Museum in Yorkshire. It would be decades before any other gorilla survived in Britain for as long as Jenny had. And so it was that squalling babies, runny-nosed urchins and exasperated mothers unwittingly witnessed the world’s rarest captive animal, and for a few pence on English village greens were granted a sight denied to the most respected men of science.

Why did the locals get to see the first gorilla to arrive in England while "the most respected men of science" were "denied"?

Maybe science needs to get involved before the "unscrupulous" commercial operators just to save the species from extinction?

(My bet is that more gorillas died at the hands of science than at the hands of people like Wombwell...........The London Zoo's decision is an illustration of that.......)

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 18 February 2011 - 06:36 AM, said:

It certainly suggests that the 1978 report may have been accurate,

This part works for me.

Huntster, on 18 February 2011 - 06:36 AM, said:

and the attempt to deny the 1978 report suggests yet more official denial and buck passing that we have all become so accustomed to.

The two clauses are contradictory. If our hypothetical wildlife agency allows that the new information may suggest that the 1978 account was accurate, then there is no denial.

I am again aptly corrected. Please allow me to rephrase yet again (in pursuit of accuracy):

It certainly suggests that the 1978 report may have been accurate, which shouldn't be surprising since cougar distribution originally included nearly all of the Western Hemisphere, every major American habitat type, and is still the greatest range of any large, wild terrestrial animal in the Western Hemisphere, and had wildlife managers ignored such reports like they ignore sasquatch reports, gross mismanagement would have been rather easy to demonstrate.

Better?

[Guest Sallaranda]

Many condemn "belief" in it's most basic form. They see "belief" as the enemy of the scientific method, even though (as humans) they engage in belief just like everybody else. It's inevitable. Unavoidable.

You'd think they'd be smart enough to figure that out.

But they aren't.

Example: Check out this pit of despair and see what ideological opposition is toward the mere concept of "belief".

Their ideology.

Makes sense. But people should realize by the past mistakes of mankind that skepticism is a force that can drastically slow down the advancements of society and culture. It can slow down political science, biological science, physical science, etc.

Just look at Galeleio's discoveries. He was condemned and sentenced to house arrest for proving the sun was at the center of the Universe; however, without that discovery where would science and technology be today? Likely, nowhere.

Same goes for bigfoot. Skeptically refusing to at least remain open to the possibility it exists is drastically hindering the advancements of evolutionary science, and likely cultural and social sciences of man.

[Huntster]

But people should realize by the past mistakes of mankind that skepticism is a force that can drastically slow down the advancements of society and culture. It can slow down political science, biological science, physical science, etc.

Taken to an extreme (like those at the site I linked), yes, it most certainly can.

Using skepticism in a healthy way is also something that we all do as humans. It's wise, inevitable, and unavoidable.

It just makes a very poor ideology.

Just look at Galeleio's discoveries. He was condemned and sentenced to house arrest for proving the sun was at the center of the Universe

By people who used their own ideology to the extreme. It is extremism, not skepticism, that is the problem.

And extreme skepticism is also known as denialism.

Same goes for bigfoot. Skeptically refusing to at least remain open to the possibility it exists is drastically hindering the advancements of evolutionary science, and likely cultural and social sciences of man.

I agree. It is denialism, and we have examples of it going so far as to demonstrate desperation in attacking what might be valid evidence, or (in the case of the PG film in 1967-68) being completely ignored by the appropriate wildlife management agency (California Dept. of Fish and Game).

[Guest LAL]

Maybe. Maybe not.

Since he hasn't done so yet, I'd lean toward "maybe not".

And if he did, who says he's gonna' let you in on the deal? He's a commercial operator. Hell, he might have pulled it off already and is cashing in on it while you play dodge ball here on this forum.

Need I remind you?:

Why did the locals get to see the first gorilla to arrive in England while "the most respected men of science" were "denied"?

Maybe science needs to get involved before the "unscrupulous" commercial operators just to save the species from extinction?

(My bet is that more gorillas died at the hands of science than at the hands of people like Wombwell...........The London Zoo's decision is an illustration of that.......)

If they become extinct science can say with a fair degree of confidence they don't exist.

[Guest Sallaranda]

Taken to an extreme (like those at the site I linked), yes, it most certainly can.

Using skepticism in a healthy way is also something that we all do as humans. It's wise, inevitable, and unavoidable.

It just makes a very poor ideology.

By people who used their own ideology to the extreme. It is extremism, not skepticism, that is the problem.

And extreme skepticism is also known as denialism.

I agree. It is denialism, and we have examples of it going so far as to demonstrate desperation in attacking what might be valid evidence, or (in the case of the PG film in 1967-68) being completely ignored by the appropriate wildlife management agency (California Dept. of Fish and Game).

I appreciate you letting me know the correct terminology, but I'm glad you understood my point nonetheless.

Skepticism is certainly a healthy part of human thinking, but denialism, as you call it, is a hindrance to the advancement of human knowledge. The whole "show me the body" argument is one that I get frustrated with. We could show you a body, and you could tell us its a human with a genetic deformation. There is always one more level of denial. All the pictures, videos, and sound clips in the world can't prove its existence, who's to say anything else will?

I still; however, don't see the direct harm in believing in Sasquatch, regardless of the individual's ideologies. Which ideologies in particular could the existence of Sasquatch defect?

[ShadowBorn]

I still; however, don't see the direct harm in believing in Sasquatch, regardless of the individual's ideologies. Which ideologies in particular could the existence of Sasquatch defect?

I say none, but for some who have seen them and interacted with them.Well thats just a whole new ball game and hard to except.

[southernyahoo]

Sallaranda asked....

Why, in your opinion, would scientists and researchers neglect to engage in a full-blown investigation on reports of the Bigfoot? Is it purely the financial restrictions, or is there some other factor involved here? Conspiracy theorists run wild with this one, I want to hear your opinions.

Hunster answers....

It's easier to just wait for the truck driver or poacher to solve the mystery for free

Saskeptic says....

You don't need science to discover bigfoot. Matt Moneymaker could do it tonight, could he not?

Yep, let someone else do it, it's safe, no risk, you can always claim ignorance and nobody can call you silly for that. JMO

[Huntster]

If they become extinct science can say with a fair degree of confidence they don't exist.

However, if a Giganto type skull is found in the outskirts of Seattle and dated to the year 1900, they have a series of problems:

1) Is this the skull of a sasquatch?

2) What do you mean you don't know?

3) You mean you guys ignored all those reports?

4) Well, go catch one to see.

5) What do you mean you can't find any now? There appears to have been one in 1967 in Northern California.

6) You think they're extinct now?

7) So what were you doing between 1967 and today?

[Huntster]

Skepticism is certainly a healthy part of human thinking, but denialism, as you call it, is a hindrance to the advancement of human knowledge. The whole "show me the body" argument is one that I get frustrated with.

You and me both, especially when the denialism reaches extreme levels itself.

We could show you a body, and you could tell us its a human with a genetic deformation.

I've come to expect that with the delivery of the very first sasquatch carcass.

You heard it here first.

There is always one more level of denial.

Yup. There is no limit to denial.

All the pictures, videos, and sound clips in the world can't prove its existence, who's to say anything else will?

Only the eventual death of the current generation of denialists will end it. Example:

In the book he told of gorilla, of which he had brought back the first specimens and which he had been the first white man to see and hunt; of the fierce cannibal tribes, the Fans, who filed their teeth to keep them sharp; of the ravages of the Baskouay ants, which marched in dense columns miles in length, and who were marshalled by officers and generals; of hunting elephants with pitfalls; of a new variety of snake, less than four feet long and six and eight inches thick, which lies in the open places in the woods and whose bite is instantaneous death, and of many other equally wonderful sights.

The book was greeted with shouts of laughter and derision from one end of the American continent to the other. Mr and Mrs and Miss Gorilla was the common jest, and the name Du Chaillu became a byword for a fanciful storyteller. Du Chaillu was only 26 when his first book was published. He was unable to answer satisfactorily the storm [p. 284] of questions hurled at him; consequently nobody believed him, except Harper and Brothers in the United States and the Royal Geographical Society in England, both of whom valiantly and vigorously defended his truthfulness.

That was from the National Geographic obituary of the man who brought back the first gorilla carcass in 1859.

Even a carcass won't shut the denialists up.

I still; however, don't see the direct harm in believing in Sasquatch, regardless of the individual's ideologies. Which ideologies in particular could the existence of Sasquatch defect?

That which subscribes to the belief that beliefs are dangerous, even when science cannot explain a phenomenon, or the belief that denial is superior to belief, or the need to feel superior to others, and that a denialist is superior to one who believes.

[Guest Sallaranda]

You and me both, especially when the denialism reaches extreme levels itself.

I've come to expect that with the delivery of the very first sasquatch carcass.

You heard it here first.

Technically I said it first. But let's split the pride 50/50 when it happens. Haha.

Yup. There is no limit to denial.

Only the eventual death of the current generation of denialists will end it. Example:

That was from the National Geographic obituary of the man who brought back the first gorilla carcass in 1859.

Even a carcass won't shut the denialists up.

That which subscribes to the belief that beliefs are dangerous, even when science cannot explain a phenomenon, or the belief that denial is superior to belief, or the need to feel superior to others, and that a denialist is superior to one who believes.

I love listening to your insight. I agree with pretty much everything you say. Growing up with a father who was the ultimate denialist I have learned to not let it bother me for the most part. My father definitely had a superiority complex, so this all makes perfect sense. I suppose its one of the reasons I'm so interested in studying and discovering the Bigfoot. Just to prove him wrong.

[Guest]

The whole "show me the body" argument is one that I get frustrated with.

Why? It's the standard for the description of every other species.

We could show you a body, and you could tell us its a human with a genetic deformation.

Yes, a denialist could say that. But with the physical evidence, that claim could be easily falsified. It doesn't matter what the knee-jerk reaction of some people might be. What matters is that the physical evidence has been obtained to demonstrate for the world what the thing is.

This is why I find Huntster's gorilla discovery anecdotes - while fascinating - to be unmoving. Who cares if some people initially doubted reports of the discovery of some fantastic creatures, especially in an age when fantastic stories passed off as factual were all the rage? The point is that gorillas were found, remains were recovered for Western scientists to examine, and the species was described in the literature. Anyone who publicly doubted the existence of gorillas could be shown that evidence - case closed.

I still; however, don't see the direct harm in believing in Sasquatch, regardless of the individual's ideologies.

Neither do I - knock yourself out.

[Guest]

Yep, let someone else do it, it's safe, no risk, you can always claim ignorance and nobody can call you silly for that. JMO

You forget the most important part: it's vastly more likely to be successful if such creatures exist.

[Guest]

It certainly suggests that the 1978 report may have been accurate, which shouldn't be surprising since cougar distribution originally included nearly all of the Western Hemisphere, every major American habitat type, and is still the greatest range of any large, wild terrestrial animal in the Western Hemisphere, and had wildlife managers ignored such reports like they ignore sasquatch reports, gross mismanagement would have been rather easy to demonstrate.

Better?

No, you lost me. The only part that makes sense is the "suggests that the 1978 report may have been accurate" part. Everything else in your statement just sounds like somebody reaching for an opportunity to write something unflattering about a wildlife management agency.

[Huntster]

Sallaranda, on 19 February 2011 - 02:57 PM, said:

The whole "show me the body" argument is one that I get frustrated with.

Why? It's the standard for the description of every other species.

I have no problem with that standard. It is true that it is required for the description of every species.

What I can't understand is why it appears to be the standard for our official wildlife agencies to look for this species.

This is why I find Huntster's gorilla discovery anecdotes - while fascinating - to be unmoving. Who cares if some people initially doubted reports of the discovery of some fantastic creatures, especially in an age when fantastic stories passed off as factual were all the rage? The point is that gorillas were found, remains were recovered for Western scientists to examine, and the species was described in the literature. Anyone who publicly doubted the existence of gorillas could be shown that evidence - case closed.

However, the same people who carried on after DuChalliu's discovery were also the types who resisted it's discovery and it's implications to Darwin's theory on "The Descent of Man". While that particular resistance is not as big today, other ideological resistances are clearly in play.