Bigfoot Research – Still No Evidence, But Plenty Of Excuses To Explain Why There’S No Evidence

[Guest BFSleuth]

I'm always very hopeful for something by mocking it with all my might....

... although my girlfriend doesn't seem to respond so well to that tack...

Edited December 18, 2012 by BFSleuth

[Guest DWA]

Look at Jerry Manderer with whom you have sparred in here quite abit. His take on the topic is that the search is OVER. That if there was something to be found they would have found it in the 1800's at the latest. So with the search over in his mind, all that is left is a bunch of melodrama, hoaxing and myth worship. So obviously he isn't going to take much seriously from the believer side of things.

I think there are some mindsets that you haven't considered yet. His mind is made up as well as many others. Nothing short of a body is going to dissuade them. And we cannot expect much help from them, and some of them may certainly find pleasure when we trip. But for those that do want to help it's icing on the cake.

Oh, I definitely had JM sussed as one of the "made up" and I think most of the "bigfoot skeptics" are there too (why I always put the phrase in quotes).

I just like to tell them that if they want to show me anything except how little they know, there's a way to do that.

Read more closely. Who won't "look at" the alleged evidence? I do. Drew does. Parnassus does. Kitakaze does. RayG does. The list of active and vocal skeptics who consider the merits of alleged bigfoot evidence is quite long.

I think a big problem pervading this thread is that I interpret "look at evidence" to mean reading accounts, evaluating putative evidence, and developing an opinion as to the strength of that evidence as suggestive of a real population of living, breathing, pooping bigfoots. Other folks seem to interpret the phrase "look at evidence" to mean "believe in bigfoot because there are a lot of people who claim to have seen one, mmkay?"

Why is there no option for those of us who have looked at that evidence and found it insufficient to convince us of real bigfoots?

Well, when you look at reports the way you do, you're not going to get anything out of them. You're into it for the entertainment alone.

Note how your entire orientation to the reports is: is each one proof? Did any one lead to proof? No thought about how patterns are present in the reports that indicate that an external source is more likely than a made-up story. No effort to attach any report to others to discern such patterns, to see how this one isn't exactly alone in a genre. (None of them are, and it's simply not done to presume that it's just all copycatting when you have no evidence that - or any other disqualifier - is the case.) No effort to note the connection of reports to likely habitat – where there are generally few people – rather than to places where there are lots of people and, therefore, more expected liars. No effort to note that the people who report sightings are just the people one would expect to, were the phenomenon attached to a real animal.

No effort to understand that, when one looks at the reports the way one should, with no a priori presumption that they are all people making stuff up, the explanation of an external source generating authentic encounter reports is actually more parsimonious than this-is-all-fake.

(Why I put "bigfoot skeptics" in quotes: they don't even take a minute to think about how unlikely the thesis they must subscribe to is in the real world the rest of us inhabit.)

One can’t just read the reports.

One has to think about what one reads, the way a scientist thinks about it.

You aren't doing that.You state your a priori bias early on (that I say were never there) .

You presume delusion and happy yarn-spinning. Your evidence is….?

You presume that “bigfoot folklore†includes things like: they live in forests; they live in areas with x annual rainfall; they are sighted in X places…and that everyone who has a sighting (who isn’t deluded) is all read up on this so they can make their sighting sound believable.

(You also miss the most bedrock canon of bigfoot folklore: there are none, zero, outside the PNW. If I had a nickel for every witness who KNEW that...until they found out firsthand they were wrong...)

You don’t address at all how the folkloric presumption that they live in forests addresses those sightings that occur away from forests. (Presumably these people are all wildlife biologists who know what “riparian corridors†are.)

This is someone who, when he reads a report, presumes My Favorite Bigfoot Character: The Omnipotent Hoaxer, who knows just how to make it believable! And there are thousands of them! And they are good enough to consistently fool scientists...!

That’s a particularly complex form of denial. But man, I guess it actually is out there.

I'm always very hopeful for something by mocking it with all my might....

... although my girlfriend doesn't seem to respond so well to that tack...

A HUGE component of "bigfoot skeptics" are those who were true believers...and now are true believers the other way...Patty dumped them, in other words...

Edited December 19, 2012 by DWA

[Guest]

... like those times that said evidence must be proffered right NOW!!!?

The crying baby pic holds a lot of irony...

[Guest toejam]

I find it amusing that naysayers think they hold so much power because there's been no specimen collected (that we're aware of).

That just shows the true agility, intelligence and stealth of a creature that can outsmart the humans who retain an ignorance that clouds the truth.

Many of us know the truth and the end result will always end up the same.

Look at some of the people putting their careers on the line for the sake of truth. They risk ridicule for what?

I'm sure they wouldn't be laying out some lie to lose business, put up with ridicule, lose friends, etc. They tell their experiences because it's truth.

Just as many of us here are doing the same.

[Guest]

Well, when you look at reports the way you do, you're not going to get anything out of them. . . .

That’s a particularly complex form of denial. But man, I guess it actually is out there.

Well there might be a future for you in fan fiction . . .

Here again, your arrogance and closed-mindedness are stunning. How in seven different kinds of cake mix do you know my state of mind when I read bigfoot reports? Are you saying you have psychic abilities to go along with your bigfoot belief?

Of course I look for patterns when I read reports and of course I don't pin my position on any one report. If you were as well read as you have several times claimed to be, then you'd know that many times on this very forum, I have stated that the anecdotal accounts are the most interesting component of the bigfoot phenomenon. But what's wrong with the anecdotal reports? Class?

"You can't write out a specimen tag and pin it to an anecdotal account."

Thank you. That's very good.

When you've been pressed in this thread to propose what should actually be done with the information from anecdotal accounts, all I see from you is "scientists should stop being so mean to bigfooters."

I've actually engaged with people in this very forum to provide input on the kind of scientific investigations that would have the potential to bring confirmatory knowledge of bigfoot to the world. Other than erroneously accuse me of not doing that, what have you got? Do you have a real plan you'd be willing to promote for legitimate scientific inquiry, or are you just trolling the BFF with your etched-in-stone talking points, completely impervious to evidence to the contrary?

[Guest]

A) If your a skeptic? Find a comfy spot on the couch and wait or roll up your sleeves and come help. Worst case scenario is you will see some beautiful country and meet some interesting people.

B ) If your a proponent? Get crackin! If your squeamish about collecting a type specimen? Then focus your strengths in other ways to help prove it's existance.

Simple as that.

[Guest DWA]

Well there might be a future for you in fan fiction . . .

Here again, your arrogance and closed-mindedness are stunning. How in seven different kinds of cake mix do you know my state of mind when I read bigfoot reports? Are you saying you have psychic abilities to go along with your bigfoot belief?

Of course I look for patterns when I read reports and of course I don't pin my position on any one report. If you were as well read as you have several times claimed to be, then you'd know that many times on this very forum, I have stated that the anecdotal accounts are the most interesting component of the bigfoot phenomenon. But what's wrong with the anecdotal reports? Class?

"You can't write out a specimen tag and pin it to an anecdotal account."

Thank you. That's very good.

When you've been pressed in this thread to propose what should actually be done with the information from anecdotal accounts, all I see from you is "scientists should stop being so mean to bigfooters."

OK, for one thing, I am talking to etched-in talking points, have been from the beginning, and am done.

You are telling me your state of mind when you read the anecdotal evidence, in your posts. It's so "interesting" that I'm using it as a case study elsewhere.

You don't know what to do with anecdotal accounts? Scientist, was it?

They place the testable proposition before science: this animal will be found, here, if you look, the biggest concentrations in this range are here, here, here, etc., and here's a lot of information to use in setting up search protocols. Science has been confirming species this way forever.

If you need more help than that, I'm worried. But it looks like you do. Rant rant rant sounds like you, not me.

Moving on. When you know the science is being done correctly is when it's fun. Operation Persistence? Fun. I'm shifting my attention to that, and away from this. Reread at leisure (if you've been reading which it doesn't sound like).

Toodles.

[Guest]

Oh, so your big solution is go look for bigfoots where people say they've seen bigfoots? I think I'll go call an emergency meeting of the top-secret Ivory Tower Society to share this stunning revelation from you. Thanks - you're a god-send!

[Guest DWA]

Better than your alternative: waiting for a body to fall from the sky on my head. Addio.

Isn't that what the JREFFERS have been saying?

"You can prove Bigfoot exists, we can't prove it doesn't exist."?

Most of them would be elated to find out Bigfoot exists.

Sure they would. They'd think that their sitting on their hands all these years was the reason it happened!

[Guest DWA]

Oh, so your big solution is go look for bigfoots where people say they've seen bigfoots? I think I'll go call an emergency meeting of the top-secret Ivory Tower Society to share this stunning revelation from you. Thanks - you're a god-send!

And I had to add this:

No, you never never NEVER talk to the locals about an animal. You are SCIENTISTS! What do THEY know?

(And given how much time science has spent on this, oh, yep, pretty stunning, I'd say.)

Once again: if you aren't having any fun, that's a cue that science is not being properly employed. Let's just sit on our hands. What to DO with all these reports?

[Guest Kerchak]

Oh, so your big solution is go look for bigfoots where people say they've seen bigfoots? I think I'll go call an emergency meeting of the top-secret Ivory Tower Society to share this stunning revelation from you. Thanks - you're a god-send!

Sometimes the simplest suggestions are the best ones.

[Guest DWA]

Not trying to inflame you, but don't you see our point as in this so called evidence just isn't strong enough.

I'm just trying to get an understanding on how someone who has never seen one, claims without a dought, it exists

The evidence is clearly not strong enough to stand as proof, which we wouldn't be doing this if we had.

But my read of it tells me what it tells a number of scientists with solid technical qualifications: the animal appears to be out there.

Wouldn't you want to know for sure? I would.

Generally, what scientists do with inconclusive evidence is go into the field to get conclusive evidence. Were I a skeptic, I'd want them to get cracking on that.

[Guest]

^Still ignoring the work of all those bigfooter scientists*, DWA? Does the cognitive dissonance actually hurt inside your head, or is it more of a tickle?

*We can start listing them again if you like. BTW, I was in the field doing some squatching this past weekend. I didn't find any.

[Guest thermalman]

Come to Canada

[Guest]

well done Saskeptic well done,

plussed 1

dav