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

[dmaker]

"2. Everyone who has ever claimed to have encountered a Sasquatch is either lying, crazy or hallucinating."

You rather conveniently chose deliberately pejorative terms there while omitting the more reasonable options. What about misidentification? Especially when it's someone who goes into the woods hyped up to find a sasquatch? And no, you don't get to call that hallucinating. It's more like pareidolia.

I believe that a vast majority of sightings are due to pareidolia induced misidentification ( at least when talking about visual sightings). Audio ones could be almost anything. There are a lot of things that go bump in the night in the woods. These things make noise. There is another thread here, I believe its SA3 where there are recordings of wild animals. In particular, the bobcat ( probably found in any sasquatch reported habitat) recordings. These recordings sound an awful lot like almost every so called sasquatch vocalization I have ever heard.

[Drew]

Let's just take the ol' razor to this statement: Tens of thousands of people have reported to have seen/heard/smelled/sensesd a large hariy bipedal hominid on this continent, supported by the historical record and well within the bounds of evolutionary probability. Which of the two explanations would a scientist favor:

1. There is a large hairy bipedal hominid on the continent, or..

2. Everyone who has ever claimed to have encountered a Sasquatch is either lying, crazy or hallucinating.

Even if you peg the probabilities of either to be 50 %, you've still got a hell of a lot of work to do.

A scientist would say; "Show me the catalog number of this large hairy bipedal North American hominid, so I can go take a gander at it, unless you can do that, I will not give any weight to such claims."

Remember how the gorilla story went. 1. Someone found a skull, sent it back to Europe. 2. Someone went to the mountain where the skull was found, and shot a few, first try.

_________________________________________________________________

I am not a scientist, so I would just say to you, clearly that anyone who claims to see a Bigfoot is mistaken, lying or hallucinating.

We know that people make up stories, we know that people misidentify things, we know that people have hallucinations and/or sleep paralysis events which are evident in many of the sighting reports. Inability to move, something pressing on chest, collapsing from infrasound (cataplexy), dark object moving in the periphery of vision. What we do not have evidence of: A large giant hairy beast walking around in semi-rural parts of North America.

_________________________________________________________________

Occam's razor has given me the obvious answer.

Edited January 2, 2013 by Drew

[Guest]

And those guys are just, what, woofing you to get their jollies on the internet? Seems to be a rather eccentric past time with a pretty minimal return on investment, don't you think?

I wonder if we could collect any evidence that people engage in a lot of time-wasting, eccentric pastimes that provide no apparent benefit other than getting their jollies on the Internet?

Naah!! That could never happen.

[dmaker]

<p>

Naljar, all I can say is that you seriously underestimate the size of this country and overestimate the intelligence of our species. Read the sighting reports (all of them...no cheating!) look up the Operation Persistence thread here. (And those guys are just, what, woofing you to get their jollies on the internet? Seems to be a rather eccentric past time with a pretty minimal return on investment, don't you think? Have you logged in to tell them that yet? No? Why not?).

What DWA wrote above we all learned in 5th grade earth science class. (All together class) "Science follows evidence to proof." When you keep uncovering further evidence (Uh, yeah, check) and you have not arrived at proof yet, you pursue some more evidence. You do this even when you are frustrated and confused about your lack of proof. You stop only when the evidence reaches a dead end or you explain why it is not evidence. And no, the "persistent cultural icon" trope won't ever scour. That just gives me swamp gas.

Let's just take the ol' razor to this statement: Tens of thousands of people have reported to have seen/heard/smelled/sensesd a large hariy bipedal hominid on this continent, supported by the historical record and well within the bounds of evolutionary probability. Which of the two explanations would a scientist favor:

1. There is a large hairy bipedal hominid on the continent, or..

2. Everyone who has ever claimed to have encountered a Sasquatch is either lying, crazy or hallucinating.

Even if you peg the probabilities of either to be 50 %, you've still got a hell of a lot of work to do.

You seem to want to appear to be taking a scientific approach, yet you are placing such a strong emphasis on eyewitness reports. It's fairly common knowledge that eyewitness reports are one of the least favoured sources of evidence by scientific methods.http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-the-eyes-have-it Edited January 2, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest]

We have evidence but no proof.

Can I explain why? No. It really doesn't make sense. A body should have been presented to science....road kill, hunter, etc. which is Occam's razor is continually brought up. It's good logic but I thinks it overly simplifies the discussion.

Also because something is hard to explain doesn't prove one way or the other.

It makes it less likely but it shouldn't be rules out because it doesn't make sense.

No legitimate prolonged effort by the scientific community has been made to observe and/or take a specimen.

That's not an excuse for the lack of proof. There should be some by now. But when all reports come from everyday average joes it makes it easier to discredit their observations. If all the witness reports were coming from zoologists studying BF in the field, what would your take be? (Rhetorical)

I tend to believe that there has to be something to the thousands of eye witness accounts, but I struggle to be completely convinced due to the absense of physical proof.

[WSA]

Yes, attaching no credit to objectively credible reports of sightings is science's primary failing in this area. It won't be judged kindly when the final chapter is written, I believe. As we all like to say, "It is what it is." Sasquatch apparently comes with its own set of rules, ones we didn't write. Our incomprehension, I believe, is just for that reason. If it doesn't fit our model of how this animal should act and behave, or how the greater world necessarily yields up its proof, we have no grok. You can give any reason you care to for that, but at the bottom it yields only one result. On the tombstone of mankind there is likely to be this epitaph: "We were surprised." We always are.

And Saskeptic: Have you logged on to the Op. Persistence thread to let them know you’ve got their scam all figured out yet? Why not?

Let me pose you another one too: What does a credible Sasquatch eyewitness report look like?

.

[dmaker]

Eyewitness reports really have to considered low ( last or bottom actually) on the scale of evidence for the proof of existence of anything really. Otherwise, I'd be riding my unicorn down to the dock on the weekend where I paddle my kayak out to dodge sea-monsters, frolic with mermaids, have lunch with a kraken and then come back to shore to play fetch with the Dogman before I go play Quiddich with the flying pigs..

[Guest]

And Saskeptic: Have you logged on to the Op. Persistence thread to let them know you’ve got their scam all figured out yet? Why not?

No, because I haven't figured out their scam. I only know that it will not result in the collection of a real, live dead bigfoot.

[Drew]

No, because I haven't figured out their scam. I only know that it will not result in the collection of a real, live dead bigfoot.

Yeah, I stopped telling them to be careful of a hoax, because they have somehow ruled that out as a possibility...

[Guest]

Assumption. Evidence backing it?

Zero. In fact, the evidence CONTRADICTS it.

And a scientist is still stuck with having to explain all that evidence. So far, nada. Get crackin', science. Don't keep telling me why it isn't happening.

It is happening.

Exactly what evidence do you speak of? Can you give me some specific examples of evidence that came from a sasquatch?

[Hairy Man]

No, because I haven't figured out their scam. I only know that it will not result in the collection of a real, live dead bigfoot.

Since I was a member of Operation Persistence and the Bravo team that witnessed two wood apes in broad day light at less that 50 yards, what scam do you think I'm pulling?

[Guest Kerchak]

Eyewitness reports really have to considered low ( last or bottom actually) on the scale of evidence for the proof of existence of anything really. Otherwise, I'd be riding my unicorn down to the dock on the weekend where I paddle my kayak out to dodge sea-monsters, frolic with mermaids, have lunch with a kraken and then come back to shore to play fetch with the Dogman before I go play Quiddich with the flying pigs..

There are lots of persuasively consistent unicorn and mermaid and flying pig eyewitness reports by reliable people happening regularly are there?

I didn't know that.

Ah no, an animal with this distribution.......

........can't avoid getting unambiguous trail camera images, getting shot by hunters or becoming roadkill.

In all likelihood it probably DOESN'T have that distribution. But just because not all of the eye witness sightings are true it doesn't mean none of them are true.

[Drew]

Since I was a member of Operation Persistence and the Bravo team that witnessed two wood apes in broad day light at less that 50 yards, what scam do you think I'm pulling?

The one where you know you need to provide evidence to go along with your story, but you don't provide any? Maybe that is the one he is thinking of.

[Hairy Man]

How exactly is that a "scam"? Scammers are cheaters and liars - is that what you and Saskeptic suggesting I am?

[Guest Kerchak]

The one where you know you need to provide evidence to go along with your story, but you don't provide any? Maybe that is the one he is thinking of.

Not having any evidence to put forward as yet is a 'scam'? How do you work that out? If a person is sure she/he has seen something incredible yet can't quite prove it or support it, why does it make it a 'scam'?

If he/she is wrong about what he/she thinks they saw then it might be nothing more than being mistaken or hoaxed. It doesn't have to be a 'scam'.