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

[Guest thermalman]

That about sums it up. People seem to think North America has large areas where surviving POPULATIONS of this species could exist, and yet remain unknown to science. BF is simply not a real animal, it can't be. It sucks to have to dismiss all the sightings that people claim, yet if you have to dismiss all sightings in the crazy places where people claim to experience BF, places where there is zero possibility they could exist - as an long established but uncatalogued species, then it really isn't too hard to dismiss the rest. If people can claim sightings in Texas or Oklahoma, or anywhere in the eastern US or Canada for that matter (there is no way BF is tramping around in New York or Pennsylvania...or surviving the winters in northern Ontario), then it's easy to conclude the sightings in the more 'acceptable' places, like the PNW, are equally false...insert reason here. It would be great if such a creature existed, I used to be very active in believing that it did, but it doesn't, because like you clearly stated..."If bigfoot exists then it should have been found by now, simple as that"!

(^My bold) Then there are actual known people, who "disappear" in the bush and are never found or seen again (my condolences), after massive ground and air searches, with canine and all the techno equipment available. So it's not so "simple as that!"

Edited December 4, 2012 by thermalman

[Guest DWA]

So its not scientific unless they agree with you?

Nope, just not scientific unless it considers the evidence. That is what, you know, scientists do.

No scientist - no person, in fact - has even begun to consider a scenario in which all the evidence adds up to a false positive. That conclusion requires analysis of how one arrived at it. To simply say "it's not proven" is not even a response to the evidence, let alone an explanation.

[Guest]

(^My bold) Then there are actual known people, who "disappear" in the bush and are never found or seen again (my condolences), after massive ground and air searches, with canine and all the techno equipment available. So it's not so "simple as that!"

And there have been people who disappeared and have been found, so what? That fact that some people can go missing and no never be found does not mean that every individual member of a species can go unfound.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Jerrymanderer

[Guest thermalman]

And there have been people who disappeared and have been found, so what?

Not so "simple as that!"

To spell it out for you.....the people that get lost and who are never found, have undergone massive, intensive and organized searches, with a concentrated effort in a defined location, which should (logically thinking) provide some sort of evidence, but in some cases.......nothing. BF has likely never been searched out in the same concentrated manner at any time, thereby, increasing the odds that he is less likely to be found. Comprende'?

Edited December 4, 2012 by thermalman

[Guest]

Not so "simple as that!"

To spell it out for you.....the people that get lost and who are never found, have undergone massive, intensive and organized searches, with a concentrated effort in a defined location, which should (logically thinking) provide some sort of evidence, but in some cases.......nothing. BF has likely never been searched out in the same concentrated manner at any time, thereby, increasing the odds that he is less likely to be found.

Once again, an individual person can go unfound, a species can't.

[Guest thermalman]

Once again, an individual person can go unfound, a species can't.

Now your saying, that a BF species does exist. You best conclude what you're trying to prove in this thread? In one post you're saying that BF doesn't exist, "If bigfoot exists then it should have been found by now, simple as that.",

and in another you're impling they do exist "an individual person can go unfound, a species can't."

Edited December 4, 2012 by thermalman

[Guest]

Both of the bolded sentences mean the same thing. A particular indivdual can go unfound but not every individual can. Understand?

Edited December 4, 2012 by Jerrymanderer

[Guest]

Summitwalker, I thought it was funny when you said "or survive the winters in northern Ontario", Im pretty sure northern Ontario is full of animals. What do they do in the winter?

Animals adapt to their situation and suroundings.

[Cotter]

I would like to point out there are thousands of accounts of BF being "found".

Just not collected.

As far as what has been shared in the public at least.

Additionally, if an individual can go uncollected, there would be a chance that ALL individuals within the group could go uncollected. It's a small chance, but that may be exactly what we are dealing with here.

[Guest DWA]

Time to state my bottom line.

1. Plenty of evidence. The skeptics are offering the excuses, trying to absolve science from its responsibility.

2. The evidence cannot be said by a reasonable person to add up to a false positive, because no basis for assuming that exists.

3. When something hasn't been demonstrated conclusively, and science is working right, science drives to conclude. When the general tenor of mainstream pronouncements in the face of 1. and 2. is discouraging that drive or ridiculing amateur searches that are a direct response to the mainstream's refusal to engage, the field is hostile to the concept. Period, no appeal. Show me that the mainstream is on the whole driven by the desire to resolve this question.

Good luck.

(Saskeptic: all of your examples are of people who stepped outside the mainstream and who have, to varying degrees, been chastised for it.)

It's time to talk about other stuff now. Refer to my other posts here if you need clarification on anything.

Edited December 4, 2012 by DWA

[Guest DWA]

But wait! Remember my lawyer friend I quoted up there? He had something to add.

"Thanks DWA for pointing me towards this thread. I’ve been lurking here for some while, and have put in for an I.D., but I’ve not yet received clearance to post. Very soon, I hope. In the meanwhile, I’ve asked DWA to help me out and post this response for me.

I just want to say too that very rarely anymore do you find people so civilly engaged, talking outside of their chosen vocations/disciplines and areas of expertise (mine, as DWA mentioned, being law), sharing knowledge and trying to come to an understanding.

Let me just say, DWA has no need for me to emphasize his points (and I do agree with almost all of them) as he is very capable on that score. I do feel very acutely his feeling that science has let us all down so far. But, I’m not saying the existence of Sasquatch has been proven. I don’t believe DWA would say it has been either. Indeed, if we stopped right here I’d say it had not been, but that acknowledgment only heightens my disappointment in those who have accepted the charge of advancing human knowledge of the world. Instead, it has been left to amateurs. If the amateurs have botched the job (and I certainly will concede that this has been the case at times) I would accept all applications from more qualified candidates to do a better one. In the 45 years since the Patterson/Gimlin film was made, those few professionals who’ve been serious about the job can in no way compensate for the entrenched obstinacy of their colleagues. Fortunately for all of us, there is (because there always are) a rising generation of younger professionals who have retained their sense of wonder, curiosity and capacity to entertain the possibility we as a species don’t know as much as we might think we know. We can all look to them to make the exceptional discoveries by….wonder of wonders…putting aside preconceptions and following the evidence where it leads. Those individuals will deservedly receive the laurels if they are to be had. I might add too: A failure to confirm this is no failure at all.

"(And yes, I for sure understood that I was sticking my neck out by comparing the American system of criminal justice to cryptozoological research. It is axiomatic that this system has wrongfully convicted some individuals using the same kinds of circumstantial evidence I’m advancing as evidence of bigfoot. To the best of our ability to know, this is a proportionately small number. What is of greater significance to this comparison though is the much larger number of guilty individuals brought to justice for their crimes by this same variety of evidence. That was the point I was making: Nobody’s life or liberty is at risk if an all-out push to find this animal is made, and for the life of me I don’t understand why some treat it as if those were the stakes. So, to paraphrase an old saw about the law: Our system of scientific inquiry—when it is done correctly—is not the best possible system, it is only the best when compared to all the others we’ve tried. If we try it.) "

My motivation for stopping here is that all I hear in response to all the cogent stuff my lawyer friend and I have put up here is:

1. But it's not proven. (How very many ways there are to say that! PROVE it.)

2. Science is very friendly to bigfoot. What ridicule? ( You take it from here, Dr. Bindernagel.)

[Guest]

Most of the "evidence" for bigfoot is never published in a reputable peer review journals. We usually have science by press releases.

I would like to point out there are thousands of accounts of BF being "found".

Just not collected.

How convenient.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Jerrymanderer

[Guest DWA]

Most of the "evidence" for bigfoot is never published in a reputable peer review journals. We usually have science by press releases.

Never blame the animal's non-existence on those searching for it.

Why would the mainstream nitpick this, when they could do a much better job as my lawyer friend points out?

(Because it's not proven. Oh yeah, right.)

Edited December 4, 2012 by DWA

[Guest]

What ever that means.

[Guest Stan Norton]

. . . And to direct that comment to a guy who checks in every day to discuss bigfoot with people is a bit off the mark, wouldn't you agree?

Yes indeed and it was more of a general comment rather than a dig at you personally. My issue is that one cannot have it both ways - mainstream science already does state quite categorically (in a Rumsfeldesque way) that there are unknown, unclassified species ("it is estimated that there are between x million and xx million spp. etc etc"). So therefore if it is convention to assume that there are millions (?) of as-yet-unknown species, then I don't see why a decent field biologist (and many others) can't take the liberty of assuming (based on purported evidence) that this animals is real.

I agree, that is silly. Who says such things, though? You're somehow equating the fact that we have no verifiable bigfoot evidence to a broad brush opinion among scientists that no one should be trying to obtain such evidence. This is demonstrably false, as evidenced by real scientists who have tried to collect such evidence themselves e.g., Bindernagel, Krantz, and even me (I frequently incorporate searches for bigfoot evidence within my other objectives in the field). The notion of science telling people not to look is further discredited by the large number of folks who've happily agreed to analyze evidence gathered by others. This is an even longer list including Ketchum, Sykes, Meldrum, Disotell, Milinkovitch, Lozier, etc. Finally you've got the person who holds all the cards - Henry Gee, the Science Editor for Nature - who has made multiple statements about his willingness to consider papers that provide evidence for bigfoot or similar creatur

Ah yes, but again we reach the threshold of what is considered 'evidence' by mainstream publications such as Nature. Are they going to go anywhere near a paper (whoever by) without already-confirmed evidence of a body/body part? No...

The corollary is not "sheep didn't exist before they were described", it's more like this:

Ancient Scientist: "So you claim there's something out there you call a 'sheep'?"

Ancient Matt Moneymaker: "Yes, it's cloven-hoofed, woolly, and lives in the mountains."

AS: "Interesting. Have you got one?"

A.M.M.: "Yes. Here is one."

AS: "Right. Thank you. Mind if we call it Ovis?"

A.M.M. "Not at all."

AS: "Ta. Cheers, then."