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

[Guest]

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"!

Sayin' it doesn't make it so. Just sayin'.

[salubrious]

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

Right. And this species has been found. Just not acknowledged. There is a huge difference!

Am I suggesting conspiracy? No. But look at it this way. What would happen if you, personally, told everyone that you knew BF existed? Would they think you were nuts? Would you get to keep your job? Think about it.

For those of us who have had encounters, especially those that have had close up encounters. this thread is pretty ridiculous.

[Guest]

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

Chastised how, and to what end? Meldrum is a great example: Everybody knows that he had colleagues at Idaho State who were sharply critical of his bigfoot work. I don't dispute that. I've been sharply critical of his bigfoot work. What people here never seem to follow up with, however, is the strong show of support Meldrum's dean expressed for him at that time, and the fact that he has been promoted to full professor. So he doesn't get invited to the Physics Department's Christmas Party, so what? It hasn't slowed him down in the least.

Please consider the end result of the "chastisement" Meldrum received for studying bigfoot:

1) got tenure

2) promoted to full professor

3) lots of people bought his book

4) frequently appears on national television

5) has received additional grant money to continue his research, most recently with "Project Falcon"

I wouldn't mind some of that brand of chastisement . . .

[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. Comprende'?

Now we know what happined to DB Cooper

Oh my....I can't believe it...the wickster!!

How they hangin' Brother KB?

[Guest]

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

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.

Welcome, lawyer-friend. (I hopes that's going to be your handle.)

Just some thoughts: Obstinancy has a funny way of vanishing when there's a bigfoot on a slab to be examined.

Why do you think that those of us who see no credibility in a flesh and blood bigfoot have lost our sense of wonder or curiosity about the natural world? I don't see that at all. We scientists are thrilled by new discoveries and delighted when we get to be the one to blaze the trail to some new understanding. If anything, it's my sense of wonder about the natural world that frustrates me sometimes when I interact with bigfooters. From my perspective, we've got folks who wax poetic about the life history of a mythological creature but who are grossly ignorant of the fascinating and wonderful life histories of hundreds of other species that share the woods with their myth-monster.

As for following the evidence, that's what I've been doing since about 1975, and it's never led to a real bigfoot. Why assume that people who are skeptical of bigfoot haven't followed the evidence? Many of us are very familiar with the putative evidence, but we've found it lacking. That's some of the hubris I referenced in DWA's comments a few posts ago. Folks like me actually find it rather insulting to be told that if we cared to follow the evidence we'd be convinced. A lot of us do follow that evidence and we aren't convinced.

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.

Well I don't know what an "all-out push" would look like. Surely the folks who've provided Ketchum with all of her bigfoot tissue samples didn't need to do that to confirm bigfoots, right?

More to the point, you might check out the Operation Persistence thread where it's alleged that bigfoots have been fired upon several times now. Despite their claims that the training of the people involved and the ballistics evidence of one specific incident illustrate that no one is in danger from that field effort, the fact remains that one of their people emptied his gun at what he thought was a bigfoot, and he did that without knowing that there was a couple (of humans!) nearby - close enough that the shooter heard the car door slam and the couple go tearing down the mountain because they thought some nutcase was shooting at them. This kind of thing doesn't make me think that there's no risk to hard-core bigfooting, it makes me think that's it's inevitable that someone really is going to get hurt.

Still, if folks want to go squatching, what do I care? It's way less annoying to me than people who use leaf blowers.

Quote problems - these are from Stan Norton:

"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."

The problem with this line of reasoning is that the discovery of some new ant in a Peruvian cloud forest or a taxonomic revision of newly considered DNA evidence that splits one species into three does not mean that there's a population of horse-sized man-apes howling at the moon in mildly rural areas of the United States. Just because there are many more species to be discovered does not mean that any one species we might want to exist necessarily does. If that was the case, I would've already seen Carolina Parakeets.

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...

But what would be the point of a paper that didn't describe a confirmed body/body part? That's the only thing that would be publishable for Nature, and rightly so. I can't publish my bird/habitat studies there, but if I discover a new bird then I can publish it there (if I do a good job with the manuscript, that is).

[Guest DWA]

Now this doesn't exactly sound like a friendly attitude toward the topic. If I'm a kid considering this as a way to use my science degree, that just stopped.

WHY would anyone want to do that?

"Why do you think that those of us who see no credibility in a flesh and blood bigfoot have lost our sense of wonder or curiosity about the natural world?"

Precisely the above. Know what I would do? Nobody beats me when it comes to wonder and curiosity, least of all some scientist. "No credibility in a flesh and ...." yep, there's that bigfoot-friendly attitude again. Know what I would do?

Were I the editor of Scientific American, I would devote an issue to: "Kids: Why We Need To Find Bigfoot, And Why 'We' May Have To Be You."

And anyone who cannot understand the wonderful, subtle genius of Meldrum's and Bindernagel's extremely conservative tacks on getting this issue in front of the mainstream? Well, that's some lost capacity for wonder there.

I never buy the wonder and awe of anybody who dismisses sasquatch. They go down about three levels minimum, no matter what else they say. The incuriosity, it boggles.

Chastised how, and to what end? Meldrum is a great example: Everybody knows that he had colleagues at Idaho State who were sharply critical of his bigfoot work. I don't dispute that. I've been sharply critical of his bigfoot work. What people here never seem to follow up with, however, is the strong show of support Meldrum's dean expressed for him at that time, and the fact that he has been promoted to full professor. So he doesn't get invited to the Physics Department's Christmas Party, so what? It hasn't slowed him down in the least.

Please consider the end result of the "chastisement" Meldrum received for studying bigfoot:

1) got tenure

2) promoted to full professor

3) lots of people bought his book

4) frequently appears on national television

5) has received additional grant money to continue his research, most recently with "Project Falcon"

I wouldn't mind some of that brand of chastisement . . .

I'd reject all of it for my work to receive basic respect. But Meldrum is tougher than most of us. Nobody wonders why this eminently-qualified person is staying at this? That is seriously lost capacity for wonder...to say nothing of a number of other things. As I've said, I wouldn't trust their curiosity as far as finding out what that squeak was in my basement.

You don't consider professional and personal ostracism to be benighted attitudes on the part of scientists, which they are?

His dean is a beacon in darkness.

Edited December 5, 2012 by DWA

[Guest]

In regard to trail cams, I placed one at the location of my sighting/track find, and for a year I had the usual deer, squirrels, an occasional bear, but no Sasquatch. Then, one day as I approached the cam, I noticed a huge, deep impression near the base of the tree and to the left of the cam. Upon closer inspection it looked though the sasquatch had neared the cam's field of vision, noticed the cam and then sprang backward and run off.

The cast, along with one from the initial sighting, is at my friend (and co-sighter)'s house and clearly shows a ue, human-type foot stomped sideways into the mud of the creekbank. This was a 1-in-a-billion chance squandered by superior and more highly-attuned senses. I did, however, learn that this creature returned to the sighting location approximately one year later.

The ridiculous abilities attributed to bf by frustrated believers are unnecessary and do more harm than good. What I saw was nothing more than a very rare, very smart, and very (perhaps instinctively) disciplined, flesh-and-blood primate.

[Doc Holliday]

Oh my....I can't believe it...the wickster!!

ill second that.

a wickie sighting? more rare than BF,quick circle him in red before he goes all blurry on us,Lol.

Edited December 5, 2012 by slicktrick

[Guest DWA]

saskeptic:

"Folks like me actually find it rather insulting to be told that if we cared to follow the evidence we'd be convinced. A lot of us do follow that evidence and we aren't convinced."

I find it insulting that you find that insulting.

You don't follow the evidence. My evidence? Everyone who has shown me an inkling of the depth of knowledge I possess of it agrees with me. You will have to explain why you don't.

And if you consider that hubris I find that insulting. I'm far better informed than all but a handful of scientists on this; and all the evidence I need is what they say.

(As my bottom line is stated, my posts are going to be much shorter from now on. "Further discussion" can be had by reading all my previous stuff again. I just can't stay away from a good argument.)

Edited December 5, 2012 by DWA

[Guest]

ill second that.

a wickie sighting? more rare than BF,quick circle him in red before he goes all blurry on us,Lol.

Yo Yo Brother Slick!

Good to see some familiar mugs are still here, among a new group of skeptic bashers. Maybe I'll just hang around for awhile

[kbhunter]

PLEASE do Wickie!! We have missed your warped sense of humor and your unique perspectives! So glad your back bud!

KB

[Guest RayG]

I'm far better informed than all but a handful of scientists on this...

Shouldn't you let others be the judge of that?

RayG

[Guest]

Shouldn't you let others be the judge of that?

RayG

I see Ray hasn't changed!

[Guest]

...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.

When I look at the evidence, I can only say that North America does have large areas where surviving populations can and do exist. And I do not think it's an animal, but an elusive, intelligent, (possibly soon to be identified) hominin.

The paradigm shift is going to be really, really rough for some folks.

[Guest toejam]

Yo Yo Brother Slick!

Good to see some familiar mugs are still here, among a new group of skeptic bashers. Maybe I'll just hang around for awhile

I love being a skeptic basher. Someone has to stick up for the truth.

I'm raising crow for the coming feast. I'm tired of listening to those old crows anyways. They always give me away. It'll be kind of nice to get rid of them all.

You guys okay with ketchup?