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

[Guest]

@Jerry - correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you ascribing sightings to the history of folklore in the area and drawing a comparison.

Maybe a better question would be is why then is BF 'special' in the sense that the folklore relationship you are offering only applies to BF? It's not a phenomenon associated with North America after all, this is a global phenom.

Where did I say BF was "special". I think the folklore/cultural thing also applies to the loch ness monster and alien encounters.

[Guest DWA]

Why should that be?

Simple logic dictates it. What, did Bigfoot win some kind of competition for "thing we've decided we're going to see?"

It doesn't make sense that pretty much every mythical beast but yeti and sasquatch yield virtually no sightings...and those two yield compelling evidence. Unless, of course, those two exist and the others don't.

I've read that literature and find it to be the entirety of the question.

You'd have to explain that, because nothing about the encounter literature would make anyone who's read it think that.

So the people making up stories of their sasquatch encounters also claim not to have known anything about sasquatch prior to the encounter. I wonder how that information might affect the degree to which their stories would be considered authentic by the people who collect such stories and post them on public websites . .

No. As I said: people don't make up stories. They describe what they see. And almost to a person they either didn't know anything about it or (and these are far the less frequent) they didn't think it was real or lived in their area (if they had heard anything about it). Believing, out of hand, that these people are just making this up is, I believe, very difficult to conceive of anyone thinking who has actually read a lot of them. Which is why anyone who says something like that I simply assume has not read them and is not really a player in the discussion. Very few people reporting encounters found the website themselves. They conveyed something they had seen, and were referred to a place to report it. (A significant subset of reports is by people who happened to have "one of those shows" on, and heard on the show a recording almost exactly like the sound they heard.)

To just presume that all of this is made up and not worth pursuing is...well, scientists don't do that. Oh wait.

We have no evidence for sasquatch. We have only items that some people who believe in sasquatch believe are evidence of sasquatch. I can grant you that we probably have more people who claim to have encountered bigfoot than who would claim to have encountered a unicorn, but I see no qualitative difference in what we can actually confirm to be evidence of either creature, which is zero.

Not how science looks at evidence for everything else. For everything else, science distinguishes between evidence which is inconclusive and proof. For everything else, eyewitness testimony and footprints are entered into evidence.

Edited December 11, 2012 by DWA

[Cotter]

Where did I say BF was "special". I think the folklore/cultural thing also applies to the loch ness monster and alien encounters.

Well, you kind of did, but even considering alien encounters and the loch ness monster, why would those 3 be 'special'.

Where are the thousands of sightings of unicorns, fairies, sprites, wood nymphs, dragons, chimera, demons, vampires, witches, zombies, trolls, ogres, elves, cyclops, etc?

If this folklore thing is legitimate, why isn't it evenly spread across ALL folklore creatures?

[Guest DWA]

If this folklore thing is legitimate, why isn't it evenly spread across ALL folklore creatures?

One would expect that. It doesn't happen.

Sightings of sasquatch occur where one would expect to find sasquatch. Unless sighters are all experienced field biologists, that doesn't happen. When something isn't real, you have sightings where you have people who want to make something up, not sightings in or on the fringes of large stretches of what appear to be excellent habitat.

Edited December 11, 2012 by DWA

[Guest]

Thing is. If one SEES a sasquatch, then studies it's tracks, or perhaps had observed behavior, that IS indeed evidence.

Only if sasquatches are real. If they aren't, then all you have is a person claiming to have seen one, studied its tracks, etc.

It's not a phenomenon associated with North America after all, this is a global phenom.

Right, and this actually makes it much, much worse for bigfootery.

[Guest]

Well, you kind of did, but even considering alien encounters and the loch ness monster, why would those 3 be 'special'.

Where are the thousands of sightings of unicorns, fairies, sprites, wood nymphs, dragons, chimera, demons, vampires, witches, zombies, trolls, ogres, elves, cyclops, etc?

Times change, cultures change. In addition, there aren't organisations and documentaries promoting the existance of the above.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Jerrymanderer

[Guest]

@DWA: Dude, please learn how to use the quote function.

Also, I'm glad to learn from you that, because you have said so, people don't make up stories. It's really entertaining to be witness to a person apparently being confronted for the very first time with the phenomenon of different people accessing the same information as you but drawing an entirely different conclusion from it.

[Guest]

As I said: people don't make up stories. They describe what they see.

If only it were that simple.

[Guest DWA]

If only it were that simple.

Oh, it is. It's just that simple.

To presume that they don't, without evidence that you are right, is to go against human nature. People who have studied this at length agree with me.

@DWA: Dude, please learn how to use the quote function.

Also, I'm glad to learn from you that, because you have said so, people don't make up stories. It's really entertaining to be witness to a person apparently being confronted for the very first time with the phenomenon of different people accessing the same information as you but drawing an entirely different conclusion from it.

Dude, please learn to read things that aren't that difficult to read. I wasn't going to do all that cutting up. This is enough effort.

It's equally entertaining to hear someone who says that because he says there is no evidence, there is none.

You and your allegedly skeptical ilk aren't accessing the information, and I am sorry to say your posts show it.

Edited December 11, 2012 by DWA

[Cotter]

Times change, cultures change. In addition, there aren't organisations and documentaries promoting the existance of the above.

Sure there are.

There are organizations pushing unicorns, vampires, and witches.

[Guest]

Oh, it is. It's just that simple.

To presume that they don't, without evidence that you are right, is to go against human nature. People who have studied this at length agree with me.

[Cotter]

@Sas - how does the BF phenom make it worse for 'footery?

B/C a sample hasn't been collected and provided for examination?

I do see your point in that statement (if I understood it correctly), but perhaps the niche occupied, and the skills required to surive in said niche are the reason WHY they just aren't being stacked up like cordwood.

[Guest]

Sure there are.

There are organizations pushing unicorns, vampires, and witches.

And these are....?

[Guest]

@Sas - how does the BF phenom make it worse for 'footery?

The global distribution of the reports - without any physical evidence to confirm their veracity from ANY of those places - is what exacerbates the problem for bigfootery (and for yetis, yowiees, etc.). Bigfoot would be far more likely to be real if it was only reported from the remotest backwaters of the Vu Kuang or the Congo or Tajikistan. Instead, bigfoot and similar creatures are reported from . . . pretty much everywhere people have settled. That's not a distribution that makes any sense for an actual giant stealthy wood ape, but it's exactly what one would predict if people have been telling stories of giant stealthy wood apes that don't actually exist.

I wasn't going to do all that cutting up. This is enough effort.

So you're not just intellectually lazy, you're admitting to being just plain ol' lazy?

[xspider1]

It seems like we've been down this road many times before. From Merriam-Webster.com:

Definition of EVIDENCE. 1. a : an outward sign : indication.

Anyone interested in this subject might want to grasp the difference between Evidence and Definitive Proof (or, not.) In my experience, there is plenty of evidence for the existence of Bigfoot and there are more 'excuses' as to why the evidence is 'all bad' than anything else.