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

[Guest DWA]

It is very relevent. We have bears, canids, feilds, deer, pronghorn and bison in North America and we find fossils of them. Yet we don't find any fossils of non-human bipedal apes. We also find fossils of animals that are now extinct but of course that's another fact that you pull out of a hat in hopes that it proves your point when it doesn't.

Its also easy to poke at the "randomness" of fossilization but given the number of individual animals that lived its not surprising the number of fossils we get of animals of different types.

So we haven't found every single dinosaur. Therefore we shouldn't expect to find any bipedal ape fossils in NA. Okay. How deep is that hat.

So I take it you haven't done that panda research yet?

No, its a simple I-don't-want-to-deal-with-unsupported-stories-that-are-completely-made-up-in-an-attempt-to-explain-away-an-inconvenience.

And the crystal ball that came up with that finding for you is where?

[Guest]

So I take it you haven't done that panda research yet?

You mean panda fossils that have been found all over Eurasia? Also Saskeptic wrote that you must "consider contemporaries of bigfoots in time and space that might have occurred in similar population densities and been about the same size". You had to pick an animal that failed the latter.

And the crystal ball that came up with that finding for you is where?

Your the one that made up bigfoot fossils being purposefully hidden.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Jerrymanderer

[Guest DWA]

Thankfully scientific evidence is graded higher than courtroom evidence.

Well, yeah, but I'd sort of like to see evidence evidence get followed up. In both disciplines, that has to happen for us to get anywhere.

I'm closer to 60 than 50, and been following the mystery since I was about 15. About the only thing that surprises me anymore are some of the outlandish claims that get bandied about. I can't think of a single event, sliver of evidence, or snippet of 'breaking news' that has brought us any closer to the discovery/classification of this elusive animal that has supposedly been seen or reported thousands upon thousands of times.

No question, but I can't get frustrated about it given that everything's been done by not-even-part-timers. (Operation Endurance elevates that to "full time, for a little bit.")

Jane Goodall got results like this...

Operation Persistence, not so much.

RayG

OP has been at it about a third as long as Jane was by the time she saw her first chimp.

[Guest DWA]

You mean panda fossils that have been found all over Eurasia? Also Saskeptic wrote that you must "consider contemporaries of bigfoots in time and space that might have occurred in similar population densities and been about the same size". You had to pick an animal that failed the latter.

Your the one that made up bigfoot fossils being purposefully hidden.

Looking in rocks for something the evidence says is right above ground? Non-starter.

[Guest]

Looking in rocks for something the evidence says is right above ground? Non-starter.

Again. We have bears, canids, feilds, deer, pronghorn and bison in North America and we find fossils of them. Yet we don't find any fossils of non-human bipedal apes.

[Guest]

^Indeed. In some ways the reports do track with population as well. The distribution of reports in CA, OR, and WA might indicate a real species that is more abundant in the coastal ranges than anywhere else. It could also indicate that there are an awful lot of day-trippers from metro Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco who explore those forests and take advantage of the opportunity to spin a bigfoot yarn.

I can tell you one thing, though: the BFRO lists 545 reports for Washington alone. That's 545 times people have claimed to see bigfoot in the state of Washington. Sooty Grouse is a species that approximates a similar range to that reported for bigfoot in the PNW. According to the database in eBird, there are 264 reports of Sooty Grouse in Washington State. What that suggests to me is that it's potentially more common for a person in Washington State to report encountering a bigfoot than it is to report encountering a Sooty Grouse. I'm not sure what that means, other than to illustrate that 545 is a big number when it comes to reports of a wildlife species. It strikes me as incongruous that we could have so many people encountering this bigfoot creature but no one able to so much as provide a compelling photograph.

Saskeptic,

Thanks for making sense it is very refreshing!

Thank you for the kind words, Cervelo.

[Guest mitchw]

Sas wrote, "I can tell you one thing, though: the BFRO lists 545 reports for Washington alone.

Sas, please check out the thread on the Secrecy of the BFRO, where a member writes that in fact BFRO receives many reports that are not published for a variety of reasons(posts #31 and #41 for ex). Beyond the expected reasons like hoaxer and crazies, so many reports are just so mundane as not to make for interesting reading. The pure number 545 doesn't tell you much.

[Guest BFSleuth]

I can tell you one thing, though: the BFRO lists 545 reports for Washington alone. That's 545 times people have claimed to see bigfoot in the state of Washington. Sooty Grouse is a species that approximates a similar range to that reported for bigfoot in the PNW. According to the database in eBird, there are 264 reports of Sooty Grouse in Washington State. What that suggests to me is that it's potentially more common for a person in Washington State to report encountering a bigfoot than it is to report encountering a Sooty Grouse.

Your comparison of Sooty Grouse sightings versus BFRO database bigfoot sightings eludes one variable that can skew the results. How many people have seen Sooty Grouse but didn't take much note of the event because in their eyes it was simply another bird? I may have seen a Sooty Grouse, but not knowing what it is might simply have passed it off as just a prairie hen or grouse of "some sort" and not given it much thought at all.

However, if anyone has seen a giant hair covered bipedal hominid then there isn't much mistaking the event for anything similar unless you want to categorize their sighting as a misidentified bear or cow or some other large animal that can walk on two legs like they do in Gary Larson cartoons. Such a sighting would tend to get your attention far more than a random bird sighting for the untrained eye.

[Guest DWA]

BFSleuth: plussed. Exactly.

I have reported maybe three or four of the wildlife sightings I have had in my life to any sort of recording authority - and in those cases only because I happened to stumble across something (like a request in a park visitor center) specifically asking me.

It's amazing at how many straws people will grasp in search of a case.

Edited December 14, 2012 by DWA

[Guest DWA]

Again. We have bears, canids, feilds, deer, pronghorn and bison in North America and we find fossils of them. Yet we don't find any fossils of non-human bipedal apes.

Wrong.

We haven't, yet.

Irrelevant, anyway. Drop it. Dead line of questioning. "Sorry, ma'am, we're chipping the mountain next to your house apart to see if we can find fossils of what you say you saw." Right.

[Guest]

Wrong.

We haven't, yet.

Irrelevant, anyway. Drop it. Dead line of questioning.

Repeating "irrelevent" doesn't make it so. Let me guess. We haven't found fossils of every species of starfish. Therefore, no ape fossils should be found in NA.

"Sorry, ma'am, we're chipping the mountain next to your house apart to see if we can find fossils of what you say you saw." Right.

Fossils make stronger evidence than anecdotes.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Jerrymanderer

[Guest DWA]

No fossils don't. Not for something that lives now.

Irrelevant. I don't say it. Science does. Even though a lot of people who seem to have temporarily lost their scientist hats might disagree.

[Guest]

No fossils don't. Not for something that lives now.

Keep ignoring post 1445

Irrelevant. I don't say it. Science does. Even though a lot of people who seem to have temporarily lost their scientist hats might disagree.

Depends on the context. Of course you would like to paint broad strokes. Like "Well if we don't find fossils of marmosets in areas with poor fossilization, then we shouldn't find fossil of a giant ape in areas with good fossilization."

[Guest BFSleuth]

Are the number of species not represented in the fossil record greater or less than those that are represented in the fossil record?

[Cotter]

BFS, if I recall, I've read that scientists (most) agree that we've got only 5% of the fossil record documented.

It was posted somewhere on this site not too awfully long ago.