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

[Guest BFSleuth]

I was looking around for that estimate and did recall the figure was somewhere around 5%. If this is fairly accurate then it seems to be a bit of a canard to be throwing out the "but gosh there's no fossil record so it can't exist" argument. If this were true, then the majority of species wouldn't exist.

There has to be better arguments to spend time defending...

Edited December 14, 2012 by BFSleuth

[norseman]

I don't know about most, but I suspect it's a much higher proportion that we're generally comfortable acknowledging here at the BFF. Other explanations include misidentification, hallucination, victim of hoax, and, indeed, seeing a real bigfoot.

I think not, I have had a lot of time to think about this statement on my way home from North Dakota and what keeps popping up in my mind is my own experience.

It is NOT a good thing to be a out of the closet kooky bigfoot believer, by most people those that saw something are ridiculed......

If anyone thinks that internet skeptics are a tough crowd, try a bar room full of loggers that have spent their whole lives in the woods and haven't seen a "**** thing".

I believe that the vast majority of people saw SOMETHING........now whether that something was a bear, or a fire charred stump or a real bigfoot is a different debate entirely.

First, there are differences in the popularity of folkloric characters just as in other things. If you ask a random person on the street to name an NBA team, I bet most of the responses would be the Lakers or the Celtics, and you'd get very few mentions of the Hornets or the Bobcats. Why? The Lakers and Celtics have had more national media exposure; the Hornets and Bobcats are known in their own regional areas and to NBA fans, but an average person on the street in say Bakersfield or St. Paul would be unlikely to be familiar with those teams.

Yes but bigfoot doesn't play for national titles.......so your analogy doesn't explain why the popularity in the first place.

So which is it? Did a large number of sightings by people give rise to the popularity of bigfoot? Or does bigfoot strike some sort of chord in the human psyche that causes them to tell tall tales to make themselves popular? Kind of a chicken vs. the egg question isn't it.

If I was personally to pick mythical monsters like children do super hero's? I'd think the mothman was way cooler than a hairy ape.

Second, and more relevant in your example, if someone reports a Jersey Devil or a mothman sighting, those accounts will not be included in a database of bigfoot sightings. Only creatures that sound like they might have been bigfoots are going to be included in a bigfoot sightings database.

True. But why isn't the mothman data base bigger to begin with? Why doesn't a jerky and a beer company use the mothman as their mascot?

More people in Washington and Oregon than in North Dakota.

Longer history of bigfoot folklore in WA and OR than in ND. (We've still got people on the BFF who refuse to believe in a bigfoot anywhere other than the Pacific Northwest.)

A LOT more of what folks consider "bigfoot habitat" in WA and OR than in ND . . . take your pick.

Bismark and Fargo are pretty good sized cities..........and with Jack link's commercials being beamed into their houses and camping down on the Missouri river on weekends? They SHOULD be able to muster up more than the paltry number of sightings the state officially has.

And what about the thunderbird? It has a car named after it for gosh sakes, so that's some pretty good national coverage and yet mid western people see thunderbirds all the time and people in PacNW seldom do.

I really think the spinning yarns hypothesis is a poor one. And I would bet that the vast majority of faulty sightings are mis identification.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/World_Soil_pH.svg

Map of world PH soil levels

[Guest]

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.

The animals and fossils that you mention here, for the most part, evolved in NA or have been present in NA for millions of years. Hence finding them in the fossil record, and extant or closely related species in modern times. This has nothing to do with finding/not-finding fossils of hominids/hominoids in NA. If we found such fossils tomorrow, it wouldn't be proof that they are around today. And not ever finding such fossils is not proof that they are not around today. Non-sequitur.

The only information fossils provide: a record of being present in NA in the past; what they were like in the past; and how they have changed (or not changed) through time (if fossils of different ages were found, or if they are proven to be alive today).

One more thing: you seem to be assuming that all fossils collected have been correctly identified and categorized. And that all the fossils collected have been examined and studied in detail. This is an invalid assumption. There are literally hundreds of thousands of fossils warehoused in many collections, that have never been examined or studied, other than an initial guess at what they are in the field, to facilitate storage. And there are many examples of fossils that were initially incorrectly examined, studied and categorized. There are literally hundreds of years of graduate student man-years of work available just going through existing fossil collections and studying what has not been looked at since they were originally stored. And that is not counting any re-examination of previously studied fossils, using more modern techniques and theories. I would be willing to bet that we already have some sort of fossil record of BF, just incorrectly indentified, not recognized, or not even studied at all.

[Guest DWA]

Keep ignoring post 1445

Keep ignoring that Meldrum, Krantz, Swindler, Mionczynski, Hadj-Chikh and Bindernagel - scientists, and you're not - could care a fig about post 1445. Keep ignoring post 1452. "Bigfoot skeptics" are really really good at ignoring post 1452.

LaRueLaDue: Plussed. Bingo. Not only does the fossil record not have a durn thing to say about now, but we could even have the fossils now and not know it. The omnipotence of science is a proven non-fact.

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."

When the facts fit your case, argue the facts. When the law fits your case, argue the law. When facts are just facts, there's no argument.

Nothing. Yet. (Except for the ones - the Minaret Skull is only one example - you know they tossed out because "it can't be." Scientists do that all the time.)

I was looking around for that estimate and did recall the figure was somewhere around 5%. If this is fairly accurate then it seems to be a bit of a canard to be throwing out the "but gosh there's no fossil record so it can't exist" argument. If this were true, then the majority of species wouldn't exist.

There has to be better arguments to spend time defending...

When you are a "bigfoot skeptic," you have no argument, so you go for what you can.

5% of all primates having left evidence in the fossil record - to use this non-argument - says that most of the primates don't exist. But ah, they do, don't they?

(That's the number. Here, pro bono: https://www.scientif...ests-primates-a )

It also tells you that we think primates shared the earth with dinosaurs, something that we all know "just never could happen."

Edited December 14, 2012 by DWA

[Guest]

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.

Wow, that is very compelling. Can't wait to hear the 'ya but' for that one.

[Cotter]

Ya but, well, I'd like to echo what was already said about that.

Ya but, I've not idea what the heck a sooty grouse is. I would bet that if asked, most folks don't either. If they even did, would they be able to positively ID it in the field....hard tellin'.

Ya but, now, as someone else made mention of, compare that to a 6'+ tall bipedal hairy ape-human...well......

Ya but, additionally, even if someone would see, ID, and confirm a sooty grouse, what would compel them to report it? Is that normal for folks in the PNW to do when they go hiking? Catalogue and report the various wildlife they see while out in the woods? Seems a bit odd....

;-)

(Sorry Summit, couldn't resist)

[Guest DWA]

No need to 'ya but' it. Non sequitur, doesn't matter.

When they have their scientist hats on, scientists know the evidence must be confronted, not explained away.

(I could have mentioned that this one was conclusively sunk, B-4, within minutes of being posted by at least two of us. But that's "bigfoot skepticism" for ya.)

A handful of scientists have their hats on for this one. They, and I, know why you don't have a compelling photo. We have a movie, and listen to you guys. Compelling photograph, pah. You would be as convinced by 45 hours of compelling video about as much as I would be by one tale of mummies walking at night.

Edited December 14, 2012 by DWA

[Guest]

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.

Dead line of questioning? Or inconvienient line of questioning? If it is a living breathing population, widespread throughout North America, it would most certainly, absolutely, be represented in the fossil record.

Edited December 14, 2012 by summitwalker

[Guest BFSleuth]

"It would most certainly, absolutely, be represented in the fossil record" if 100% of all known species today were represented in the fossil record. What is the percentage of known species that are represented in the fossil record... 5%?

[Guest DWA]

Dead line of questioning? Or inconvienient line of questioning? If it is a living breathing population, widespread throughout North America, it would most certainly, absolutely, be represented in the fossil record.

This statement reflects a severe lack of understanding. Read that link I posted upstairs. 5% of extinct primates, by estimate, are represented by fossils.

You came here via true belief in Patty, right? Now you are at the non-scientific pole of opposition? Right? Let the sunshine in.

That something would perforce be represented in the fossil record if it currently lives here is an assumption, with no more foundation in fact than the assumption that if something is found in fossil form it will have an extant relative.

Edited December 14, 2012 by DWA

[Guest]

When the facts fit your case, argue the facts. When the law fits your case, argue the law. When facts are just facts, there's no argument.

Nothing. Yet. (Except for the ones - the Minaret Skull is only one example - you know they tossed out because "it can't be." Scientists do that all the time.)

Too bad you have no proof for that. You just shallow everything on a cryptozoologist website.

When you are a "bigfoot skeptic," you have no argument, so you go for what you can.

5% of all primates having left evidence in the fossil record - to use this non-argument - says that most of the primates don't exist. But ah, they do, don't they?

(That's the number. Here, pro bono: https://www.scientif...ests-primates-a )

It also tells you that we think primates shared the earth with dinosaurs, something that we all know "just never could happen."

Yet another factoid you throw out without thinking whether it actually fits your argument. The majority of primates live in the tropics which are very poor for fossilization. Bigfoot does not have that luxury. You mine as well say that we shouldn't find bigfoot fossils because we don't have fossil of every jellfyfish species.

And believe it or not. Believing in bigfoot is not the measuring stick for open mindedness.

One more thing: you seem to be assuming that all fossils collected have been correctly identified and categorized. And that all the fossils collected have been examined and studied in detail. This is an invalid assumption. There are literally hundreds of thousands of fossils warehoused in many collections, that have never been examined or studied, other than an initial guess at what they are in the field, to facilitate storage. And there are many examples of fossils that were initially incorrectly examined, studied and categorized. There are literally hundreds of years of graduate student man-years of work available just going through existing fossil collections and studying what has not been looked at since they were originally stored. And that is not counting any re-examination of previously studied fossils, using more modern techniques and theories. I would be willing to bet that we already have some sort of fossil record of BF, just incorrectly indentified, not recognized, or not even studied at all.

Are you suggesting at sasquatch fossils so closely resemble humans that they aren't noticed? I'm pretty sure they'd noctice a skull with a sagittal crest.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Jerrymanderer

[Guest DWA]

Dude, read a science book. We're done with this discussion. You just don't know it.

That people should look in rocks for what's not there to determine what people are seeing right now that's above ground is ludicrous beyond belief. It's like digging a well to find out what the moon is.

STOP. Before you embarrass yourself.

(I don't argue here. I educate. Well, I attempt to.)

Edited December 15, 2012 by DWA

[Guest thermalman]

HEY! I paid for the matinee! You can't quit now.

[Guest]

Dude, read a science book. We're done with this discussion. You just don't know it.

That people should look in rocks for what's not there to determine what people are seeing right now that's above ground is ludicrous beyond belief. It's like digging a well to find out what the moon is.

STOP.

Your really grasping for straws.

Also you should look in a psychology book and read about these eyewitness reports that you rely on so much.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Jerrymanderer

[Guest DWA]

And the one I'm grasping now is: NEXT!