Skeptical Pareidolia And Trackway Evidence

[Guest Transformer]

What if thousands of people from a broad spectrum of backgrounds told the scientist they had seen a Tyrannosaurus?

The volume of anecdotal reports does NOT equate with fact or accuracy. Please see this for an explanation and a real life example: http://www.lifehack....our-friend.html

Edited September 26, 2012 by Transformer

[Guest Tontar]

John, I did not mean to stifle any exchange of information, public or private. I bring the Temagami situation up for one reason specifically. Mulder is calling me a "set-opinion denialist", which I am not. I was very interested in the Temagami images because I am interested in all bigfoot photos, videos, tracks, what have you. I was hoping for something real, authentic, for a change. That's not what those images delivered. It took scant effort to reveal that the suit was a suit (unless bigfoots have raggedy, baggy fur coats), and that the head was the same exact mask used in a previous hoaxed event. It was a hoax, plain and simple. I understand that it's not a popular thing to burst a lot of bubbles by exposing a hoax, but when a hoax is a hoax and it has been exposed as such, time to admit it and move on. Mulder has maintained that the Temagami deals were not hoaxes, that there is more there that has not been publicly revealed. Of course there is more that has not been revealed, like who did the hoaxing, why, was there a purpose other than perpetuating the bigfoot legend, or what. While it would be nice to know the back story there, it's not nearly as important as the fact that it has been shown to be a hoax. Once it's shown to be a hoax, move on. Mulder maintains it was not a hoax. Mulder calls me a denialist, while he denies what is looking him in the face. Which is why I brought it up. Not to peek into anyone's closet of skeletons, but to point out he's being hypocritical in his accusation.

As far as the Temagami situation being one that mention of might dissuade people from bringing forth new reports, well, I'm not sure I agree with the premise. Hopefully it would dissuade hoaxers form bringing forth new hoaxes that might be debunked. I don't see how ignoring hoaxes and not exposing hoaxes greases the wheels for people to bring forth real reports. Heck, from the sounds of it, only the hoaxes come forward while the real ones stay private with only verbal references that they exist.

I'm not so sure what genuine, or sincere, or accurate information people are getting attacked for. I'm not berating anyone for being fooled by hoaxes, we've all been fooled before. That said, there's something a little bit questionable about wanting to stay fooled once the ruse has been exposed. Which is why I mentioned it to Mulder again.

[Guest]

entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity)- attributed to Occam.

"We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes." Isaac Newton

It is in error that we make up a shopping cart full of natural reasons, stringing them together, relying on each other, in order to create and present results similar to that which has been found and attributed to an undiscovered cause. The more numerous the natural reasons it takes to explain something, the less likely it is true. The least amount of natural explanations it takes the more likely it is true. Nature tends to simplify its processes to the least amount of steps required or needed to work. This statement helps explain why cons and crimes must be so complicated to exist for any lenght of time without the truth being found out.

[indiefoot]

The volume of anecdotal reports does NOT equate with fact or accuracy. Please see this for an explanation and a real life example: http://www.lifehack....our-friend.html

Choosing to dismiss all of the reports of a large hair covered biped seems like a leap of faith since you cannot know that they don't exist.

[salubrious]

It took scant effort to reveal that the suit was a suit (unless bigfoots have raggedy, baggy fur coats)

Some very well might. Do you have an idea about how their coats are supposed to be? Is there something you aren't telling us?

Edited September 27, 2012 by salubrious

[Guest Tontar]

S, have you checked out the Temagami 3 Photos thread? Check it out if you haven't, and let me know what you think, if you think the subject is real or fake. I think it's fake, for the reasons stated in that thread.

[Guest BFSleuth]

It only takes a few people to create the illusion of thousands of bigfoots. It doesn't work the other way around.

Would the opposite be thousands of bigfoot creating the illusion of a few people?

[Guest]

Huh?

Meaning your "laundry list" of claimed hoaxes is just that...claimed hoaxes, which you and the other Skeptics bring up time and time and time again as somehow being proven hoaxes, when you have provided no evidence to that effect at all.

Oh, that was the point. Tyrannosaurus Rex sightings. My bad, I thought this was all about bigfoot sightings, and that the discussion was about how uneventful and unamazing the discovery of a bigfoot species would be in your mind. I thought it was the opposite, that it would be a massive discovery, worthy of incredible attention.

No, the point was that in the postulated case of a claimed extant T-rex, in order to be considered analogous to the case for an extant BF, that all of those things would be required, that the case for BF is more than simply eyewitness testimony, including hard-science data from Meldrum, Fahrenback, Officer Chilcutt, etc.

Do try to keep up.

Hmmm, did I miss something? Or are you talking to someone else here? I don't recall saying "if it could be hoaxed it must be hoaxed".

Then what is the purpose of 1) bringing up past claimed "hoaxes" then dismissing whatever evidence is currently under discussion?

You are clearly making the implication that anything not "proven" (to your satisfaction, I might add) to not be a hoax is ineligible for use as BF evidence.

Here we go with the Occam's Razor thing again. In your version you think it's the simpler and more logical conclusion that there is a huge breeding population of bipedal primates bigger than bears, bigger than gorillas, living in north America, that have been so incredibly elusive that not one has ever been recovered dead or alive?

There are reports of both in the record. Your assertion is false.

That's logical to you? That these true giants have gone undetected with very few exceptions, for hundreds upon hundreds of years,

Enough exceptions that they have been known since First Nations days with a consistent core description. Hardly "undetected".

even with our incredible use, misuse and recreation throughout their habitat?

Aaaaaannnnd we're back on the "man has been everywhere" nonsense again. This claim has been thoroughly debunked time and time again, several times in this very forum.

Far fewer hoaxers can perpetuate the idea of bigfoot than it would take real bigfoots to continue to survive. It would take an army of bigfoots to genuinely exist.

Not really. BF could genuinely exist pretty well in relatively low global population numbers, say a few hundred to a few 1000 continent wide (including both US and Canada). The mountain gorilla is still holding on (if barely) with a global population of less than 1000, as a point of comparison.

ETA - I'll repost the rest after this part "takes" so the quote show up properly.

Edited September 27, 2012 by Mulder

[Guest]

Part 2

It would not take an army of hoaxers to create the myth of an army of bigfoots. Assuming, for the moment, that Patterson hoaxed the PGF. We know Wallace was a hoaxer, and likely was responsible for the fever in Bluff Creek. If you take just those two people, you have the genesis of a huge movement which has created the idea of thousands of bigfoots across the country. Bigfoot fever spread form corner to corner, to some of the most barren states imaginable.

First you deny the existence of a large hoaxer movement, then you assume it just two sentences later...remarkable...

And that doesn't explain the fact that BF was well known, esp to the First Nations peoples 100s to 1000s of years BEFORE any of that, so there goes THAT theory.

Not long, actually. I love it when people bring up the gorilla. I believe that the gorilla was discovered to science's satisfaction before the gas engine was created, wasn't it? Kind of an amazing feat considering travel to Africa was on sailing ships and steam paddlewheelers, eh? And exploration was conducted on horse back, camelback, and on foot. But hey, if you want to compare today's technology and travel with what was available 160+ years ago, fine by me. But I think it is a fairly poor argument to try to make.

Nope, wrong again. The gorilla was first described by Hanno the Navigator ~2500 years ago, but was only admitted by Western Science in 1847 (lowland) and 1902 (mountain).

Oh, and by the way...you know those pesky gorillas? As recently as 2008, an entirely unknown extant population was discovered that doubled the count of lowland gorillas in the Congo. http://www.newscient...-the-congo.html

Imagine that...a really BIG population of big primates going for untold numbers of years w/o anyone knowing about it in an area just 47,000 square kilometers as opposed to an area totaling nearly 20 MILLION square kilometers in N America (9,827,000 km2 US 9,985,000 km2 Canada)

Whoopsie...darn those pesky gorillas...how DARE they go undiscovered...

Cough (Temagami) cough...

Still not shown to be a hoax.

John, I did not mean to stifle any exchange of information, public or private. I bring the Temagami situation up for one reason specifically. Mulder is calling me a "set-opinion denialist", which I am not. I was very interested in the Temagami images because I am interested in all bigfoot photos, videos, tracks, what have you. I was hoping for something real, authentic, for a change. That's not what those images delivered. It took scant effort to reveal that the suit was a suit (unless bigfoots have raggedy, baggy fur coats), and that the head was the same exact mask used in a previous hoaxed event. It was a hoax, plain and simple.

This is your opinon, for which you have offered ZERO evidence. Just a bunch of "it looks like" and other speculations.

I'm not so sure what genuine, or sincere, or accurate information people are getting attacked for. I'm not berating anyone for being fooled by hoaxes, we've all been fooled before. That said, there's something a little bit questionable about wanting to stay fooled once the ruse has been exposed. Which is why I mentioned it to Mulder again.

No, you mentioned it (again) to try to not have to answer my points in a straightforward manner.

[salubrious]

S, have you checked out the Temagami 3 Photos thread? Check it out if you haven't, and let me know what you think, if you think the subject is real or fake. I think it's fake, for the reasons stated in that thread.

This is the first I've seen these. I don't see anything that tells me its a fake or real. I can say though that the hair is pretty convincing. So- if not the hair, what is it about these that make you think they are fake? The one thing that bothers me is we don't have a person in the same places posing. Now I can understand why... If as big as stated, one might have some concerns about standing in the exact location within minutes or hours after the sighting. In fact you might not want to go near the area at all after that. So even though that bothers me, I can't really dock them for it. So it has to be something about the appearance that is a problem- right? What is it that bothers you?

[Guest Tontar]

First you deny the existence of a large hoaxer movement, then you assume it just two sentences later...remarkable...

Nope. My simple example suggested only a few potential hoaxers (yet to be proven conclusively) were the genesis of a much more massive "movement". That didn't mean an army of hoaxers, if you read it carefully you see it refers to new sightings, reports, believers, and so on. I did not say it produced an army of hoaxers, so there's nothing remarkable or contradictory to it at all.

So it has to be something about the appearance that is a problem- right? What is it that bothers you?

Yeah, something about the appearance that bothers me. Check the whole thread, and you will see that the head is recognizable as the same mask used in the Ben Matine incident, which was reworked to be the Ben Matine recreation. Simply because it is seen in profile does not hide that fact. Nor does the frontal view that has been Photoshopped to blur and disguise the mask go unnoticed.

[salubrious]

Check the whole thread, and you will see that the head is recognizable as the same mask used in the Ben Matine incident, which was reworked to be the Ben Matine recreation. Simply because it is seen in profile does not hide that fact. Nor does the frontal view that has been Photoshopped to blur and disguise the mask go unnoticed.

I did not notice the Photoshop stuff. How do you tell its Photoshop? Is there a larger original somewhere? I went to the site that seemed to be hosting these photos, but they did not seem to be very large there.

The mask thing is pretty convincing. In profile is the only view I have ever had of the real thing. So what should I be looking for to see the mask?

[Guest Transformer]

Choosing to dismiss all of the reports of a large hair covered biped seems like a leap of faith since you cannot know that they don't exist.

The leap of faith is somebody assuming that one report must be true if there enough reports. That is a very critical error that defies all logic.

[Guest Cervelo]

Is this guy suffering from the same condition?

http://www.thomsquatch.com/?m=1

[Cotter]

Thx for the link Cerv.

I am interested to hear what other investigators have to say. There seem to be some direct contradictions with Thom's analysis and others' in this thread.