The Motivation To Hoax

[Guest COGrizzly]

The tracks I saw in snow were not bunny tracks. They were not coyote tracks. They were tracks of an unknown creature and a BIG one at that. This was not just the opinion of just me, but several people. Two of them were enormous skeptics.

[Guest]

LOL!!!

[Guest COGrizzly]

^^ Not exactly sure how to take that Derek? I wasn't joking or anything, that's what actually got me into this whole topic (of Sasquatch).

Well, I guess I can see why you "LOL'd" it - I got it now..

I also read darn near a book from a bowhunting forum with Keith Foster. I once printed it (over 175 pages) and it was one hell of a convincing argument Keith made.

ETA - A few things.

Edited October 14, 2012 by COGrizzly

[Guest]

Mulder, disrepectful and baseless how?

The Elbe thread was started by one of the on site investigators discussing the tracks and sharing the info available to all of us who were interested. Persons (not even myself I made one post) Asked valid questions doubting the validity of the trackway in the beginning of the original trackway thread. The questions were defended by some of the on site investigators and no mention of doubt was relayed in their answers.

10 DAYS LATER when the IP address issue hit the fan, that is when the mention of doubt was made public by these same people on that same thread.

So if one follows YOUR method of belief you constantly harp about on this forum, would it be wrong to "believe" that after what happened in that thread that the investigators either had doubts they never publicly mentioned or they believed the trackway legit? There is your base.

So why is it disrepectful to ask questions?

Edited October 14, 2012 by JohnCartwright

[Guest BFSleuth]

Two of them were enormous skeptics.

The largest skeptic I ever saw was about 6' 5" and about 320 lbs. How big were the skeptics you saw?

[Guest]

I'm not laughing at you COGrizzly. That was not intended for you.

[ohiobill]

Good and valid observation. I checked out the Elbe hoax thread on the JREF and there were some excellent posts by Tube regarding how to determine whether tracks are valid or not. Perhaps it is time that we have some similar analysis here regarding how to interpret tracks for the edification of our forum members.

The Minnesota Trackway is far more important in my opinion than many other trackways I've reviewed. The original thread about this trackway is here. The difficulty of hoaxing a trackway in deep snow with long strides cannot be emphasized enough. Discussion of the Magic Bunny theory is in the original thread and has been fairly accurately discounted. This was not a misidentification. It was a large bipedal barefoot trackway through very difficult conditions with exceptional strides.

I'm glad to see you coming around to a more skeptical way of viewing trackways.

The Minnesota Trackway is more important to me because of the near constant long stride length AND the overall length of the trackway. IMO it would be relatively easy to hoax a short 300' trackway w/stride lengths outside of human range using a suspended Z-drag setup. It would get much more difficult and costly to produce the same over a two mile distance.

[Guest baboonpete]

Apparently harder than Skeptics think, since the only booby caught in the recent booby trap was the hoaxer.

as usual, you are mis-stating the argument. The question at had is whether or not a bunch of Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokels out whittlin' wood on the porch are going to create scientifically convincing trackways not only on an individual case basis, but across decades of time and 100s or 1000s of miles of distance, and do so so consistently that scientific analysis of the distribution patterns of those tracks maps to the distribution of a population of real animals.

Get the argument right, Ray.

Go back and read the appropriate threads, Ray.

If you cannot understand the difference between having a suspicion and voicing a suspicion, then there is little I can do to help you. Both DDA and Derek have said that they were suspicious of the trackway from Day 1. By continuing to assert that they were "duped" for ANY length of time, you are accusing them of not telling the truth.

Reminds me of Tontar's little stunt calling Bill an "agenda driven researcher" with a bias, even after Bill himself corrected him. He never apologized either.

Are you also accusing Derek, DDA, etc of not telling the truth?

DDA endorsed the hoax as real until very late in the thread, read the thread.

More "if not 'proof', not evidence" absolutism. Logical fallacy over reason.

nope; just more veneration.

So why is it disrepectful to ask questions?

because it challenges those beliefs.

[Cotter]

I think one of the major motivations to hoax is to simply 'feel better' about your position or stance on the BF subject while showing no respect for the folks with an opposing viewpoint.

Proponents and skeptics alike can be capable of this.

The recent hoax no doubt falls under this category.

There was obviously no scientific agenda regarding this hoax, just a playground prank to be used to 'tease' the other side. This thread, as well as others, is/are case in point.

If folks can't see how some of the questioning is coming across as disrespectful, I can't help them understand. But it's there, and obvious.

Perhaps a touch of tact is in order. I'd suggest respect, but no use in trying to squeeze blood from a turnip, as if respect were there, there would be no hoax to discuss in the first place.

[Guest]

Mulder, disrepectful and baseless how?

...

So why is it disrepectful to ask questions?

To repeatedly ask the same question over and over when it has been answered, implying that said answer is not the truth w/o any supporting evidence is implying that the answerer is being untruthful and is 100% disrespectful and baseless.

DDA and Derek have said they had doubts about Elbe from day one.

What evidence to you have (and invoking the Sagan fallacy is not evidence), that they in fact did not have doubts from day one?

I await your proffer of evidence.

[Drew]

What evidence to you have (and invoking the Sagan fallacy is not evidence), that they in fact did not have doubts from day one?

I await your proffer of evidence.

DDA- opening post of the Elbe Trackway A-Z thread.

I don’t think they are fake by the context and terrain they were found traversing. I think I have gained some insight in to the creatures behavior with this find.

[Cotter]

'I don't think they are fake' does not equal 'I proclaim this trackway as 100% real".

[Guest]

To repeatedly ask the same question over and over when it has been answered, implying that said answer is not the truth w/o any supporting evidence is implying that the answerer is being untruthful and is 100% disrespectful and baseless.

DDA and Derek have said they had doubts about Elbe from day one.

What evidence to you have (and invoking the Sagan fallacy is not evidence), that they in fact did not have doubts from day one?

I await your proffer of evidence.

I did not ask more then once and I never saw a straight answer, but I am not embarrassed to say I may not have seen something . OK, I will play along, so you don't bust an artery...

If I believe that DDA and DR (and the many others there) had doubts about the track way. How much doubt did they have and for what reasons? Why defend the trackway on the forum and make radio declarations about it if they had doubts? Why not just say here is what we have , the investigation is still ongoing and more info will follow in a week or so? Was it because they were trying to finger the hoaxer?

[Drew]

How can you 'gain insights' into a creature's behavior if you have doubts about it's authenticity?

[Guest BFSleuth]

Was it because they were trying to finger the hoaxer?

Although that thought had occurred to me, I'm not sure that is the answer. From blog posts by Cliff and others involved with the investigation the initial consideration of the trackway prior to going to Elbe was suspicion. This was because of the apparent strange nature of the e-mail that was received. Remember that in the OP of the trackway thread it was noted that there was some delay even going to check out the trackway by the unnamed organization (BFRO) and in other blogs this was because the e-mail was "off". DDD can respond in this matter but I don't think he was privy to the contents of the e-mail and so he may have approached the trackway with a different expectation.

In blog posts after the revelation of the hoax several of the investigators have noted that they had doubts about the trackway from the beginning. Short strides, tracks going into the most impressionable substrate, trackway leading from and going to human accessible areas, and exclusive toe digging were all causes for concern. It was also noted early on that if this was a hoax it was a good one.

I'm glad to see you coming around to a more skeptical way of viewing trackways.

I'm not sure where you have noticed any changes in my view of trackway evidence. In particular regarding the Elbe trackway if you read my posts I think you will note that I was repeatedly requesting initial walk through video (before the site was trashed) and additional detail images of each track in order to be able to form an opinion. I thought it was rather amusing that kitakaze included me in his list of quotes of people that were taken in by the trackway. Unfortunately all he came up with was my post regarding the excellence of the photograph image of the dermals and the importance of obtaining good photographic evidence of each track prior to casting in order to avoid casting artifacts (that happens to be a pet project of mine to create a light weight system for photographing tracks that may preclude the need for casting).

The Minnesota Trackway is more important to me because of the near constant long stride length AND the overall length of the trackway. IMO it would be relatively easy to hoax a short 300' trackway w/stride lengths outside of human range using a suspended Z-drag setup. It would get much more difficult and costly to produce the same over a two mile distance.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Z-drag setup", but I certainly agree with the idea that the Minnesota Trackway is a much more difficult trackway to hoax. Post holing in deep snow with long strides and no drag or marks between steps, having a foot that can wrap around snow and ice topped logs, and walking through and up and over difficult obstacles... all these would be incredibly difficult to replicate. Unlike the Elbe hoax, the MT was discovered by researchers well off the beaten path with no prior notification they existed.

How can you 'gain insights' into a creature's behavior if you have doubts about it's authenticity?

Perhaps the same way that physicists theorize about things like the Higgs Boson prior to conducting experiments to verify its existence. You look at evidence that suggests something is there, determine whether each piece of evidence is likely or unlikely to be true, keep the bits you think are likely to be true, then look at the overall pattern that emerges from the true bits. Adjust your outlook based on adding or subtracting bits of information. Conduct experiments (field work) to determine validity.