Bigfoot Research--Still No Evidence (Continued)

[Cotter]

 

Sorry Norse, wasn't attacking you. You rather rridiculously asked if I thought Standing had hoaxed the petition when I mentioned he was behind it. That lead me to think you hadn't actually read it.

That was after you asked me if I had a love affair with the guy correct? So yes I was being sarcastic. No worries..,,.

 

Well, in fairness, you never did answer the love affair question.

 

;-)

 

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

@Sask:  Have you ever come across anyone in your field or a field you work with that has claimed to have an encounter?  Just curious.

[Guest]

@Sask:  Have you ever come across anyone in your field or a field you work with that has claimed to have an encounter?  Just curious.

Yep. I can think of one who claimed an actual very odd encounter (military, and the encounter occurred on a military base) and 2 or 3 who were either convinced of bigfoot because a trusted close relative claimed an encounter or it was just an accepted reality (Native American dude).

[Guest Llawgoch]

 

Well, you are gonna have problems with that.  Because, see, that first paragraph above has many, many anecdotes backing it up; yours is just....

 

...well, yours...

 

....and the situation on the ground so very obviously favors them over you that:

 

Them over you.

 

See, evidence is like that.  No matter what you're talking about.

 

 

 

 

There are thousands of pieces of anecdotal evidence from scientists who are willing to say that government has never put pressure on them to deny Bigfoot's existence.

 

These scientists are all willing to put their names to this.  I know a few personally, and those few know a lot more.

 

There just isn't an online database filled with people giving anecdotal evidence of what everyone knows to be reality.  Because it really isn't that interesting.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Llawgoch

[Guest]

Veeery clever Saskeptic, but I see through your artifice completely!

 

Look, if folks here don't accept what I have to say that's their prerogative, but I find it insulting to have it suggested that I'm intentionally trying to deceive people.  I'm not.  What I write here is what I actually think, and I shoot straight.  How do you think I've survived over 4600 skeptical posts on a bigfoot discussion board?  If artifice was my game, I'd have been banned years ago.

 

But no, I'm not saying all who dare raise the idea of Sasquatch get to lose their job. But c'mon. Do you think such a stance is calculated to advance anyone's career? Who is considered a "serious" biologist, and who is marginalized?. You know the answer to that one, I know. What would be the performance rating of an employee who uses govt. resources in pursuit of such evidence? As I said, CLM.   Conspiracy theory not required.

 

What's "CLM"? 

 

We've got people in the field all over the country working state game lands, wildlife refuges, national forests, etc.  These are guys putting in food plots, running surveys, cruising timber, etc.  Now let's say a fella comes across a bigfoot track when he's working in the field. My money is on that guy following that track, as opposed to not following the track because he knows he's not supposed to look for bigfoot on the job. I say that based on my knowledge of the working wildlife folks in my state, and what I think they'd do in that situation.  I know a lot of these folks and have been in the field with a good number of them.

 

There is plenty of bigfoot skepticism in wildlife agencies, but skepticism does not mean conspiracy.  If my guys in the field were spending their days squatching instead of thinning or cruising timber or whatever, then yes, I'd have a problem with them not doing their jobs.  But I find the notion that real, physical evidence of bigfoot would be buried by a wildlife agency (conspiracy example) to be untenable.  These conspiracy fantasies are just another old chestnut of bigfootery.

[Guest DWA]

 

There are thousands of pieces of anecdotal evidence from scientists who are willing to say that government has never put pressure on them to deny Bigfoot's existence.

 

These scientists are all willing to put their names to this.  I know a few personally, and those few know a lot more.

 

There just isn't an online database filled with people giving anecdotal evidence of what everyone knows to be reality.  Because it really isn't that interesting.

Wrong question.  What you want them to do is come in tomorrow morning and tell everyone at work that they saw a sasquatch, or that biosurveys need to include guides to recognizing sasquatch evidence.

 

But because that is sooooooo obvious, I'll just presume you knew it.

 

And the last sentence is a non sequitur.  What makes the sasquatch databases interesting is that they put the lie to the public's attitude.  Along with making that attitude glaringly obvious.

 

You're right:  the databases are interesting because they reveal this to be a taboo topic to the mainstream.

 

The accounts themselves, of course, reveal sasquatch to be what it is:  far from the most remarkable animal species.  Just another bipedal primate.  But you don't read them so you don't know that.

 

Thanks for arguing with me against saskeptic.  Greatly appreciated there.

[Guest DWA]

Veeery clever Saskeptic, but I see through your artifice completely!

 

But no, I'm not saying all who dare raise the idea of Sasquatch get to lose their job. But c'mon. Do you think such a stance is calculated to advance anyone's career? Who is considered a "serious" biologist, and who is marginalized?. You know the answer to that one, I know. What would be the performance rating of an employee who uses govt. resources in pursuit of such evidence? As I said, CLM.   Conspiracy theory not required.

Indeed.  We know who's marginalized by what's said about Meldrum.

 

(Artifice indeed.  Notice how nobody says exactly how bigfoot gets treated at work?  "I can vouch that no black helicopters ever told me to drop bigfoot."  Shee-woosh.)

 

Who by the way keeps his job at Idaho State U. for two reasons:  first, a heavy academic workload with no bigfoot attached and second, an enlightened administration that knows a serious scientist when it hires one. 

 

Well, WSA, you never know about people.  EVERYBODY knows CLM means "cognito lito meato," ipso facto, to wit, "know stuff before you say stuff."

 

Two words explain the continuing obscurity of sasquatch.  And they aren't "bury" and "dead."

 

They are "human" and "nature."

(Just looked it up.  Yep, that's it, all right.)

[WSA]

I am allergic to conspiracy theories Saskeptic, as you are too I believe.  In your hypothetical though, how likely is it the guy is going to file a report, request further resources, contact other agencies, etc.? Not very. Because he's given no incentive to do that, and every incentive not to.

 

CLM? Career Limiting Move. (Although I love your take on that TLA, DWA)

Edited June 11, 2013 by WSA

[Guest Llawgoch]

 

 

There are thousands of pieces of anecdotal evidence from scientists who are willing to say that government has never put pressure on them to deny Bigfoot's existence.

 

These scientists are all willing to put their names to this.  I know a few personally, and those few know a lot more.

 

There just isn't an online database filled with people giving anecdotal evidence of what everyone knows to be reality.  Because it really isn't that interesting.

Wrong question.  What you want them to do is come in tomorrow morning and tell everyone at work that they saw a sasquatch, or that biosurveys need to include guides to recognizing sasquatch evidence.

 

But because that is sooooooo obvious, I'll just presume you knew it.

 

And the last sentence is a non sequitur.  What makes the sasquatch databases interesting is that they put the lie to the public's attitude.  Along with making that attitude glaringly obvious.

 

You're right:  the databases are interesting because they reveal this to be a taboo topic to the mainstream.

 

The accounts themselves, of course, reveal sasquatch to be what it is:  far from the most remarkable animal species.  Just another bipedal primate.  But you don't read them so you don't know that.

 

Thanks for arguing with me against saskeptic.  Greatly appreciated there.

 

 

What the...?  Did you understand a word I said?  That's a wholly unrelated diatribe.

 

Essentially, you're just content with the fact that people too stupid to understand the argument think you're clever, so you intentionally ignore every point you can't answer in the knowledge that your target audience will fail to notice that's what you're doing.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Llawgoch

[Guest DWA]

Didn't you just describe what you are doing? Oh I nailed it all right.

(Love all that emotion. Put it to good use whydoncha. Using it to alert us that you have no argument, not the best.)

Edited June 11, 2013 by DWA

[Guest Cervelo]

L,

It's just just background noise, easy to ignore over time

[Guest DWA]

 

 What I would like is for the involved agencies to provide some degree of cover for their employees to file reports, pursue leads and entertain possibilities pointed to by the  evidence.

 

Okay, but that presumes that we accept as true the premise that there are wildlife biologists working in our state and federal agencies who want to pursue bigfoot but have been told that they will be fired if they try to do so.  On what evidence do we base that premise?  You guessed it:  anecdotal accounts in the BFRO database or folks coming here with stories along the lines of "my cousin knows this guy who works for Fish and Game, and he said . . . "   I don't find that sort of thing very convincing, especially given that it's exactly the sort of embellishment that can make a story sound so good that it simply has to be true.

 

Cognitive dissonance in bigfootery can arise from the acceptance of those thousands of anecdotal accounts without a body to explain them.  Perhaps the easiest way for our brains to alleviate that stress is to allow ourselves to be convinced that the die are rigged:  Our agencies do know that bigfoot's out there but they (for some reason) don't want to the public to know that they know.  What better way to trump up the conspiracy angle than to spread the story of that guy who worked for that agency who wanted to go public about his bigfoot encounter but was scared to say anything on the record for fear he'd lose his job - or worse!

 

I spent 3 years in a state agency as a regular working stiff and another 19 in state universities.  I often work with the folks from my state wildlife agency (as recently as this morning), and yes - I've specifically spoken about bigfoot with these folks.  In my experience, the evidence for bigfoot conspiracies is weaker than that for bigfoot itself.

 

Of course, that's what I'd want you to believe . . .

 

Never mind that conspiracy theory isn't required; human nature is all we need.

 

But the more I read this the more I feel like a conspiracy theorist.

 

Come ON.  I have posted here several examples of eyewitnesses trying to report to land management agencies and getting the chuckle and the you're-drunk.  (I would have sued that sucker for slander, starting right at that desk.)

 

When anybody taking a sasquatch report less than seriously gets discipllined for it, then you can tell me things have changed.  But it's naive to think that this is taken with any degree of seriousness, either within agencies or in their dealings with the public, and as I said, those anecdotes far outnumber yours.

 

I dare anybody who thinks different to call in a bigfoot report.  Please don't tell me about filing false reports with a government agency.  Just make something up and call them.  They'll patronize you and hang up.

 

Come ON.  Naivety and skepticism don't mix.

 

(No.  It's obvious to almost everyone here that I'm right, and I have better things to do than call people with made-up stuff.)

 

Edited June 11, 2013 by DWA

[Guest]

I am allergic to conspiracy theories Saskeptic, as you are too I believe.  In your hypothetical though, how likely is it the guy is going to file a report, request further resources, contact other agencies, etc.? Not very. Because he's given no incentive to do that, and every incentive not to.

 

If he finds a bigfoot at the end of that track, then I'd wager that he'd be very likely to share that information with his co-workers, his wife, his boss, his neighbor, Wolf Blitzer, etc.  If he doesn't find a bigfoot at the end of the track, then what exactly does he have to report?  He's just one more person whose found some impressions in the ground that could have been made by a bigfoot, hoaxed to be thought of as from a bigfoot, or simply misidentified from something else.  What kind of resources does he request, and to do what, exactly? What other agencies should he contact, and why?  This is where it falls apart.  Scientists and biologists in wildlife agencies are no more able to go and collect a piece of bigfoot than anyone else, and if you ask me they'd be far less able to do that than, for example, Sasfooty. 

 

CLM? Career Limiting Move. (Although I love your take on that TLA, DWA)

 

Thanks.  I've had lots of training for my positions in state government.  They don't want us to drink on the job, embezzle, use computers to look at porn or download current movies, text while driving, etc.  Never once have I been instructed not to report something weird I might have seen in the field.

[Guest DWA]

L,

It's just just background noise, easy to ignore over time

Says the guy who saw a bigfoot once. 

 

 

 

If he finds a bigfoot at the end of that track, then I'd wager that he'd be very likely to share that information with his co-workers, his wife, his boss, his neighbor, Wolf Blitzer, etc.  If he doesn't find a bigfoot at the end of the track, then what exactly does he have to report?  He's just one more person whose found some impressions in the ground that could have been made by a bigfoot, hoaxed to be thought of as from a bigfoot, or simply misidentified from something else.  What kind of resources does he request, and to do what, exactly? What other agencies should he contact, and why?  This is where it falls apart.  Scientists and biologists in wildlife agencies are no more able to go and collect a piece of bigfoot than anyone else, and if you ask me they'd be far less able to do that than, for example, Sasfooty.

 

You've got to be kidding me.  What does he have to report.  Artifice, all right.  In spades.  What does he have to report.  Um, tracks, of an animal, seen by thousands of sober witnesses, consistent characters of which have been described by scientists with directly relevant expertise, which, um, far exceeds, er, yours?

 

You know that every post you put up makes our case for us...right?

 

Thanks.  I've had lots of training for my positions in state government.  They don't want us to drink on the job, embezzle, use computers to look at porn or download current movies, text while driving, etc.  Never once have I been instructed not to report something weird I might have seen in the field.

 

And you won't.  Simple as that.  Red herring.

 

(edited to make it clear to even bigfoot skeptics)

 

Edited June 11, 2013 by DWA

[Guest]

 I have posted here several examples of eyewitnesses trying to report to land management agencies and getting the chuckle and the you're-drunk.  (I would have sued that sucker for slander, starting right at that desk.)

Oh, so those are anecdotal accounts of these exchanges - thanks for supporting my point. 

 

Of course it is indeed likely that if I called a land management agency to report a bigfoot I would get the brush-off.  SO?  What you like that agency to do, hit some kind of furry red button to spring into "Code Squatch" or something?   Or do you just want the person fielding the call to ~~ take it seriously ~~ and bigfoot will magically appear in my driveway with a catered dinner of crow and humble pie?

[Guest DWA]

You said you were a scientist at some point, right?

 

Why do I begin to doubt that just a smidgen....?

 

And no, I'm not going to say for the 58,989th time how science follows up inconclusive evidence to proof.

 

(Our point.  Just made ever so slightly more airtight.)

You had one anecdote.  I like tripled it for my case.  Advantage, me.  (Particularly when common sense tells most of us that mine actually happened.)