Bigfoot Research--Still No Evidence (Continued)

[Guest]

Norseman,

I agree with much of what you have to say. The exception relates to the human or ape question. If you read Hudson's account, or even the Burns' articles from the 1930's - 40's, you will find that the claims that sasquatch are humans are not mere personal impressions. There is the specific claim that sasquatch speak human languages. If I remember, Hudson says they even speak English on occasion. When I was at the Honobia conference a few years back, one of the landholders of part of Area X stated that the beings he encountered in the area were "nice people." (I do understand your point -- once Ivan Sanderson mused that gorillas may be of the human family, and he seemed to think Bigfoot was a sub-species of human.)

Now, I am not making an argument for a human Bigfoot. I am suggesting is that the field research is pulling in different directions and, as you note, a lot of it seems spurious as well.

Ah, ok.  Thanks for clarifying.

 

I guess you could call me a "true believer" or a knower since I am someone who has had an extended sighting and some interaction.   At the same time, I remain a skeptic of individual reports.   There are things reported  which I have not personally experienced which I (subtly, I hope, so as not to insult anyone) raise an eyebrow about.   The implications are profound: F&B vs paranormal.  Rather than relying on assumptions and pre-conceived ideas, "MIB HQ" encourages me to investigate in person, try to either substantiate the claims, report nothing happened, or find alternate explanations for the claims' components.  

 

I'm not laughing, I'm not sneering, but I'm not drinking any koolaid either.   'bout all I can say 'til it happens, right?  The next 6 months or so should be interesting.

 

MIB

You've probably addressed this elsewhere, but could you recount your encounter?

I like this: "I'm not laughing, I'm not sneering, but I'm not drinking any koolaid either."

I like that attitude and wish it on all of us.

[Guest DWA]

 

^Sure, and Alaska was subtropical in the Cretaceous.  You need the right animal at the right time, though.  Personally, I find our hypothetical bigfoot way too human to have come over in a Miocene dispersal from some kind of gorilla ancestor.  It's humanness today would then be a product of convergent evolution, rather than common ancestry, adding another significant hurdle of parsimony to overcome - especially for the large and growing contingent of bigfooters who are convinced that bigfoots are a form of human.  Also, a Miocene dispersal greatly lengthens the gap in the fossil record without any sign of a bigfoot-like thing in North America.  For a Pleistocene dispersal, that gap is ballpark 10,000 years; for a Miocene dispersal, it's more like 10 million.

 

 

I personally do not think it exhibits any human traits other than bipedalism. But touche on the larger strike zone for a fossil discovery.........your right. A Miocene hypothesis should be easily proven in the fossil record.

 

Well, not so fast.  One of the worst assumptions anyone can make is that anything can be "easily proven" in the fossil record.

 

All the fossils found for any particular geologic period would be hard put to populate one of the current Canadian provinces for one day of that period, never mind the planet for the entire period.

 

Take that into account and one begins to see how scanty the fossil record is.  Fossillization is an extremely rare process.  That's why it's inadvisable to try to explain away things people are seeing now by referring to fossils.

[norseman]

^^^^^^^^^^

 

No, Saskeptic is right, if you inhabit a place for 15000 years, there are X number of fossils out there to find (I think as your alluding to). BUT, if you inhabit a place for 1000000 years? Well then mathematics says those odds must go up.

 

Norseman,

I agree with much of what you have to say. The exception relates to the human or ape question. If you read Hudson's account, or even the Burns' articles from the 1930's - 40's, you will find that the claims that sasquatch are humans are not mere personal impressions. There is the specific claim that sasquatch speak human languages. If I remember, Hudson says they even speak English on occasion. When I was at the Honobia conference a few years back, one of the landholders of part of Area X stated that the beings he encountered in the area were "nice people." (I do understand your point -- once Ivan Sanderson mused that gorillas may be of the human family, and he seemed to think Bigfoot was a sub-species of human.)

Now, I am not making an argument for a human Bigfoot. I am suggesting is that the field research is pulling in different directions and, as you note, a lot of it seems spurious as well.

 

Also that they read minds, shape shift, etc..........I hear you I really do. Logic tells me? If they speak English? Then why not come into a C-store and offer pine nuts and berries for zagnut bars? I mean do they read too? Maybe they would rather hit the liqueur store......

 

Like Summit walker was saying earlier.........he was a believer and the more he dug the more of a skeptic he became. And I understand his sentiments totally. And if not for my own experience I can honestly say I would be right where he is now concerning the community.

 

But as I told Saskeptic a long time ago? You cannot simply throw the baby out with the bath water. Some of this is not easily explained away. You cut through the hype, and the hoaxes and the shape shifting mumbo jumbo? There is still some pretty credible stuff left.........at least for me there is. 

Edited June 19, 2013 by norseman

[Guest DWA]

The odds may go up.  But given how slim they were in the first place...

 

It's estimated that 95% of extinct primates are undocumented.  I think that if we saw the actual prehistoric menagerie compared to what's fossilized, a lot of worlds would get majorly rocked.

[norseman]

The odds may go up.  But given how slim they were in the first place...

 

It's estimated that 95% of extinct primates are undocumented.  I think that if we saw the actual prehistoric menagerie compared to what's fossilized, a lot of worlds would get majorly rocked.

 

Right, and that's all that's being said. And I'm not sure about the 95% number, but we do find Ape fossils and none of them have been in N. America. It certainly doesn't help things that's for sure. Hopefully somebody pulls something out of the ground or finds something on a dusty shelf somewhere.

 

I personally believe the best chance we have if people are truly seeing them is to get one on the ground. Or find a good track way and stick with it to it's ultimate conclusion. But it takes dedication and man power.

[Guest OntarioSquatch]

Without a type specimen to match it to, ancient fossils would be no good regardless of where they are found. The question is, do bigfoot-like creatures exist today?

[norseman]

^^^^^^^^^

 

Yes but if you found a Giganto tooth at a dig site in Oregon? The modern day Squatch mystery would get a serious boost of credibility.

[Squatchy McSquatch]

I'm not sure why or how it's so easy to misunderstand a position I have made clear many times here.

 

But here goes...again...:

 

Sasquatch is an open question.

 

Skeptics say they don't have to prove anything.  Um, OK.  Your prerogative.  I don't have to, either.

 

 

Ummm, I don't see how this works?

 

You have declared yourself to be a skeptic at least five times in another thread.

 

The evidence hasn't changed, though. It's still cicumstancial and weak. Not enough.

 

How's that [proof] thing working out for you?

 

A skeptic might question the whole thing.

 

nevermind I missed the part where you called Bigfoot an open ended question and thereby home-free.

 

tag. you're it. no touch-backs, no returns.

 

Bluff Creek is home base. Ask the Bobs for directions.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Squatchy McSquatch

[Guest DWA]

And you feel the need to come back and back and back and back and

back and back and

back and back and

back and back and

back and back and

back and back and

back and back and

back

 

...to say that.

 

Wow.  not sure what else, but your persistence is impressive.  Might apply that to the evidence.

 

My people over you, dude.

[Guest]

Yes but if you found a Giganto tooth at a dig site in Oregon? The modern day Squatch mystery would get a serious boost of credibility.

It certainly would in my eyes.  I'd go something like 0.00 - 0.90 probability if we could place a Giganto molar in Pleistocene North America.

 

I think you're on target (as usual) in this thread, norseman.

 

Folks need to understand both the limitations and the possibilities of the fossil record.  Of course it is incomplete, and no one understands this better than paleontologists. But we can also fall victim to the fallacy that because the record is incomplete that there are no inferences to be made from what we do know.  That interpretation is silly, and speaking of babies and bathwater, is a dismissal of the entire field of paleontology (except, I guess, as a descriptive "hobby" science). 

 

I've stated many times and stand by this opinion:  The lack of any kind of Pleistocene antecedent for bigfoot in the North American fossil record is perhaps the most damning evidence against bigfoot.  People who react to that opinion with "but the fossil record is incomplete, you fool" display that they've been listening to sound bytes about how incomplete that record is, but that they haven't done the more difficult work to understand how complete it is, and, more important, how it got that way.

[Drew]

 

Even if Chororapithecus was a gorilla living 10million years ago, it could have been a non factor in the human/ape split, or it could have been one of the common ancestors of the gorilla/human/chimp split.

 

My point is, that the Austrian fossils were in Austria before Chororapithecus was in Africa.

 

The question is, do any of the Extant African gorillas show any migration patterns into Asia or Europe?

 

No.  Because the bipeds were the ones doing the migrating.  They had a huge evolutionary advantage when it came to spreading their populations.

 

 

 

 

So you do not believe that all Apes originated out of Africa?

 

 

 

 

No.

Pongo's common ancestor would have probably split most likely before the European precursors to modern apes went back to Africa. Africa is where the modern-african-apes/human common ancestor would have been from.

 

See BLOCK#3 on the chart on page 366

http://anthropology.utoronto.ca/Faculty/Begun/Begunhominoids.pdf

Edited June 19, 2013 by Drew

[Guest DWA]

 

Yes but if you found a Giganto tooth at a dig site in Oregon? The modern day Squatch mystery would get a serious boost of credibility.

It certainly would in my eyes.  I'd go something like 0.00 - 0.90 probability if we could place a Giganto molar in Pleistocene North America.

 

I think you're on target (as usual) in this thread, norseman.

 

Folks need to understand both the limitations and the possibilities of the fossil record.  Of course it is incomplete, and no one understands this better than paleontologists. But we can also fall victim to the fallacy that because the record is incomplete that there are no inferences to be made from what we do know.  That interpretation is silly, and speaking of babies and bathwater, is a dismissal of the entire field of paleontology (except, I guess, as a descriptive "hobby" science). 

 

I've stated many times and stand by this opinion:  The lack of any kind of Pleistocene antecedent for bigfoot in the North American fossil record is perhaps the most damning evidence against bigfoot.  People who react to that opinion with "but the fossil record is incomplete, you fool" display that they've been listening to sound bytes about how incomplete that record is, but that they haven't done the more difficult work to understand how complete it is, and, more important, how it got that way.

 

I haven't seen any posts anywhere that say "incomplete, you fool."

 

What I am saying is that I am not prepared to call thousands of people who are reporting a very consistent thing "fools" - and sugarcoat this how you will, no other word is appropriate -  based on a very incomplete fossil record.

[Drew]

^^^^^^^^^

 

Yes but if you found a Giganto tooth at a dig site in Oregon? The modern day Squatch mystery would get a serious boost of credibility.

 

If it was a legitimate fossil, found in the proper layer, predating 300,000 years ago.

 

 

 If the fossil was found in a 10,000 year old layer, The tooth could have been carried by a human (they were considered 'dragon bones' by Asians)

[norseman]

 

 

Even if Chororapithecus was a gorilla living 10million years ago, it could have been a non factor in the human/ape split, or it could have been one of the common ancestors of the gorilla/human/chimp split.

 

My point is, that the Austrian fossils were in Austria before Chororapithecus was in Africa.

 

The question is, do any of the Extant African gorillas show any migration patterns into Asia or Europe?

 

No.  Because the bipeds were the ones doing the migrating.  They had a huge evolutionary advantage when it came to spreading their populations.

 

 

 

 

So you do not believe that all Apes originated out of Africa?

 

 

 

 

No.

Pongo's common ancestor would have probably split most likely before the European precursors to modern apes went back to Africa. Africa is where the modern-african-apes/human common ancestor would have been from.

 

See BLOCK#3 on the chart on page 366

http://anthropology.utoronto.ca/Faculty/Begun/Begunhominoids.pdf

 

 

I'm aware of the new theory that Apes originated in Asia, but I do not believe very many scientists feel Europe is a strong candidate;.

 

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1722020/the_common_ancestor_of_humans_monkeys_and_apes_could_have/

 

 

The discovery of a new primate fossil in Myanmar (formerly Burma) lends weight to the hypothesis that the common ancestor of humans, monkeys and apes (anthropoid primates) originated in Asia, and not in Africa. To support the hypothesis, an international team of paleontologists, including two French researchers, has shown that these primates, which are 37 million years old and named Ganlea megacanina, had an ability observed today in modern monkeys, but not in lemurs: they pried open and ate seeds in a specific way by using their greatly enlarged canine teeth, like certain South American monkeys today. This ability is one of the reasons that justifies them being placed in the family of anthropoid primates. This research is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

In primates, there exist two major lineages: anthropoid primates (monkeys, apes and humans) and prosimians, considered to be more primitive and whose best-known representatives today are lemurs. Until now, scientists assumed that anthropoid primates originated in Africa However, this hypothesis is now questioned.

[Guest]

 

Take that into account and one begins to see how scanty the fossil record is.  Fossillization is an extremely rare process.  That's why it's inadvisable to try to explain away things people are seeing now by referring to fossils.

 

 

Fossillization is rare, but it happens, look at the Burgess Shale, now that is rare!

 

As nice as a fossil would be, what about all the other sign large mammals leave. If you can find sign that a grizzly went through an area days or even weeks before, why doesn't BF leave the same type of sign? Sure you hear of the odd track way and the odd footprint, but if these things are as widespread and 'right under our noses' as proponents claim, photo and video evidence aside, we'd still have found some darn compelling evidence by now.

Edited June 21, 2013 by summitwalker