How Many Normal (Relatively) Intelligent, Adult, Witnesses Without A Prior Agenda Does It Take To Have Any Provative Weight Towards The Unknown?

[WSA]

Saskeptic I positively agree the standard for accepting a new animal into  the catalog of species should be more precise at least, but then again, it is an easier standard to meet, on comparison to proving something like guilt in a courtroom.  You get the corpus of the proposed new species, you examine it, and you submit it. Simple (aside from all the biological hair splitting, naming rights and turf wars that go along with that, right?).

 

Of course, most, if not all here (me included) are not arguing the BF should be put in the Peterson's Field Guides quite yet. Dr. Meldrum's helpful hints not withstanding.  

[Guest]

Here though is a picture of a non black cougar killed near the Alabama Border with Georgia on Lake West Point.

 

Very cool.

 

The dismissive attitude of Mr. Sasser as quoted in the article is not very conducive to public relations regarding the matter I thought, being one of those whose sightings and whose mens' sighting have been dismissed.

 

I'm not sure I see a dismissive attitude here:

 

"Mark Sasser, coordinator of DCNR’s Non-Game Wildlife Program, said every trail-camera photo he’s ever seen that was reportedly taken in Alabama turned out to have come from another state upon investigation."

 

That sounds to me like the reality of the situation across the East, as referenced in the link I provided yesterday.  That vast majority of "cougar" photos submitted to wildlife agencies in the former eastern range of the species have been 1) not cougars or 2) cougars photographed somewhere other than claimed.  This is simply evidence of the kind of things I've been claiming all along about the unreliability of anecdotal reports - in this case even when they come with photos: 1) People misidentify things.  2) People lie.  These two things are facts.  Right now we can't say the same about such things as black mountain lions or bigfoots.

 

Oh wait - I just found the dismissive part!  "If somebody says they saw a cougar a day or so ago, it ain’t going to do no good to go out there and look, because most of them aren’t seeing cougars anyway." 

 

Okay, you have my permission to dismiss this turkey's comments, and I base that solely on a public official saying "it ain’t going to do no good". 

 

Still, the rub for Sasser is here:

 

“If someone had some livestock that was getting killed on a regular basis or something like that, obviously we’d send somebody out to investigate. But we haven’t had anything to investigate.â€

 

So he's clumsy and if I was his supervisor I'd order him to take a public speaking class, but I agree with his basic position:  he gets a great many anecdotal accounts and there's nothing he can do with those.  He can only really act on physical evidence, but he's ready to do so should any materialize.

 

I don't know the disposition of this case legalwise regarding the legality or non legality of hunting or killing the creature in the state of Georgia. It is illegal in Alabama to kill cougars.

 

It's even more illegal when that cougar is from the endangered Florida panther population!  It might be though that Georgia lies outside the "critical habitat" threshold and the guy wouldn't face a take under the ESA.  Interesting case for sure . . .

 

It's overall a pretty good article, but it goes a bit off the rails here:

 

"Over a time span of a decade, western cougars have naturally, without human help other than harvest limits, re-established populations from state to state into the Midwest."

 

This is not true.  Individuals have dispersed from west to east - and as far as Connecticut from South Dakota! - but outside of Texas I know of no confirmation of a re-established population east of South Dakota. 

 

 . . . and here:

 

"But how can encounters be officially confirmed if officials aren’t willing to go into the field to confirm them?"

 

Sasser indicated that they are willing to go and confirm them, but without physical evidence there's nothing to confirm.

 

Where cougars occur, they don't fly under the radar for long:

 

"Mark Dowling is co-founder of the Cougar Network," : “The only thing I think we can say about Alabama is that we’re very confident there’s no breeding population of mountain lions in Alabama. Because if there were, there’d be abundant evidence of it,†he said. He said cougars are very vulnerable on the roads and noted that the small Florida population experiences up to 15 roadkills a year, while the 200 South Dakota cats average about 20 roadkills a year."

It also reminded me of a “scientist†we had on campus – Jack Horner. 

Great story about Horner - thanks BigGinger!  Very cool that you worked on the business end of a Triceratops.

 

It's not just paleontology.  It's routine for our field work - especially ornithology - to lean heavily on contributions from amateurs.

[Guest]

Until the attitude among scientists becomes, if a scientist saw it (and scientists have) it's legitimate and we should pay attention, forget ever finding out what this is, barring luck no one has had yet.

You're squarely into the "Huntster Paradox": You don't think anyone looking for bigfoot now is going to be lucky enough to find a piece of the beast to to convince scientists to "pay attention", so we need scientists to pay attention (whatever that means) in the absence of physical evidence. But in the absence of funding opportunities to launch the kind of expeditions you might think it will take to be successful at collecting physical evidence, the "scientists" would be no more likely to find bigfoot than would the "amateurs".  So why do you need the scientists again?  In a twist of delicious irony, you at once extol the great virtues of real scientists like Meldrum, Krantz, and of course the lovely and talented Bindernagel, yet you complain that scientists won't get involved.  What's wrong with those guys (and several others I've listed for you in the past)?  How many bloody scientists does it take to discover bigfoot? 

[Guest DWA]

My, so hostile.  And here I am just pointing something out.

 

OK.  Answer this.

 

I read: 

Oh wait - I just found the dismissive part!  "If somebody says they saw a cougar a day or so ago, it ain’t going to do no good to go out there and look, because most of them aren’t seeing cougars anyway." 

 

Now.  Are you dismissing this turkey's comments based solely on his grammar, or on his making a statement that sounds on its face wholly acceptable to you?

 

If one of those guys sees a bigfoot on the job, what next?  I think you're missing what I'm trying to say.

I'm not sure - when no sighting report mentions a "piece" - why people whose eyewitness word is trusted every day on the job need to provide a "piece" to be taken seriously, when I'm suggesting a no-additional-funds needed way to start moving to confirmation.

[Guest DWA]

And as to this:

 

"the great virtues of real scientists like Meldrum, Krantz, and of course the lovely and talented Bindernagel, yet you complain that scientists won't get involved.  What's wrong with those guys (and several others I've listed for you in the past)?  How many bloody scientists does it take to discover bigfoot?"

 

Well, this sounds like "those lovable incompetents are doing great chasing that absolute utter nonsense!"

 

Why - if nothing is wrong with them - does any wildlife officer who sees something they take seriously get two questions in response:

 

"You wanna be fired?  Or early retirement?"

 

 

[Guest DWA]

And before I hear "every scientist I know would all love to heck to know about this and we are always waiting etc.", some reports.

 

These are from people whose word we take on what they saw all of the most of the time.

 

http://bigfootforums.com/index.php/topic/38048-military-officer-recalls-possible-daylight-sighting-while-driving-in-the-croatan-national-forest-report-33358/

 

http://bigfootforums.com/index.php/topic/38055-possible-daylight-sighting-by-a-law-enforcement-officer-standing-in-his-yard-near-fremont-report-38309/

 

http://bigfootforums.com/index.php/topic/9713-salmon-surveyor-has-unusual-experience-near-confluence-of-fall-river-and-boss-creek-report-29700/

 

(^^^They apparently at least filed an official report of what happened.  In 2001.  ...[crickets]...)

 

http://bigfootforums.com/index.php/topic/36087-fish-and-game-bear-researcher-observes-a-biped-on-a-ridge-outside-missoula-report-36727/

 

(^^^OK,  he was a college student at the time of his encounter.  And what, he's sobered up since?  This from the report:  "When asked about other stories his peers may have about sasquatch, he claimed that he had never had anyone mention it. He felt that was odd in itself, except for the fact that he too has never shared his encounter with any of his peers."  I'd never wonder why.)

 

http://woodape.org/reports/report/detail/340

 

Why are these people reporting anonymously to people scientists laugh at?  When a mycologist - this guy -

 

http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/libr/finding_guide/samuels.asp

 

...saw an unlisted hairy hominoid in South America in 1987, why did he not take it straight to mainstream peers?  Don't make me guess.

 

And these two classics of what happens when observers try to do the right thing:

 

http://woodape.org/reports/report/detail/347

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=1372

 

Just color me, well, skeptical on the all-scientists-are-just-fully-engaged-in-this-[winknonsense]-topic stuff.  Show me proof.  Going on biosurvey with a nice neat guide put in your pocket by Jeffrey Meldrum - I mean, what's wrong with him? - and the emphasis from your superiors and peers that you tell them if you see one of those, or its sign, would be a start.

 

(I just put up more evidence than 45+ years have given us that Patty's fake.)

 

The very existence of "Finding Bigfoot" should be all the evidence needed.  But hey.

 

Edited June 5, 2013 by DWA

[Guest]

OK.  Answer this.

 

I read: 

Oh wait - I just found the dismissive part!  "If somebody says they saw a cougar a day or so ago, it ain’t going to do no good to go out there and look, because most of them aren’t seeing cougars anyway." 

 

Now.  Are you dismissing this turkey's comments based solely on his grammar, or on his making a statement that sounds on its face wholly acceptable to you?

 

 

From my post:  "So he's clumsy and if I was his supervisor I'd order him to take a public speaking class, but I agree with his basic position:  he gets a great many anecdotal accounts and there's nothing he can do with those.  He can only really act on physical evidence, but he's ready to do so should any materialize."

 

With respect to bigfoot accounts, I've read a great many (hundreds?) of them.  Every single one has failed to lead to physical evidence that can be tied to such a thing as a bigfoot.  That suggests to me that there is no physical evidence to obtain.  Should I be wrong about that and physical evidence was one day to surface, I'd be thrilled to examine it.

 

 

If one of those guys sees a bigfoot on the job, what next?  I think you're missing what I'm trying to say.

 

I don't know, what next?  If a guy is for whatever reason scared that he'll lose his job if he says he saw bigfoot, so what?  There are, as you are so fond of reminding us, thousands of other people perfectly happy to report the bigfoots they see.  We have no shortage of bigfoot reports, whether they come from housewives, mailmen, MPs, schoolteachers, farmers, hunters, etc. 

 

The point is that there's nothing to do with an anecdotal report except duly note it.  There's nothing to do with hundreds of anecdotal reports except duly note them.  What should I do instead, hop in my Lear jet to visit these locations, look around and conclude  "Yep, someone says they saw a bigfoot here"?

 

Every one of those accounts in the BFRO database (at least the recent ones) has had some kind of "follow-up investigation" by BFRO researchers, and hotspots of activity are prioritized for real expeditions. These are people with great interest in bigfoot.  They don't need Meldrum's "field guide".  How many of those investigations have led to a piece of bigfoot?  There're your crickets.

[Guest]

Speaking of cougars, here's a short article: http://doubtfulnews.com/2013/06/mistaken-mountain-lion-here-kitty/

[Guest]

DWA,

 

I'm curious as to why you think this post relates to Bigfoot: http://woodape.org/reports/report/detail/347

 

True, it is posted on a pro-Bigfoot webpage. But the fellow saw no wood apes. The tracks he found were certainly unusual, but not squatchy. In fact, the tracks, if described correctly, more closely resemble the Shipton yeti track (except for the narrow heel, which is not indicative of sasquatch either.) So, based on this alone, we have yetis in the woods of Texas as well as sasquatch.

 

This is a good example of why many internet Bigfoot posts are not interesting. The man has nothing but two odd footprints and howls in the distance. Could be anything. The tracks are suspect because, being yeti-like, they may well have been derived from someone remembering the "wood ape" track from the Himalayas. Yet, because of the Bigfoot meme, he felt compelled to contact a Bigfoot org.

 

You find fault with the Forest Service because of a lack of interest. Well, for some reason, Sam Houston National Forest has been virtually designated Bigfoot habitat by Bigfoot enthusiasts. It is ripe for pranksters. The Forest Service reaction to this report was mature. They understood that in all likelihood someone was playing tricks, either against or by the reporter. After all, the Service knows more about Sam Houston and its fauna than a Bigfoot org. does.    

[Guest DWA]

Well there it is, scientific amnesia in spades. Nothing I can do about that.

All we can do is duly note them oh.k.there.

Well there it is, scientific amnesia in spades. Nothing I can do about that.

All we can do is duly note them oh.k.there.

Daggone Droid! But I'll let it go. Pretty much says it all.

[Guest DWA]

Well I guess the OP has his answer. As long as no common sense (not so common) gets applied to anecdotal evidence... won't matter how many.

[Guest]

Interesting thread, good debate.

I don't really feel educated enough to take a side.... But my humble opinion is that the multiple eye witness accounts are very important in trying to understand and track down this creature, or to try and build a profile of their habits, habitat, and physical traits, (if they exist). But they are not proof of anything on their own abs at best could only be used as backup to add strength to other evidence such as picture or video evidence or, the as yet non existent physical evidence.

I have no doubt in my mind that to those who have had encounters of their own, the eye witness accounts mean a lot more than to those who have not. But when it comes to a scientific approach, they must be taken unbiased.

Edited June 6, 2013 by blueb4sunrise

[Guest]

But my humble opinion is that the multiple eye witness accounts are very important in trying to understand and track down this creature, or to try and build a profile of their habits, habitat, and physical traits, (if they exist).

I agree, but what you just described is what every bigfoot researcher has done since at least the mid-1960s.  Peter Byrne , Rene Dahinden, John Green - these guys and countless others have been trying to prove bigfoot for decades. 

 

In addition to these "amateurs", real-live scientists have tried to prove bigfoot for decades:  Grover Krantz, Jeff Meldrum, John Bindernagel, Henner Fahrenbach - there are even a number of newer people engaging the evidence and using their talents to help determine if there really are bigfoots out there, Bryan Sykes and Todd Disotell come to mind, and Henry Gee is champing on the bit to review a paper on this stuff for publication in Nature.

 

The people are in place - both amateur and professional - and are ready to collect and analyze bigfoot data.  The journal is ready to publish one of the greatest discoveries of our time.  The thing that has yet to materialize is an actual piece of an actual bigfoot.

 

Despite this, people like DWA will keep beating the drum that dismissive scientists are the reason we haven't confirmed bigfoot yet.  I just listed seven scientists off the top of my head who have either worked on analysis of putative bigfoot data or have made public statements about being open to it.  He is well aware of this, and aware that there are more we could list.  But then he's not here to engage in a discussion, he's here to complain about scientists.

[Guest DWA]

blueb4sunrise:

 

You're right.  Anecdotal evidence is critical; science has been using it since there has been science, and our species wouldn't have survived without trusting it. The "amnesia" I refer to is scientists' continually forgetting this.

 

One continues to hear the confusion between evidence and proof.  Anecdotes can never be the latter but they are always the former.  If they are not tested - and they can be, contrary to the skeptical presumption that they are unfalsifiable - they are useless.  If they are tested, they can tell you where the gold is.

 

It sounds to me as if saskeptic's approach is to pick up each sighting report and tug on it.  If it is not the toe tag on a bigfoot, discard.  That's not how to deal with evidence.  Scientists know this.  They just rely on the most forward thinking of their fraternity to continually remind them.

 

The hyper-emprical approach gets rewarded; scientists tend to be very concrete thinkers who need to see it, touch it, feel it.  That works to an extent.  But something has been lost.  In primitive societies where they didn't have fifty to a hundred years to confirm stuff about the natural world (yes, the bigfoot lag time is standard issue), people tended to trust the story enough to test it.

 

We need to get some of that back in biology.  Because its loss is significant.  Possible places to look may be in paleontology and astronomy, because most of what they "confirm," they can't touch.

 

Unless you think a fossil is an ape. Or a light in the sky or a spectrograph reading a star.   ;-)

 

And as shown by his (in)attention to my substantial points:  saskeptic isn't here to have a discussion but to rant.  Sauce for the goose.  ;-)

Edited June 6, 2013 by DWA

[Guest DWA]

"Despite this, people like DWA will keep beating the drum that dismissive scientists are the reason we haven't confirmed bigfoot yet.  I just listed seven scientists off the top of my head who have either worked on analysis of putative bigfoot data or have made public statements about being open to it.  He is well aware of this, and aware that there are more we could list."

 

One problem bigfoot skeptics run into is real ones.

 

One can say anything one wants about the scientific mainstream's attitude toward sasquatch.  But if one is here on the BFF, one knows what it is.  And one is extremely skeptical of any claims to the contrary.  The mainstream's attitude screams so loudly that it drowns out what any people might be saying to the contrary.

 

Until that attitude changes...well, read Bindernagel.  He'll tell you all about it.