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

[Guest DWA]

 

Ah yes, the inevitable "let's psychoanalyze Saskeptic post."  Thanks, but you guys are late to the party on that one too.

 

Old findings, no less valid, as long as they're still vallid, eh?

 

 "No toe tag attached? TOSS!"

 

Please define for me what you mean by "TOSS!"  I have many times described that I take interest in anecdotal accounts, and that they are the most compelling type of bigfoot evidence for me.  They are the reason I still come here, every day.  The mere fact that people say they have seen bigfoot, however, is insufficient to convince me that it does.  As I'm sure you understand, the plural of anecdote is not proof.

 

"fully convinced" = TOSS.  See below.

 

 

When this happens, just how strongly a person can hold on to the comfort of this approach can't be overestimated. You're doing it here, I would strongly suggest, and your  training is not doing you one bit of good in overcoming it. IF you are interested in a more productive approach to the evidence at hand, that is.

 

So my "security blanket" is to deny the existence of bigfoot?  And I need that because . . . why?  My personal worldview can't handle being tossed upside down or something?  I can't "handle" bigfoot being real or something?  This isn't even decent Saskeptic fan-fiction, because it's completely at odds with my motivations as a biologist.

 

Definitely more believable than any scenario under which all this evidence is a false positive.  By a lot.

 

My career has been largely built around finding things that other people didn't realize were there.  I consider bigfoot the #1 such thing in the world, so I can assure you that I consider the possibility of its existence very carefully.  But here's something that non-scientists can't seem to get about scientists:  We maintain all the wonder and awe and curiosity that as kids drew us to science in the first place.  But we also don't just blow around from idea to idea without a firm grounding in what we know.  If new data come along that really does upend the apple cart, then we acknowledge it, celebrate it, and move along. If bigfoot is discovered tomorrow, I'll be thrilled to shout from the rooftops that I was wrong all these years. 

 

And I'm wondering what you'll have to say to those who respond to the 'discovery' with, DUH!  'bout time, guys and gals!  How many decades was this gonna take?

 

Hypotheticals are not a comfort to you. Well, at least this one is not, and of that I'm very certain.

How could you be certain of that yet apparently ignorant of the many pages of hypotheticals I've written about bigfoot?  0–2.

 

Can I read one?  "fully convinced" sounds much like "hypotheticals not a comfort."

 

Because if you could keep the hypothetical of the existence of Sasquatch truly alive in your mind you would not dismiss so out of hand the evidence you do. 

If I dismissed evidence out of hand I might agree, but I don't so I don't. 0–3.

 

But you do.  See below under "fully convinced."

 

And you sir, sorry, do not. You made up your mind long ago, it is clear . . .

Ooh - 1–4!

 

But you did. See below etc.

 

I make no apology for that either.  The threshold of evidence I would consider to convince me of the reality of bigfoot is the same threshold needed to demonstrate that it exists to the satisfaction of my colleagues in the ICZN. The only question is whether or not there has been ample opportunity for that threshold to have been met.  In my experience, there has, and many, many times over.

 

And every time that opportunity occurs, a whole battery of scientists goes MAN IN SUIT! and turns back to what they were doing.  The practice of science has always been like this.  And still the evidence sits there, and still the alternative explanations are way wilder.

 

And yet, people keep claiming to see the danged things.  There are multiple explanations for those claims that do not require the actual existence of real bigfoots, but they do keep life interesting.  Thus, while I am fully convinced that there is not now, and never has been such thing as a "bigfoot", I guess I'm secretly hoping that I'm wrong, and that one day I'll get to enjoy living in a world in which we know there are bigfoots.

 

Well it's not only more fun to live in one where the evidence points that way, but one also has the comfort of knowing that a guy named Occam agrees with one.  BTW:  "fully convinced" = "ball up and toss."

 

And what, exactly, are you learning  here, might I ask?

Back in the glory days of the BFF, I considered my time here of great educational benefit to me.  It gave the excuse to study human evolution, bipedalism, paleontology, physical anthropology, and a host of other cool -ologies.  It gave me practice in exchanging ideas with people with markedly different experiences and expectations from my own.  If you think I come here to laugh at the sillies who think they've seen bigfoots, then you've misread me yet again.  1–5.

 

So.  The glory days and the educational benefit are gone, and you are still here, why?

 

The whole “If BF existed we’d have a piece of one by now† idea is as big a pair of blinders as any man of learning can wear.

Nice!  So is Triceratops extinct or extant, and how do you know? 

 

Scientists have fed me this deal that it's gone.  I guess I just swallowed that.  Which is what constitutes the vast majority of what most of us "know."

 

The fact that you remain ignorant of how biologists make decisions every day about what is with us, what is not, and how we know that is why you see that statement as untenable.  Unlike some people, I won't accuse you of madness if you don't agree with that assessment, but I can assure you as a biologist that it is very well supported.

 

We are far from ignorant of it.  We just think there are big glitches in the thinking about it; and this topic is home to a number of them.

 

I'm not sure why you think it has to be a scientist that drags in a carcass, other than that notion gives fuel to your treadmill. There are numerous ways this could be proven that do not require a single scientist to be in the field actively searching.

 

Don't bet anything on any of them that you would want to keep.  Oh, sure, it could happen.  But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.

 

And many of these ( in my opinion) have statistical probabilities that have long since been stretched beyond what is believable.

 

Not when contrasted with the statisical probability that all of this is a variety of random kinds of false positive.  That one is off-the-charts unbelievable.  It's just that bigfoot skeptics don't ever think about it.

 

That no one, anywhere, has ever found a single, verifiable piece of a large, highly noticeable creature that eats, breeds, migrates, fights, dies AND apparently interacts with us quite often in all parts of the continent, is well extremely fanciful. That is highly implausible.

 

It's impossible.  So what has happened?  People have found them - more than one guy has killed one - and here we still are.  I mean, if you believe them, and what proof can you give me that I shouldn't?  No more than I can give you that you should.

[WSA]

As I said Saskeptic, if you could, you wouldn't, and you don't. I long ago stopped believing what people say, and look to what they do instead, in practice.  And I understand it, as I also said.  I've seen too many "experts" self-immolate  under questioning to know your often stated philosophy shares some key characteristics with all of them. Your training fails you here, and how "most" biologists make decisions is precisely my point.  

 

My question was intentionally phrased to address the present: Are learning. Now. Not seeing it, help me. Not to say you have to be, or that you should even have to share the reasons one way or the other, but I'm distrustful of unseen agendas. Like I said, if the world bags a Sasquatch, you won't have to be here to find out about it, I'm sure. So, what is it, if I'm so wrong?  Or could it be there doesn't beat a heart so craven so as to forget what brought it to science in the first place? Am I getting warm? If so, let that kid out more. He needs more fresh air and sunshine.

[Squatchy McSquatch]

Need clarification on two points:

 

1) When did the onus fall on me, a non-proponent stonemason from Southern Ontario, to bag and tag an imaginary creature? Kinda sounds like a job for a bigfoot hunter.

 

2) Why does DWA keep referring to himself as a skeptic? He takes bigfoot sightings from complete strangers on the internet at face value.

[Guest DWA]

Yes, I take them at face value.  There's a report.  Somebody made it.  There are thousands like it.  No other unproven phenomenon has a track record anywhere close.  Some people calling themselves "skeptics," who are very badly misusing the term, swallow whole the proposition that all these people are wrong.  But I'm actually a skeptic.  I take them at face value.

 

Far's I'm concerned, you have to prove to me that you're right, because the evidence says you're wrong.  If you went out and bagged a bigfoot, you'd be proving me right, which I prefer.  Good luck.

[Guest DWA]

 I long ago stopped believing what people say, and look to what they do instead, in practice.  And I understand it, as I also said.  I've seen too many "experts" self-immolate  under questioning to know your often stated philosophy shares some key characteristics with all of them. Your training fails you here, and how "most" biologists make decisions is precisely my point.  

 

When I have never heard a scientist make an argument against sasquatch that I couldn't take apart, limb from limb, in less time than it took him to say it, well, that doesn't speak well for how "most" biologists make decisions.

 

When one doesn't use one's degree, and resorts to incredulity to make one's points, well, that's the "argument from..." and one just isn't going far with that when one is talking to folks who know that there's nothing truly incredible about it except the way human nature has perpetuated human ignorance on a pretty straightforward matter.

[Squatchy McSquatch]

Yes, I take them at face value.  There's a report.  Somebody made it.  There are thousands like it.  No other unproven phenomenon has a track record anywhere close.  Some people calling themselves "skeptics," who are very badly misusing the term, swallow whole the proposition that all these people are wrong.  But I'm actually a skeptic.  I take them at face value.

 

Far's I'm concerned, you have to prove to me that you're right, because the evidence says you're wrong.  If you went out and bagged a bigfoot, you'd be proving me right, which I prefer.  Good luck.

 

Taking a  bigfoot report at face value is not being a skeptic.

 

I shall remain skeptical of your skepticism.

[Guest DWA]

And vice versa.  Can't help that none.

 

What's your proof they're not telling the truth?  Bingo.

[Guest Cervelo]

No Bigfoot

[Guest]

As I said Saskeptic, if you could, you wouldn't, and you don't. I long ago stopped believing what people say, and look to what they do instead, in practice.  And I understand it, as I also said.  I've seen too many "experts" self-immolate  under questioning to know your often stated philosophy shares some key characteristics with all of them. Your training fails you here, and how "most" biologists make decisions is precisely my point.  

 

I'm confused.  What is your point?  Are you suggesting that despite my assertions that I'm skeptical of bigfoot that I'm really a closet believer?  Are you suggesting that despite my claims of interest in the phenomenon I'm just a denialist who won't actually consider any of the evidence?  Your double-speak fails you here, and I can't even tell what point you're attempting to make.

 

(Here's a hint:  something I do is come here every day and engage in discussions of the evidence with people like you.  Of course, sometimes we get sidetracked from those discussions because several personalities here at the BFF - you're simply the latest in a long line - apparently find me more interesting than they find bigfoot.)

 

My question was intentionally phrased to address the present: Are learning. Now.

You want to know what I'm learning from my participation on the BFF?  Oh.  All right, well I'm learning a lot less than I did on the BFF 1.0, and for at least two reasons.   First, when I started lurking and reading and ultimately posting however many years ago that was, it took me a while to get up to speed on elements of bigfoot lore of which I was ignorant at the time, e.g., the Skookum Cast, dermal ridge analysis, alleged recordings of vocalizations etc.  Now that I am familiar with those things, there is correspondingly less to "learn" about them.  Second, other than the recent Ketchum debacle, there hasn't been much new under the sun in bigfootery as of late.  There have been more alleged sightings, more ambiguous photos, more claims of habituations, more talk of lethal collection, the rise of thermal signatures (just a more colorful blobsquatch), etc., but no new class of compelling evidence that comes to mind.  We've had more tantalizing teases that *this could finally be it* (e.g., the MRP, Smeja's steak, toejam, Operation Persistence) but still, nada.

 

That said, my participation here at the BFF at least affords me with the excuse to do some digging on my own, so there's some indirect learning that is of great benefit to me.  Just a few days ago I described for you the sources I consulted just to make a simple statement about the likelihood of Gigantopithecus dispersal through Beringia.  That's learning, and it counts as having come from the BFF in my book because I wouldn't have taken the time to do that had I not been in a discussion about it here.  (I'm supposed to be working on an IACUC permit for small mammal trapping this week, and those things are really boring.)  In the same thread, I also took the opportunity to learn more about Meganthropus, and propose the hypothetical possibility that this taxon could be the root of "bigfoot".

[Guest DWA]

No Bigfoot

Nothing is proof of, well, nothing.  That never changes.

 

Some of us are curious enough to wonder about that.  Then we look and find out:  oh, nobody's looking.  That's why.

[Guest DWA]

 

Yes, I take them at face value.  There's a report.  Somebody made it.  There are thousands like it.  No other unproven phenomenon has a track record anywhere close.  Some people calling themselves "skeptics," who are very badly misusing the term, swallow whole the proposition that all these people are wrong.  But I'm actually a skeptic.  I take them at face value.

 

Far's I'm concerned, you have to prove to me that you're right, because the evidence says you're wrong.  If you went out and bagged a bigfoot, you'd be proving me right, which I prefer.  Good luck.

 

Taking a  bigfoot report at face value is not being a skeptic.

 

I shall remain skeptical of your skepticism.

 

Well, we know who's the True Believer in scientists who don't pay attention, anyway.

 

See, I'm very skeptical of people that don't pay attention.

 

What's your proof of what that report represents?  If your response is, they're wrong:

 

NOT skeptical.

[WSA]

Saskeptic: My point is that I've grown weary of entertaining intellectual dishonesty, in all forms. I get enough of it in my work, I can tell you that, and I call it for what it is, when I see it, and I see it a lot from you. For all of your "oologies" you will always divert others' attention from the one thing  for which you don't have anything close to an adequate explanation. This is what I mean by the failure of your training. It is a lynchpin matter, and one that you won't ever seriously engage on. I've hoped for some glimmer of insight from you on this, but all we get is the rope-a-dope routine. Free country and all, as we say. You're certainly not on this earth to meet my expectations of what a person of your considerable learning and expertise should undertake, or avoid. I just find it very instructive is all.

[Guest Cervelo]

No Bigfoot

Nothing is proof of, well, nothing. That never changes.

Some of us are curious enough to wonder about that. Then we look and find out: oh, nobody's looking. That's why.

Wrong again! Feet, Eyes, and Ears on the ground for centuries and still nothing....got no monkey!

[Guest DWA]

Who's wrong?  Me?  I'm not wrong.

 

Why would somebody who saw a bigfoot once think I'm wrong about this? 

[Guest Cervelo]

There ya go again....wrong... I've never seen a Bigfoot....heard some cool stuff but no sighting yet...trying but nothing so far!

Edited June 18, 2013 by Cervelo