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

[Guest DWA]

 

 

Well I might hold out the possibility that my cousin's right, were I you.

 

Sure, we have discussed it often. He knows of my interest but he doesn't know I have become a skeptic. He is quite adamant about what they saw (he was with another), and when he retells the story, of course I have to reconsider my stance...especially because we are close and I doubt very much he would lie to me, or shy away from telling me he was not telling me true after all this time.

 

 

My cousin's experience aside. One of the problems I have with eye witness accounts stems from experience. Back in my BF interest peak, I had a friend of a friend approach me because he knew of my interest. He had a story he wanted to relay to me so I listened. Without remembering all the details, he was out with friends for a weekend on what he referred to as a 'bushwhacking' weekend. Their thing was to drive out to the bush on some logging road and randomly park their vehicle, put on their packs, and just plow through the bush and find a place to set up camp for the weekend (actually sounds like a decent way to spend a weekend...but I digress). His claim was they saw what they thought was BF. At the time he seemed very detailed in his recounting of the experience. At that time I had been in communication with an actual BF researcher who was living in Calgary at the time (I have seen him post here), so I asked if I could relay the story and pass on their contact info because said investigator may be interested in contacting them. With their approval I did just that. Problem was, when they were contacted they totally denied the story and pretended to not know what the guy was referring too. When I found this out, well of course I looked like a chump (even bigger than I am today). When I asked them why they had done so they again denied the story to me, all the while having been totally passionate and convincing of the story in the first place. Go figure.

 

Well, one thing I can tell you could have - I'm just saying could have - happened is they suddenly thought: hoooo-leeeee crap, we just opened ourselves up to being perceived as kooks, fools or worse.  What if our girlfriends...our bosses...That can cause a sudden, about face clam-up.  Keep pressing them on it, and all of a sudden YOU are the one who looks crazy.  Plausible deniability.  "I never said that!"  And if you didn't record them saying it...and why did you think you'd have to?...well...

 

Human nature says that if we could find out for sure if we checked, I'd put a small bet down on that.

 

P.S.  Having done considerably more than one "bushwhacking weekend," I can highly recommend them.

 

P.P.S.  I can also tell you that they aren't what you'd think they'd be for seeing wildlife.  I guess they hear you coming much farther off, and scram.  Other than a couple of things - some deer here, a turkey there, a dove on a waist-high nest full of eggs - you don't see animals on them.  If these guys actually saw a bigfoot on one...whoa.

[Cotter]

 

There is no way, no how there were 2 people mis-ID'ing an animal for several hours at close range.   . . .

Again, this doesn't sound at all like a hallucination, Cotter.

 

I assume that you are just as "no way, no how" convinced that the witnesses weren't lying about this encounter, that you're equally convinced they weren't hoaxed, that you're equally convinced they didn't mistake a human (say a hunter in a ghillie suit), etc. When you eliminate all those other possibilities, you are left with the inevitable conclusion:  bigfoot is real.  The problem is that those other possibilities might be eliminated to your satisfaction, but not to mine.  So we're back to what sounds like a cool story, with no way to know for sure what (if anything) these witnesses experienced with a piece of the thing they claim to have witnessed.

 

Too bad, too.  If these guys could've done me the favor of shooting the bigfoot, I could be tucking in to some Alaskan prime rib about now.

 

 

I agree, and I wasn't there, but I weigh the truth of the account on the proven and historical record of the person telling the story. 

 

It's funny, I've asked him why they didn't shoot it, his explanation was several fold.  1)  They were terrified, 2) They were in awe 3) Not sure if there were others around and 4) "when you look them in the eye, you realize you simply can't do it.

 

But, it is a cool story, nothing to rise to proof, of course, but in my world, there is not other more possible explanation that they saw what they saw.  That is why he and I have spent over 20 grand between us trying to have an experience and gather evidence/proof.

 

In the end, it's simply been a great adventure in the outdoors with a good friend.  No bigfoots.  :-(

[Guest DWA]

 

 

 

Science has demonstrated - time and time again - what you do with anecdotal evidence. 

 

I know.  Most recently, that was me (on behalf of "science") explaining yet again what we can do with anecdotal accounts. 

 

OK, so great.  NAWAC is doing it, and we should have proof sooner or later.  Thanks for agreeing with me.  Whew.

 

 

 

Meditation over.  So.  Why do people think one can do nothing with evidence the worth of which has been demonstrated times beyond counting?

 

 

There you go again.  It's that you can do "nothing" with anecdotal evidence, it's that there are limits to what one can do with it.  Here's an example of something we can do with a pattern of what sound like compelling bigfoot reports:  go look for bigfoots in the mountains of southeastern Oklahoma.  Okay, let's try that.  (Oh yeah . . . ) 

 

OK, so great.  etc.

 

Here's something we can't do with anecdotal accounts because there are competing explanations for every single one of them: publish the definitive paper that describes "bigfoot" as a species new to science.

 

So unless and until we have a piece of a bigfoot . . .which folks are working on, and they won't succeed...why...?  I'm just getting a negative slant that I don't understand given some of the things you're saying.  I wouldn't be negative.  And ...well, Meldrum isn't; Bindernagel isn't; and I'm good with whenever this happens, because the history of science says that stuff like this happens quite a bit.

 

 

It means:  I'm taking thousands of apparently sober eyewitnesses over people who seemingly never tire of (1) ways to call them fools or (2) sitting on their hands.

 

 

Um, you're the one who seems to be calling alleged eyewitnesses fools here.  I'm not sure why, though.

 

Because I think that calling them sober, intelligent people WHO SAW A HUGE BIPEDAL PRIMATE is cutting them waaaaaaay too much slack if they (1) honestly think that and (2) didn't.

 

 

 

Prove that.  Not that the folk beliefs exist, but that nowhere do they describe real animals that science doesn't know about yet.  And no this is not "proving a negative."  If the animals exist it is because they do.

 

Do you see that my VERY NEXT SENTENCE (actually, my next THREE sentences) alludes to the possibility of folklore with an origin in real bigfoots?  If you do see that, then you are trolling, plain and simple.  If you don't see that, then please look again and read my posts more carefully in the future.

 

Oh, I read them quite carefully.  And your take is that these aren't real.  Oh, I read them. 

You have said - "totally convinced", your words, that you are not willing to concede that any of this reflects the reality of the animal.  I took you at your word on that.  Why shouldn't I?  My observations are that WSA and I read posts more carefully than anyone else here.  So what's the bait and switch if not trolling, plain and simple?  Hmmmm?

 

 

 

 

I doubt people are lying to experience the fun of being made fun of.  I'm skeptical of explanations like that.

 

Why do you assume that people participate in spinning folkloric yarns so that they can be ridiculed?  Yes, some people might ridicule them, but other people will laud them.  It's simply a matter of what group of people you'd like to court.  Why do you assume that the laud isn't worth the ridicule?  Case in point, count the number of people here on the BFF who've commented that they think Ostman concocted his story whole cloth and the number of people who've indicated that his is one of the "best" or "most believable" encounters.  We even had a thread on this a while back with a poll so you can get some real numbers if you like.  For every naysayer like me, there are plenty of other folks with no doubt about the veracity of Ostman's story.

 

Or take someone reporting a more mundane encounter, like witness to a bigfoot road crossing.  What would anyone who wasn't there and didn't have the experience have to "make fun of" the witness about?  I might not believe based on the story that the witness saw an actual bigfoot, but there's nothing to ridicule the witness about for what s/he's convinced s/he saw.  On the flipside, our witness gains stature in the bigfoot community, graduating to "knower" status, which is the source of much admiration around here as you might have noticed.

 

And all of them are spinning tales for fun, except the fools and the ones who are lying for other reasons (fools of a different stripe).  I'm just skeptical of explanations like that.  What would they have to make fun of the witness about?  Um, ask some witnesses.  "That I saw something that isn't real and they make fun of me every time it comes up" is, um, a rather frequent answer to that when one reads the reports.  And if you saw a HUGE BIPEDAL PRIMATE THAT ISN'T REAL CROSSING A ROAD WHILE YOU WERE DRIVING then that is prima facie cause to revoke your driver's license before you hurt someone.  Unless, you know, you actually saw it.  And if you saw one while hunting and I were the head of the state DNR I better not find out who you are or your hunting license is gone.  Unless, you know, you actually saw it. 

 

 

 

3) People misidentify  . . .

 

Not like this, they don't.  If I ran to a police car, lights flashing, started pounding on the windows and yelling I WANT ICE CREAM until the cops stepped out and cuffed me, think I could get off with "I thought you were an ice cream truck!  What?"  THAT kind of sober, smart and alert is what we are talking about if these people are wrong.

 

What are you talking about?  I didn't write anything about police cars and ice cream trucks.  I'm talking about legitimate misidentifcations. 

 

No.  Such.  Thing.

 

We know about some of them; for others, we'll never know.  For example, from Coltman and Davis (2008):

 

"In July 2005, nine residents of Teslin, Yukon, witnessed through a kitchen window a large bipedal animal moving through the brush. The next morning, they collected a tuft of coarse, dark hair and also observed a footprint measuring 43 cm in length and 11.5 cm in width."

 

NINE people saw a big, hairy animal they were convinced was bipedal.  They found a 17" footprint and collected what they were convinced was a tuft of hair from the beast.   The result of DNA analysis on the hair?

 

"The top 58 matches were from B. bison, all with 99–100% sequence identity."

 

So nine people mistook a bison for a bigfoot.

 

In which case a mental hospital needs patients, and we found some. 

 

Unless, you know, they saw one, and collected bison hair by mistake, a scenario on which I could bet some money.  (Bison don't leave footprints with those dimensions, and theirs look like hooves.  If you are telling me the hooves were that size, we have a story bigger than bigfoot.)

 

Or - and you know this was it - the 'matches' were a mistaken analysis , or somebody saying to somebody, derail this nonsense.  Tell 'em this is bison.  NEVER happens.  Except that skeptics like me - who work in government - know it's likely that it does.  Simple.  Bureaucrats facing headaches alleviate them by well-known procedures.  Trust me.  All levels of government have people like that...and when they think they are Saving The Taxpayer From This Nonsense, they can do it in the utter conviction that it is the right thing to do.  That it isn't might not occur to these totally honest people. 

 

I'm skeptical of any 'explanation' that says any of us are going to see a person in a suit and think anything but.   That is, the sober, smart and alert among us.

 

Right, I keep forgetting that you're a "skeptic".  Are you saying that all the folks here who think "Patty" was a real bigfoot are neither sober, nor smart, nor alert?

 

No.  They think Patty is a real bigfoot.  I think she might be, too.  See, I reject the "fool" hypothesis, because the evidence says sober, intelligent people who could not mistake anything on the continent for A GIANT BIPEDAL PRIMATE are seeing A GIANT BIPEDAL PRIMATE.  O..M..G.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5) Some people might experience impairments amounting to some kind of hallucination they they are, again, 100% convinced was an actual interaction with an actual bigfoot.   

 

That would have to be pretty much all of them.   Unless they're all lying so they can be made fun of. 

 

So you're unwilling to consider that misidentification, lying, or hoaxing play any role in the accumulation of anecdotal accounts, I'm willing to consider that real bigfoots could be the source of some of the accounts, and you accuse me of being closed-minded?   Got it.

You have said - "totally convinced", your words, that you are not willing to concede that.  I took you at your word on that.  Why shouldn't I?  Are we baiting and switching again?

 

 

 

Under #3 - 5 of the above possibilities, you can have completely sane, rational, intelligent, etc., people who will passionately and earnestly tell you that they saw a bigfoot.  This in itself will perpetuate widespread belief in bigfoot because one of the most important ways people come to accept bigfoot as real is through a conversation with someone they really trust who claims an encounter.  The witness is being 100% honest, but still no actual bigfoot was seen.

 

Not the real world that most of us interact with every day.  In that world, the people you really trust tend not to be fools.

 

Since when is someone a "fool" for misidentifying something out in the woods?  You don't have to be a fool, just a human to commit such an error.  A really weird one, yes.  Unless, you know, you are just seeing one.

 

We could.  How much would you bet on that? 

I have already bet my limit on bigfoot:  I'm in for a trip to Palmer, Alaska and a prime rib dinner should a real bigfoot show up in my lifetime.

 

 

Here's the important part:  but we cannot know for sure because the reports are anecdotal.

 

And there are ways to find out. 

Really, Perry Mason?  Do tell. Well, Mr. Burger, you do sometimes seem to need my assistance.

 

 

[dmaker]

So basically the only counter you can offer is "unless they did actually see a Bigfoot"? Or in the case of samples collected that come back as anything but a Bigfoot, well then it's a conspiracy?

 

Ok, gotcha....

[Guest DWA]

[yawn]huh?

[Squatchy McSquatch]

My cousin said that your cousin saw a bear, not bigfoot.

 

My cousin told me all about your cousin seeing a bear, not bigfoot.

 

My cousin doesn't seem to me like he's lying, so he must be telling the truth.

 

About a bear, not bigfoot.

[Guest DWA]

[yawn]wha?

[norseman]

 

 

Well I might hold out the possibility that my cousin's right, were I you.

 

Sure, we have discussed it often. He knows of my interest but he doesn't know I have become a skeptic. He is quite adamant about what they saw (he was with another), and when he retells the story, of course I have to reconsider my stance...especially because we are close and I doubt very much he would lie to me, or shy away from telling me he was not telling me true after all this time.

 

 

My cousin's experience aside. One of the problems I have with eye witness accounts stems from experience. Back in my BF interest peak, I had a friend of a friend approach me because he knew of my interest. He had a story he wanted to relay to me so I listened. Without remembering all the details, he was out with friends for a weekend on what he referred to as a 'bushwhacking' weekend. Their thing was to drive out to the bush on some logging road and randomly park their vehicle, put on their packs, and just plow through the bush and find a place to set up camp for the weekend (actually sounds like a decent way to spend a weekend...but I digress). His claim was they saw what they thought was BF. At the time he seemed very detailed in his recounting of the experience. At that time I had been in communication with an actual BF researcher who was living in Calgary at the time (I have seen him post here), so I asked if I could relay the story and pass on their contact info because said investigator may be interested in contacting them. With their approval I did just that. Problem was, when they were contacted they totally denied the story and pretended to not know what the guy was referring too. When I found this out, well of course I looked like a chump (even bigger than I am today). When I asked them why they had done so they again denied the story to me, all the while having been totally passionate and convincing of the story in the first place. Go figure.

 

 

A) Either the whole story was bogus and they got scared when someone seeming to act in a official manner contacted them.

 

B )The whole story is true and again they got scared when someone attempted to talk to them about it.

C) The group was not convinced at what they saw as a whole, one member reached out and the rest pulled him back in. "You told WHO? You idiot!"

 

Separating the wheat from the chaff can be tricky, and one can only guess someone's motives as to why they would want to make up a story like that. Obviously I would want to see some form of collaborating evidence to back up their story. I.e. A trackway, a photo, something.........

 

Or I may choose to just go out there and do a "snoop and poop".......no harm, no foul.

 

I don't think any anecdotal story should change anyone's mind. Either you've had a compelling experience of your own or you haven't. But if you have I suppose these stories do at least interest you in taking a harder look.

 

I had a lady in Colville tell me her sighting story, all the while in the back ground her husband belittled her. She has lived there all her life and I believe she easily can tell the difference between a Bear, a Moose butt and a upright Ape. And she is absolutely adamant about what she saw. And the area she saw it in is well.........."good" country. It's vast, underpopulated and borders the Kootenai region of BC. It's my personal opinion that if she was telling a lie, with all of the verbal beatings she was taking from her husband about the story? She would have dropped it a long time ago. It's just one of those things.........it's either compelling to you or it's not.

 

It always seems black and white in here........either your a true believer or a staunch non believer, well I honestly think there is some gray area in between those two posts. I do not know for a fact they are out there, but I find it compelling enough to go look, and carry something with me that if lightning does strike? I'll be prepared.

 

Also, I think skeptics are more compelled than what they lead onto.........I mean why this subject? There are a million fanciful subjects out there to go onto a forum and proclaim them to be utter fantasy. But they continual come back to this one over and over again. In many ways they are exactly like the true believer, willing to hash on this subject against one other I guess forever......... Batman needs a Joker sort of scenario.

 

I would guess that what compels them is that they feel sort of let down by it all. And that they need to feel like they are getting some sort of revenge on the subject that sucked them in..........yanno what? I get it. I do.......it's the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. I feel let down as well. But having a experience of my own I cannot explain, I simply want to cut through the baloney, the three ring circus if you will known as Bigfootdom, and get right to the chase. Science has said all along..........what they need. It's time Bigfootdom listens or else continue stumbling around in the dark looking like buffoons.

 

And if my time is non productive? At least I enjoyed the ride........

Edited June 20, 2013 by norseman

[Guest]

Just a couple more things that apparently need some elaboration:

 

1) According to DWA, only "fools" would misidentify something for a "giant bipedal primate"; therefore, people who claim to see such a thing must actually be seeing it. 

 

In reality, the threads of the BFF are rife with examples of back-and-forth discussions about the identify of something in a photo or video.  We recently had the moose leg from Manitoba for example, and who can forget the Jacobs creature?  We've got two, crystal clear photos of the latter and still a massive divide between the "bear" and "juvenile squatch" camps.  Now imagine instead of endless hours to examine the minute details of a photo or video, we've got the typical few seconds of actual observation time that we see in BFRO reports.  Perfectly functioning eyes and brains make errors of identification all the time.  This can be an important source of compelling bigfoot accounts because the witnesses can be 100% honest, intelligent people who've simply misidentified something.  Perhaps I understand this better than most because the number one skill that my folks need to display in the field is correct species identification, and it is NOT 100% even for me and my best technicians.  The phenomenon is, however, very well established in psychology and neurobiology so folks can check that literature if they'd like to learn more about it.

 

Some much smaller subset of alleged witnesses, like in Cotter's example or the William Roe account, offer far more detailed observations and sometimes over lengthy periods of time.  This should eliminate the possibility that they saw something that wasn't big, bipedal, hairy, etc., but there are other candidates for the observation even in these cases.  Humans are bipedal, can look hairy (whether intentionally in a bigfoot costume or unintentionally in a ghillie suit), and apparent size is one of the easiest things for our brains to misinterpet. So even in cases like these in which the subject is alleged to have been seen so well, we can't be sure of what was really seen (if anything).

 

2) According to DWA, there are three possibilities to explain the Yukon "bigfoot" hair that ended up on examination to have been from a bison.  [Let's note first that this is another example of "science" engaging the alleged bigfoot evidence - something I'm told repeatedly here that scientists never do.  It was also published in a prestigious journal - something I'm told repeatedly here that journal editors never do.]

 

*The 9 people who reported seeing the bigfoot should all be in a mental hospital.  Perhaps.  Mental hospitals exist and there are plenty of people in this world who could benefit from visiting one.  There is also nothing preventing any of those 9 people from reporting a bigfoot sighting to the BFRO and having their sighting included in the canon of bigfootery for all time.  The mentally ill don't just sit around babbling in a corner all day long; this is why we have these things called "psychologists" whose job it is to conduct lengthy discussions with people to help determine who is and who is not mentally ill, and to what degree medical intervention might be needed.  I'm willing to bet, however, that if the bison hair had never been analyzed, this story would be one that DWA would often tout in discussions with me as a prime example in which there's no way there could've been anything but a bigfoot outside that kitchen window.  After all, how could NINE people simultaneously see the same thing if it wasn't so?

 

*The hair analysis did confirm or suggest "bigfoot" but the gov't conspiracy quashed the result, because Lord knows the gov't doesn't want anyone to know bigfoots are real.  Perhaps, but which "government" are we talking about here?  Canada?  Yukon?  NATO? Let's consider the players here:  We've got 9 residents from a town in the Yukon and two molecular biologists (Dave Coltman and Corey Davis) from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta.  Hmm - those biologist types are generally a lot more interested in sticking it to the man as opposed to being the man, but I guess technically U of A could be construed to be "the gov't".  How they would've known what Coltman and Davis were working on, however, is beyond me.  I rarely share any of my manuscripts with higher-ups in my department until after they're published, and I'm supposed to be required to do that before I ever send them out for review.  So a U of A conspiracy is remote and, frankly, untenable.  What about the journal?  TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution is a denizen of exceedingly high functioning hippie ecologists and evolutionary biologists - not the sort of people prone to keeping information under wraps, especially if there's the barest hint that the information could 1) lead to a flood of grant money available to them for follow-up studies and 2) potentially lead to enhanced environmental protections.

 

*The nine DID see a bigfoot, but they mistakenly collected bison hair that they thought had come from it.  Perhaps, but let's not forget that they were 100% convinced that the hair came from the bigfoot - that's why they sent it for analysis.  These are people who see bison and bison hair all the time, but they were convinced that this was something else.

 

3) According to DWA, I am being disingenuous when I write that I am personally convinced that there is no bigfoot out there to be discovered yet I include "real bigfoot" as one of the possible explanations for anecdotal accounts.  I suspect that his difficulty with my position stems from his inability or unwillingness to consider being wrong about a position on which current evidence is based but newer competing evidence could reveal to be in error.

[dmaker]

That was an excellent post as usual Saskeptic. Very well planned and written and, in my opinion, illustrates your position quite clearly.

 

But unless competing evidence comes from Meldrum, Bindernagel or Krantz, I wouldn't hold my breath on any concessions from DWA. If he can honestly respond with a straight face that the bison hair was the result of a conspiracy or an erroneous collection, then there is no room in his world for the current evidence to ever be wrong.  That is the type of response I wold have expected from the desperate fringe, not from him.   That response is up there with " maybe the Bigfoot was wearing a bear pelt and that's why the results came back as bear", in regards to the Sierra killings.

Edited June 20, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest DWA]

Unless competing evidence comes from Meldrum, Bindernagel or Krantz, I wouldn't hold my breath on any concessions from DWA. If he can honestly respond with a straight face that the bison hair was the result of a conspiracy or an erroneous collection, then there is no room in his world for the current evidence to ever be wrong.  That is the type of response I wold have expected from the desperate fringe, not from him.   That response is up there with " maybe the Bigfoot was wearing a bear pelt and that's why the results came back as bear", in regards to the Sierra killings.

OK, dmaker, you have got to be kidding me.  Read that account again.  Come on.

 

NINE people claim the sighting; tracks that sure don't sound like bison either to me or to anyone else who knows about animals were reported; and you are hinging it all on some HAIR looke at - maybe - by people who weren't even there?

 

The people who sound desperate to me are the ones who keep coming back with straws they just grasped.

 

THE MOST LIKELY THING that happened here - given all we know - was either a bad test or a "get these silly people out of here"  "result."

 

Anyone who thinks otherwise ...well, some more real-world experience would help.

Just a couple more things that apparently need some elaboration:

 

1) According to DWA, only "fools" would misidentify something for a "giant bipedal primate"; therefore, people who claim to see such a thing must actually be seeing it. 

 

In reality, the threads of the BFF are rife with examples of back-and-forth discussions about the identify of something in a photo or video.  We recently had the moose leg from Manitoba for example, and who can forget the Jacobs creature?  We've got two, crystal clear photos of the latter and still a massive divide between the "bear" and "juvenile squatch" camps.  Now imagine instead of endless hours to examine the minute details of a photo or video, we've got the typical few seconds of actual observation time that we see in BFRO reports.  Perfectly functioning eyes and brains make errors of identification all the time.  This can be an important source of compelling bigfoot accounts because the witnesses can be 100% honest, intelligent people who've simply misidentified something.  Perhaps I understand this better than most because the number one skill that my folks need to display in the field is correct species identification, and it is NOT 100% even for me and my best technicians.  The phenomenon is, however, very well established in psychology and neurobiology so folks can check that literature if they'd like to learn more about it.

 

Some much smaller subset of alleged witnesses, like in Cotter's example or the William Roe account, offer far more detailed observations and sometimes over lengthy periods of time.  This should eliminate the possibility that they saw something that wasn't big, bipedal, hairy, etc., but there are other candidates for the observation even in these cases.  Humans are bipedal, can look hairy (whether intentionally in a bigfoot costume or unintentionally in a ghillie suit), and apparent size is one of the easiest things for our brains to misinterpet. So even in cases like these in which the subject is alleged to have been seen so well, we can't be sure of what was really seen (if anything).

 

2) According to DWA, there are three possibilities to explain the Yukon "bigfoot" hair that ended up on examination to have been from a bison.  [Let's note first that this is another example of "science" engaging the alleged bigfoot evidence - something I'm told repeatedly here that scientists never do.  It was also published in a prestigious journal - something I'm told repeatedly here that journal editors never do.]

 

*The 9 people who reported seeing the bigfoot should all be in a mental hospital.  Perhaps.  Mental hospitals exist and there are plenty of people in this world who could benefit from visiting one.  There is also nothing preventing any of those 9 people from reporting a bigfoot sighting to the BFRO and having their sighting included in the canon of bigfootery for all time.  The mentally ill don't just sit around babbling in a corner all day long; this is why we have these things called "psychologists" whose job it is to conduct lengthy discussions with people to help determine who is and who is not mentally ill, and to what degree medical intervention might be needed.  I'm willing to bet, however, that if the bison hair had never been analyzed, this story would be one that DWA would often tout in discussions with me as a prime example in which there's no way there could've been anything but a bigfoot outside that kitchen window.  After all, how could NINE people simultaneously see the same thing if it wasn't so?

 

*The hair analysis did confirm or suggest "bigfoot" but the gov't conspiracy quashed the result, because Lord knows the gov't doesn't want anyone to know bigfoots are real.  Perhaps, but which "government" are we talking about here?  Canada?  Yukon?  NATO? Let's consider the players here:  We've got 9 residents from a town in the Yukon and two molecular biologists (Dave Coltman and Corey Davis) from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta.  Hmm - those biologist types are generally a lot more interested in sticking it to the man as opposed to being the man, but I guess technically U of A could be construed to be "the gov't".  How they would've known what Coltman and Davis were working on, however, is beyond me.  I rarely share any of my manuscripts with higher-ups in my department until after they're published, and I'm supposed to be required to do that before I ever send them out for review.  So a U of A conspiracy is remote and, frankly, untenable.  What about the journal?  TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution is a denizen of exceedingly high functioning hippie ecologists and evolutionary biologists - not the sort of people prone to keeping information under wraps, especially if there's the barest hint that the information could 1) lead to a flood of grant money available to them for follow-up studies and 2) potentially lead to enhanced environmental protections.

 

*The nine DID see a bigfoot, but they mistakenly collected bison hair that they thought had come from it.  Perhaps, but let's not forget that they were 100% convinced that the hair came from the bigfoot - that's why they sent it for analysis.  These are people who see bison and bison hair all the time, but they were convinced that this was something else.

 

3) According to DWA, I am being disingenuous when I write that I am personally convinced that there is no bigfoot out there to be discovered yet I include "real bigfoot" as one of the possible explanations for anecdotal accounts.  I suspect that his difficulty with my position stems from his inability or unwillingness to consider being wrong about a position on which current evidence is based but newer competing evidence could reveal to be in error.

As usual, you're dancing around any real engagement with this.  But at least a couple of us are not surprised.

 

You honestly think that it's conspiracy-theorist to think that some basically honest and OK people went "look, this doesn't exist and this is a waste of our time"?  Oh, OK.  That is very trusting (or defensive) of you.  But not to put NINE people's experience at least up there with a couple of vitamin-D challenged analysts in a lab is...well, trusting is the least of what it is.

 

It's calling the nine people fools.

 

Oh, it is.

If you aren't going to engage...well, doesn't matter what one knows in areas having nothing to do with this one.

 

WSA's right.  Down the line.

Scientists aren't infallible, guys.  Much is wasted here on what is not really that big a deal; it certainly happens enough.

Um, the tracks?  Did someone just do a "forgetting" on the tracks?  Oh.  OK.

 

Faith in scientists is as touching as any other kind.

[dmaker]

So, by engage you really mean agree with me?

[Guest DWA]

Why is it that English words aren't scanning in translation?

 

Or do I get to ask you that one right back?

[dmaker]

Because the only people you consider "engaged" are ones you agree with. 

[Guest DWA]

Failure to engage is failure to engage.  You guys show enormous trust in a scientific establishment that is routinely wrong, right Max Planck? and put no stock at all into the experiences of ordinary people with eyes and brains just as effective as anyone else's.

 

I'd also like to know the relative bush experience of those witnesses and the vitamin-D-challenged analysts who said "bison hair."

 

Saskeptic himself says:  "...let's not forget that they were 100% convinced that the hair came from the bigfoot - that's why they sent it for analysis.  These are people who see bison and bison hair all the time, but they were convinced that this was something else."

 

Oh.

 

OK. 

 

Tells me that maybe a sample didn't get tested, but was seen as getting in the way of more important stuff.  Oh, zero possibility of that.

 

Oh.

 

OK.

Because the only people you consider "engaged" are ones you agree with. 

...and there might not be any reason for that.

 

Oh.  OK.