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

[dmaker]

"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?" -DWA

 

The tracks were 16 inches long and 4.5 inches wide. Is that not within the realm of bison hooves? (legit question there, I have never seen a bison track)  I admit that a putative BF track and a bison track would probably not look much alike, but we are, after all, discussing how people mistaken things regularly.

 

Also, so a technician now has to be present when the sample is collected before the analysis has any credibility? Since when has that been a requirement? Good news for lab techs though. They are all going out into the field for that Vitamin D deficiency you are so worried about!

Edited June 20, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest DWA]

Bison tracks:

 

"Cloven hearts, similar to those of domestic cow, but rounder and somewhat larger, about 5" (125 mm)  wide for mature bull."

 

 

Don't know why the source didn't have length.  But they are so close to round that count on it, length isn't a factor.

 

And if the tracks had been hooves, well, I think ID would have been obvious.  Never mind size.

43/2.5 = 17 inches long.

 

NOT bison tracks.  Right in the range for sasquatch tracks though.

[dmaker]

So even though the only thing actually verified from the encounter was Bison, you still think the obvious answer is Bigfoot?   But this revelation was withheld by an unlikely conspiracy?

 

You're sliding toward the fringe my friend...

Edited June 20, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest DWA]

You are assuming there.  You are assuming that the hair was from what the people saw.  Where in the account is that verified?

 

You are assuming that it was tested.  Where in the account is it verified that the test they say was done, was done, particularly since I've heard things like "we threw it out" or "we lost it" more than once.

 

NINE PEOPLE SAW THE THING.  It left tracks that are definitely, from length alone, not bison.

 

Your definition of "verified" is, let's just say, interesting.

 

While on assumptions:  where did I say what the "obvious" answer was?  From the account, bison isn't "obvious" and a mistake is very much on the table.  And seems to scan, quite well.

 

It's worth speculating on that one reason science can be so glacially slow about some things is the total mistrust of competent laymen's observations.

 

I'd want to know much more about this before I came down on it one way or the other (or the third, "inconclusive.")  But saskeptic is ready to Gong Show this one as bison, when a truly objective scientist might have problems with that. 

 

Only the most obvious of which are:  NINE observers and 17-inch tracks.

 

But haven't we seen this before.

[dmaker]

Maybe it was a bison wearing a Bigfoot mask and Bigfoot shoes?

 

Or maybe it was just a bison?

 

Nine people in one kitchen sounds like a good candidate for this kind of scenario:

 

"Hey, look is that a Bigfoot?"

"Where, I don't see it?"

"Right there, see that lump..that could totally be the head! And that patch of brown under it, totally the chest!"

"Yeah, I see it now! Hey Pa, come over here and see this Bigfoot!"

 

etc...

 

The tracks? Who knows? Maybe the bison was dragging its hooves? I'm no expert in mammalian track inspection, so I can't really speculate how accurate we should expect another non-expert to be when examining and identifying something. But when the proffered hair comes back as bison, I'm going to think that maybe those powers of observation for both the animal sighting and subsequent measuring and identifying of the tracks to possibly be less than perfect as well.

"Where in the account is it verified that the test they say was done, was done, particularly since I've heard things like "we threw it out" or "we lost it" more than once."

 

Are you suggesting that the lab didn't do the test, or that the test is a piece of fiction thrown into the story for what reason and by whom?  Even if you had the lab report in your hands, you would still cry conspiracy. 

[Guest DWA]

Whatever you want to believe and whatever will make you believe it.

 

Scientists are, of course, infallible.

 

Oh.  OK.

Remember, it's saskeptic who vouches for the ability of these people to ID the hair.

[dmaker]

It's really quite interesting this example. Because Saskeptic is quite correct in his prediction I believe. If this did not involve the testing of the hair, you would have this encounter woven into the fabric of your argument so deeply that we would be sick of hearing about by now. It would be up there with apples and ganymedes, and trains to catch and ( a new one I admit) police cars and ice-cream trucks. But the hair in the ointment came back as bison. So you spin yarns of conspiracy theories and fake lab tests. 

 

Let's take it one more hypothetical step further: if the test had of come back as unknown ( or as footers like to say, "unknown primate"), then I can guarantee there is no way you would be suggesting fake lab tests or calling into question the technicians for not being present or any of the other smoke screens you're tossing at this encounter story. No way, sir. This would be a shining example for you. But since the results don't jive with how you want the evidence to be, then it either didn't happen, the technicians are incompetent because they weren't there, or they are covering it up. 

 

That's some pretty interesting stuff.

[Guest DWA]

Unlike some people, I'm not into total gullible trusting of the Church of Science on this one, particularly given copious evidence that they are flat missing something that is right under their noses.

Anything you want to believe, and anything that makes you want to believe it, but only if it makes you feel better.

 

So.  Ready to go take on UFOs now?

[dmaker]

"Whatever you want to believe and whatever will make you believe it."   

 

Irony, thy name is DWA.

[Guest DWA]

I really don't think your take on me would be borne out by evidence.  But I think mine on you and saskeptic is money.

[dmaker]

But they looked at something right under their nose--it came back as Bison, remember?

[Guest DWA]

So.  Ready to go take on crop circles now?

I just told you what I think about that.

 

Anyone who is utterly sure that that's the hair and that people who know this can't be taken seriously took it seriously...well, I wonder what you would trust, if it were those folks that said it to you.

[WSA]

Saskeptic, just to expand on your comments a bit. When you say the accounts are fascinating to you, do you mean in the sense they reflect just a probable psychological/sociological phenomenon, or as possible evidence of what they claim to describe?  Me, I do consider a hoax/hallucination/folklore component to be present, and a careful reading of most of them can give one a good feel for those probabilities.

 

Example: Recent report of man in N.C. who got up from a computer after a long session of on-line gaming in a dark room, looks outside and sees a BF in his front yard. To me, I've got to rule out a persistence of vision explanation first. (Can't recall if there were also physical manifestations in this report to account for, but you get my point) 

 

Other reports just won't be crammed into that box. 

 

My whole premise of my latest posts is there is this frank mystery we all see, and some won't acknowledge. If you share my ignorance, I welcome that. I think it is foolish to think a bunch of us here could solve this riddle (and after how many hundreds of thousands of words written?), but I think I would count it as progress if we could come clean on both sides and say, "I don't know", and just leave it at that for now.  The discussion long before I showed up got polarized as a " What Science Requires" vs. "The Strength of Human Credibility" argument, and to the extent I contributed to that, I think it was ill-advised. I now have come to conclude it is some of both, or if it is one thing, it doesn't necessarily preclude the validity of the other. 

 

 I have no hesitation to say,  "I don't know."  If you, or anyone else here says they do know, I will assiduously avoid them, and this thread can just extend into perpetuity without me!

[dmaker]

"Anyone who is utterly sure that that's the hair and that people who know this can't be taken seriously took it seriously...well, I wonder what you would trust, if it were those folks that said it to you."

 

I'm sorry, that sentence is confusing. Could you clear it up a bit please? Who am I not supposed to trust here?  I'm confused because you and WSA and constantly telling me I need to trust my fellow man.  Or is that my fellow man as long as he is not a scientist? Well, actually pro-Bigfoot scientists can be trusted, but no others!

Edited June 20, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest DWA]

"I just grasped a cool straw and bigfoot's not real" just gets a weetad bit old.

 

The case for bureaucratic error and indifference - no malfeasance even required - in this instant case is pretty prominent.  And to just go down the line with "nine people saw it and can be counted on to ID the hair and the tracks ain't bison but that's what it is"

 

is...well...we are just totally OK with that...?

 

Oh.

 

OK.

 

NSA, hold tight just a tad and I'll get you all the information you can use on me.

"Anyone who is utterly sure that that's the hair and that people who know this can't be taken seriously took it seriously...well, I wonder what you would trust, if it were those folks that said it to you."

 

I'm sorry, that sentence is confusing. Could you clear it up a bit please? Who am I not supposed to trust here?  I'm confused because you and WSA and constantly telling me I need to trust my fellow man.  Or is that my fellow man as long as he is not a scientist? Well, actually pro-Bigfoot scientists can be trusted, but no others!

And again with the inability to understand English.  Come on.  Proponents and skeptics don't have this problem.  "Bigfoot skeptics" though?  It's surprising.  Might be a journal article in this one.

Childlike trust in the mechanics of bureaucracies of which one knows little if anything is...well, cute or scary or both.  Lemme think.  It does seem a disease of this century, though.