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

[Guest]

One can say anything one wants about the scientific mainstream's attitude toward sasquatch. 

You have nearly 2500 posts here DWA, and you have never been able to demonstrate why the "scientific mainstream's attitude" matters one iota.  Your man Bindernagel is actively investigating reports, and if he gets just one piece of a bigfoot from any one of his leads that's it:  game over, bigfoot is real.  No amount of ivory-tower snickering at simpletons call-blasting in the woods can stand up to an actual piece of an actual bigfoot.  Attitudes don't matter.  If you've got the goods, bigfoot is real.

[Guest DWA]

And until we're looking for the "piece" as you put it the way we look for everything else...well, good luck getting the "piece."

 

Three expedtions in a half-century.  None of them as long as it took Jane Goodall to start seeing chimps. 

 

Just sayin'.

 

You've said why the scientific mainstream's attitude (spelled m.o.n.e.y.) matters.  And three day jaunts that wouldn't confirm a fox are what you get with none of that.
 

[Guest DWA]

This from the Wiki entry on the saola http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saola

 

"The team found three skulls with unusual long straight horns kept in hunters' houses. In their article, the team proposed "a three month survey to observe the living animal" but, more than 20 years later, there is still no reported sighting of a saola in the wild by a scientist."

 

No Westerner has ever even reported seeing one in the wild.  Three skulls (vs. a movie of a sasquatch) and a smattering of info from native informants (vs. thousands of tracks and sightings of sasquatch) led to the discovery.

 

One can talk qualitative differences until one is blue in the face.  One cannot say about those differences, however, that they justify simply disregarding evidence.

[Guest]

^You do realize that the discovery and description of the saola obliterates your point, right?  To wit this excerpt from a post of mine a while back:

 

"I'm not sure why people fail to appreciate the chasm of difference between the discovery of creatures in remote parts of the world over the last century and the lack of discovery of bigfoot despite repeated and ongoing field work in areas in which they are supposed to occur.  These glib comparisons make great "don't-those-know-it-all-scientists-look-silly" soundbites, but when you really examine them they fall apart.

 

Case in point, the Vu Quang ox or saola, discovered by western scientists in 1992 and formally described in the journal Nature in 1993.  The Vu Quang Nature Reserve, on the border between Vietnam and Laos, is one of the most remote places on the planet, and is, to this day, still very difficult to access for western scientists.  Near as I can tell, the joint survey of the region conducted by the Vietnamese Ministry of Forestry and the World Wildlife Fund in 1992 was the first formal wildlife survey conducted there.  On that first survey, the scientists collected 3 sets of horns, just one of which would have been sufficient to describe some kind of new species.  In less than a year, four follow-up surveys by Vietnamese scientists turned up additional complete skulls, skins, etc., such that by the time they paper was submitted in 1993, it included a description based on the examination of over 20 specimens.  Now, 20 years later, the saola has proven difficult to keep alive in captivity, and its biggest problem is that people (both poachers and indigenous hunters) are simply too good at catching them.  While it is true that the species was not directly observed in the wild by western scientists at the time the paper was published, it has been definitively photographed in the wild (and in captivity) with the first camera trap photos apparently obtained in 1999."

And until we're looking for the "piece" as you put it the way we look for everything else...well, good luck getting the "piece."

 

So what the heck have Bindernagel et al. been up to with their research all these years?  They haven't been trying to prove bigfoot?

 

Three expedtions in a half-century.  None of them as long as it took Jane Goodall to start seeing chimps. 

 

Just sayin'.

 

You only consider that there have been 3 serious attempts to find bigfoot in the past 50 years?  You're doing more than just "saying".

 

You've said why the scientific mainstream's attitude (spelled m.o.n.e.y.) matters.  And three day jaunts that wouldn't confirm a fox are what you get with none of that.

 

No, Mr. Complain-that-everyone-misreads-his-statements, I've been saying all along that one doesn't need money (or a degree or a month's-long expedition) to find a piece of a bigfoot.
 

[Guest DWA]

As I said:  you can discuss qualitative differences until you're blue in the face.

 

And you are wrong about saola obliterating anything.  It illustrates one of my favorite points:  the only-in-remote-places disclaimer.  The mainstream tries to forestall sasquatch with:  under our noses?  IMPOSSIBLE!  Well, if you don't look, pretty close to it.

 

Please stop telling me those scientists are out there in the field trying to prove sasquatch.  No one is, for any amount of time that should be expected to garner anything, except for those lone three stints. (Far less than has been spent on saola.  Far bigger area too; smarter animal; and lots more evidence, that happens to be consistent.)  Sorry, that's the facts.  No-proof doesn't alter the facts.

 

"I've been saying all along that one doesn't need money (or a degree or a month's-long expedition) to find a piece of a bigfoot."
 

Evidence disputes you.

Edited June 6, 2013 by DWA

[Guest]

 

There are no black mountain lions, and as far as we know there never have been.   They don't come in black.

 

And as long as no evidence that this assessment is wrong is taken seriously, that 'truth' will remain.  (Hmmm.  Doesn't that sound familiar.)   If other cats come in black, what says this one absolutely cannot?  But we know what happens when everyone who says they saw one is deemed out of the box crazy.

 

Although some of the kitties claimed to be big cats leave me scratching my head, mistaking a cat-sized cat for a lion-sized cat doesn't make the witness stupid, immature, drunk, mentally ill, or agenda-laden. 

 

You may not be able to prove it.  But I can tell you I would make no such mistake, I'd bet most people wouldn't, and if you did, I am down for a significant amount of  money for you being one of the above.

 

My Dad has been backpacking for 40+ years. He is the head of the echocardiography lab at a huge hospital in the PNW. He is a very smart, and very observant man who has logged 1000 of hours in the woods.

 

On a trip to Mt. Rainer, on a foggy day, he noticed a bear lounging on a rock up the slope. The wind in front of him, he decided to get a closer look and began to creep up on the animal. He was surprised how close he able to get. He made a noise, startled the bear who suddenly flipped around 180 degrees with amazing speed and dashed into and under some rocks. My Dad stood up, got a better look and laughed. He wasn't yards away from a bear, he was feet away from a marmot.

 

With the land sloping up, and the animal silhouetted against the cloudy sky, with only the stunted growth of vegetation near the tree line to gauge size, he had misjudged the mass of that animal by about 5000%.

 

When otherwise intelligent people can make huge mistakes, and otherwise honest people tell massive lies, anecdotal evidence is just not that reliable. I don't discount people who see black cats, but I don't think that does much to certify bigfoot sightings. I know cats exist. I know black cats exist. I can't say the same for sasquatch, color morphs or not.

Edited June 6, 2013 by BigGinger
To Remove Implied Profanity

[xspider1]

The trips that I've taken into the woods always seem to cost mega bucks.  And, obviously, the more remote the destination and the longer the trip, the more $ it takes.  just sayin'  :B

[Guest DWA]

 He made a noise, startled the bear who suddenly flipped around 180 degrees with amazing speed and dashed into and under some rocks. My Dad stood up, got a better look and laughed. He wasn't yards away from a bear, he was feet away from a  marmot.

With the land sloping up, and the animal silhouetted against the cloudy sky, with only the stunted growth of vegetation near the tree line to gauge size, he had misjudged the mass of that animal by about 5000%.

 

When otherwise intelligent people can make huge mistakes, and otherwise honest people tell massive lies, anecdotal evidence is just not that reliable. I don't discount people who see black cats, but I don't think that does much to certify bigfoot sightings. I know cats exist. I know black cats exist. I can't say the same for sasquatch, color morphs or not.

 

Well, one guy, and two animals that - size not taken into account - look much more alike than a bear and a bipedal ape.  That no one thinks is real.

 

I haven't read a sasquatch report that makes it likely to me that that kind of messup is happening.

 

Inconsistencies allowed, volume and consistency do count for something.

Edited June 6, 2013 by DWA
To Remove Implied Profanity

[Guest]

Puma and house cats look a LOT alike apart from scale, I would say more so than a marmot and a bear.

 

I'm not arguing sasquatch here DWA, I'm arguing that intelligent people, with field experience, can certinaly make these kind of mistakes in the wild, and that claiming you would be immune, or that Saskeptic would have to be "stupid, immature, drunk, mentally ill, or agenda-laden" to do so, is erroneous.

Edited June 6, 2013 by make-me-believe

[Guest DWA]

The trips that I've taken into the woods always seem to cost mega bucks.  And, obviously, the more remote the destination and the longer the trip, the more $ it takes.  just sayin'  :B

 

Well, right.  It isn't free, and per hour it doesn't cost less than when the pros do it, I bet.  Of course, the pros are actually getting paid to do it.

 

Unless they're looking for sasquatch.

Puma and house cats look a LOT alike apart from scale, I would say more so than a marmot and a bear.

 

I'm not arguing sasquatch here DWA, I'm arguing that intelligent people, with field experience, can certinaly make these kind of mistakes in the wild, and that claiming you would be immune, or that Saskeptic would have to be "stupid, immature, drunk, mentally ill, or agenda-laden" to do so, is erroneous.

 Again, one person, one mistake, sure.

 

That everybody claiming a sasquatch experience is making such a mistake - or even more unlikely, that a whole bunch of random hoaxes, lies and mistakes account for all those highly consistent accounts - is just a bit hard to swallow.

 

Which I think is the OP's point, and certainly mine.

[Guest]

 

 He made a noise, startled the bear who suddenly flipped around 180 degrees with amazing speed and dashed into and under some rocks. My Dad stood up, got a better look and laughed. He wasn't yards away from a bear, he was feet away from a  marmot.

With the land sloping up, and the animal silhouetted against the cloudy sky, with only the stunted growth of vegetation near the tree line to gauge size, he had misjudged the mass of that animal by about 5000%.

 

When otherwise intelligent people can make huge mistakes, and otherwise honest people tell massive lies, anecdotal evidence is just not that reliable. I don't discount people who see black cats, but I don't think that does much to certify bigfoot sightings. I know cats exist. I know black cats exist. I can't say the same for sasquatch, color morphs or not.

 

Well, one guy, and two animals that - size not taken into account - look much more alike than a bear and a bipedal ape.  That no one thinks is real.

 

I haven't read a sasquatch report that makes it likely to me that that kind of messup is happening.

 

Inconsistencies allowed, volume and consistency do count for something.

 

It is my contention that the large numbers of attributed sightings are bogus. Seems I've read from folks like Meldrum and L. Coleman that they consider a majority of reported sightings probably false or mistaken, for various reasons. If you scale back a majority of sightings, take the accounts off the table, you are left with a majority of accounts that report only fleeting glances or sightings lasting only a few seconds. And a minority of reports would have a substantial sighting, like for instance the famous William Roe sighting, that leave us with only two options as explanations: fake/hoax or true/real.

 

I would contend that the fleeting glances or short sightings may indeed be misidentifications, seeing known animals and believing you're seeing an unknown animal. The following video illustrates my point. Even though this is misidentified via a video, it is based on someones claim to have shot video of a running sasquatch and the video's captured comments suggest the fellow really didn't understand what he just captured on tape. As the misidentification is made known, it seems obvious --- but only after the fact. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rPsUJH3NHY&feature=player_embedded

[Guest DWA]

I just really highly doubt that, and have never believed in culling the database to fit my preconceived notions.

 

I'd rather find out what's producing all this evidence, whatever it is.

No way am I tossing large quantities of sighting reports based on what I think was a joke in the first place (that video).

 

And guys like that narrator, well, just don't get out much.

[Guest]

I agree that good solid people make mistakes in I.Ding things. In fleeting glances and quck looks, and the circumstances like make me believes Father was witness to make people misidentify things. But standing dead still in broad daylight thirty feet from an adult cougar will not lend itself to misdentification. I think there are probably many sightings attributed to normal creatures and not reported due to misidentification as well. I think some people convince themselves that what they saw was not really what they saw to avoid mental and emotional struggles to understand it, or avoid societal or family ridicule and disbelief. Just take the easy way out, which is good if it works for them, I may do the same, but I've already seen the big black cats, whatever species they really are.

[Guest DWA]

One of my favorite examples of the philosophical fallacy of "begging the question" is this one:

 

"If bigfoot were real it would be a biological Everest!  Scientists would be all over themselves to confirm!"

 

That kind of thinking pretty much ensures that it won't matter how many people see them.  Despite all the evidence scientists have right in front of them, it looks like it's going to require a body to even get them interested.

[Guest]

^I think you've confounded the context in which such sentiments are expressed.  I've made somewhat similar statements when confronted with conspiracy fantasies about bigfoot, in an entirely different context to what you've insinuated (i.e., that if bigfoots were real [MORE] scientists would be [REGULARLY CONDUCTING FIELD INVENTORY WITH THE PURPOSE OF COLLECTING ONE] ).

 

To wit:

 

"If bigfoots were confirmed to be real, scientific journals would be tripping over themselves to publish the description."   

 

I see nothing logically fallacious about that opinion, and I stand by it.

 

So yes, "a body" will be required to prove bigfoot; no amount of people claiming to see one can do that.  I'll go out on a limb and suggest that that information is among the very first things I ever explained to you here on the BFF.  I'm glad to see that it's sinking in.