Current State Of Affairs

[Guest]

OK, but can't someone who concludes the animal is real also be open-minded and skeptical? This is why I hate these labels. Once you "believe" you're no longer a skeptic. The implication is believers have become less mentally rigorous. And is the opposite of open-minded close-minded? Who wants to be a close-minded anything?

 

I think you're playing a game of gotcha here. DWA's positions seem fairly consistent. Whatever label you want to tag on him seems irrelevant. 

[dmaker]

His position is not consistent if he says he is now a believer. You can note that based on his shocked response to my original question, where he says what would make me think ANYTHING of the sort????  Clearly, he sees some inconsistency or he would not have reacted that way I would think.  So I don't think someone who so often states their position so loudly as does he, that jumping across the fence like that should really go unnoticed. You can't one day say I am simply following evidence until this thing is resolved and I don't believe one way or the other, it's all about evidence. To the next day saying I know they are real because they leave signs behind like real animals. One position is leaning toward a particular outcome, but refraining from a final analysis until more conclusive evidence is brought forward; the other position is quite different and says I know they are real based on the current evidence, I need not wonder anymore. They are not congruent or consistent. I would like to know which one applies today. 

[Guest]

It's still meaningless. The entire point is that he's been consistent in what's he's said or how he's approached the topic, not that he may have had a slip of the tongue or that you want to arbitrarily label him one way or another. This is a classic game of forum gotcha.

 

I would posit that one can be following the evidence and leaving the question open, then decide the evidence means one thing or another, and then, based on further evidence, come to an entirely different conclusion. That's intellectual flexibility and should be encouraged. Making someone cement themselves into a hard position is one of the things that makes boards like these so acrimonious. Forcing someone to declare their allegiance to some label construct is damaging in a discussion that should, ultimately, be based on science, observation, and facts. If you cannot change your mind or have opinions that evolve over time, you should not be in the discussion. 

 

I don't know or care what DWA would label himself. It's not the point. If we're all debating and discussing the facts and the evidence, it's a meaningless distinction and only designed to box-in, corner, and otherwise be political. You're accusing him of an evolution of opinion as if he's picked up an STD. 

Edited July 25, 2013 by bipto

[dmaker]

"I would posit that one can be following the evidence and leaving the question open, then decide the evidence means one thing or another, and then, based on further evidence, come to an entirely different conclusion. That's intellectual flexibility and should be encouraged. "

 

Nothing wrong with that. That is all I am asking. DWA has countless times stated that any true thinker on this topic would have an open case approach until the topic is settled.  So I'm simply asking HIM, if the case is now, indeed, settled for him and the book is closed. Which is what " I know they're real" would seem to indicate.  It's no great stretch for me to imagine that he thinks they are real. I am fairly convinced that he has always thought they are real and the whole evidence thing is a smoke screen. I was just surprised to see him state it publicly. I was just seeking some clarification on that point. 

[WV FOOTER]

                                                                                                     "MOD STATEMENT"

 

                               I AM JUST REMINDING EVERYONE TO REMEMBER " ATTACK THE ARGUEMENT AND NOT THE ARGUER."

                                                           

[Guest DWA]

It's still meaningless. The entire point is that he's been consistent in what's he's said or how he's approached the topic, not that he may have had a slip of the tongue or that you want to arbitrarily label him one way or another. This is a classic game of forum gotcha.

 

I would posit that one can be following the evidence and leaving the question open, then decide the evidence means one thing or another, and then, based on further evidence, come to an  ientirely different conclusion. That's intellectual flexibility and should be encouraged. Making someone cement themselves into a hard position is one of the things that makes boards like these so acrimonious. Forcing someone to declare their allegiance to some label construct is damaging in a discussion that should, ultimately, be based on science, observation, and facts. If you cannot change your mind or have opinions that evolve over time, you should not be in the discussion. 

 

I don't know or care what DWA would label himself. It's not the point. If we're all debating and discussing the facts and the evidence, it's a meaningless distinction and only designed to box-in, corner, and otherwise be political. You're accusing him of an evolution of opinion as if he's picked up an STD. 

Major plussed.

 

It's the inability to understand nuances of thought that marks bigfoot skeptics more than any other single trait.  Way it is.  There's a cure.  It requires reading up, and starting to think about things the way scientists should (and way too often on this topic, don't).

 

I know what the evidence says to me.  That sentence means just what it does, and this could not be more clear, not what dmaker thinks it does.

 

Learning how to think critically, skeptically:  essential on this topic.  Which is why I always write "bigfoot skeptics."  Huge irony in  that phrase, as it marks an extremely credulous point of view.

Edited July 25, 2013 by DWA

[dmaker]

I have done all the reading that you have recommended. I fail to see why you think reading a pile of eye witness reports and some books by scientists that are convinced of Bigfoot's existence is a guarantee to change someone's mind on the subject. Despite the books written by the few, despite the reports fabricated by the many, and despite the tracks found in obvious or remote locations, there is still no monkey. I will never say I believe they are real until something conclusive is brought forward.  You have, obviously, decided that Bigfoot is real based on the evidence to date. I have not. Great. This would be a boring place is we all agreed with one another. But please do me a favour. Stop telling me to read something that I have already read. Just because it didn't move me to the same place that it did you, does not mean that I haven't read it. 

[Guest]

Uh huh, which brings me back to my question.

 

When are you going to prove to me that you're saying anything I need to put stock in?  How I know they're real, chapter 2.  (thousand.)  Some people.

Well, like I said, isn't that the Catch-22?  "Where's the proof?"  "Well, we sent you some hair..."  "Oh, that didn't match anything else we had, so we threw it all out."  More than once that's been reported, and tell me how can you prove they're lying when the people who could have did that?  Anomalously big bones, found more than once.  A mummified foot, in Southeast AK, on two separate occasions.  A skull that the peerless scientists at UCLA contradicted themselves describing...then just lost.  A whole skeleton, at least once.  A gigantic jawbone, in SE AK.  Poop, pee, blood, all under compelling circumstances.  Nests, matching nothing else known in North America, but recognizeable to anyone who has studied, say, gorillas.  Two people (and I am not talking Smeja and Dyer) report killing one and examining the body.  One of them took particular interest in the foot.  He described to Krantz just the structure Krantz had already theorized would be essential for a biped that size.

 

Sources on the southwest AK feet and jawbone and the skeletons, please. 

 

As for the current state of affairs, it is this:  After 500 years of intense exploration, exploitation, and development in North America, not one bigfoot body has been produced.  Compare that to how long it took to find gorilla specimens.  France began colonizing Gabon in the 1830s.  By 1847, a lowland gorilla skull had been produced and studied.   The first European expedition into the Virungas was in 1902.  They shot and killed a mountain gorilla and brought the body back for science.  They weren't even looking for gorillas - it was a military expedition intended to "show the flag" and intimidate the natives.  Yet, they managed to bring back monkey bodies. 

 

Why is bigfoot a special case?

Edited July 25, 2013 by leisureclass

[dmaker]

Nests? Anyone think to gather hair from these nests? Presumably if Bigfoots had spent considerable time in these nests, they would be a gold mine of physical evidence.