Urban Bigfoot, Seriously?

[Guest DWA]

 

No, the bigfoot believers are the ones who have to follow up on this "mountain of consistent evidence" and bring in the monkey. They'll have a much easier time then someone finding a rare beetle in a foreign jungle.

Nope, wrong.

 

We look to the mainstream of science, not amateurs, to come up with the proof.

 

Not my fault that the amateurs are going to make the mainstream look pretty funny, and soon I predict, if they don't get off their academic duffs and do their jobs.

 

Which would start with the simple words:  I don't know; and we need to find out.

 

That is the hardest sentence for a scientist to say.  But every one that wins a Nobel said it.

 

As to the beetle:  they look where they have in every other jungle they've been in; and look, new beetles!  EASY.  Once one hairy hominoid is confirmed, you'll see fossil evidence and likely other hominoids popping up, one after another.  Watch.

Edited September 9, 2013 by DWA

[Guest]

We look to the mainstream of science, not amateurs, to come up with the proof.

 

Mainstream scientists like Meldrum, etc.

 

And no, we look to people who believe in something to come up with the proof, not the people who aren't convinced. Like I said, "amateurs" are allowed to play their part. Just ask the fisherman who caught the megamouth shark. 

 

Not my fault that the amateurs are going to make the mainstream look pretty funny, and soon I predict, if they don't get off their academic duffs and do their jobs.

 

They are doing their jobs. Life doesn't revolve around bigfoot.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Jerrymanderer

[Guest LarryP]

" To simply pass this off as stories or mistakes is a red flag:  one either isn't reading them, or isn't thinking about it enough." -DWA

 

 Comments like the above can seem to restrict conversation down to two possibilities only: agree with me, or you're just not reading properly.  It completely discounts the idea that someone can read the stories and not believe them and not feel they hold much value as evidence and move on.

I certainly don't discount the idea that someone can read the stories and not believe them and not feel they hold much value as evidence and move on.

 

So at what point are you going to get around to the "move on" part?

[Guest DWA]

Um, SLAM.  Plussed.

They keep saying that they can Just Decide it's OK for them to come on and on and on here saying Everyone's Wrong and giving no reason that a thinking person has any reason to take seriously.

 

Oh.  OK. Shooore.

[dmaker]

I certainly don't discount the idea that someone can read the stories and not believe them and not feel they hold much value as evidence and move on.

 

So at what point are you going to get around to the "move on" part?

First of all I meant move on as in move on to discussing other forms of evidence.  But thank you for the kind invitation. 

 

Though it does provide a chance to mention that it becomes more difficult to move on, as you say, when someone offers their opinion of the witness report data and they are basically condescended to and told they lack proper reading skills because otherwise they would have arrived at the same conclusion as DWA. 

 

Moments like that can compel someone to return to the fray, if only to defend the cheap shots taken at their intelligence and ability to read. 

 

 

"They keep saying that they can Just Decide it's OK for them to come on and on and on here saying Everyone's Wrong and giving no reason that a thinking person has any reason to take seriously." -DWA

 

^^ Case in point. 

Edited September 9, 2013 by dmaker

[dmaker]

I believe that I have offered numerous reasons for the eyewitness reports database to contain not a single, genuine Bigfoot report. Off the top of my head:

 

Mistaken identity

Peer Pressure

Peer Acceptance

Hoaxing

Pareidolia

Sub-clinical psychosis such as ADHD, Depression, etc.

Sleep Hallucination

Substance influenced hallucination

Incorrect memory recall

 

 

The list could probably go on. But that is a straight faced attempt at what I honestly feel to be at the heart of the reports database and incidentally at the root cause of any other form of evidence as well. The above pretty much sums up Sasquatch for me. I am being completely honest when I say this. I am not trying to be insulting by including clinical terms, nor should anyone consider them an insult. 

 

I feel there is evidence to backup this list. We have papers that describe the many problems with human memory. Other papers prove that sub-clinical conditions can lead to seeing things that are not there. We have many, many examples of hoaxes to support that assertion. We have years and years of evidence of absence to question the existence of Sasquatch in general. 

 

I have read many reports; I have read several academic level ( i.e. not a collection of campfire stories) books dealing with Sasquatch; I have watched every documentary I can get my hands on, and I have walked some pretty Squatchy lands. 

 

The above is a very concise version of my opinion. It includes no ridicule, nor deserves any.  Yet around here if you don't agree with DWA, your opinion is treated like it came from a barely literate child.  That is infuriating, and that keeps, people like me at least, coming back to argue.

Edited September 9, 2013 by dmaker

[Lake County Bigfooot]

Wow, dmaker, can you really digest what you are saying, that thousands of honest individuals holding respected positions in society, by no fault of their own happen to experience something you obviously have trouble accepting.  I know there could be hoaxers, and people seeking attention , or simply delusional.  I am a Golf Professional, church worship leader, and I have no business talking about such a creature, in fact I am ridiculed to even bring it up in conversation, but having researched the possibility, as well as having a personal encounter, I am left with no other choice than to defend their existence.  I feel a kinship with nature having been born in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, that respect and wonder that I possess from childhood and beyond has lead me into inquiries into the natural sciences including, studying weather, birds, fish, and other secretive animals.  I suggest this in not simply a group of overly amped nature enthusiasts, or people wondering about in the night drugged up on sleeping pills, or anti-depressants.  Most are highly rational people like yourself, who, having encountered the creature in some fashion have had to adjust there own perception of what can be real or imaginary.  You cannot discount the eyewitness evidence in this fashion without yourself becoming truly suspect of delusion.  I would find an agnostic approach to the subject  more rational, simply say I do not know if they exist.  Saying they cannot exist, and that those who have seen them are delusional, or mistaken, discounts the absolute consistency to descriptions spanning the continent that point to a very real creature.  You might want to address how this hysteria has lead to such consistent accounts describing the creature, and how people who have nothing to gain and everything to lose, come forward to share what has happened to them, searching for others who will accept them.

[Guest DWA]

 I suggest this is not simply a group of overly amped nature enthusiasts, or people wandering about in the night drugged up on sleeping pills or anti-depressants.  Most are highly rational people like yourself, who, having encountered the creature in some fashion, have had to adjust their own perception of what can be real or imaginary.  You cannot discount the eyewitness evidence in this fashion without yourself becoming truly suspect of delusion.  I would find an agnostic approach to the subject  more rational.

 

This just might make it into my revolving signature one fine day.

 

Would that be OK with you?

Edited September 9, 2013 by DWA

[dmaker]

"Saying they cannot exist, and that those who have seen them are delusional, or mistaken, discounts the absolute consistency to descriptions spanning the continent that point to a very real creature."

 

Well once one says that one believes they do not exist, one must provide a source for all the sighting reports. Hence the list of possibilities. 

 

And contrary to what it seems you feel, but the global distribution of Sasquatch actually decreases the likelihood of it being real, not increases it. You have to look no further than Bigfoot Phd, Grover Krantz for support for that statement and about the reliability of eyewitnesses in general:

 

 

Sasquatch Believers vs. The Skeptics

by Dr. Grover S. Krantz, Ph.D

 

The true believers are also generally as uninformed as the skeptics. Reading a few books and articles presenting a favorable view hardly qualifies one as being knowledgeable on the subject. Sasquatch enthusiasts are notorious for the way they accept and repeat stories without any attempt at verification. I know one investigator who insists on two accounts of each sighting, but is satisfied if both of them heard about it from the same source! My own experience suggests that the probability of truth of each account is cut in half for every human it passes through. What a direct eyewitness tells me is only 50% probable; if I hear it from an intermediary its likelihood drops to 25%, third person accounts are wrong seven times out of eight, and so on. Many believers pay no attention to this problem of lowering probability of truth.

 

Some people have gathered stories about bipedal, hairy monsters from almost all parts of the world, evidently under the mistaken impression that this strengthens the argument for their existence. Actually it does just the opposite--the more widespread a land animal is claimed to be, the less likely it is to be real. A truly worldwide distribution occurs only for man, his parasites, and his domesticates. This does not prove a worldwide Sasquatch does not exist, but it makes one wonder. Some reputable scientists would study a possible primate in North America and parts of Eurasia, but when you throw in South America, Africa, and Australia just for good measure they will back off. The possibility of multiple species of such animals might avoid this problem, but it only serves to raise another. For science to have missed one large species of unknown primate is difficult enough to swallow. To claim there are still more of them only strains to the breaking point whatever credibility there may have been.

Edited September 9, 2013 by dmaker

[Cotter]

I believe that I have offered numerous reasons for the eyewitness reports database to contain not a single, genuine Bigfoot report. Off the top of my head:

 

Mistaken identity

Peer Pressure

Peer Acceptance

Hoaxing

Pareidolia

Sub-clinical psychosis such as ADHD, Depression, etc.

Sleep Hallucination

Substance influenced hallucination

Incorrect memory recall

 

 

The list could probably go on. But that is a straight faced attempt at what I honestly feel to be at the heart of the reports database and incidentally at the root cause of any other form of evidence as well. The above pretty much sums up Sasquatch for me. I am being completely honest when I say this. I am not trying to be insulting by including clinical terms, nor should anyone consider them an insult. 

 

I feel there is evidence to backup this list. We have papers that describe the many problems with human memory. Other papers prove that sub-clinical conditions can lead to seeing things that are not there. We have many, many examples of hoaxes to support that assertion. We have years and years of evidence of absence to question the existence of Sasquatch in general. 

 

I have read many reports; I have read several academic level ( i.e. not a collection of campfire stories) books dealing with Sasquatch; I have watched every documentary I can get my hands on, and I have walked some pretty Squatchy lands. 

 

The above is a very concise version of my opinion. It includes no ridicule, nor deserves any.  Yet around here if you don't agree with DWA, your opinion is treated like it came from a barely literate child.  That is infuriating, and that keeps, people like me at least, coming back to argue.

 

I would, without a doubt, 100% agree with you that the above list has attributed to BF sightings.  No doubt.

 

Just not all of the bigfoot sightings.

 

:-)

[Guest DWA]

^^^And now let 'im prove that scattergun thesis.  I'll buy the popcorn.

Just what I'm sayin' boyz and girlz.

 

You had an experience that ...well, compared to that, dmaker is just a bunch of ones and zeros on the internet, and me too.

 

And he's just saying you're a "category" of, well, "not all there" person.

 

And you're OK with that?

[dmaker]

^^ I tried to present my opinion as objectively as I could. I carefully phrased it so that it could not be accused of deliberately trying to offend anyone. Cotter offers a perfectly reasonable response that takes it in, but does not agree with all of it. 

 

And then you. You, for some reason, have to take it, call it scattergun and then, for an even more odd reason, try to rally the troops against me??  What, in the world, is behind that? I have no expectation that people will agree with me. I am simply offering my opinion.

 

You insinuate insults that I did not make. You incite people to an emotional response with comments like, "And you're OK with that?"  You refer to the general membership as "boyz and girlz". Well I am not a child and do not appreciate being talked down to by you.

 

Honestly, Sir, what is your problem?

Edited September 9, 2013 by dmaker

[JDL]

"Saying they cannot exist, and that those who have seen them are delusional, or mistaken, discounts the absolute consistency to descriptions spanning the continent that point to a very real creature."

 

Well once one says that one believes they do not exist, one must provide a source for all the sighting reports. Hence the list of possibilities. 

 

And contrary to what it seems you feel, but the global distribution of Sasquatch actually decreases the likelihood of it being real, not increases it. You have to look no further than Bigfoot Phd, Grover Krantz for support for that statement and about the reliability of eyewitnesses in general:

 

 

Sasquatch Believers vs. The Skeptics

by Dr. Grover S. Krantz, Ph.D

 

The true believers are also generally as uninformed as the skeptics. Reading a few books and articles presenting a favorable view hardly qualifies one as being knowledgeable on the subject. Sasquatch enthusiasts are notorious for the way they accept and repeat stories without any attempt at verification. I know one investigator who insists on two accounts of each sighting, but is satisfied if both of them heard about it from the same source! My own experience suggests that the probability of truth of each account is cut in half for every human it passes through. What a direct eyewitness tells me is only 50% probable; if I hear it from an intermediary its likelihood drops to 25%, third person accounts are wrong seven times out of eight, and so on. Many believers pay no attention to this problem of lowering probability of truth.

 

Some people have gathered stories about bipedal, hairy monsters from almost all parts of the world, evidently under the mistaken impression that this strengthens the argument for their existence. Actually it does just the opposite--the more widespread a land animal is claimed to be, the less likely it is to be real. A truly worldwide distribution occurs only for man, his parasites, and his domesticates. This does not prove a worldwide Sasquatch does not exist, but it makes one wonder. Some reputable scientists would study a possible primate in North America and parts of Eurasia, but when you throw in South America, Africa, and Australia just for good measure they will back off. The possibility of multiple species of such animals might avoid this problem, but it only serves to raise another. For science to have missed one large species of unknown primate is difficult enough to swallow. To claim there are still more of them only strains to the breaking point whatever credibility there may have been.

 

Any time one steadfastly proclaims the absolute fallibility of men, one must also consider the absolute fallibility of self.

[dmaker]

I completely agree with you JDL. I could absolutely be wrong. I am quite confident that I am not, but it is possible, yes.  And yes, I get your point that when I base some of my opinion on the fallibility of men, that it does include me since I am, also, human after all.

 

The irony is tiny, but it does ***** a little bit. 

Edited September 9, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest]

I agree with the list too.....for far too many reports.....but not all of them. Lets see...

Mistaken identity----nope, bears in our area aren't that color, and if any of the animals in our area are that color, the size of what I saw negates them.

Peer Pressure----ha! That would be a new one for me.....the peer pressure would be TO KEEP QUIET.

Peer Acceptance----see above.....

Hoaxing---not in this lifetime....insulting

Pareidolia----not when you see it sitting under a light in clear view

Sub-clinical psychosis such as ADHD, Depression, etc.------again insulting, I won't even dignify that one with any answer

Sleep Hallucination------I was wide awake, not even napping.

Substance influenced hallucination-----I don't drink.....pretty much never

Incorrect memory recall-----Nope. I struggled with what I was seeing and made note of the landmarks around it so that I could "fix" in my mind how big it was. I won't say anymore because you will find some way to rip it apart and quite frankly I am through being insulted ....I KNOW WHAT I SAW.

Lake County Bigfoot.....I was where you are a year ago. Big, big learning curve. I also am on the edge of a city. With a power line right of way, forests, river etc. Google Earth is my friend.....it erased any last doubts I had and showed me even more reasons why it was possible. I do think they travel through and all is quiet for now. My dogs have returned to using our backyard as if they never had a problem.