Urban Bigfoot, Seriously?

[Guest DWA]

Dmaker,

 

I don't know why you've come to this thread to post your list, but to me it seemed like a trap.  If you wanted to rile some people up then feel satisfied because you have managed that.  However, to all the knowers here who have seen them, taken pics of them, fed them, interacted with them, gotten earth shattering recordings of them, remember, whatever the naysayers post here or elsewhere it does not diminish the fact that you KNOW!!!

 

I KNOW, I HAVE PICS (as others do) AND IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU SAY OR DO, IT DOES NOT CHANGE THAT FACT. And yes I am yelling.....

 

Peace

No need to yell.  You aren't the oddball here.

 

I've been talking to somebody about habituation.  My feelings about selling a book with no proof in it aside, we're almost certain that habituation is going on if this animal is real.  And in more - possibly many more - than one place, even more than the "places" in evidence on the BFF. 

 

The bigfoot-skeptic attitude is one of the less appealing aspects of Man in the Mass.  It's harmless - except to science - unlike some other aspects of mobs.  But it's a form of mob behavior, and the practice of science is rife with it.  The mob tends to be cynical; tends to quash anything it doesn't agree with; tends to consider closed-minded behavior open-minded (more accurately, can't even gauge closed-minded or open-minded properly); tends not to understand what should be regarded as evidence...is, in general, all wound around the axle on anything that isn't proven real.

 

It may just be, my friend said to me, that this is the latest counterculture.  People are getting sick of the mass cynicism; not caring who knows if they do; and certainly not caring if people that are deliberately behaving in a way you wouldn't tolerate in your house don't understand why they aren't getting any information.  It's just the latest form of rebellion against The Man.  It's just a shame that The Man is, in this case, composed significantly of the people whose responsibility it is to expand human understanding.

 

I have seen some of the most persistent and blatant denial on these forums that I have ever seen anywhere, let alone the internet.  (It's amazing they believe in the Internet, which is one heck of a lot more improbable than bigfoot.)  Don't let it get you down, my friend.

 

Peace.  Indeed.

Edited September 10, 2013 by DWA

[Guest]

 

LOL. Sorry, but did you actually read that document?  It's not supporting your position the way you think it is...

Replace UFO with Bigfoot, and the result is interesting:

 

So why is it that people insist that you can’t prove a negative? 

I think it is the result of two things. (1) an acknowledgement 

that induction is not bulletproof, airtight, and infallible, and (2) 

a desperate desire to keep believing whatever one believes, 

even if all the evidence is against it. That’s why people keep  

believing in alien abductions, even when flying saucers always 

turn out to be weather balloons, stealth jets, comets, or too 

much alcohol. You can’t prove a negative! You can’t prove 

that there are no alien abductions! Meaning: your argument 

against aliens is inductive, therefore not incontrovertible, and 

since I want to believe in aliens, I’m going to dismiss the 

argument no matter how overwhelming the evidence against 

aliens, and no matter how vanishingly small the chance of 

extraterrestrial abduction.

 

 

I thought the same thing when I read the article. 

 

Meaning: your argument 

against BF is inductive, therefore not incontrovertible, and 

since I want to believe in BF, I’m going to dismiss the 

argument no matter how overwhelming the evidence against 

BF, and no matter how vanishingly small the chance of 

Bigfoot encounter.

 

I'm on the fence, and I want to believe badly, but the evidence is just not there for me to do so at this time.  I do find it very odd that people who are in a position to provide that evidence (at least they claim they can) get mad enough to YELL at others on a message board, while at the same time withholding the evidence they claim to have.  That makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

[Guest DWA]

 

I thought the same thing when I read the article. 

 

Meaning: your argument 

against BF is inductive, therefore not incontrovertible, and 

since I want to believe in BF, I’m going to dismiss the 

argument no matter how overwhelming the evidence against 

BF, and no matter how vanishingly small the chance of 

Bigfoot encounter.

 

I'm on the fence, and I want to believe badly, but the evidence is just not there for me to do so at this time.  I do find it very odd that people who are in a position to provide that evidence (at least they claim they can) get mad enough to YELL at others on a message board, while at the same time withholding the evidence they claim to have.  That makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

 

The more I think about it, the more I am starting to get it.

 

I think I said it in my last post, but it bears repeating:  Folks that don't think the people who are demanding information are going about it properly will simply tell them to go [perform something that may be impossible but I always reserve judgment pending proof], and there are ways and ways of doing that.

 

Now, if I ever saw one/found a body/habituated a family of them/took the Clan Leader to the Good Humor truck on a weekly basis, I might or might not consider letting anyone know about it.  Those closest to me, and who think about it the way I do, count on it, they'd know.  The BFRO and NAWAC would get my report.  As to the others...

 

...well keep in mind how footprints, all over the place, thousands of encounter reports (it's a comfort to have a medical specialist like dmaker tell us they're all a crock, but see?  he won't share his papers!), and A MOVIE OF ONE are being treated.  What do you think any one of them are confident would constitute proof to the Scoffermass?  Without a demand to camp out on their property and soil their furniture until they had Personal Proof?

 

Oh, the more I think about it, and the more bigfoot skepticism I see...well, the more I get it.

[Guest]

I understand what you are saying, but I do not agree with it.  That's a defeatist attitude.  Perhaps these people wouldn't get so riled up if they did share the evidence.  I see all this talk about science, and are the amateurs doing their job - to me, part of both of those is sharing the knowledge.

 

I've seen it asked of dmaker several times - why do you keep coming here?  Can't the same be said of people who claim to have evidence (nearly to the point of proof) and yet refuse to share it?  Those people bring no more to the table than denialists, even less imo. 

[dmaker]

DWA I am happy to share papers that discuss things like the frailty of human recall and how various clinical conditions can effect human perception.  How many would you like?

 

At the same time, please provide a single, peer reviewed paper that seriously discusses the evidence for the existence of Bigfoot. And I am not talking about a book by Meldrum or Bingernagel that has zero scientific consensus. 

"I think I said it in my last post, but it bears repeating:  Folks that don't think the people who are demanding information are going about it properly will simply tell them to go [perform something that may be impossible but I always reserve judgment pending proof], and there are ways and ways of doing that." -DWA

 

Let me see if I have this correct. If you don't like what someone has to say, or they are not saying properly ( in your opinion), you send them on impossible errands? Like, let's say, falsifying anecdotal reports?  So when you ask people to do that, you recognize that it is an impossible task, but you are subjecting them to it as a form of punishment because you do not like what they have to say?  

 

And that is fair and productive in your mind?

Edited September 10, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest DWA]

I guess where I stand on it is:  if you aren't a professional scientist, you can do with your information what you want to.

 

The BFF, in my opinion, can help the search, but people signing on to it don't sign any binding agreements to turn over what they have.

 

I agree with you that "fringe" opinions on both sides hurt the field, and for better or worse, habituation is considered "fringe" by the mainstream (and apparently by lots of, if not most, proponents).  Those sitting on the info, however, have the control over what they do with it.

 

The ones I consider to have a true obligation, and failing it, are the mainstream scientists who not only ignore but pooh-pooh the evidence.  I don't demand that they drop Neanderthal or mouse lemurs and become bigfooters.  I do, however, demand - and I can do this; I mean, we taxpayers pay many if not most of their salaries, and the advancement of science depends on their adherence to scientific protocols - that they treat the evidence based on their exposure to it, and what science constrains them to pronounce based on that exposure.

 

Which, from what I'm getting from most of them, could be best expressed as:  I don't know, and await the proof.

Edited September 10, 2013 by DWA

[dmaker]

So you are saying that scientists should engage alleged Bigfoot evidence on their own time and then publish their thoughts? Again on their own time and dime I suppose? And would this be, in your scenario, all scientists with advanced degrees ( we'll leave the poor undergrads out of this) in relevant disciplines? And by relevant I would start by suggesting Biology, Anthropology, Archaeology, Paleontology, and Genetics just as a start?

 

Is that what you are suggesting?

 

And when they "pooh-pooh" the evidence, are they not doing so after examining it? Just because you do not like or agree with the proclamation, does not mean it was not pronounced. 

 

If they are not examining it "properly" or something, could you please provide some specifics?

Edited September 10, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest LarryP]

 

LOL. Sorry, but did you actually read that document?  It's not supporting your position the way you think it is...

Replace UFO with Bigfoot, and the result is interesting:

 

So why is it that people insist that you can’t prove a negative? 

I think it is the result of two things. (1) an acknowledgement 

that induction is not bulletproof, airtight, and infallible, and (2) 

a desperate desire to keep believing whatever one believes, 

even if all the evidence is against it. That’s why people keep  

believing in alien abductions, even when flying saucers always 

turn out to be weather balloons, stealth jets, comets, or too 

much alcohol. You can’t prove a negative! You can’t prove 

that there are no alien abductions! Meaning: your argument 

against aliens is inductive, therefore not incontrovertible, and 

since I want to believe in aliens, I’m going to dismiss the 

argument no matter how overwhelming the evidence against 

aliens, and no matter how vanishingly small the chance of 

extraterrestrial abduction.

 

 

The point he's making is if your claim that "you can't prove a negative" means that you can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that certain things don't exist, then the claim is patently false.

 

It's nothing more than folk logic.

 

As to the alien abduction phenomenon. Dr John Mack did a tremendous amount of excellent scientific research on that subject at Harvard.

[Guest]

I see what you are saying DWA - but don't you think that mainstream scientist would look a lot closer at this if they had better evidence to go on than sighting reports and blurry pictures and DNA findings published under more than questionable circumstances?  If there are truly habituation situations going on and they are gathering evidence then they are in a unique situation to provide evidence to mainstream science.  Instead, they come on here and YELL at people who do not believe them.  They do this because apparently everyone in a habituation situation would rather sing kum-ba-ya with the hairy guy instead of share a wonderful discovery. 

 

Sure, amateur researchers are under no requirement to share their knowledge.  I think they should, but that's just my opinion.  Yet, they shouldn't expect a warm welcome coming to a place where there are many people wanting to know, as well as scoftics, all the while screaming "I HAVE PICS, I HAVE EVIDENCE, I KNOW"  Just as they shouldn't expect your money for a book with no proof. 

[Guest LarryP]

So you are saying that scientists should engage alleged Bigfoot evidence on their own time and then publish their thoughts? Again on their own time and dime I suppose? And would this be, in your scenario, all scientists with advanced degrees ( we'll leave the poor undergrads out of this) in relevant disciplines? And by relevant I would start by suggesting Biology, Anthropology, Archaeology, Paleontology, and Genetics just as a start?

 

Is that what you are suggesting?

 

 

 

The real question is why most scientists would have to invest their own time and money if they want to engage the evidence.

[MIB]

And when they "pooh-pooh" the evidence, are they not doing so after examining it?

 

No.  They absolutely do not always examine the evidence first.   Have you ever worked at a university?   You seem to have a starry-eyed, unrealistic view of how things are done in academia.  After 2 stints totaling over 20 years, I think I have some insight .. that you'd probably prefer not to learn from because it invalidates your assertions.

 

MIB

Edited September 10, 2013 by MIB

[Guest Urkelbot]

The real question is why most scientists would have to invest their own time and money if they want to engage the evidence.

 

 

The general population has no interest.  Some people might even get upset that tax dollars are going to research into what most believe is a mythological creature akin to fairies and leprechauns.  If you want scientists to research bigfoot you have to influence the people holding the purse strings. Call your congressman or whoever is on the board of the NSF.

[dmaker]

No.  They absolutely do not always examine the evidence first.   Have you ever worked at a university?   You seem to have a starry-eyed, unrealistic view of how things are done in academia.  After 2 stints totaling over 20 years, I think I have some insight .. that you'd probably prefer not to learn from because it invalidates your assertions.

 

MIB

Not true at all, I would welcome your insights. Please include specifics that can be verified.

[Cotter]

Totally unrelated, if I had a habituated BF family living in my backyard, I would DEFINITELY provide evidence.  I'd put together a documentary, 25 parts.  Have 40+ hours of unadulterated BF video of BF doing BF stuff.

 

I would take that to the bank.  Use the proceeds to buy up as many thousands of acres I could around my home and provide the BF family with large expanses of home range with no human interuption.

[Guest]

Totally unrelated, if I had a habituated BF family living in my backyard, I would DEFINITELY provide evidence.  I'd put together a documentary, 25 parts.  Have 40+ hours of unadulterated BF video of BF doing BF stuff.

 

I would take that to the bank.  Use the proceeds to buy up as many thousands of acres I could around my home and provide the BF family with large expanses of home range with no human interuption.

 

Makes sense to me.