Urban Bigfoot, Seriously?

[WSA]

One of the reasons I listen to DWA's opinions about wildlife...and this IS a wildlife issue folks...is that he has spent more nights on the ground in the remote and wild corners of N.A. than most any person you can name who also has full-time employment. It is just a fact the opinions of those who spend that time walking, listening, looking and sleeping in all kinds of weather, in all seasons, is going to know more about this topic than those who don't. Unavoidable reality and difference between the life imagined and the life lived.

 

Most of the opinions I read here that fall in the naysayer camp skirt this qualification, and we are bound to have a cacophany of howls about how that shouldn't matter. So be it. Your opinion is just worth less to me because of it, and to a good many others.  A good deal less, I should add.

 

I realized a long time ago the classification of the Wood Ape is not at all likely to be accomplished by people with little backcountry ground-truth, pecking away tirelessly about how this or that is not likely.  Go to it man! (But without me and a whole bunch of others. I mean, I should live so long)

Edited September 17, 2013 by WSA

[dmaker]

My current thinking on those who scoff at nature's unclassified diversity is to invite them to spend a night on the ground, alone, in say... Clarke County, AL, or anywhere else in the Black Belt, or any other similar wild locale, N. or S. on the continent. Leave the cell phone and tablet at  home too. Ditto the tent.  Come tell me the next morning you are of the same position, and I'll just shut up already. Until they have that kind of cred, their opinions don't matter that much to me, and to a lot of others here, and I feel free to disregard them whenever I see them. This is one of those times.

Been there, done that in Algonquin Park, Ontario.  I even believe a few Footie reports have come from that area.  It's pretty rugged and remote for central Ontario. 

Come on down to New Orlean's. Step a mile outside the city limits and you might find something worse than a Bigfoot.

I don't doubt that. Not sure what your point is though....because alligators and cotton mouths exist, so does Bigfoot?

 

I really don't understand where you are coming from WSA. Just because DWA has spent as many hours in the wilderness that he claims, somehow means Bigfoot exists?  The man does not even claim a Bigfoot sighting, nor is he a recognized wildlife professional. So I really don't understand how his ( admittedly probably very fascinating) wilderness wanderings somehow support the claim for Bigfoot?

Edited September 17, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest DWA]

Maybe where I am getting hung up here is the use of the word skeptic to describe scoftics or denialists. 

 

Absolutely no way I could agree more.  The word "skeptic" has become defiled by its association with those types.  Meldrum and Bindernagel are skeptics.  Scientists have to be.  It's just that too many of them are scoftics or denialists when it comes, specifically, to this.  It's why I use the phrase "bigfoot skeptics," to highlight a 'skepticism' that, well, isn't.

 

I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm not saying they do.  Some of the evidence is compelling, some of it not so much.  We all have different filters on our BS-meters.  I've seen some strange things that I have no explanation for.  I don't chalk it up to the big guy quite yet - although it was in an area with several reported sightings as well as just over the mountain from where my friend's grandmother claims to have seen one while picking berries.

 

Sounds like bootsole cred to me.  The only people to whom I'd have to say it's "proven" are the ones with an incontrovertible - now that is strictly to them - experience.  And again...who are we to contradict them?  Would seem to me like a waste of our time.  I take their experiences; put them on that ever-growing pile; and wait for an explanation that satisfies me.

 

As far as one seeing one and what can we say about that?  Not much, we weren't there and it is probably not repeatable and therefore not verifiable - we can question state of mind, misidentification, are they lying, were they hoaxed etc...  To us it's a neat story, to them it may be something much much more.  We can take parts of the story and see if it's consistent with other sightings - if so, that's even neater!  Of course I could make up a really neat story that is consistent with sighting reports in the area too (enter the BS-filter).

 

This sounds like me posting.  So what am I going to say but:  right.

 

Getting back to the OP - the sound at :42 mark sounds like a coyote to me.  I do hear something that could be a stick break at 1:30, but it could be a number of things as well.  This is recording out your window?  Is there a way to set it up in the brush that is 50 yards away - or deeper into the marsh land?

 

...and skepticism is...evaluating.  And asking questions.

[Guest]

I'll take the bait here, although I probably shouldn't. I do not mock or scorn people for the situations they have been in. I do, however, for them throwing around the words proof and fact. A fact is something that is verifiable, an eyewitness account is not verifiable - unless of course you can reproduce it and it can be verified via video, thermal, third party etc and then submitted for scrutinous review. Until that happens they are just stories. Notice I didn't say they were made up - they may very well be true stories - but they are not facts.

As far as the so called "boot cred" - no one here really knows very much about the average other poster. Sure, some of you may know each other fairly well, but not one person here knows me and my experiences. To discount what I say because you think you know me or how much time I have spent in the woods is just as arrogant as expecting others to "take your word for it" - neither of which demonstrates a scientific approach. I do not scoff at nature's diversity - but I am skeptical about claims of unclassified critters in every nook and cranny around this great country. I've spent my fair share of time alone in the woods, and I can back it up with stories, just as many others here can. Alas, these are just stories though, the same thing many knowers expect us to believe with no proof.

great post

for some reason sasfooty accuses anyone not of the same opinion as being guilty of mocking supporters

[Drew]

 

I don't doubt that. Not sure what your point is though....because alligators and cotton mouths exist, so does Bigfoot?

 

 

I believe he was saying if you left the city limits he'd be waiting for you.

[dmaker]

^^ LOL, ok.  Pistols at dawn?  Over Bigfoot?   Puhleeeeze....

[WSA]

Let's just say my "ignore" list is long, and getting longer. If enough do this, the result just might be more first-hand evidence is posted here, which I'm convinced has been driven to person-to-person channels for sharing to avoid being told the poster is prone to (Oh, excuse me, told their EVIDENCE is the product of ...  I'm sure it is just a matter of too thin-skin on their part!) lies ,delusion, naivety or some combination of the three, by those who lack the credibility with a lot of us to have their opinions matter. See, I'm for more evidence being posted here, not less. Anyone else?

 

While Forum guidelines do not permit me to address this directly with those I have in mind,  here, I will just state categorically these individuals are not worth my time. No, I would not expect them to care.

If such a resource as this wants to be squandered, I have no ability to prevent that, of course. It would seem a shame though. 

[Guest DWA]

^^^Ditto.

 

One can only hear uninformed naysaying so long before one goes:  well.  I'd rather talk about the evidence.

[dmaker]

Calling eye witness reports non-factual is not a great sin. It's a simple fact. Eye witness testimony are stories. Impossible to falsify and as such remain a fairly weak body of evidence for a scientific pursuit. This is not insulting. It's just the simple truth. Not sure why someone would get so agitated by such a simple thing as that. 

[Drew]

^^^Ditto.

 

One can only hear uninformed naysaying so long before one goes:  well.  I'd rather talk about the evidence.

 

I've been waiting for you or Dr. Meldrum or anyone talk about evidence.  

 

And by evidence I mean, DNA, corpses, videos, of the Bigfootses.

[Guest Stan Norton]

And honestly, what is this evidence on their side?  What evidence do we have for Bigfoot to date?:

 

• Eye witness testimony--the weakest form of evidence possible in a scientific discussion.
•  
• Ambiguous tracks.  Many of which have been proven to have been hoaxed.
•  
• Blurry photos and video. Again, many ( if not most) of which have been proven to be the result of hoaxes. 
•  
• Biological samples that always come back as contaminated or from some completely common animal. Never anything that could be used to support the claim for Bigfoot. 

Am I missing a substantial body of evidence?   If I was going to claim an 800 lb ape-man running amok in North America including hanging around in backyards and dumpsters, I would want some better evidence than that. 

 

Eye-witnesses: Yes, they are not ever going to be the best or most persuasive evidence but I find it very odd that someone of intelligence and a 'critical thinker' would simply dismiss every account. 

 

Tracks: Well, to state that they are ambiguous is a little disingenuous - I'd say that they are in fact the most persuasive and testable source of evidence there is. I'm still awaiting an explanation for the tracks (other than that they are from a real creature) that accounts for the individual variation of a consecutive sequence like that from Bluff Creek in 1967. Wasn't a floppy flat clown foot and it wasn't a stiff plank of wood and it wasn't hand-carved by Messrs P & G. Is the ghost of Ray Wallace still out there leaping behind his pick-up, fooling dimwits? What about the tracks and reports of tracks that go back way beyond recent decades? To simply dismiss them all without any evidence is just ill-informed. At the very least they deserve some further investigation, especially so if you profess to find this subject of interest, as you do. 

 

What about dermatoglyphics? Have all examples of these been refuted by Crowley's experiments with plaster? I genuinely don't know but would love to find out. Can you explain?

 

How about Fahrenbach's paper on the distribution of footprint sizes? Appears to show all the traits of a real population - even my basic stats training tells me that such a distribution is likely to be valid rather than the result of hoaxing.

 

Photos/Video: Yep, agree, mostly useless. However, there is one very notable exception which, despite protestations from you and other 'critical thinkers' still remains significantly unchallenged by any evidence. There are experts working on the film and, on the basis of their demonstrable, repeatable experiments, it appears to be sound. There is desperate talk of scaffolding, carving of footprints and such nonsense - I hope you agree that such silly notions can be dismissed out of hand.

 

Samples: Yep, agree that nothing has come of this which gives much cause for celebration.

 

My issue with your statement is that it is intellectually dishonest. There IS evidence - it's simply that you do not or cannot admit that it is such and thus are blinded by your entrenched 'sceptical' umwelt. That's your issue and I'm not sure what I can do to help, or whether I actually want to.

 

I can state now that if you or anyone else is able to show me, using testable methods, how it is (and always has been) possible to fake a coherent sequence of individually-varied tracks and how P&G faked that film, that would more than likely switch my viewpoint entirely. It ain't happened yet and I won't hold my breath but....

 

All my instincts as a human being and a professional ecologist tells me there is something in this - it's that simple.

[WSA]

I think I have a houseplant I need to water...

[Guest DWA]

 At the very least they deserve some further investigation, especially so if you profess to find this subject of interest, as you do. 

 

Really.  There is nothing I find of interest on which my opinion is "slam dunk I am right and slam dunk all you heathen are wrong."

 

My issue with your statement is that it is intellectually dishonest. There IS evidence - it's simply that you do not or cannot admit that it is such and thus are blinded by your entrenched 'sceptical' umwelt. That's your issue and I'm not sure what I can do to help, or whether I actually want to.

 

I believe I have said this numerous other ways.  But that's yet another one for which I can climb on board.  If you don't think so you don't think so.  But please don't come on here telling us your exhaustive painstaking examination of the evidence is why, because it clearly is not and one could not make that more clear.

 

[Guest DWA]

I feel the need to correct a factual error:

 

"Eye witness testimony--the weakest form of evidence possible in a scientific discussion."

 

Couldn't be more wrong, as shown time after time all over this site.

 

The weakest form of evidence possible in a scientific discussion is "this is the way it is" ...backed by nothing a serious person can take seriously.

 

[dmaker]

Really.  There is nothing I find of interest on which my opinion is "slam dunk I am right and slam dunk all you heathen are wrong."

 

That is about the most ironic thing you have ever said. That sums up your entire position perfectly.

"Eye witness testimony--the weakest form of evidence possible in a scientific discussion."

 

"Couldn't be more wrong, as shown time after time all over this site."

 

 

Every time you say things like this you display how utterly wrong you are. Why do you keep doing it? Or are you suggesting that you are right and every proponent of the scientific process is wrong?  And this can be backed up by more sources that one would care to count. 

 

So is that your contention? Despite the scientific process's very clear and firm position on anecdotal evidence, DWA has pronounced that principle wrong. Based on...uhm...his love for Bigfoot stories?

 

Good luck with that.

Edited September 18, 2013 by dmaker