Have The Recent Sykes Results Changed Your Opinion?

[Drew]

During the Ketchum DNA thing, many of us were hoping for the Sykes Report to support the belief that Bigfoot exists.

 

Now that it looks as though the best of the best samples have come back as typical North American animals, have any of you changed your outlook on the Bigfoot phenomenon?

 

Would anyone be more interested in studying the psychological/ neurological nature of the Bigfoot phenomenon?  

 

Is there a point where just because you have 'Seen' Bigfoot, you say to yourself 'maybe there is another explanation for what I saw'?

 

 

[BobbyO]

It reinforces my opinion that current research practices, unfortunately, just don't cut it and a complete overhaul with what is done in the field needs to be considered.

And I have every respect for anyone who attempts to get dirty in the field looking for evidence of this animals existence, but current methods just aren't good enough.

Is there a point where just because you have 'Seen' Bigfoot, you say to yourself 'maybe there is another explanation for what I saw'?

And I will bite on this one.

Remember, what I saw was not a bear, not a Gorilla, not any known animal or not a man and all I'm left with is thousands of sightings describing the same thing that I saw.

That's all I'm left with and the only conclusion I can personally make, what I saw is the same as what is written about in thousands of sighting reports in North America.

Just because a Professor tested x amount of samples with no positive results in any doesn't change my personal opinion that this animal exists one little iota.

If I had other options regarding what I saw that day I'd be all ears, but I don't have any.

[Guest shoot1]

Wish I could vote up BobbyO's post but I've already upvoted someone else today. I agree with him 110% - my user name makes my conclusion obvious, but please check the link in my signature to see how I think we need to organize it. 

[Guest ChrisBFRPKY]

The Sykes study has done nothing to change my opinion of Bigfoot's existence. Everyone that's ever seen one of these creatures has questioned their sighting. Could it have been this, could it have been that.

 

There comes a time when you can't deny what you've seen. So no matter who says what, it makes no difference to the fact that these creatures are out there. To suggest someone should study the "psychological/neurological" nature of Bigfoot sightings is simply a clever way to say everyone that has ever seen one is nuts. I'd say those suggestions would be better kept at a skeptics forum somewhere. So no, there may be a few fruitcakes in the World but it's quite impossible for every single Bigfoot witness to be a nutcase. Isn't the contrary a foolish argument? 

 

Suffering fools is one of the drawbacks of having witnessed these creatures. Some are better at it than others though.

[Drew]

I've 'seen' it, but I'm not not nuts, and it wasn't an actual animal.  FYI.

[Guest ChrisBFRPKY]

If it wasn't an actual animal, then you haven't seen it yet.

[Guest DWA]

Doesn't change a thing for me.

 

There are all shades of acceptance/belief on this topic.  Nobody can tell me for certain what kind of animal a hair came from unless they walked up to that animal and snatched the hair right off it.  If you say you did that...;prove it, or I can only take your word you aren't lying, and wonder why that hair didn't test "bigfoot."

 

If I saw a rat leaving your house, could I safely presume that only rats live there?

 

This is, logically, the precise same thing.

[NathanFooter]

Drew , for me this means that we the researchers have to up our game.  

 

 The study coming up empty has not even given me a hint of doubt, I know what I saw and that is the bottom line.

[Guest PoPsicle]

{snip}

Just because a Professor tested x amount of samples with no positive results in any doesn't change my personal opinion that this animal exists one little iota.

 

{snip}

 

“The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.†― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence

 

Note that they do not give a good description of the concept in the above 'article'. (Beware the eVile wikipedia!)

 

It is applicable to specific instances as a test (and usually only true-scientifically), but fails as a general test.

 

That is, if you are looking forward and you see no BF, then the absence of evidence rule

works (probably), and there is evidence of absence. But he's standing behind you.

(or behind the tree you're looking at, etc...)

 

(also beware the use of logical fallacies in casual, non-formal arguments, especially comments

and 'quick', 'off-the-cuff' forum posts, and such — most people (99.9%) couldn't logical fallacy themselves

out of a wet paper bag to save their lives — the concept should generally be avoided by everyone)

[JDL]

I'm with Bobby.

 

Seen the real thing, clearly, unmistakably more than once.  That bigfoot exist is not a belief on my part, but a certainty.

 

What that means to me is that the DNA evidence exists, but a good, testable bigfoot DNA sample has not yet been placed in the hands of a competent investigator.

 

That's all there is to it.

[kbhunter]

He tested 2 hairs given to him that were supposedly Yeti hairs. That is HARDLY saying there is no Yeti. As many have said, it changes nothing for those of us that has seen and continues to see them.

KB

[southernyahoo]

And I have every respect for anyone who attempts to get dirty in the field looking for evidence of this animals existence, but current methods just aren't good enough.

I'd say it's not so much the method, but the amount of time the researchers can spend on it. That means actually looking for the evidence, which should be more abundant than actual bigfoots. They should be losing hair everywhere they go out there.

The Sykes study, if comprehensive enough, would find it, though funds will always be limited.

Like I said in another thread, It's not over yet, and it could still point the way if certain things are documented.

You know, I thought Meldrum was screening these samples before submission. What was he thinking after lecturing the amatuers about knowing their animal hairs?

[Guest shoot1]

...You know, I thought Meldrum was screening these samples before submission. What was he thinking after lecturing the amatuers about knowing their animal hairs?

He let his bank ledger do the thinking for him.

Edited October 28, 2013 by shoot1

[Drew]

“The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.†― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence

 

Note that they do not give a good description of the concept in the above 'article'. (Beware the eVile wikipedia!)

 

It is applicable to specific instances as a test (and usually only true-scientifically), but fails as a general test.

 

That is, if you are looking forward and you see no BF, then the absence of evidence rule

works (probably), and there is evidence of absence. But he's standing behind you.

(or behind the tree you're looking at, etc...)

 

(also beware the use of logical fallacies in casual, non-formal arguments, especially comments

and 'quick', 'off-the-cuff' forum posts, and such — most people (99.9%) couldn't logical fallacy themselves

out of a wet paper bag to save their lives — the concept should generally be avoided by everyone)

 

Exactly, when Carl Sagan said this:

 

the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g. There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist — and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase:absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

 

 

He was describing a tactic that people use to support their unfounded beliefs.

 

It was in the book The Fine Art of Baloney Detection.

[Guest DWA]

Actually, "This impatience with ambiguity" can be exemplified by the phrase:

 

If the Sykes samples don't test out bigfoot, bigfoot isn't real.

This is how Sagan slams anybody who needs to have his worldview validated.  And the skeptical fringe is as bad as the proponents on that score, and sometimes worse.

Edited October 28, 2013 by DWA