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Guest JiggyPotamus

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Looking back, I can see a predictable result to the start of this thread.  Everything that annoys the OP about people who accept the status quo ante whole without incisive questioning based on examination of evidence...well, check, check, check, check aaaaaaaand check.

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Well, the most amusing part of the whole episode is when the proponents are proven right, which if the mainstream ever wakes up and takes off the blinders will happen, and the mainstreamers start talking about either (1) how this is gobsmacking incredible earthshaking better than 'smores etc. or (2) how this is gobsmacking incretc. but we saw it coming all along...and the amateurs who made the discovery long ago might get a footnote in the press conference somewhere.  And all the reasonably intelligent people who only needed reasonable intelligence to see this coming will all go, yep, those scientists, maaaan they are smart [guffaw]...

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"And all the reasonably intelligent people who only needed reasonable intelligence to see this coming will all go, yep, those scientists, maaaan they are smart [guffaw]..."

 

There you go again. So anyone who does not share your opinion on the evidence is not reasonably intelligent?  You just can't help yourself, can you? 

 

 

 

 

BTW wouldn't all the reasonably intelligent people already posses reasonable intelligence? And would, therefore, not be in further need of reasonable intelligence to see this coming?  ;)

Edited by dmaker
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Guest Darrell

^If bigfoot is proven to exist, and to me thats a bit "IF", that doesnt mean all the proponents were right.  It might mean only a small % were right. Many will try and use it to validate all their mind speak bigfoot worship BS but it will still be BS. Im also of the opinion that if a body was produced today, that society would go on as normal and it wouldnt be that big a thing in the big picture of our world. It might be a big thing to the bigfoot 1%'ers but not to everybody.

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^If bigfoot is proven to exist, and to me thats a bit "IF", that doesnt mean all the proponents were right.  It might mean only a small % were right. Many will try and use it to validate all their mind speak bigfoot worship BS but it will still be BS. Im also of the opinion that if a body was produced today, that society would go on as normal and it wouldnt be that big a thing in the big picture of our world. It might be a big thing to the bigfoot 1%'ers but not to everybody.

 

You might indeed be right; and that might indeed be why we don't hear from a lot of people who, hecksure it's real, I've seen a half-dozen of them.  So?...

 

Confirmation of an animal for sure doesn't mean that Bigfeet Saucer Pilots Extradimensionally Speaking To Us All are real too, no.

 

Edited by DWA
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But hey, it's slow here today dmaker, so sure...be glad to tackle your reductio ad absurdum statement.  

 

Well, no. Actually, I've enjoyed some modest degree of success in my chosen profession,  and earned the endorsement of some of my peers by being very good at telling when people deserve to be credited, when they don't, and how to tell the difference. From that experience, I can tell you with some assurance who has that aptitude, and who does not.  For those who do, it has taken them (like me) years of studying human behavior, human history and learning through experience in the real world, as well as trusting to know when their own intuition should be listened to. On this topic, a healthy dose of natural history study helps plenty too. There are no shortcuts in this education, despite what I might have thought of myself when I was decades younger. The biggest "tell" for someone who doesn't have those chops is for them to say, "You just can't trust people and their stories have no value." That is, and always will be,  the lazy man's way to spare himself heavy lifting. The wiser person knows you have to go much, much deeper than that if you want to figure out how things work down here.

 

So, yeah, that is what I'm doing.

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Sorry, but I don't see evidence of that. If your in person interview skills and lie detection instincts are so good then you need to be out there conducting interviews in person with everyone who lodges a credible ( to you at least) report on the BFRO.  Otherwise, I don't really care if you can suss out a lying witness in a court room or not.  When you read an online report of a Bigfoot sighting, you cannot possibly tell if the person is lying or not.  And also, you have a record here of being open minded to a fault in my opinion when it comes to evidence. You have argued for an open mind when dealing with Toejam and his nonsense. So pardon me if I am not impressed with your ability to separate fact from fiction.

Edited by dmaker
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Well, WSA, gotta tell you, it's good to have somebody else carry the shield and sword for a bit, and quite the job, let me say that.

 

Skeptics question assumptions.  "Everybody's mistaken, so we can just toss this topic" is one of the bigger assumptions out there.  It takes those of us who have some of WSA's experience of people, nature and the world at large not very long at all to read enough of these "mistakes" to ask the relevant question:  why, praytell, are you tossing this as a "mistake"?  And all the others, too?

 

"Because I just don't have the time to engage with this topic" is the clear answer.  I mean, when they don't offer another one that passes muster, I mean.

 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, is it?  OK, "skeptics," that is one whopper you have there. All these drunk drugged, deluded and liars are coming up with - and creating compelling trace evidence for - a biologically correct temperate-zone omnivorous primate?  Oh.  OK.  Competing with that outlandish thesis is, actually, a pretty mundane proposition:

 

The kind of animal there have been a lot of, the fossil record says so?  Well, at least one made it alongside us, and, I mean, look at all the other, less-suited-to-compete animals that made it, so why not? and people are doing their usual denial thing.  It's just humdrum yawn history repeating itself.

 

I pick the B option, and man was that easy.  I like pursuing the answer to the option where all the evidence resides.

Edited by DWA
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, is it?  OK, "skeptics," that is one whopper you have there. All these drunk drugged, deluded and liars are coming up with - and creating compelling trace evidence for - a biologically correct temperate-zone omnivorous primate?  Oh.  OK.  Competing with that outlandish thesis is, actually, a pretty mundane proposition:"

 

Except that there are plenty of substantiated cases of mistakes, lies, and hoaxes.   How many substantiated Bigfoot cases do you have?  Oh yeah, none. 

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Sorry, but I don't see evidence of that. If your in person interview skills and lie detection instincts are so good then you need to be out there conducting interviews in person with everyone who lodges a credible ( to you at least) report on the BFRO.  Otherwise, I don't really care if you can suss out a lying witness in a court room or not.  When you read an online report of a Bigfoot sighting, you cannot possibly tell if the person is lying or not.  And also, you have a record here of being open minded to a fault in my opinion when it comes to evidence. You have argued for an open mind when dealing with Toejam and his nonsense. So pardon me if I am not impressed with your ability to separate fact from fiction.

And we are far less impressed with yours.  Only the evidence is with us.  OUCH.

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Guest Darrell

i deal with people everyday who you would think are the most creditable and honest members of society and yet commit crimes and fraud. I think its a joke when I hear the hole "they are so sincere they cant be lying.

Edited by Darrell
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Well, that's why hearsay can't be accepted as proof.

 

Investigated to see what it is, though, well, I kind of expect scientists to do that.  Denial isn't what science is about; curiosity and inquiry are.

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You know Darrell, how sincere someone appears is probably the last thing I would consider when judging credibility.

 

I call this inability to discern "The Dulcimer Quotient" in the memory and honor of a long ago former girlfriend, on the occasion of me commenting how good the dulcimer sounded in the mix of a particular recording we were listening to. She didn't hear it, and adamantly refused to believe there was any dulcimer being played, and to prove it, she recited to me all the OTHER instruments on the track (and she was correct on that point at least), but steadfastly refused to credit what was obvious to me. So, yes, we had to get out the album cover and pore over the credits to verify what was obviously there....to me. Point being, some have the ability, and some don't. Me, I can't tell black from navy blue. (I also am very bad at letting a woman just be wrong when she wants to be).

 

So, this is a little like that to me. Instead of acknowledging that maybe you need a lesson in critical reading skills and analytical reasoning, you just insist you can't hear the dulcimer, so there can't possibly be one being played. There is no correspondence course for that. You are just on your own.

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