What Is Sasquatch?

[the parkie]

That's been tried for years in the very remote areas of the Amazon Basin for many years. Those folks just want to be left alone and do their thing.

 

 

Read about this regarding remote, previously uncontacted tribes on the island of New Guinea too.

 

First Contact by Mark Anstice is a good read in my opinion.

[Guest DWA]

The fly in that ointment is that humans wrote ALL the scientific, biological and legal definitions. And we (humans) have chosen to exclude other primates that are also hair covered, but don't wear clothes to cover the parts that count. (From a reproductive standpoint, of course.)     

Well, it's our system; that's no surprise.

 

There's an extremely good reason for it:  to distinguish all the things there are, both from each other and from us.

 

From evidence so far, it would give the same results for sasquatch as for chimps:  not us.

[norseman]

Norse, I think if you ever have one shout words at you, you'll have second thoughts about the Orang theory. I've heard some wild stuff from other researchers, not just my own stuff which led me to my position. The Sierra sounds, which have been around for forty years now, clearly goes way beyond any nonhuman ape in articulatory communication.

This most likely points to them having the genetics shared with us and Neanderthals in a gene called FOXP2. New research says there is other genes involved , though the mutations in this gene specifically affect the neurocircuitry in muscle control involved in speech.

FOXP2_mutations.jpg

Along with all these modern materials and conveniences we have, comes the burden of maintaining it all. I think Sasquatch must have a very simple life once it masters sustenance and shelter in various circumstances. I doubt they would envy us much if they could see what all it takes. We couldn't give them these things and expect them to duplicate it on their own, we'd have to take them into society like you and I, or whatever we did for them, they'd have to sustain on their own which probably wouldn't go beyond spears and making fire, if they saw a benefit in it. Now that would be an idea for a research experiment.

You might as well be describing a chimera or a pan,

Speech is firmly entrenched in the homo genus, but so is all the rest of the traits discussed. I do not believe you can pick and chose to keep or discard whatever you feel doesn't fit. You have to take the whole box or leave it. Or find fossil evidence of a species of human that had regressed backwards but retained speech some how.

[Guest DWA]

Norse, I think if you ever have one shout words at you, you'll have second thoughts about the Orang theory.   I've heard some wild stuff from other researchers, not just my own stuff which led me to my position. The Sierra sounds, which have been around for forty years now, clearly goes way beyond any nonhuman ape in articulatory communication. 

 

Nah.  How 'bout "dag Willie, an orang that talks"?  Hey, we hadn't seen orangs swimming spearfishing or paddling boats either.  Maybe we just haven't seen them talk.

 

But seriously folks.  [rimshot]

 

This is another symptom of one of the mainstream's major afflictions, what I'll call the "what is just is" problem.  Every new discovery changes the whole picture, rather than just being another piece of an enormous puzzle, a piece we just can't fit in with the whole yet because we don't have enough pieces.

 

What keeps a nonhuman species from having speech?

[NathanFooter]

You might as well be describing a chimera or a pan,

Speech is firmly entrenched in the homo genus, but so is all the rest of the traits discussed. I do not believe you can pick and chose to keep or discard whatever you feel doesn't fit. You have to take the whole box or leave it. Or find fossil evidence of a species of human that had regressed backwards but retained speech some how.

 

 Your post here seems to go both ways here, you said speech is firmly entrenched in the homo genus and then seemingly speak as if you feel it is unlikely for such a case of speech retention to take place. 

 

 Also , if you believe the sasquatch to be an ape, how then do you explain the ability of language { as we know it } that is seemingly apparent ?

[southernyahoo]

 

What keeps a nonhuman species from having speech?

 

If you read the science literature on it, you'll find that brain function (cognitive abilities), fine muscle control of the articulators, and vocal anatomy all play a part in it. Fully human speech is dependent on the anatomy which allows the range of sounds used to encode meaning in our utterances. This is why the quantal vowels in purported BF vocalizations are significant.

[WSA]

Norseman...I think it helps to appreciate the working definition of "human" is much more a process of excluding other species to the point where only "human" characteristics remain, rather than just describing the characteristics we think a human should have, even if those are shared with other species.    To parse it even finer, you then have to define what you truly are describing when you talk about things like "speech" and "tool making" and "consciousness" and "complex thought." It become much more a philosophical definition than a biological one at some point. Where once it was easier to get a consensus on what is truly "human",  or not, discoveries have muddied that water tremendously.

 

My standing prediction is that  a Sasquatch specimen would muddy it further to the point where the whole defintion proves finally unworkable and useless. What a type specimen is likely to help show us is we are more alike to certain other  mammals than we are different, to the point of maybe our distinctions don't matter.

[southernyahoo]

Speech is firmly entrenched in the homo genus, but so is all the rest of the traits discussed. I do not believe you can pick and chose to keep or discard whatever you feel doesn't fit. You have to take the whole box or leave it.

 

 

I'm using the box of physical and other evidence for Sasquatch. The tracks, the hairs, the vocalizations, Patty's walk, witness descriptions, DNA results, reported behavoir etc. Just put some stuff in the box that doesn't show the traits I see. The human  traits just keep rearing it's head and saying sorry, I'm more human than you think. 

[LeafTalker]

I agree with both WSA and southernyahoo, even though they're saying slightly different things. 

 

I think that the efforts to bar the Sasquatch people from the category of "human" have their roots in ego and hubris, not in science. So for that reason, I support any effort to make science toe its own lines, and southern yahoo's efforts in that direction will get us as close to that point as anyone's will. 

 

But I think I agree with WSA that, in the long run, the whole thing is pretty silly.

 

The energy behind trying to prove difference comes from the desire to prove superiority. 

 

That is a child's game. 

 

Maturity means accepting that everyone and everything is important; that everyone and everything has value. It means letting go of your own ego, and the need to be the biggest, the tallest, the loudest, the strongest, the whatever-est. 

 

It will be really fun, I think, if the Sasquatch people can bust this thing open once and for all. 

[georgerm]

The question is, "What is Sasquatch" and the answer is we simply don't know but we are on the verge of a huge discovery through DNA and desire to capture one.

 

The second question is, "Is BF human."  The answer seems to be no for many reason. Then we ask is it an ape? My answer is no, since BF is a subhuman species between ape and human.

 

Another question is why doesn't BF make fire or tools? One answer is because it's subhuman and can't. Is this true? Does this mean that after another 100k years that goes by, will BF evolve to human status by making fire and tools?

 

As a side note, humans cook food since meat with salmonella and other bacterium challenges our evolved human immune system. Does BF have an animal like immune system that allows it to eat rotten and decayed meat during times of great hunger?

[Guest DWA]

If you read the science literature on it, ...

 

...which has placed those things in the "human" category for one, and only one, reason:  We haven't identified another species that does it.  Yet. 

 

When we do - and that's the only way in which it's remotely like us, except for some superficial stuff that is as much convergent evolution as anything else - I doubt we'd call it "human."  If we had any sense we'd go:  Looks like our self-important definitions need to change.  Did it for chimps and tool use.  We can do it again.

 

 

 

Norseman...I think it helps to appreciate the working definition of "human" is much more a process of excluding other species to the point where only "human" characteristics remain, rather than just describing the characteristics we think a human should have, even if those are shared with other species.    To parse it even finer, you then have to define what you truly are describing when you talk about things like "speech" and "tool making" and "consciousness" and "complex thought." It become much more a philosophical definition than a biological one at some point. Where once it was easier to get a consensus on what is truly "human",  or not, discoveries have muddied that water tremendously.

 

My standing prediction is that  a Sasquatch specimen would muddy it further to the point where the whole defintion proves finally unworkable and useless. What a type specimen is likely to help show us is we are more alike to certain other  mammals than we are different, to the point of maybe our distinctions don't matter.

 

 

...which actually is making my very point, in a slightly different way.

 

 

 

I agree with both WSA and southernyahoo, even though they're saying slightly different things. 

 

Well, looks like you might want to toss me in there too.

 

I think that the efforts to bar the Sasquatch people from the category of "human" have their roots in ego and hubris, not in science. So for that reason, I support any effort to make science toe its own lines, ...

 

...which, remember, are based on humans' own self-important self-evaluations. 

 

I think that seeing "human" as something from which some would "bar" sasquatch based on "ego and hubris" points up, with emphasis, the central problem I have with this whole thing:  denying animals the dignity of what they are and pretending - against much evidence to the contrary - that we are and shall remain the All That Of Creation. 

 

But I think I agree with WSA that, in the long run, the whole thing is pretty silly.

 

Oh, believe me, you have no idea how silly I think it is.  But tons of fun.

 

The energy behind trying to prove difference comes from the desire to prove superiority. 

 

As does the energy behind "they're higher than apes, ferpetesake.  THEY'RE [iNSERT FANFARE OF THE SERAPHIM HERE] US!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

Maturity means accepting that everyone and everything is important; that everyone and everything has value. It means letting go of your own ego, and the need to be the biggest, the tallest, the loudest, the strongest, the whatever-est. 

 

At which point "yup, they're apes" becomes merely a scientific exercise and not a Damning To The Hell On Earth of [shudder] APE-DOM... .  Most days, truth be, I'd rather be a bigfoot.  OK not, but you know.

 

 

The question is, "What is Sasquatch" and the answer is we simply don't know but we are on the verge of a huge discovery through DNA and desire to capture one.

 

No more.  No less.

 

Another question is why doesn't BF make fire or tools? One answer is because it's subhuman and can't. Is this true? Does this mean that after another 100k years that goes by, will BF evolve to human status by making fire and tools?

 

Not if evolution means progress (which, of course, it doesn't).  Look what tools and fire have done for us (four million people die - annually - from cooking on open fires.  Let's not get started on guns and automobiles).

 

As a side note, humans cook food since meat with salmonella and other bacterium challenges our evolved human immune system. Does BF have an animal like immune system that allows it to eat rotten and decayed meat during times of great hunger?

 

Aside from killing millions per year, cooking eventually did away with the immune systems that sustain wild animals.  We stopped needing them; they weren't selected for and vanished.

[LeafTalker]

Sorry, DWA, yes. I would've tossed you in there, too, if I'd read enough. (I only look at this thread from time to time....)

[southernyahoo]

...which has placed those things in the "human" category for one, and only one, reason:  We haven't identified another species that does it.  Yet. 

 

When we do - and that's the only way in which it's remotely like us, except for some superficial stuff that is as much convergent evolution as anything else - I doubt we'd call it "human."  If we had any sense we'd go:  Looks like our self-important definitions need to change.  Did it for chimps and tool use.  We can do it again.

 

 

I don't doubt that we will still try and salvage enough differences to call ourselves human and Sasquatch likely a subspecies, but the speech won't be one of those differences.  I'm just trying to show you the mirror that science would currently present you with when dealing with a specimen or the other evidence. I keep one eye on the evidence and the other on the science literature to see what their conclusion would be.  I do think the definition of human will be much more specific, with a much narrower meaning if not split into two new terms, one for the wildman and the other domesticated.

 

We've put alot into describing all the differences between us and other animals, and sasquatch is knocking those down one by one if a mere animal, or reinforcing them if human themsleves. Science may not like having to face that decision but it would be inevitable.

[Guest DWA]

^^^No such thing as "a mere animal" is my point.

 

We just think we're cooler.  Not sure Ma Nature shares that view.

[Guest lightheart]

Interesting read i stumbled across today

.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/11/human-intelligence-animals_n_4400395.html?utm_hp_ref=science