Misidentification

[roguefooter]

Double edged sword again isn't it.

Just because you don't know, doesn't mean it isn't what it is.

 

 

I never said it wasn't. The point that you're dancing around here is that a story is just a story without anything to back it up, and is susceptible to the human brain. 'Maybe' and 'possibly' are fun to think about when there is no evidence, but that's about as far as it goes.

 

 

When you look at something for a certain period of time when you don't just have a fleeting glimpse, when it's unobstructed, in clear daylight, without being under the influence of any foreign substances in your system, you see what you see and that's that.

You can continue to bang the drum for mis I'd as much as you want and I'm sure in some cases you'd be right, but in many you'd be wrong also.

A cow is a cow and a horse is a horse.

A bear is a bear and a Sasquatch is a Sasquatch.

I actually find the mis I'd and hallucinating argument tiresome and insulting because neither have anything to do with reality as both, even combined, are absurd to attribute all Sasquatch sightings too, but I don't believe they're actually about them anyway, I believe they are just another weak argument by people that who just simply won't admit to their existence if one walked up and put one right on their chin.

 

 

Again we have the assumption that this is "attributed to all Sasquatch sightings". Where did I say this? I didn't. These are possibilities for any sighting that has nothing to back it up. There are sightings out there that come with evidence so obviously they don't pertain.

 

You can call it a weak argument if you want, or that it has nothing to do with reality, but that's nothing but denial. Hallucinations are a medical fact. The same goes with misidentification- it even happens right on this forum. If medical and biological reality is "insulting" then so be it. Life is about decisions and you can decide to look the other way.

Edited April 5, 2014 by roguefooter

[Guest DWA]

Hallucinations may be a medical fact.  But to use them to put paid to the topic and 'nothing to see here' is no more scientific than belief in the Tooth Fairy.

[Guest]

In that case, how do you account for salubrious' post just before yours?   The question begs asking: what do you suggest he saw that he misidentified?   If you can't account for it by misidentification, what do you suggest for an explanation?

 

MIB

To paraphrase a certain commander Data that shall remain nameless: In science 'I don't know' is a valid answer, I don't know what he really saw. Maybe he saw, as he suggested, a pile of dirt. Maybe he saw a bear, a tree stump, maybe there was nothing there at all to see and it was the product of a half-sleeping mind (as another poster suggested). I do know what he thinks he saw, and maybe it is what he saw.

Does this answer your question?

[roguefooter]

Hallucinations may be a medical fact.  But to use them to put paid to the topic and 'nothing to see here' is no more scientific than belief in the Tooth Fairy.

 

The fact of the matter is, there is 'nothing to see' with an unverifiable story. I could make one up right here on the spot if you want me to, it's that simple and unsubstantial. Will you count it as being evidence?

 

Science looks at all the possibilities, and hallucination is one of those. A lot of people around here just don't want to hear about anything that doesn't boost the reality of Bigfoot.

[Guest]

A lot of people around here just don't want to hear about anything that doesn't boost the reality of Bigfoot.

I agree, and it's a mind set that we should all discourage. Truth can never be truly obtained if the only conclusion we accept are the ones we want.

[Guest DWA]

Well I for one am utterly unwilling to accept, and be done with it, the explanations that go:  this could happen...therefore IT DID, and let's stop talking about this.

 

You can make up all the stories you want.  The evidence isn't just stories.  Footprints and a film vouched for by people with directly relevant scientific chops - that square 100% with the stories - ain't stories, and to dismiss them isn't dealing with reality.

Edited April 5, 2014 by DWA

[Guest]

I've once saw a set of depressions in a hiking trail that I almost misidentified as a tyrannosaurus foot print. Far more likely that it was soil erosion, though (considering that tyrannosaurs have been extinct a few million years). Moral of the story: Misidentification isn't limited solely to seeing a tree stump and thinking you saw a Bigfoot. It can also apply to physical evidence as well.

Edited April 5, 2014 by Leftfoot

[Guest keninsc]

One thing you will learn it there are people who will accept whatever you say about seeing a Bigfoot as real, No questions asked, no proof is required. Then there are those that will extrapolate more details from a story you give of an encounter, regardless of whether or not it's true. You say, "I saw it move quickly away." They take that to mean, "I stalked me for some time, then it paused and ate some nuts. It watched me more, then when I realized I was being watched, it hit me with it's infra sound and stunned me and I watched it escape." Now understand, they haven't actually lied about anything, but they have added things which weren't in the original statement and we don't know if they are real or not or just pulled out of the air.....or some other warm, dark, moist place.

 

Then there are the people who don't know what to believe so they want proof. "Give me proof, show me evidence, what have you got to prove that?" Your words are interesting but they mean nothing to them unless you have tangible evidence. I can generally tell you if someone farted in a wind storm but not who it was, so evidence it a little tough on something like that, and the vast majority of Bigfoot sights are like that. Didn't have a camera, was too scared to use it if they did, no ain't got no proof. Then comes the inevitable, "Ha! Liar!"

 

So the people you speak to about stuff like this are as varied as the ones reporting the stuff and as a result the reactions from people are just as all over the place too.

I've once saw a set of depressions in a hiking trail that I almost misidentified as a tyrannosaurus foot print. Far more likely that it was soil erosion, though (considering that tyrannosaurs have been extinct a few million years). Moral of the story: Misidentification isn't limited solely to seeing a tree stump and thinking you saw a Bigfoot. It can also apply to physical evidence as well.

 

Probably not a T-rex but a Velociraptor it could well have been. Did it have three toes and a spike or just three toes?

[roguefooter]

Well I for one am utterly unwilling to accept, and be done with it, the explanations that go:  this could happen...therefore IT DID, and let's stop talking about this.

 

 

I don't remember seeing anybody proclaim "this could happen, therefore it did" on just a story. Is there an example somewhere?

 

 

You can make up all the stories you want.  The evidence isn't just stories.  Footprints and a film vouched for by people with directly relevant scientific chops - that square 100% with the stories - ain't stories, and to dismiss them isn't dealing with reality.

 

 

That's why I specifically said "an unverified story", and I also specified 3 other times in just this one thread- stories "with nothing to back them up".

 

I'm thinking about putting it in my sig but I still don't think people will bother reading it. People have their pre-conceived arguments.

[Guest]

 

Probably not a T-rex but a Velociraptor it could well have been. Did it have three toes and a spike or just three toes?

 

Three toes and a spike.  But soil erossion forming what looks like dinosaur tracks isn't unheard of and should act as a lesson:  Pareidolia happens.

[JDL]

How do you guys live in a world where you perceive everyone else's sense of perception as completely fallible?  How do you get in a car and drive?  How do you trust your own ability to determine if a woman is attractive or not?  How do you manage to actually urinate in the toilet instead of on the floor?  Do you even perceive your own flatulence to be obnoxious?

 

The very fact that you can make it through the day without a sequence of perceptional disasters is because you, and all of the people around you are, in fact, able to accurately perceive the world the majority of the time and avoid catastrophe.

 

It flies in the face of the thesis that all people are terrible witnesses all of the time.

 

Get real!

[Guest keninsc]

Three toes and a spike.  But soil erossion forming what looks like dinosaur tracks isn't unheard of and should act as a lesson:  Pareidolia happens.

 

Yep, pareidolia is a biotch at times.

[Guest]

Tell me JDL have you ever heard of a man named Kash Register?  He was a black male falsely imprisioned and served thirty plus years of a life sentence for a murder he did not commit before being exonerated.  What condemed him to such a miscarriage of justice?  Eye witness testimony.

 

We live in a world where eye witness testimony can condemn the wrong men to life sentences, even executions as in the case of Kirk Bloodsworth.

 

If you don't think that should cause people to be hesitant to accepting eyewitness testimony then you're the one with a problem.

 

Furthermore, studies consistantly show eye witness testimony to be incredibly fallible. 

 

 

Scientific American said:

 

The uncritical acceptance of eyewitness accounts may stem from a popular misconception of how memory works. Many people believe that human memory works like a video recorder: the mind records events and then, on cue, plays back an exact replica of them. On the contrary, psychologists have found that memories are reconstructed rather than played back each time we recall them. The act of remembering, says eminent memory researcher and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is “more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording.†Even questioning by a lawyer can alter the witness’s testimony because fragments of the memory may unknowingly be combined with information provided by the questioner, leading to inaccurate recall.

 

Which begs the question, how much of what Bigfoot witnesses are what they actually witness and how much of it is it the investigators leading the witness?

Edited April 5, 2014 by Leftfoot

[Guest keninsc]

How do you guys live in a world where you perceive everyone else's sense of perception as completely fallible?  How do you get in a car and drive?  How do you trust your own ability to determine if a woman is attractive or not?  How do you manage to actually urinate in the toilet instead of on the floor?  Do you even perceive your own flatulence to be obnoxious?

 

The very fact that you can make it through the day without a sequence of perceptional disasters is because you, and all of the people around you are, in fact, able to accurately perceive the world the majority of the time and avoid catastrophe.

 

It flies in the face of the thesis that all people are terrible witnesses all of the time.

 

Get real!

 

That's because people suck as witnesses. I can't tell you the number of times I go to verify something someone has told me and when I get out there they got no clue what they were talking about. It's not always their ability to perceive as much at it is an inability to communicate adequately. 

[Guest]

I think if ones life experience includes a large amount of time where ones life and the lives of those around you depended upon the truthfulness of information one received from others and their own accurate descriptions and analysis of what they saw, heard, smelled or felt, then one would be more inclined to believe eyewitness reports. I think if ones life experience has not included dealing with reliably competent and honest people who actually can accurately tell you what they experienced, or for that matter can accurately tell you about ANYTHING, then I would expect that one would indeed paint eyewitnesses with a very broad unreliable brush. I think you certainly cannot trust all eyewitness reports, maybe even most. But I think there are very truthful and accurate reports from witnesses, and many can and should be believed. Maybe not explained, as it shouldn't be mandatory for someone to know anything about what they have observed, or explain why they saw it, or why it looked, sounded, or smelled like it did. But I know for a fact that it is possible for people to accurately remember and then describe accurately what they experienced.