What's The Deal With Fence Sitters?

[dmaker]

^^ DWA, Eugenie Scott, an actual scientist, over you any day.

 

http://fora.tv/2009/01/13/Eugenie_Scott_Bigfoot_and_Other_Wild_Men_of_the_Forest

[salubrious]

But when you weigh in factors like lack of proof when there should be plenty; when you look at what must be discounted in current scientific knowledge in order to make sasquatch possible, it just does not add up.

What has to be discounted?

[dmaker]

If you watch the video I linked, Dr.Scott mentions things like the reported size of bigfoot does not reflect how we know that large mammals grow; also, things like caloric intake for animals as large as bigfoot and the unlikely habitat that bigfoot is reported in, etc.  It's a good watch if you care to spend the time. 

[Guest ChrisBFRPKY]

dmaker, I created a new topic for Eugenie Scott's video. It's a great example of skeptical thinking. Please join if you'd like to discuss her view of body proportions etc.  Chris B.

[salubrious]

If you watch the video I linked, Dr.Scott mentions things like the reported size of bigfoot does not reflect how we know that large mammals grow; also, things like caloric intake for animals as large as bigfoot and the unlikely habitat that bigfoot is reported in, etc.  It's a good watch if you care to spend the time. 

 

-And the patience. She makes good arguments. She obviously knows very little about the out of doors, nor does she know anything about natural camouflage. Perhaps it might be best to critique her comments on the Chris' thread. 

[norseman]

I go out in search of Bigfoot, although my activities could just tie in with that, such as hunting or fishing. I always have an eye to the ground so to speak.

 

I'll be home this winter though from the oil field, and I'll be using my tracked ranger to go attempt to cut tracks. Exclusive Bigfoot hunting so to speak. 

 

But I realize this is a long shot, and I certainly harbor doubts because I've actually seen one. Just tracks a long time ago.

 

They could have gone extinct, at least in my search area, or there is always the possibility that I'm wrong. And they never existed at all. Other than prehistoric apes that we know about that fit the bill of course.

 

Project Grendel has grown and we have members from BC to Florida out looking to collect a type specimen..............time will tell.

[Guest JiggyPotamus]

Unless one has a really good hold on the fence, I bet you could be knocked off. A 2x4 might do the trick. Honestly though, fence-sitters don't bother me in the least. The only thing that perturbs me is the outright denial of the possibility of bigfoot. If you've seen a bigfoot then of course you are going to believe, as you should, granted that the sighting was clear and undeniable. If you haven't seen a bigfoot, you have to rely on the evidence that is available. I imagine that most people cannot make heads nor tails of the available evidence, for a variety of reasons, the main one being that you cannot be certain as to what is real and what is fabricated.

 

Yet it is logical that the likelihood of every single piece of evidence being false is extremely minute, and thus just making a determination based on probability one should at the very least be accepting of the possibility of existence. That is not certainty, but the position is a tenable one, and it is easy to justify such a belief. I feel that those attacking such a position are unaware of how unlikely it would be that all of the modern sighting reports, all of the documented tracks, all of the small yet extremely important details found on tracks that have been pointed out by Dr. Meldrum, all of the visual evidence, all of the audio evidence, all of the historical sighting reports, all of the strange occurrences that allude to a sasquatch, all of the missing chickens, as well as any other evidence that I'm leaving out, to all be false. I created a thread not too long ago where I attempted to mathematically show the likelihood of all sighting reports being hoaxes or misidentifications when a certain percentage of reports are immediately thrown out, and one can see from that thread a portion of the argument I am making here. Of course it must be assumed that sasquatch exists, otherwise the mathematics cannot be applied in that way, but that point does not negate the improbability of all evidence pointing to something other than sasquatch, because the larger the data set that is in agreement, the less likely it is for the data to be based on lies or misidentifications. They are the exceptions to the rule, considering there will be fewer people who will go out of their way to make something up, or who will see anything furry and think it is a bigfoot.

 

It should be pointed out that all of the mathematical analyses that I've seen that attempt to show that bigfoot does not exist make similar assumptions, such as how many bigfoot would be killed per year, etc.  It seems to me that my analysis made far fewer assumptions, since there was only one. The only other assumption that could be made was treated as a varialble, namely the percentage of misidentifications and hoaxes. There is a lot to be chew over where such analyses are concerned. One such analysis that I found interesting was a paper done called "Sasquatch/Bigfoot: A Statistical Analysis of the Population Evidence," by a man named Steve Fifield, and he determined that an average sasquatch is spotted once over its lifetime, which is assumed to be about 40 years. He used the over 4,000 reports in the BFRO database as the dataset for making his determinations where bigfoot is concerned, although he used a variety of other sources when relevant.

 

The paper includes information such as the average grizzly bear is spotted 16 times over the course of its lifetime, with a lifespan of roughly 25 years. It was determined that a bigfoot is 64 times less likely to be spotted than a bear. Bigfoot sightings occur at about 0.025 sightings/bigfoot/year. Even though I like such analyses, this one included, a number of assumptions have to be made, and these assumptions are not viewed as acceptable where bigfoot is concerned, even though similar assumptions are made where the statistical analyses of other animal populations are concerned. (I want to say that I do not agree with all of the analysis) Heck, just getting an accurate number for the population size is impossible. When I look at the bigfoot problem from a strictly mathematical point of view, even though there can be no certainty, I start to see an even stronger case developing for the existence of sasquatch. I feel that most people have not attempted to address the question from a purely probabilistic approach, which is the best course of action at the moment considering we do not have undeniable scientific evidence, id est a body.

 

Anyway, I only wanted to get some of you guys to realize you cannot look at the problem and say "there is no proof that bigfoot exists, so it must not exist." And on the other side of the coin a believer cannot say that "bigfoot hasn't been proven to not exist, therefore it must exist." Although it is acceptable to say that bigfoot's existence is not falsifiable, therefore it is possible that it does exist. The latter is the only logical position that one can take, at least from the way I view the situation. And that is why I said it perturbs me to see people saying that bigfoot cannot exist. If it is not impossible for it to exist, then it can exist. So you can see why I believe a probabilistic approach is the best method since there is not any certainty without a body. Saying that there would have been a body by now if sasquatch exists is making many assumptions, although this may not be evident at first glance, and I think that some of the individuals who try to prohibit making assumptions where existence is concerned are unfairly making similar assumptions in their arguments.

[Guest Stan Norton]

Spot on. One one the old canards that really annoys me is the 'bigfoot is everywhere yet nowhere'. Bigfoot encounters are reported by a staggeringly small proportion of the population and from a staggeringly small number of geographical locations. They are, demonstrably, not everywhere. They are not some mass hysteria event. That lends a degree of credence in my opinion.

[BobbyO]

I only asked because your profile says No to the sasquatch encounter question.

 ]

Yeah at the time I joined I was very uncomfortable with it and hadn't told a soul.

I've since told a few people about it, but still a bit uncomfortable obviously.

[the parkie]

I've read numerous times of "evidence required" to back up claims made on the forum. 

 

Obviously, all claims, including claims presented as fact, should be questioned. But what evidence could possibly be presented on an internet forum that would convince?

 

All that can be done in that regard is to hear of people's experiences and claims and judge them for yourself. Some of them one may find compelling, others one may think are ridiculous, and the rest will fall in the middle.

 

I've heard a select few from some members here that are compelling to my open mind. But I don't "believe" nor am I "100% convinced". I would need my own clear, unambiguous sighting for that.

 

I understand that I won't get that on an internet forum though. 

[1980squatch]

Yeah at the time I joined I was very uncomfortable with it and hadn't told a soul.

I've since told a few people about it, but still a bit uncomfortable obviously.

 

Don't tell hifier about this inconsistency...

[dmaker]

" Yet it is logical that the likelihood of every single piece of evidence being false is extremely minute"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why? Why is that logical? I don't agree that it is. There are many, many examples of fake or mistaken alleged bigfoot evidence. Yet, conversely, not one piece of alleged bigfoot evidence has ever passed scientific scrutiny. Not one.  Yet you want to talk about numbers and probability? You want to assume logic where there is no basis to do so? 

[Guest DWA]

^^^Kids!  Not how to think about this.  But I know you have read all those posts.

[Guest Stan Norton]

There is a logical fallacy involved here which I believe the scoffers get enmeshed in every time. They fail to comprehend that the miniscule number of people claiming sasquatch encounters are drawn from a larger population (300 million or so?) and they, the scoffers, cannot divorce their thinking from the comforting perception that there are huge numbers of people claiming to see sasquatch, leading to an over reliance on broad, stereotyped statements which are in fact grounded in a poor comprehension of the reality: sasquatch encounters are incredibly, incredibly uncommon events and are not part of some mass movement of stoopid dumb honkies. I'm not a statistician or a philosopher, but I am certain there is a first order error in scoffers' thought processes in respect to this topic.

[Guest DWA]

Count on that last sentence.  Count on it.