Cascades Carnivore Project - How Do They Miss The Bigfoots?

[gigantor]

Quote

Where are the Bigfoots?

 

Argument from Ignorance

 

Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that: there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four,

1. true
2. false
3. unknown between true or false
4. being unknowable (among the first three).^[1]

---------------------

 

At this point in time, I'm going with #3.

[kitakaze]

It would be an argument from ignorance if I said Bigfoot does not exist because no body has ever been found.

 

What I posted was a question, not an argument. Mt. Ranier, Mt. Adams, Goat Rocks WIlderness. They can document and record a single wolverine moving over large distances.

 

Where are the Bigfoots?

[gigantor]

Nice try to dodge, but no cigar. So I'll answer your question:

 

Obviously, not in the immediate, very limited area that the cameras were installed and cover. Say, 30 miles south of their position.

[kitakaze]

A dodge would be my evasion of some question you have. I simply do not accept your characterization of my post as an argument from ignorance in formal logic terms. I provided what would be an argument from ignorance on the subject.

 

30 miles south of their position? Very limited area? That comment denotes a single position and seeks to diminish the scope of the work that is done to document the wildlife in the monitoring areas.

 

Allow me...

 

 

I do agree that giant, bipedal primates are almost certainly not in their study area.

[gigantor]

19 minutes ago, kitakaze said:

 I simply do not accept your characterization of my post as an argument from ignorance in formal logic terms. I provided what would be an argument from ignorance on the subject.

 

 

You are positing an argument from ignorance by trying to claim a false dichotomy. Here, read it again:

 

Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that: there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four,

1. true
2. false
3. unknown between true or false
4. being unknowable (among the first three).^[1]

---------------------

 

You are trying to claim that a single study designed to detect carnivorous animals in a limited area, has failed to detect an omnivore animal as proof that said omnivore does not exist.

 

Just to try to help you realize your fallacy, I'm gonna claim that BF is 30 miles south of where the cameras in the study are placed and that is why it was not detected.

 

[kitakaze]

Actually, I've been following numerous studies over many years in a wide variety of areas.

 

Still nothing....

 

 

Where are the Bigfoots?

[gigantor]

We can play round-a-bout all you want. It won't work for you because your logic is flawed.

 

The disappointing part is that you know it , so I have to question your intellectual honesty at this point.

 

[kitakaze]

Well, that's a bummer. One of the most disappointing behaviours in what should be sincere debate is the reflex to black hat ninja the person in discussion with you as being intellectually dishonest.

 

Like they don't really care about the issue, they simply want to pull one over on you.

 

Gigantor, I am a Bigfoot enthusiast.

 

I love the subject. I love the history of the phenomenon. I love the inquiry of the subject. I do not want the subject to go away. I do not want people to stop believing in Bigfoot. I believed in Bigfoot for most of my life before becoming that evil word "skeptic". There's an REM song that comes to mind.

 

I do want people to ask questions. Questions are everything. They are how we grow, how we progress, how we evolve intellectually.

 

I want to know if Bigfoot really exists. If that animal is an actual living species of animal in North America the same as a mountain beaver or a spotted woodpecker, I will be absolutely ecstatic. I want that to be true.

 

I won't accept it because someone said they saw it or because of bad footage.

 

There is a fact of current Planet Earth that needs to be driven home over and over again to those who think Bigfoot is a living, breathing, pooing, breeding, eating, drinking species of animal in North America.

 

People are working very hard over vast areas with the best technology available to document species that are in those areas, the ones they want to conserve and the ones they didn't expect to be there. Bigfoot is that giant, best possible example of the greatest success that all those ongoing efforts could produce.

 

I have personally many times over reached out to these people conducting these research efforts to discuss the notion of Bigfoot/Sasquatch and their studies.

 

Every time the response is the same. They welcome the idea, but there is nothing there in the way of reliable evidence that they can document to support the proposition.

 

In all these places, which we are told is Bigfoot central, serious efforts with the best technology humans can employ to detect living creatures is being used to massive extent.

 

So I ask...

 

Where are the Bigfoots?

 

The wolverines where we never thought any to be? They are there, on camera, DNA obtained. The wolves, the grizzlies where we thought not, they are there, documented, recorded.

 

Where are the Bigfoots?

 

Everywhere but where the work is being done. Everywhere where hope can persist. In the shadows, in the woods, somewhere, out there, but not where the work is actually being done in Bigfoot Central. 

[PBeaton]

"What people who engage in the adult role-playing game of Woods & Wildmen do with the reverence and worship of their social construct beast is to create an extension of their desires to defeat the mundane world, to have something larger than their boring, stressful, unattractive or otherwise insufficiently fulfilling lives.."

 

"Bigfoot is not about the actual natural world. Bigfoot is how mostly middle-class white people, mostly men, exercise efforts at self-importance and overcoming social interaction impairment."

 

"Most Footers we suspect deep down know very well Bigfoot is a myth but they keep a straight face and play Woods and Wildmen because it's fun and they get to meet other people who can reaffirm their maverick thinker status. Will you be at the Texas conference this year? You betcha, we'll roast some dogs.

Bigfoot, so dumb it hurts."

 

etc. etc.

[Drew]

On 4/23/2017 at 3:03 AM, gigantor said:

 

You are positing an argument from ignorance by trying to claim a false dichotomy. Here, read it again:

 

Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that: there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four,

1. true
2. false
3. unknown between true or false
4. being unknowable (among the first three).^[1]

---------------------

 

You are trying to claim that a single study designed to detect carnivorous animals in a limited area, has failed to detect an omnivore animal as proof that said omnivore does not exist.

 

Just to try to help you realize your fallacy, I'm gonna claim that BF is 30 miles south of where the cameras in the study are placed and that is why it was not detected.

 

 

 if evidence is lacking when we expect it to be abundant, then it very much allows us to dismiss a hypothesis, and absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

 

* numerous game cam studies which should show existence of a 600 pound omnivore in semi rural- rural areas.

* lack of fossil record, in an area where we have found fossil records of most of the megafauna of the last 100000 years

  This paper https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/60/7/516/234159/Linking-Top-down-Forces-to-the-Pleistocene shows the depth of the fossil record of the late Pleistocene

* current lack of evidence of foraging of an unknown 600 pound animal  (have you ever seen what a moose does to a shrubbery? (Insert Monty Python reference here))

* current lack of roadkill evidence.  Rare, elusive animals such as Florida panther suffer 10% mortality on roads every year.  Wisconsin has been using road killed deer to estimate deer herds since the 1950's

* in places where Bigfoot researchers are claiming Bigfoot activity, we should expect collection of evidence, yet none is collected.

 

No. If one expects there to be ample evidence of Bigfoot,  then Kit is able to use lack of evidence as evidence of absence.  This is not an argument from ignorance. 

 

Edited April 24, 2017 by Drew
closed 2nd parenthesis

[kitakaze]

That.

[MIB]

5 hours ago, Drew said:

If one expects there to be ample evidence of Bigfoot,  then Kit is able to use lack of evidence as evidence of absence.  This is not an argument from ignorance.

 

One does not reasonably expect ample evidence of bigfoot.   That expectation is rooted in ignorance.  

 

Even where evidence is comparatively ample, unless a person accepts that bigfoot is a possibility, that evidence is such that it will be dismissed as an oddity of some more normal type.   Denial is self-reinforcing, it's not until you accept the real possibility of something to find and examine what you do find in detail that you develop the sophistication to separate one thing from another instead of lumping it all into (the wrong) one. 

 

This truth is obvious to the honest skeptic and inconceivable to the scoftic.  

 

MIB

[dmaker]

Poppycock. 

 

Alleged bigfoot evidence has been examined in detail--at the DNA level. It was found to be many things, but not a one of them a bigfoot. The oddity you want dismissed is the absence of evidence that strongly supports the possibility of bigfoot. 

[SWWASAS]

I saw  a review on the New Disney nature documentary (Born in China)  that seems pertinent to the search to photograph bigfoot.       The movie Born in China  follows the lives of giant pandas,  a type of monkey and the snow leopard.    All of course known and accepted by science.  The project took 3 years to film.    The first two were relatively easy to get video footage.   The snow leopard was difficult.     The movie company had a 90 day permit to go into their known habitat and film the creatures.         The professional nature photographers could not find or get close enough to film one and were running out of time on their permit.      On the 90th day they finally got some video of the snow leopard.     Given the professional crew,  the rarity of the animal,    and its extreme elusiveness,   it took  90 days to get the video.      While I expect BF is more abundant than the snow leopard,   knowing where to look did not help with a truly reclusive creature.    If we factor in the assumed intelligence of BF, it is no wonder that we do not have a lot of good video of the creatures.   

[FarArcher]

On 4/20/2017 at 9:53 PM, gigantor said:

WVFooter and I do have our WV Trailcam project.

 

This is year four and no bigfoot. Yet, it happens there is a theorem which posits the impossibility of proving a negative...  so there's that piece of scientific principle that keeps us going (plus its a lot of fun going out in the woods looking for evidence).

 

 

I suggest to my fellow skeptics to check your first principles before foolishly thundering forward with a fallacy.

 

 

 

Well said.

 

Folks are using the wrong things to hunt the wrong things, with assumptions and approaches that are just wrong.

 

Their results are thus predictable - and provide verification of my statement.