Cascades Carnivore Project - How Do They Miss The Bigfoots?

[dmaker]

1 minute ago, DWA said:

A bigfoot made those tracks I found because there is no other cause, where I was, that could be logically postulated.

You are infallible? You can never be wrong?  I'm sorry, I thought you were human like the rest of us. 

 

[FarArcher]

On 6/5/2017 at 2:18 PM, dmaker said:

 

That is exactly what I said. It is not a supposition. It is a simple fact. You can look at an impression in the ground in your own garden or in the middle of the wilderness and still be wrong about your interpretation. If you do not understand that, I can't help you with it. 

 

 

 

 I'm pretty good at tracking - men.  Used to make a living tracking down men.  I've tracked them down for several miles, even crossing international boundaries, just to find them.  You apparently don't understand the elements that come with that skill.  In fact, you clearly show a complete ignorance by your garden comment.

 

First, no one would look at an impression in a garden or other location and make any determination - unless it were well define.  Rather, tracking is about reading sign, and tracking is something that takes an entire body of work - not just one impression.

 

Give me a few minutes and a map - and I can tell you where my prey is headed - and on occasion, I could take another route, force march it, and be there waiting on them to show up.  

 

 

 

 

[dmaker]

My comment was that people can be mistaken. It does not matter where they are at the time. 

[FarArcher]

4 minutes ago, dmaker said:

My comment was that people can be mistaken. It does not matter where they are at the time. 

 

My comment was that folks know tire tracks from catapillar tracks.

 

You suggest that folks can mistake a certain track from another type of track.  The folks that make mistakes - only have a limited set of choices - and they may make a mistake without realizing some other track source may lie outside their limited set of options.

 

I could tell you if the guys were carrying packs or traveling light.  And I didn't rely on just one or two indications/tracks.

 

You may would be mistaken on tracks - others can read tracks like you can read a book.

[BigTreeWalker]

3 hours ago, dmaker said:

My comment was that people can be mistaken. It does not matter where they are at the time. 

But it seems to me the point you are constantly trying to make is that everyone is always mistaken. It is the only way the evidence supporting the existence of BF can be ignored. And the comeback that there is no evidence... Now who is mistaken? 

[Guest Starling]

On 2017-6-5 at 1:47 AM, ShadowBorn said:

Starling

What other possibilities did you find in reading the reports other then it being Flesh and Blood?

 

That people are hoaxing, misinterpreting, theorising, speculating, fabricating, game-playing, fantasising, mistaking, mythologising, misinterpreting, story-telling, joking, hallucinating, self-aggrandising, self-deluding and bare-faced fib telling 

 

On 2017-6-5 at 6:09 AM, FarArcher said:

 

 

So everyone is mistaken, fabricating their narrative, or seeing things not there?

 

Why do folks testify in court?  Obviously, a crime didn't even happen according to your logic, as everything witnessed, observed, heard and experienced was all mistaken identity, fabrication, hallucination, etc.

 

 

 

In a nutshell...yes. Why not? For your last question to be pertinent you must first ask why are people who testify in court required to say an oath? Is it not because it's a concrete and undeniably documented fact that as a species a large number of us have a propensity towards all of the things I listed above? 

 

On 2017-6-5 at 6:09 AM, FarArcher said:

 

 

Who's payroll are you on?  

 

 

 

There's a certain irony that you should ask this in the context of me simply pointing out that, amongst other things, folk sometimes have tendency to see things that aren't there.

 

20 hours ago, JustCurious said:

Anyone who really wants a taste of what it's like to go through trail cam pics of unfamiliar territory should go to www.zooniverse.org and spend some time searching for elephants!  You'd think they'd be so easy to spot - and sometimes they are - but until you've seen a few shots of the same scene, it can be near impossible to spot them because they blend in so well.  But searching for elephants is kinda fun.

 

 

 

This rather undermines your point doesn't it? Using elephants as an example, you'd think they'd be easy to spot and, yes, you concede, sometimes they are. Why then does this not apply to Sasquatch? I've never seen a completely unambiguous image of one, including  the PGF, ( I challenge you to present one)  but by this logic, there should be plenty. o present

 

15 hours ago, DWA said:

 

 

YOUR challenge, and if not accepted, I am done:  Read Meldrum and Bindernagel, just for starters, and give me an opinion that isn't a dismissal.  I'll know if it's a dismissal. And I'll tell you why and you'll recognize, as you should here, that a scientist is talking to you.

 

 

 

15 hours ago, DWA said:

 

16 hours ago, DWA said:

 

 

I am thinking you are misjudging the nature of the evidence.  The "evidence" for sasquatch as a psychosocial phenomenon is in fact NOT EVIDENCE FOR THAT. 

 

Your ultimatum is moot. No amount of  special pleading to your own -or any other authority-  can detract that what I've described most certainly is evidence for just that. It is substantial and it is, in my view, highly persuasive evidence. Your reluctance to examine it (or even discuss it) demonstrates a bias that is hard to miss. The one factor that seems to be under-discussed on this topic, whether it's the trail-cam footage or any other aspect of the phenomenon is the human factor, the part that we all, whether proponent or skeptic, know to be involved.

 

The apparent remoteness of your prints, the similarities in the details of reports, the sheer volume of reports, all of it can be explained if you're willing to accept that occasionally witless, sometimes wily, often unpredictable and and wholly surprising (not to say clever and cunning) human nature is at work.  

 

Von Daniken famously sold a best-seller in which he put forth the proposition that because archaeologists don't know for certain the exact manner in which some ancient structures were built, it must have been aliens. Today the number of experts in the related fields who agree with this are rarer than hen's teeth; because the imagination and ingenious resourcefulness of homo sapiens is all that is requited to explain a Stone Henge or a Great Pyramid. And it's certainly all that's required to explain a Bigfoot.

 

As I said, I may be wrong. In fact I sincerely very much hope I am. I like and admire the wonder of the world and like many here I'd love love it for something as amazing as a gigantic unclassified hominid to be discovered in modern times. Being wrong would pale into insignificance in the face of that revelation.  It's a wonderful, intriguing, fascinating idea. All I'm suggesting is that that is is part of the problem isn't it? Like a social meme, the big hairy man in the woods has touched something in us, and it's entertaining enough that part of us want it to be real. But my conviction is not yours. I believe the evidence points strongly towards psycho-social and not flesh and blood. 

 

One recurring theme in your argument seems to be that you know all the evidence, that you've looked at all the evidence and for this reason the possibility of you being wrong is so slight as to be practically non-existent.

 

  I would politely suggest otherwise. To paraphrase from one DWA's own previous posts...

 

"How in the hell could humans - HUMANS! - be wrong about anything? "

 

 

[dmaker]

9 hours ago, BigTreeWalker said:

Now who is mistaken? 

In my opinion, you are. 

 

All the evidence for bigfoot today is either unfalsifiable or has multiple possible sources. That is the only constant in bigfooting--the lack of unambiguous evidence. As long as that holds true, and time marches on, I am perfectly happy to provisionally conclude that bigfoot most likely does not exist. It simply cannot exist in such a vacuum of proof. The animal if it existed as reported would have been confirmed a long, long time ago. 

 

 

[Guest DWA]

Bigfoot skepticism - 5000 posts of it on a bigfoot site - is like walking out into the sunshine and denying the sun overhead and the ground beneath one's feet.  It's easily that irrational.

[BigTreeWalker]

6 hours ago, dmaker said:

In my opinion, you are. 

 

All the evidence for bigfoot today is either unfalsifiable or has multiple possible sources. That is the only constant in bigfooting--the lack of unambiguous evidence. As long as that holds true, and time marches on, I am perfectly happy to provisionally conclude that bigfoot most likely does not exist. It simply cannot exist in such a vacuum of proof. The animal if it existed as reported would have been confirmed a long, long time ago. 

 

 

I'm thinking you meant 'falsifiable'.

 

I mentioned evidence and as usual, it is equated with proof. Proof will not happen until science in general decides to delve into the subject. With that viewpoint Bili Apes, or bonobos, or gorillas did not exist until the scientific community 'proved' their existence. For that matter does anything exist before being proven by science? It's simply arrogance to think we know everything and there's nothing left for us to learn. 

[dmaker]

2 hours ago, BigTreeWalker said:

I'm thinking you meant 'falsifiable'.

No, I did not. Falsifiable, as in the truth of it can be determined. Something that can be proven false. A basic requirement for scientific evidence. That does not apply to most bigfoot evidence. Where it does apply, i.e. DNA testing, the evidence always fails. 

 

For example, the claim "I saw a bigfoot last night" is not a falsifiable claim. 

Edited June 6, 2017 by dmaker

[Guest DWA]

On ‎6‎/‎4‎/‎2017 at 5:19 PM, Starling said:

But I detect here a serious inconsistency on matters of evidence, though. On the one hand you say it's lunacy to assert something as fact for which one can provide no evidence and on the other you say it doesn't do to dismiss evidence. Ant yet my point that the Bigfoot phenomena may be purely psycho-social in nature is something that can absolutely be backed up by a ton of evidence. You don't have to be a PhD in anthropology to read a vast quantity of peer reviewed data relating to folklore and quasi-religious mythologies. These are human constructs and the literature goes back as ling as there has been art and language.

 

I've seen you make the claim that there is more evidence for the existence of Bigfoot than any other unproven unknown on the planet. Again, I believe that to be easily refuted as I could list any number of other Cryptids (we in Scotland know a thing or two about unclassified world famous creatures) for efficiency you could make that claim. And, as has already been said, that's before we even get started on the long list of other apparent unexplaineds that now litter our TV channels as cheap entertainments.

 

And yet you appear to be content to dismiss all this evidence for a psycho-social explanation out of hand without first properly examining all of it. It's a huge subject and scientifically would encompass many different disciplines. Read the reports, you say, and I have...many of them. But there are other possibilities beyond the giant flesh and blood creature you insist upon. Why not properly explore those possibilities? This seems to be the major contradiction in your scientific approach.

 

Matched against what you describe as a mountain of evidence for existence is a veritable Everest (No, an Olympus Mons) of data that suggests you simply don't need a Sasquatch to account for every single Sasquatch report. Dismissing the social sciences that study human mythology is a mighty big part of the puzzle that you say we are required to look at properly, because we absolutely must not dismiss the evidence. 

 

 

 

Even though I have really put the wood to this 'argument' above, I still have a question begging me to ask it.

 

Here's the question:  Why do people advancing this 'psycho-social phenomenon' so-called 'argument' not do a single thing, ever, to back it up?  Hmmmmmm?

 

One has to provide evidence that this accounts for everything we are looking at, and that means prove that all the reports and all the footprints and all of everything else - including books written by relevant experts showing how the evidence points to a biological entity - point to this so-called phenomenon instead.

 

For starters:  there are 628 reports from Washington in the BFRO database.  Prove - PROVE - that each one is not what the witness says it was. You must prove what it was.  Don't give me any BS about proving a negative.  Prove every one of those 628 a false positive, and if you cannot, you need to shut up and let the big dogs of science hunt.  Period. 

 

Then go to the next state, say, Florida with 310 reports, then the next, say, Ohio with 267, then the next, doing the same thing with every report...then on and on and on 'till the US is totally accounted for.

 

Then start on Canada.  Every report.  When you are done...on to the NAWAC database.  Every report there.  Then on to the John Green database.  Every one; and don't leave that table 'til the plate is CLEAN.

 

Until you have done that, guess what?  You are not even engaging in this discussion and can be conveniently ignored.

 

I find it So.Very.Charming! that people who have totally failed to engage this topic from a scientific standpoint think they are the ones to whom the proponents have to prove something.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The proponents own this field, every square inch of it.  There are no other players.  Because...no one has evidence but the proponents, and if you don't bring evidence to the table...you are NOT AT THE TABLE.

 

This is always the way it is at scientific frontiers.  The mainstream...means NOTHING.

 

If you think this is a psycho-social phenomenon, guess what?  We have done the work, and there is no way it is.  It flat IS NOT.

 

If you are so sure you are right...PROVE IT.  That is YOUR job.  Otherwise?

 

You are not at the table.  Better to be seen, and not heard.

 

 

[dmaker]

4 minutes ago, DWA said:

For starters:  there are 628 reports from Washington in the BFRO database.  Prove - PROVE - that each one is not what the witness says it was.

Unfalsifiable evidence cannot be tested for truth. 

 

The existence of bigfoot could be positively demonstrated with the proper evidence. Why don't you start with that rather than suggesting logically impossible smoke screens?

 

[Guest DWA]

19 hours ago, BigTreeWalker said:

I'm thinking you meant 'falsifiable'.

 

I mentioned evidence and as usual, it is equated with proof. Proof will not happen until science in general decides to delve into the subject. With that viewpoint Bili Apes, or bonobos, or gorillas did not exist until the scientific community 'proved' their existence. For that matter does anything exist before being proven by science? It's simply arrogance to think we know everything and there's nothing left for us to learn. 

 

Not only that...but proof is irrelevant to the practice of science.  The scientist observes and moves on, testing to be sure that the thing he saw once was significant, but never pausing to 'prove' anything. 

 

Except to the ignorant who pay him, and the ignorant who pay them.

 

The evidence is more than enough to establish this animal to anyone who understands it.  Because no one I have seen countering it even understands it. And it's always their own words that give them away.  Gee, I am always thinking, you couldn't think that if you'd read 'em.  And you couldn't.

[WSA]

Yeah, speaking of canards, the ol' "un-falsifiable" one...at least as it applies to this topic...is a perennial misdirection. In the classic rhetorical sense it applies to an hypothesis that can never, ever be proven false by the opponent.  If I said: There are angels dancing on the head of this pin, too small to be seen under any magnification", you have a statement that is not subject to being refuted by any scientific measurement. This does not fit the hypothesis of Big Foot's existence for the simple reason it chooses to overlook the existence of plenty of physical evidence  that substantiates what our opponents arbitrarily and obstinately choose to classify as un-falsifiable. So, you can test a footprint, you can test a film imprint, you can test a hair, you can test DNA, you can test a sound recording, you can test teeth marks...stop me when you've heard enough.

 

Take the PG film as just one example. A classic example of a witness report, backed up by Class A physical evidence. How much effort has been undertaken to prove Bill Munn's hypothesis false? i.e., the physical properties of the thing on the film prevent it from being merely a human in a costume. The answer to that question is  "nil" on any serious scientific level. So don't give me this un-falsifiable crap. He has pages and pages of analysis that begs refuting. If you asked Bill, he tell you he'd welcome anyone to try. Start here and then we'll talk.  Hell, start on any of the things on the list and we'll talk.  Big Tree Walker will be glad to take your call, I feel fairly certain. You think a porcupine made those tooth marks on those elk bones? Show your work and then we'll talk. Instead, all we hear is more angels on a pinhead. The lack of intellectual integrity is breathtaking.  

 

No, what is obvious to all who seriously study this matter is that all attempts to prove this hypothesis as false have failed miserably, or were not even attempted,  not that it is un-falsifiable. Big, big difference.    

 

There is plenty in all of this to offer science a chance to prove it false but until science removes head from posterior, and treats the hypothesis of Big Foot 's existence on a par with invisible dancing angels, the needle for science won't budge.  Lazy man's way of explaining the world it is.     

[dmaker]

WSA, are anecdotes falsifiable?

 

 

WSA, do you think maybe the lack of fanfare to Munn's book and BigTreeWalker and (Not A)Dr.Johhny Dagger's bone essay, for example, could possibly be that neither is that impressive or conclusive? Or is it simply being ignored by science because it is too bigfooty?

 

Perhaps people should try to publish in Nature, or similar publication, if they wish to reach and be recognized by mainstream science. Coming here and bemoaning the lack of scientific recognition will accomplish exactly nothing.

 

Do you think any gauntlet thrown here will even be noticed by the world at large, much less mainstream science? 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2017 by dmaker