So. What Happens When Sasquatch Is Proven, And We All Know The Skeptics Were Wrong All Along?

[Faenor]

The big loosers will be the amateur researchers. Traditionally trained scientists will take over the field. This forum will probably go away or change to the point it will no longer exist. I suspect a good chunk of the posters here are more into the whole bigfoot game and will move on to ufos, ghosts, or other paranormal phenomenon. Bill munns kitkakaze and other pgf guys will need to look for a new hobby/gig no one will care about the pgf outside of it being the first video capture. I think skeptics will be shocked and rubbing their heads why they were so wrong but ultimately happy and excited. If i found out santa claus was real i wouldn't be upset it would be a good thing.

[hiflier]

Hello Faenor,

Speaking of Santa Claus.........I've never seen Santa Claus AND the Easter Bunny at the same time. I think it's the same guy. Sort of like a Superman/Clark Kent kinda thing without the phonebooth?

Sorry, off topic.

[Rockape]

What Happens When Sasquatch Is Proven

Gotta date as to when this is going to happen?

[Guest DWA]

I would high five everyone of you and buy the first 3 rounds at the Bluff Creek Bar and Grill.....

I would tell you you all have been so right and I can't believe I was so hard headed.

Now get busy.......

Gotta give that one honesty points.  It's really the only acceptable tack.

[hiflier]

Hello DWA,

I gotta agree with you. It would be great if all skeptics could also be so free and unencumbered as Martin. Hat's off to him and good on you for pointing it out.

[Guest DWA]

You know what I really hope will come out of proving the species? I hope that scientists and people in general will look at the countless pieces of evidence that were touted for decades before the species was proven, and just see that the existence of bigfoot should have been obvious- and then I hope they apply this lesson to other things where there is so much circumstantial evidence, but little physical evidence, and then actually expend the energy and resources necessary to study the particular topic.

 

Really.  Were this anything but something on which the whole culture is in unreasonable denial...we'd have known in 1968 latest.  (The New York Times, actually, was pushing for final resolution...in 1871.)  Any scientist should know better than to do what most of them do for public consumption when it comes to this.

 

But let's not hold our breath.  They're only scientists ...whose primary occupation, too much of the time, appears to be failing to live up to the high standards of science.

This, 100%.  They will take pride in having actually taken an interest in the topic while most people did not even consider the subject at all.

...but of course I'm struggling to come up with a context in which "interest" includes being pointed to information time out of mind...and just plain refusing to check it out.

[Guest]

The big loosers will be the amateur researchers. Traditionally trained scientists will take over the field. This forum will probably go away or change to the point it will no longer exist. I suspect a good chunk of the posters here are more into the whole bigfoot game and will move on to ufos, ghosts, or other paranormal phenomenon. Bill munns kitkakaze and other pgf guys will need to look for a new hobby/gig no one will care about the pgf outside of it being the first video capture. I think skeptics will be shocked and rubbing their heads why they were so wrong but ultimately happy and excited. If i found out santa claus was real i wouldn't be upset it would be a good thing.

I think this is spot on,  the novice researcher will be pushed out of the picture to make way for professional scientist.  I would assume a large following from others not interested in the field before, I just hope the influx of people don't disrupt the species or the environment.  Pushing them deeper into the forest or causing them to become overly defensive, which may lead to a destruction of the species. 

[MNskeptic]

DWA, your post was intended towards denialist, right? Skepticism is healthy and skeptics are open to the existence of this creature. Not having seen the thing ourselves, we just want whatever doubts we might have laid to rest. Is that so wrong? Denialists on the other hand... Heck, I'm not as skeptical about the existence of the creature as I am about some of what is reported by people who so want or need to have others believe they've had something mystical happen to them.

So, to address your question, if the creature is 'proven', there will still be a sizable population of the general public that still won't believe. Case in point, by some accounts, roughly a quarter of Americans have doubts about NASA having actually sent men to the moon. I would guess the same phenomenon will occur once a body on a slab is produced. This debate is likely to continue long after that occurs.

MNSkeptic

[Patterson-Gimlin]

I would actually be well pleased . Since the subject interests me. I have been in the woods with proponents. This next time we went out  I would be the big dude with the plate of crow. Heck, being wrong only once in nearly  55 years is still a pretty good track record.

Now, back to the real world.

[MagniAesir]

The thing is many proponants will be wrong as well

If sasquatch is proven to exist does anyone on this forum think that it could be all the different types that proponants claim

Ape like

human

inter-dimensional

Mind speak

Shape shifter

And more versions have been claimed on this site as well

If sasquatch exist and are proven to be real what percentage of the proponants will be wrong and how will they react to having what they "know" to be true is wrong

Or will they merely claim that their type of Sasquatch just hasn't been found yet

[Martin]

You mean there is more than one type of sasquatch?

Well I'll buy the first 3 rounds for each type discovered...... especially the one running around Alabama with the big tracking collar around it's neck.

[hiflier]

Hello DWA,

 

.....They're only scientists ...whose primary occupation, too much of the time, appears to be failing to live up to the high standards of science....

I absolutely disagree with this. Read the IPCC's AR5 in it's entirety, go onto the NASA website, checkout the oceanographers, the geologists, the volcanologists, the chemists, the astrophysicists, the medical researchers, the quantum physicists, the glaciologists, the geophysicists, and all the rest and I think you'll find that the standards are excellent and the bars are set pretty darned high across the board.

Your pet Sasquatch peeve involving lazy scientists simply doesn't stand up. There are plenty of qualified and over qualified people in the woods and deep forests. If anything their activities and presence out there for the last 50 years is a feather in the caps of the so called "denialists".

Could be time for you to consider that there is a possibility the only answer if the creature exists is that the knowledge is being kept from you. I find it nearly impossible to imagine that none of the thousands and tens of thousands of scientists, professors, interns and students have nothing remarkable to share with the world. Focusing on a pile of anecdotal evidence is fine but the huge pile of people who study the forests and other habitats is much, much larger so I think a certain amount of reasonableness might be in order?

Edited August 5, 2015 by hiflier

[MagniAesir]

You mean there is more than one type of sasquatch?

Well I'll buy the first 3 rounds for each type discovered...... especially the one running around Alabama with the big tracking collar around it's neck.

I mean that on this site alone there are a number of people that claim they "know" that sasquatch is................

Many of these versions contradict with one another

Lets just say a Patty like sasquatch is discovered and it is a primate

What do the knowers that claim that sasquatch is an ancient people or are paranormal or inter-dimensional then do

Many believers have opposing views of what sasquatch are, I suspect that if sasquatch are discovered a lot of knowers will be eating crow or be in complete denial

It is easy for the believers to throw rocks at skeptics, and gleefully image a day when they can scream I told you so

What they don't seem to imagine is a world where sasquatch are fundamentally different then what they believe, let alone that sasquatch doesn't exist

Edited August 5, 2015 by MagniAesir

[BobbyO]

Heck, being wrong only once in nearly  55 years is still a pretty good track record.

He/She says without even a hint of a anywhere.

The ego's, man them ego's.

[Guest DWA]

DWA, your post was intended towards denialist, right? Skepticism is healthy and skeptics are open to the existence of this creature. Not having seen the thing ourselves, we just want whatever doubts we might have laid to rest. Is that so wrong? Denialists on the other hand... Heck, I'm not as skeptical about the existence of the creature as I am about some of what is reported by people who so want or need to have others believe they've had something mystical happen to them.

 

I'll never use the word "skeptic" with a modifier if I mean a real skeptic.  Bigfoot skepticism is my term for something that isn't.  Denialist works too.

So, to address your question, if the creature is 'proven', there will still be a sizable population of the general public that still won't believe. Case in point, by some accounts, roughly a quarter of Americans have doubts about NASA having actually sent men to the moon. I would guess the same phenomenon will occur once a body on a slab is produced. This debate is likely to continue long after that occurs.

 

Well I think this whole thing is a lot more complicated than most people posting here think.  It won't go, bigfoot shot; Times article tomorrow; everyone on board by the weekend.  You aren't the only person who thinks that the type specimen will only be the beginning of the discussion.  I love it when people say "that'll be all for Finding Bigfoot!"  Really???  Half of what's on Animal Planet is about dogs and cats!  What, we haven't found them yet?  

 

I mean that on this site alone there are a number of people that claim they "know" that sasquatch is................

Many of these versions contradict with one another

 

...and none of them are taxonomy, which can only be done on a type specimen, not off an experience of "really intelligent eyes," which, you know, an ape, say, can have.

Lets just say a Patty like sasquatch is discovered and it is a primate

What do the knowers that claim that sasquatch is an ancient people or are paranormal or inter-dimensional then do

 

Likely keep on saying what they think, as long as there is nothing that they acknowledge to tell them otherwise.  I mean, right now, we have people saying there's no evidence!  Denial exists everywhere...and part of its resiliency is not acknowledging stuff that's happened.

Many believers have opposing views of what sasquatch are, I suspect that if sasquatch are discovered a lot of knowers will be eating crow or be in complete denial

 

...mainly because they aren't basing what they think on evidence but on impressions, which, again, aren't taxonomy.

It is easy for the believers to throw rocks at skeptics, and gleefully image a day when they can scream I told you so

What they don't seem to imagine is a world where sasquatch are fundamentally different then what they believe, let alone that sasquatch doesn't exist

 

Oh, this would be interesting from a number of angles.