Bigfoot: Does It Exist? Or Not?

[dmaker]

Point is that your counterarguments remain specious.

 

There's plenty of evidence out there, and when assembled it doesn't add up to a body, but it sure enough adds up to a silhouette of an extant hominid where one is indicated to be.  When someone does drag in a body it'll fit nicely into that spot.

The evidence also adds up nicely to a social construct. Particularly when your silhouette is comprised of stories and no objective physical evidence.

[JDL]

No objective physical evidence? 

 

Seems to me that a footprint is objective physical evidence.  A trackway is objective physical evidence.

 

Look, dmaker, you must concede that by definition there is probable cause to investigate bigfoot.  Otherwise you wouldn't be here, bothering to talk about it, right?

 

If that's not the case, then the only other reason for you to be here is to proselytize your own belief system.

 

Which is it?

Edited September 16, 2015 by JDL

[Guest DWA]

 

Point is that your counterarguments remain specious.

 

There's plenty of evidence out there, and when assembled it doesn't add up to a body, but it sure enough adds up to a silhouette of an extant hominid where one is indicated to be.  When someone does drag in a body it'll fit nicely into that spot.

The evidence also adds up nicely to a social construct. Particularly when your silhouette is comprised of stories and no objective physical evidence.

 

 

Wrong again.  The evidence only adds up nicely to a social construct when one has carefully excluded consideration of what is inconvenient to that thesis...as some clearly have.

 

This is just insistence on a dearly-held belief that the evidence simply doesn't back.  Really doesn't pay in science, to insist on proof that would convince the garbageman when one presents, for one's own position, only one's assumptions.  Evidence feeds the bulldog in science.  To insist on a body when the footprints and anecdotes make the existence of that body, in the flesh, a lead-pipe cinch, is, well, it's what people who don't want to pay attention do.

 

Really amazes me, how much evidence there is...and how many people here for many many many posts still haven't bothered to make their acquaintance with it, and continue to ask where all this evidence is when they have been told several times.

 

Science insists that you do the work.  Just does, and always will.

No objective physical evidence? 

 

Seems to me that a footprint is objective physical evidence.  A trackway is objective physical evidence.

They constitute forensic evidence acceptable and known to be to anyone technically qualified.  And done.

[JDL]

Just edited my post above regarding probable cause.

Edited September 16, 2015 by JDL

[dmaker]

No objective physical evidence? 

 

Seems to me that a footprint is objective physical evidence.  A trackway is objective physical evidence.

 

Look, dmaker, you must concede that by definition there is probable cause to investigate bigfoot.  Otherwise you wouldn't be here, bothering to talk about it, right?

 

If that's not the case, then the only other reason for you to be here is to proselytize your own belief system.

 

Which is it?

Any bigfoot track could have alternate explanations: mistake, hoax, known animal, etc. Until, or if, any one track actually leads to either a bigfoot or confirmed unknown primate DNA or some other result that will actually support the claim, then tracks remain ambiguous. 

 

I must concede nothing of the sort. There is enough to investigate bigfoot as a modern myth and social construct, not as an extant animal. That is my interest. I have stated such many, many times on this forum. I find all aspects of the myth interesting. Particularly how proponents respond to challenges to the myth.  Such as this very thread.

 

 

DWA, I am well acquainted with the evidence, I am just not impressed by it. If the evidence is so convincing, then why does the world, at large, remain unconvinced?

Edited September 16, 2015 by dmaker

[Guest DWA]

This is it. The arena. The modern-day colosseum of battling bigfootery. The place for the big showdown. Proponents vs denialists in a knock-down, drag-out fight to the death (figuratively, of course...) to determine once and for all whose arguments reign supreme.

Have at it!

Thanks for doing this, man.  I better not see this argument show up anywhere else.  But I love having it, gotta admit that, and it's good to have a place to have it.

 

Bigfoot as an undiscovered real creature seems ridiculous and impossible. However, they are actually out there.

And about this:  what really seems ridiculous and impossible is all the other unbelievable stuff one has seen people do and think...which makes this totally understandable.

[JDL]

 

No objective physical evidence? 

 

Seems to me that a footprint is objective physical evidence.  A trackway is objective physical evidence.

 

Look, dmaker, you must concede that by definition there is probable cause to investigate bigfoot.  Otherwise you wouldn't be here, bothering to talk about it, right?

 

If that's not the case, then the only other reason for you to be here is to proselytize your own belief system.

 

Which is it?

Any bigfoot track could have alternate explanations: mistake, hoax, known animal, etc. Until, or if, any one track actually leads to either a bigfoot or confirmed unknown primate DNA or some other result that will actually support the claim, then tracks remain ambiguous. 

 

I must concede nothing of the sort. There is enough to investigate bigfoot as a modern myth and social construct, not as an extant animal. That is my interest. I have stated such many, many times on this forum. I find all aspects of the myth interesting. Particularly how proponents respond to challenges to the myth.  Such as this very thread.

 

 

DWA, I am well acquainted with the evidence, I am just not impressed by it. If the evidence is so convincing, then why does the world, at large, remain unconvinced?

 

 

Ok, so you admit to being subjective.  "Could have alternate explanations" does not mean "does have alternate explanations".  That doesn't eliminate the fact that there is probable cause to investigate, which you seem to accede.  You say that there needs to be a second form of evidence to back it up, but that second form of evidence has to be provided by someone acting on the probable cause to investigate.  Then you go completely subjective with the social construct bit.

 

I don't view you as challenging a myth.  I view you as the spiritual successor to Powell:

 

"One of Powell's statements that I find most damning is "A brief review of some conclusions that must be accepted in the present status of the science will exhibit the futility of these attempts.", (connecting Native American culture to contact with "so-called races of antiquity"). Note that his statement is heavily qualified by a "brief" review of "some" conclusions that "must be accepted" in the "present" status of the science to pronounce such study "futile". This subjective position is not in consonance with the Smithsonian's original objective purpose to "increase the diffusion of knowledge among men". The statement is also self-contradicting because it refers to the "present status of the science", but hampers its advancement by subjectively limiting further study in certain areas. If what he believed to be futile is futile, then it would prove itself futile on its own."

 

And, oddly, I've expressed interest in understanding why some people are so uncomfortable with the existence of bigfoot that they attempt to shield themselves by limiting the concept to a social construct.

[Bodhi]

 

 

No objective physical evidence? 

 

Seems to me that a footprint is objective physical evidence.  A trackway is objective physical evidence.

 

Look, dmaker, you must concede that by definition there is probable cause to investigate bigfoot.  Otherwise you wouldn't be here, bothering to talk about it, right?

 

If that's not the case, then the only other reason for you to be here is to proselytize your own belief system.

 

Which is it?

Any bigfoot track could have alternate explanations: mistake, hoax, known animal, etc. Until, or if, any one track actually leads to either a bigfoot or confirmed unknown primate DNA or some other result that will actually support the claim, then tracks remain ambiguous. 

 

I must concede nothing of the sort. There is enough to investigate bigfoot as a modern myth and social construct, not as an extant animal. That is my interest. I have stated such many, many times on this forum. I find all aspects of the myth interesting. Particularly how proponents respond to challenges to the myth.  Such as this very thread.

 

 

DWA, I am well acquainted with the evidence, I am just not impressed by it. If the evidence is so convincing, then why does the world, at large, remain unconvinced?

 

 

Ok, so you admit to being subjective.  "Could have alternate explanations" does not mean "does have alternate explanations".  That doesn't eliminate the fact that there is probable cause to investigate, which you seem to accede.  You say that there needs to be a second form of evidence to back it up, but that second form of evidence has to be provided by someone acting on the probable cause to investigate.  Then you go completely subjective with the social construct bit.

 

I don't view you as challenging a myth.  I view you as the spiritual successor to Powell:

 

"One of Powell's statements that I find most damning is "A brief review of some conclusions that must be accepted in the present status of the science will exhibit the futility of these attempts.", (connecting Native American culture to contact with "so-called races of antiquity"). Note that his statement is heavily qualified by a "brief" review of "some" conclusions that "must be accepted" in the "present" status of the science to pronounce such study "futile". This subjective position is not in consonance with the Smithsonian's original objective purpose to "increase the diffusion of knowledge among men". The statement is also self-contradicting because it refers to the "present status of the science", but hampers its advancement by subjectively limiting further study in certain areas. If what he believed to be futile is futile, then it would prove itself futile on its own."

 

 

Here we are, back to tracks. Super. Has a single testable hair been pulled from a track? Have any, ANY, of the trackways led to a den or feeding site or even a single piece of scat? No. How is this possible: animals shed dna, excrete waste, eat, and sleep.

 

Tracks are evidence of exactly what? An animal which walks to nowhere for no purpose shedding nothing? Sure, that seems likely. What has dr meldrum's extensive study of tracks led to? What breakthrough in the study of the animal? What do we know that we didn't know before? Years of efforts which have contributed what, book $ales??

 

This is what happens when there is no real evidence, the desire for a thing to be real does not mean a thing IS real. Let me know when a track leads to a piece of scat, until then those tracks are large paperweights. <IMO>

[Guest DWA]

DWA, I am well acquainted with the evidence, I am just not impressed by it. If the evidence is so convincing, then why does the world, at large, remain unconvinced?

 

The pretty obvious answer, when one reads what the "world at large" has to say about this, is - as I have said many times here - they are unaware of it.  Totally.  Not only is your average Joe not paying attention to anything but maybe the P/G, which he's seen, like, once (or, God forbid, Finding Bigfoot), but no scientist pronouncing negatively on this topic has said anything worthy of a scientist.  They cite the fossil record, which should be a nonstarter if you're a scientist.  They talk about anecdotes not being evidence, when they are used that way all the time, in all the sciences.  They show that they have paid no attention to the trackway evidence.  They have no rational reason that they can express to doubt P/G.  Their objections are a continuous stream of incredulous non sequiturs.

 

There's no surprise here, as it happens in science all the freaking time.  

[JDL]

Bodhi, you're responding to a guy who has had a bigfoot leave a big steaming pile of feces in the middle of a trail as a very clear message.

[Guest DWA]

And - as I have said many times here - people putting up hundreds and even thousands of posts here don't know how much evidence there is, nor how consistent it is.  Even here.

 

This is what happens when a topic is considered prima facie taboo.  When one feels silly even having an interest, one isn't gonna learn much.  And for that reason alone, most people don't want to, and so, they don't.

[JDL]

And how many people who stumble across a trackway are prepared to follow something obviously massive and potentially dangerous for miles deep into the wilderness?

[Bodhi]

Bodhi, you're responding to a guy who has had a bigfoot leave a big steaming pile of feces in the middle of a trail as a very clear message.

Great, which lab did the testing? Where were the results published?

[JDL]

And - as I have said many times here - people putting up hundreds and even thousands of posts here don't know how much evidence there is, nor how consistent it is.  Even here.

 

This is what happens when a topic is considered prima facie taboo.  When one feels silly even having an interest, one isn't gonna learn much.  And for that reason alone, most people don't want to, and so, they don't.

 

Bodhi, take note. 

[Guest DWA]

And how many people who stumble across a trackway are prepared to follow something obviously massive and potentially dangerous for miles deep into the wilderness?

 

 I'll tell you how prepared this one was.  We were on no road no trail.  The old road in which we found the tracks was not in any current use for any reason, that was plain.  (Logging roads frequently return to the wild when the logging's done.)  And the trackway looked old and even though I don't remember my exact thoughts, I am dead sure I didn't expect to find what was at the end of them.

 

Nor am I sure I would have wanted to.  Three-quarters to an inch deep in stuff we weren't denting with lug soles and heavy packs.