For Those Of Us Who Don't Think Sasquatch Is Genus Homo...

[SWWASAS]

Doing some research on fossils.     Here are more facts that might explain why BF is not in the fossil record.       One would have to agree that 80 million years seems quite long enough for a living species to be expected to be found in fossils dated newer than 80 million years.     Certainly that is time enough for fossils to form since we have much newer fossils.       The average length of time a certain phylum is found in the fossil record is about 2 to 3 million years before it is replaced by something similar in the fossil record.    So in 80 million years one would expect a certain animal to be replaced by something newer or different 40 times in that time frame.     But some animals are found basically unchanged for very long periods of time.       Some do not change at all.     Then there is the coelacanth.   That disappeared from the fossil record 80 million years ago.     No newer fossils have been found since and it was thought to be long extinct until a recently caught one was found on a fishermans dock.      That means that a living species managed to survive 80 million years without leaving a fossil record.    Sure there are probably newer fossils but they have not been found.      But if the coelacanth can have a sustained breeding population for 80 million years without leaving fossils then a BF and its ancestors could have existed as well for a much shorter period of time without leaving a fossil record.    The fossil record argument just does not have much validity.     

Edited October 4, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[Guest DWA]

Well, it never really has.

 

1) Fossils or lack of same do not trump a large and consistent body of evidence for something people are seeing now;

2) It's bass-ackwards to go from fossils to extant anyway; we don't have any idea of what we're talking about before there's something real right now to compare fossils *to*.  Which, thanks to all the sightings and footprint finds, we can, and can see that there are a number of possible antecedents for sasquatch in the fossil record.

3) People generally have no idea how rare an event fossilization is; they think we've found tons and tons and tons.  In the absolute sense, maybe.  But against the geological stretch we are talking about:  hardly at all.

Edited October 4, 2015 by DWA

[dmaker]

Are coelacanths reported to be lurking around backyards and campgrounds? 

[Rockape]

^ If by coelacanths you mean DWA, then yes.

[Squatchy McSquatch]

^^The scientists who have read up on the topic agree.

[Bodhi]

Doing some research on fossils.     Here are more facts that might explain why BF is not in the fossil record.       One would have to agree that 80 million years seems quite long enough for a living species to be expected to be found in fossils dated newer than 80 million years.     Certainly that is time enough for fossils to form since we have much newer fossils.       The average length of time a certain phylum is found in the fossil record is about 2 to 3 million years before it is replaced by something similar in the fossil record.    So in 80 million years one would expect a certain animal to be replaced by something newer or different 40 times in that time frame.     But some animals are found basically unchanged for very long periods of time.       Some do not change at all.     Then there is the coelacanth.   That disappeared from the fossil record 80 million years ago.     No newer fossils have been found since and it was thought to be long extinct until a recently caught one was found on a fishermans dock.      That means that a living species managed to survive 80 million years without leaving a fossil record.    Sure there are probably newer fossils but they have not been found.      But if the coelacanth can have a sustained breeding population for 80 million years without leaving fossils then a BF and its ancestors could have existed as well for a much shorter period of time without leaving a fossil record.    The fossil record argument just does not have much validity.     

seems disingenuous to equate the coelacanth and sasquatch. The obvious differences in habitat and claimed range aside; the fishermen who live in areas of the West Indian ocean off the coast of Indonesia were catching those fish for many years before they were "rediscovered" by science. 

[WSA]

In some regards, BF is predicted to be exactly like the coelacanth, in that large numbers of people were encountering them, but yet their eventual confirmation was reported as a "Who could have predicted that?" kind of event.

 

No, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

[MIB]

seems disingenuous to equate the coelacanth and sasquatch. The obvious differences in habitat and claimed range aside; the fishermen who live in areas of the West Indian ocean off the coast of Indonesia were catching those fish for many years before they were "rediscovered" by science. 

 

OMG this is hilarious: I believe you've made the "other side's" point better than they ever could have.    The fact is fishermen hunters loggers hikers homeowners etc have been reporting bigfoots for years despite science not "discovering" them.  

 

MIB

[dmaker]

"Reporting" is not the same thing as catching and harvesting. One is a story, the other, tangible proof. 

[WSA]

Moon, June, spoon...

Hey, who  saw THAT one coming, I tell ya...color me gobsmacked.

 

I always loved that Doonesbury cartoon about the "secret" bombing of Cambodia, with the Cambodian peasant testifying before Congress. " 'Look', I said, 'Here come the bombs...' "

[Guest DWA]

 

seems disingenuous to equate the coelacanth and sasquatch. The obvious differences in habitat and claimed range aside; the fishermen who live in areas of the West Indian ocean off the coast of Indonesia were catching those fish for many years before they were "rediscovered" by science. 

 

OMG this is hilarious: I believe you've made the "other side's" point better than they ever could have.    The fact is fishermen hunters loggers hikers homeowners etc have been reporting bigfoots for years despite science not "discovering" them.  

 

MIB

 

If a man's being right depends on not seeing something...gonna be awfully hard to make him see it.  

 

Indeed what Bodhi is saying to make his case would require almost no modification to make mine.  Start after the semicolon with "the fishermen..."  (OK, drop the irrelevant stuff.)

 

What evidence do we have that those fishermen were catching coelacanth?  Wait for it...*their word.*  Only diff?  We got *their word* after scientists confirmed the fish.

 

And so...believed them.  ONLY diff.  And, history shows us, an utterly irrelevant diff.  People saying this kind of stuff, scientists find out over and over and over...tend to be right.

Edited October 5, 2015 by DWA

[Guest SteveL]

Here's a really good National Geographic / NOVA documentary on this subject. (hence my new profile pict.)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eNeJWOidVs

 

My take away is that even the earliest of Hominin's may have buried their dead, and may have occupied the same locale, of what is now S. Africa, with Australopithecine early bipedal hominoids.  Then there's the observation that; both extremely rare fossil remains constituting these newly found specimens (Sept. 2015), represent the very late Australopiths and very early Hominids which were both species in transition and subject to cross breeding.  These are good clues for the hominid side of the argument I think.  As there are no descriptions like this on the Gignato side of the fence.  That is if I may state an opinion.

[norseman]

I'm not following?

We know genetically Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens cross bred. We also know that the cross breeding was strained as the two species were almost too distant for this to take.

Therefore a Homo Sapien and Australopithecus could never cross breed even if we found ourselves occupying the same time and space......which historically we did not.

[MIB]

Not disagreeing, just pondering.  

Have we ever recovered Australopithecus DNA?   Do we know how much divergence truly happened?    There should be a rate of mutation times time, but if there were environmental factors selecting for some changes and weeding out others, it might be ... like a wind-blown pine vs a pine in a calm place, all surviving branches blown to the "left" rather than a 50/50 mix of left and right?

 

I dunno.   Just a thought.

 

The other "just a thought" is that the difference between Australopithecus and Homo is somewhat arbitrary, defined by some scientist who won the debate with competing scientists, but that doesn't mean that our understanding of the separation is right.  

Eh ... lot to "hmmm" about today. 

 

MIB

[SWWASAS]

Looking at the known time lines of the Homo human line and the Australopithecus there was a 1 million year overlap. The homo branch is thought to have evolved from the Australopithecus line sometime after 3 million years ago. The Australopithecus line was extinct by 2 million years ago. Once would think since one line led into the other there was cross breeding. I suspect that early Homo were very similar if not visually indistinguishable from their immediate ancestral line. I could find no reference to Australopithecus DNA but that could exist. One thing we find with going back that far is that what science understands about ancestral links is usually wrong. Some unknown ancestor is found that sometimes changes everything.

I did find one reference that Australopithecus did not seem to use any more tools than modern chimpanzees and other apes and now use. It had 2 million years to develop tool use but did not seem to be interested or capable of it. But nearly as soon the homo line evolved it was using more and more complicated tools. Is that the smoking gun that points to bigfoot as the end of the line for Australopithecus? BF do not seem to use constructed tools. Makes one wonder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus