Has Bigfoot Science Stalled?

[JDL]

I just haven't been able to tune to that channel.

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

I'm sending you something now....

[Incorrigible1]

I just haven't been able to tune to that channel.

We must try harder.

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

It will happen when you least expect it.

Perhaps as you dream tonight...

[Guest Crowlogic]

 I am accused of not being interested in science.  Well this thread is called "Has bigfoot science stalled?"  It seems to imply than bigfoot science is a special thing onto itself and either removed from true science or otherwise operating from a different paradigm.  Perhaps it's time to lay out the foundation of bigfoot science and how it's different paradigms are different from science proper.  How is bigfoot science different and by what dispensation is bigfoot science set apart from science proper?

 

We talk of bigfoot science stalling but don't we really mean great bigfoot sightings and enounters drying up?  Historically a big sighting gets reported and the press/media  arrives and usual suspects go out and interview the usual suspects.  But science has rarely been part of that.  Science was 100% absent when Georgia freezerfoot took place.  It was 100% absent when London happened.  It was a non scientist who outed London.  Great work Cliff.  So maybe defining exactly what bigfoot science is will help establish where it may be going or why it's gone there.  Examples of bigfoot science to use as a future template helpful.  As near as I can tell bigfoot hunting is the major MO of the effort and hunting isn't necessarily science.  Is not science the thing that get's applied to the thing the hunt brings in?

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

Science need no wait for a hunt provided object of consideration.

 

On the other hand if I was seriously studying the subject I would throw out all eyewitness accounts.

Ask law enforcement how good most witness statements are.

And that is in legal cases, imagine if you add hearsay, hoaxers, wishful thinkers, the uninformed, the ignorant, low light conditions, transitory phenomenon, witchcraft, magic, and  the supernatural (is Bigfoot the blair witch or a jinn using portals?).

 

For a science baseline I would only not discount the sightings that have first rate foot track evidence (non of those muddy somethin somethins) in a fine substrate with detail or a film or still that clearly shows a cone headed hominid with longish arms and a stout physique.

That is less than .01%, but then you would be looking in the right places and in the right habitats (not in downtown Chicago).

 

There might not be much there but at least it is solid and provide real information and has a high signal to noise ratio and what you learn could be applied to producing better projects for developing better data.

Edited April 28, 2016 by Cryptic Megafauna

[Guest DWA]

 

[woops never mind see below]

Edited April 28, 2016 by DWA

[Guest DWA]

Science need no wait for a hunt provided object of consideration.

 

On the other hand if I was seriously studying the subject I would throw out all eyewitness accounts.

Ask law enforcement how good most witness statements are.

Those aren't the same things.  OK, actually, they are; and law enforcement doesn't throw out witness statements, but considers them critical to evidence.  If we didn't have witnesses we would not have jurisprudence.  The fact is, they are quite accurate enough for the purpose.  The bigfoot anecdotes and the footprints are uncommonly compelling because (1) they are voluminous and (2) they are extremely consistent, particularly on details of behavior and morphology otherwise known only to primate experts.  I'm surprised how often I need to keep saying this.  It might be because scientists get it, and laymen don't.  

(And the scientists who don't get it are in denial about this specific topic; and their scientific judgment, when it comes to this specific topic, is suspect, at best.)

 

For a science baseline I would only not discount the sightings that have first rate foot track evidence (non of those muddy somethin somethins) in a fine substrate with detail or a film or still that clearly shows a cone headed hominid with longish arms and a stout physique.

That is less than .01%, but then you would be looking in the right places and in the right habitats (not in downtown Chicago).

 

One knows - from the reports! - where to look, and safe to say downtown Anywhere, USA, ain't it.  Know how I know, I mean, for only one thing?  Simple:  reports come almost without exception from in, or right adjacent to, the right habitats.  Reports from local people are how scientists have found animals forever now.

 

The only thing one really has to do - one who has studied the reports, that is - to know that they are in all probability genuine is to  attempt to concoct a scenario in which they are all false.  No such scenario exists that wouldn't mark the person postulating it a loony-toonze conspiracy theorist.  But it's easy to see the scenario in which most of it is authentic.  It's a scenario that has repeated innumerable times in the history of science:

 

This is authentic data.  It's how a plausible animal looks and behaves, and where that animal lives.  Let's follow it to a conclusion.

 

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

The questions is still, which are the right reports?

What is the vetting protocol?

Cause I like it?

 

No way to tell what the proportion of mistaken and false to true may be.

 

Didn't mean it had no uses however.

 

Just didn't meet my definition of scientific data.

 

Law enforcement reporting that goes to trial undergoes rigorous reality testing.

 

Bigfoot report not so much.

Edited April 28, 2016 by Cryptic Megafauna

[Guest DWA]

One has to *read them all* and *think about them all.*

 

That's what one has to do when there's nothing else - bones, footprints, a specimen - to go by, which for most, there isn't.

 

One can, however, do what they do in law enforcement, which is the rigorous reality testing.  Much LE evidence enters testimony on "there is no reason that makes sense to us not to go with this until we have something better."  The rigorous reality testing can reveal patterns (if you're looking in MI, look here.  In WA, here,  In CA, here, and so on).

 

You toss outliers.  I'm not looking in dowtown Chi.  I'm not looking for thirty feet tall. I'm not looking for saucer-pilot or orbing or four-dimensional.  I'm not looking for three or four toes. (They could happen, people have accidents and deformed feet too.  The Shipton yeti tracks were probably a specific deformity, identified by Meldrum, that makes total sense, particularly when compared to the Cronin 1972 tracks.  But normally bigfeets - and yeti - have five toes.)  What I get from my careful read is a perfectly plausible primate, and how big a female is, how big a male is, how big a juvenile is, estimated weights, preferred habitat, etc.

Edited April 28, 2016 by DWA

[WSA]

I think your point is well taken Crow. I'm talking about The Science in the sense of what the narrative of choice is amongst credentialed and peer-reviewed practitioners in their respective fields of specialty, whatever the scientific discipline.  To a large extent, their failure to come up with ANY narrative hypothesis that can be tested in the field largely explains the lack of progress....I mean, you have to propose an explanation of SOME kind that makes sense for the majority of the evidence before you can adequately explore what is going on. OTOH, the narrative most seem to have chosen reaches a conclusion without testing or even, really, any deep analysis at all. That is a betrayal of the entire discipline.

 

For instance, you take the position the entire BF phenomena is a human generated experience. Fine. That is not something any of us haven't considered, and seriously, I feel pretty sure. The reason I rejected it is the implausibility of it approaches a magnitude greater than that of actual BF existence. But, that aside, where is the real effort to present a cogent and comprehensive theory of how something of this unprecedented scope and scale gets created and sustained? If somebody presented a theory, and cited a test to show how this explained every (not a few, not some, and even not most) piece of BF evidence, I'd be a buyer.  Even this is something Science apparently doesn't have the interest in giving life to. Instead, we have hip-pocket theorists making their cases with perfunctory dismissals of all evidence with nothing more to cite than a deep seated aversion to the very idea of considering and investigating any evidence, in any detail. Why would they? There's nothing to investigate, right? They've created a sort of perfect anti-narrative, which is about all you can say kind about it. 

 

And their counterpart on the proponent side of things? Lacking a comprehensive narrative of that kind, it is almost a default result, and it creates a vacuum for all the wahoos, jack-legs and seat-o-the-pants field researchers to thrive and create their own narrative. I happen to agree with  you that a lot of that is pure baloney, but at least it is an attempt to work at an explanation, no matter how inadequate.  

 

Between these two extremes is where true scientific enquiry gets done, I believe.  When we mature enough as a species to seriously entertain the possibility of BF, the answers may come. I expect to be waiting a long time though, and as I said, I could possibly even die waiting.  That can't be helped.    

Edited April 28, 2016 by WSA

[Guest DWA]

Too many on both sides of this issue have no interest in the relevant subjects.  Too many have interest in only one.

 

Psychology does not appear to be a specialty of any of those appealing to it as The Explanation.  Many are well-qualified in the outdoors, but not in primatology; wildlife biology/ecology; human behavior; or scientific method.  "Debunking pop theses" is not an academic discipline, particularly when the subject, to those acquainted with it, defies classification as a pop thesis, and slides with uncommon neatness into "interlocking data tending to support the existence of an as-yet unconfirmed biological entity."

 

"The reason I rejected [people making all this up] is the implausibility of it approaches a magnitude greater than that of actual BF existence."

 

Word.  Science demands that the scenario not just be willynilly thrown on the table to mask ignorance but explained.  "Nuh-uh, you need to prove bigfoot" is certification of a failure to understand how this all works.

Edited April 28, 2016 by DWA

[hiflier]

I think your point is well taken Crow. I'm talking about The Science in the sense of what the narrative of choice is amongst credentialed and peer-reviewed practitioners in their respective fields of specialty, whatever the scientific discipline.  To a large extent, their failure to come up with ANY narrative hypothesis that can be tested in the field largely explains the lack of progress....I mean, you have to propose an explanation of SOME kind that makes sense for the majority of the evidence before you can adequately explore what is going on. OTOH, the narrative most seem to have chosen reaches a conclusion without testing or even, really, any deep analysis at all. That is a betrayal of the entire discipline.

^^This. Failure to come up with a narrative beyond "they don't exist" only allows the "game" as Crowlogic called it to continue with some bizarre spins added to it. One would think that part of the job of science is to put to rest the unknown. They do it all the time. After having utilized the scientific method in their investigations then the papers are published, peer reviewed, and then standard thinking from the outcomes become universally accepted and science moves on. Not the case here. The fact that there is no SCIENTIFIC narrative stating that Sasquatch in North America is impossible because...is why the subject continues to be a bone of contention.

I'd very much like to read a science paper that thoroughly explains why BF does not and cannot exist. Am I the only one here who would walk away from the subject if such a peer reviewed paper was officially disseminated to the public? I have not seen one so I have to ask myself (rhetorically of course) why isn't there one? Just because Dr. Jeffery Meldrum hasn't come out and said they don't exist doesn't mean that it's now official that they do. Show me the science papers then that says they don't. I want to read the field notes from the studies done, the tests, the biological evidence, official forestry service investigations, the wildlife management people, the game wardens, the rangers, the military war game folks, their installations AND the DOI.

Since Sasquatch is such a moneymaking business then one would think that science would be all over it- using BF to generate more funding for what science REALLY wants to do. Nope. Nothing. None of the above. Crowlogic may bring up some interesting barbs but they fall way short of bringing the BF subject under the umbrella of science beyond calling it a "game". I really don't want to think that BF is a moneymaking business so it's left alone with a "hands off" sign attached to it.

Edited April 28, 2016 by hiflier

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

Once you prove it all the media outlets and Bigfoot personalities will no longer have any relevance.

You will just watch it on CNN.

[hiflier]

Even the liars will get to say "told ya so!"