Has Bigfoot Science Stalled? (2)

[MIB]

As of Oct 20, 1967, they existed.   We have the PGF ... films are evidence.    As of Oct 6, 2013 they still existed.    That's the last time I got a clear look at one.   My eyewitness testimony is evidence.  As of September, 2016, something leaving bigfoot tracks still existed.   That, too, is evidence. 

 

Yeah heck yeah we have evidence, upwards of 100,000 individual pieces of evidence ... things that could be entered as evidence in a court case, for instance.  Taken together, they fall short of proof, of course, or bigfoot would not be an unproven species, but there's an incredible amount of evidence.   

 

MIB 

[SWWASAS]

While scientific proof is separate from legal standards,  if skeptics attempted to prove in court in front of a jury that proponents are wrong and BF does not exist,  the preponderance of evidence would provide sufficient support for the existence of BF.     Dozens of witnesses,  scientists,   footprint casts,   the P/G film,  photographs,  that Air Force Survival pamphlet, and many things could be brought into court and presented to the jury.     Opinions of lay skeptics,  hearsay second and third hand reports of hoaxing, the supposed P/G film costume which no one seems to be able to produce,  would not be admissible as evidence in court.     Skeptics might be able to produce scientists who do not think BF is out there but few will categorically state under oath that BF does not exist.  Most will have to admit it is possible.        How is could this ever happen?    We have had a steady string of skeptics,  who normally cannot follow forum rules,  and get themselves banned.     But before that, they slander proponent members who at any time could take them on in court.      

 

I find it funny that skeptics would not accept evidence that would win cases in court.   Witness testimony carries a lot of weight in court but is totally rejected by BF skeptics.      At least if they were honest, they would have to admit that because of the evidence,   while they might not believe it at the moment,  there is some chance that BF might exist.   Believe me it does.   

Edited July 14, 2017 by SWWASAS

[Guest Cricket]

On 7/4/2017 at 8:06 AM, Happy Camper said:

 

This was in another thread, it seems to be relevant to the fossil discussion and a pretty good rebuttal to the fossil issue (or lack of)

"The absence of bigfoot from the fossil record is relevant. Comparisons to the chimpanzee fossil record are not, unless I missed a memo and chimps dispersed from their tropical forest homes in Africa at least tens of thousands of years ago, spread across Eurasia, crossed the Bering Land Bridge, and came to occupy the whole of North America...

 

Here's a post from the archives on the fossil record of creatures that do - kind of, because they are now extinct but bigfoots allegedly are not - make a much more logical comparison to bigfoot than that of chimps. Many people make the mistake that because the fossil record is incomplete that it can be dismissed from these discussions. Quite the contrary, I find the lack of bigfoot from the fossil record to be the #2 most important thing that makes me doubt the existence of bigfoot. (Number 1, of course, is the lack of bigfoot from the recent [non-fossilized] record.) Enjoy:

(context: someone had posted that we shouldn't expect bigfoot to appear in the fossil record because it occurs at low population density)

"You are correct: population density (as well as habitat features at the time of death and the time of discovery - and a good bit of luck) plays a big role in the state of the fossil record for various fauna. It is a fundamental principle of ecology (really the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) that herbivores greatly outnumber the carnivores that feed on them. We have many more Triceratops fossils than we do Tyrannosaurus fossils. The same goes for Quaternary mammals. We have many more fossils of ground sloths than we do of ground sloth predators, such as giant short-faced bears. (Just one great resource to learn more about Quaternary mammals in North America.) I just found a paper describing the current database of mammals from Quaternary Mexico to include . . . "more than 15,000 records for 12 orders, 43 families, 146 genera, and 274 species." )

But here's the problem. We even have a lot of fossils of some of these top predators - creatures that must have occurred at low density. Check out the first sentence of the abstract of this paper:

"Fossils of the giant short-faced bear, Arctodus simus (Cope, 1879), have been recovered from over 100 localities in North America, extending from Mexico to Alaska and California to Virginia."

The point of the paper, of course, is that the authors were reporting two additional fossils from another location. So that's 101 locations, some of which produced multiple fossils of these creatures.

Even if you modify your view of this creature from a "top predator," to more of a "roaming scavenger," you have to admit that that's a robust fossil record for a creature about the same size and probably occurring at a similar population density to that assumed for "bigfoot." Short-faced bears, of course, are just one example. Pick a large predatory mammal from the Quaternary of North America - bears, lions, wolves - we have lots of fossils of these things from all manner of habitats. 

So we have a rich fossil record of large mammals - even large mammals that we would expect to occur at low densities - from all over North America. Despite the fact that it's really rare for a fossil to form and even rarer for some knowledgeable human to find it and take steps to get it curated and described in the peer-reviewed literature, we've got a boatload of fossil material. This includes the large mammals that are still with us today: bears, mountain lions, moose, bison - all are well-represented in fossil record.

All except bigfoot, that is.

We might consider something like a bigfoot dispersing overland from Asia to North America via the Bering Land Bridge some time in the mid-to late Pleistocene, just like several other large mammals did. If so, then such creatures must have made use (for generations) of lots of different habitats, just like the other mammals did: forests, steppe grassland, wetlands, muskeg, lakeshores, river corridors, coastlines, etc. Thus it is perfectly rational, reasonable, logical, and scientifically predictable that we should have found at least ONE bigfoot fossil amid all those others. Given that bigfoot is presumed to still be extant, it's also had 10,000–20,000 years of additional opportunity to have the remains of JUST ONE preserved and found, relative to its now extinct Pleistocene counterparts. 

So let no one convince you that the lack of bigfoot fossil material is no problem for acceptance of claims that such a creature exists today - it's a big problem, and the problem grows with every paper published on new Quaternary fossil discoveries that do not include such a species. The problem isn't that there should be lots of bigfoot fossils (though there should be) given its reputed range and presumed history of occurrence in the New World (or the Old, for that matter), the problem is that there should be at least one. The lack of a bigfoot fossil record certainly does not prove that they don't exist (I wonder how many times I'll have to write that phrase before people will remember it), but it is highly suggestive."

~Saskeptic (from a while ago)

 

 

 

While there are fossil Miocene hominoids, there have been few more recent fossils of the apes found so far, less than would be expected.  Yet gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans obviously exist, so any critique of BF that cites a lack of fossils for a North America hominoid is, in my opinion, not damning.  The following is from 2003, so I don't know what if anything else has been found since then:   http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0306_030306_orangutanfossil.html 

 

[Guest]

Folks since I only get to post once every 24 hr....this will kinda address most of the recent post. 

Since this is a discussion of science and how it applies to Bigfoot maybe we could agree on how it should be framed. The reason I ask, is most of your responses are some the least sciency possible....interesting opinions and interpretations for sure. 

Maybe we could agree to pick one of the 2 below as a premise for the discussion.

 

To suggest that there's any evidence that would survive the scrutiny of the scientific method results in failure at this time.....could that change sure.

If Norseman brings in a Bigfoot that looks like a Neanderthal or a guy in a suit, things could change pretty quick, but at this time all the evidence is pretty weak.

 The point that was made in Happy Campers post about the fossil record is very compelling IMO and kudos to the original poster, that's how science functions and no myth should be exempt from its scrutiny on its way to become reality.

 Just as others have posted Bigfoot is most likely a social construct. I base this on my own experience outdoors, having experienced the majority of the things attributed to Bigfoot and found them to have not been anything related to anything such as Bigfoot. I have not had a visual sighting but certainly could have claimed any number of experiences as such.

Again just trying to understand how this discussion should move forward if it's going to be based on pseudoscience, that's cool by me.

 

[Guest Cricket]

2 hours ago, Bad Dog said:

Folks since I only get to post once every 24 hr....this will kinda address most of the recent post. 

Since this is a discussion of science and how it applies to Bigfoot maybe we could agree on how it should be framed. The reason I ask, is most of your responses are some the least sciency possible....interesting opinions and interpretations for sure. 

Maybe we could agree to pick one of the 2 below as a premise for the discussion.

 

To suggest that there's any evidence that would survive the scrutiny of the scientific method results in failure at this time.....could that change sure.

If Norseman brings in a Bigfoot that looks like a Neanderthal or a guy in a suit, things could change pretty quick, but at this time all the evidence is pretty weak.

 The point that was made in Happy Campers post about the fossil record is very compelling IMO and kudos to the original poster, that's how science functions and no myth should be exempt from its scrutiny on its way to become reality.

 Just as others have posted Bigfoot is most likely a social construct. I base this on my own experience outdoors, having experienced the majority of the things attributed to Bigfoot and found them to have not been anything related to anything such as Bigfoot. I have not had a visual sighting but certainly could have claimed any number of experiences as such.

Again just trying to understand how this discussion should move forward if it's going to be based on pseudoscience, that's cool by me.

 

 

Hi Bad Dog, hang in there and soon you'll be 'off the leash!' 

My own position on the whole question of BF's existence is atypical; I am not in a position to know for certain one way or another, and I don't feel comfortable in having to take a firm stand so I don't assume one.  I also don't assume to know whether the sightings and other experiences reported by many people are true or false, because again, I am not in a position to know that.  When I see any kind of subsidiary claim or proposal I will evaluate it according to what I actually am familiar with, however, which is why I don't see the fossil record issue for BF as that big of a deal.  From the popularized article I linked: " The orangutan is the only great ape with a fossil record. (Strangely, no African fossil has ever been found that is related to chimpanzees or gorillas.)..."  That article was published in 2003, so there may have been something found since then related to chimps or gorillas, but the point remains.  Not having a fossil record does not automatically equate with non-existence, and it is not pseudo-scientific of me to point that out.    

[Patterson-Gimlin]

Bad Dog

Just as others have posted Bigfoot is most likely a social construct. I base this on my own experience outdoors, having experienced the majority of the things attributed to Bigfoot and found them to have not been anything related to anything such as Bigfoot. I have not had a visual sighting but certainly could have claimed any number of experiences as such.

 

Great post and  I could not agree more.

On ‎7‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 1:40 PM, MIB said:

As of Oct 20, 1967, they existed.   We have the PGF ... films are evidence.    As of Oct 6, 2013 they still existed.    That's the last time I got a clear look at one.   My eyewitness testimony is evidence.  As of September, 2016, something leaving bigfoot tracks still existed.   That, too, is evidence. 

 

Yeah heck yeah we have evidence, upwards of 100,000 individual pieces of evidence ... things that could be entered as evidence in a court case, for instance.  Taken together, they fall short of proof, of course, or bigfoot would not be an unproven species, but there's an incredible amount of evidence.   

 

MIB 

I  actually agree with this. Lots of circumstantial evidence . That is exactly why I think more scientific research is warranted.

So far the proof has fallen short and the creature remains mythical and an  unproven species. That does not mean the creature does not deserve being further researched. My opinion of non existence is just that . An opinion and not a proven fact.

[Guest Dkeeng]

Here's a small anecdote about how flimsy eyewitness evidence is.

 

Once I was on an old highway that is particularly dark, and never busy(in Louisiana, if it matters at all).  Now I'm not a big foot believer at all, so I don't think my experience could be attributed to believing, but something started to make its way across the highway out of the corner of my view, a good ways away from the vehicle, I was approaching doing about 50-60.

 

At first glance, it was large, bipedal and dark, something that I could easily mistake for a bigfoot I suppose, or a bear(never saw a bear in person, as far as I know, there are none in South LA), or just a big guy in the dark.

 

As I snapped my head to get a clear view, and it stepped in front of the lights, it was actually much shorter, and moving much faster than I thought... it was a wild boar, a big one no doubt,  but in a length/weight sense. It wasn't more than a few feet tall at the shoulder, a standard pig.

 

The point is, the brain DOES fill in blanks for you, and fast encounters, especially in dark or at distance, can lead to WILDLY mistaken sightings.  A 2-3 foot tall pig at most, looked like a 6'+ tall humanoid at first glance.

 

Now that doesn't necessarily mean bigfoot isn't real, that's hardly evidence against it, but it is proof that eyewitness testimony is flimsy, and even when well intentioned, can be very wrong.  If the pig had been going in the opposite direction, or stepped behind some trees or something before I got a good look, I'd have sworn I saw a huge biped in an suburban environment.

Edited July 20, 2017 by Dkeeng

[ioyza]

I once thought I saw a black bear from about 100 yards in broad daylight... it turned out to be a black bear.

[SWWASAS]

On 7/19/2017 at 10:52 PM, Dkeeng said:

Here's a small anecdote about how flimsy eyewitness evidence is.

 

Once I was on an old highway that is particularly dark, and never busy(in Louisiana, if it matters at all).  Now I'm not a big foot believer at all, so I don't think my experience could be attributed to believing, but something started to make its way across the highway out of the corner of my view, a good ways away from the vehicle, I was approaching doing about 50-60.

 

At first glance, it was large, bipedal and dark, something that I could easily mistake for a bigfoot I suppose, or a bear(never saw a bear in person, as far as I know, there are none in South LA), or just a big guy in the dark.

 

As I snapped my head to get a clear view, and it stepped in front of the lights, it was actually much shorter, and moving much faster than I thought... it was a wild boar, a big one no doubt,  but in a length/weight sense. It wasn't more than a few feet tall at the shoulder, a standard pig.

 

The point is, the brain DOES fill in blanks for you, and fast encounters, especially in dark or at distance, can lead to WILDLY mistaken sightings.  A 2-3 foot tall pig at most, looked like a 6'+ tall humanoid at first glance.

 

Now that doesn't necessarily mean bigfoot isn't real, that's hardly evidence against it, but it is proof that eyewitness testimony is flimsy, and even when well intentioned, can be very wrong.  If the pig had been going in the opposite direction, or stepped behind some trees or something before I got a good look, I'd have sworn I saw a huge biped in an suburban environment.

Your experience is a really good argument for not doing bigfoot field work at night as a large portion of field researchers think is essential due to the Finding Bigfoot television show.  You could nearly step on a BF foot in the dark and never know.  How in the world could you expect to see or photograph one at night?    And of course you are likely to completely miss finding footprints unless you are running around with flashlights.  

[guyzonthropus]

I would have to add that big dogs list of the attributes of science are an ideal, alas, not always attained....

[norseman]

On 7/21/2017 at 9:24 AM, ioyza said:

I once thought I saw a black bear from about 100 yards in broad daylight... it turned out to be a black bear.

 

Thats how it works hunting as well and I have the steak and sausage to prove it.

[sheri]

My sighting was during the day. Clear view within 40 ft. I agree with you swwasas. They make themselves known in the daytime and it is way easier to find tracks. I see no purpose in going out at night except to make it scarier than they already are. LOL,

[MIB]

I don't find being out at night scary, bigfoot or not, but I agree it is somewhat pointless.   If you're trying to see something don't go out when you can't see.   There is "a time for all things under Heaven".   Sleep is one of those things ... one of my personal favorites.   If a whoop or a knock in return scratches your personal itch, by all means, whoop or knock.   If you want more than that, whoops and knocks are impediments to achieving your goal.   You may get a reaction or you may get interaction but you are not likely to get both at once so you have a choice to make.   If you do somehow get an interaction with a reaction, it's likely to be really ****ed off.   I'll pass on that, thank you ... especially in the dark.

 

MIB 

[SWWASAS]

If I could come up with some sort of camera that operated on something higher resolution than FLIR at night,   I might consider night ops.      FLIR is so low resolution,  images which may be BF can also be confused with humans.     That low a resolution,  is not going to tell you much either when you do get a picture.       Then again, they seem to play the same hide behind tree tricks, day or night.    They apparently have no idea we are as blind as we are at night.     That sure leads me to believe they can see far better than humans at night.      So when we step into the field at night, we are already at a great disadvantage compared to BF.     Daytime at least makes human vision equal if not better.    Have not seen a BF wearing glasses like I do.    And I would suspect as they age they have the same sort of vision issues humans do related to aging.    If I could just blunder into one nearly blind from cataracts I could get a good picture before he knew I was there.    I can dream can't I?     

[Martin]

47 minutes ago, SWWASAS said:

And I would suspect as they age they have the same sort of vision issues humans do related to aging.    

 

It would seem logical that they would probably suffer from many other ailments that we experience.

 

Viruses

Hunger

Starvation

Disease

Dehydration

Exposure

Physical Impairment from injury

Infection 

 

Any one of those conditions could lead to opportunities for a picture.