what is a "scientist" ?

[Guest DWA]

Or as I like to put it:  a science degree drills one in canon, and in doing appropriate sums, not in the approach to things outside that canon.

 

(To which a brave few scientists have shown the appropriate sums to be quite applicable.  If only, you know, they were actually applied.)

Two great fallacies persist in our society:  that rich people, and that scientists, are inherently  smarter than us.  Neither is true; both are just more focused on specific areas than we are.  We accept what scientists tell us because we presume they have done the work.  In this field, with few apparent exceptions...they have not lifted so much as a finger.  "Follow the money," we always say.  Well, the money ain't here.  The money is in saying, "there is nothing here." And back to what pays you.

Edited May 22, 2017 by DWA

[Faenor]

Actully DWA scientists for the most part are smarter than the rest of us.  

 

http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/occupations.aspx

 

Wealth and intelligence correlate to an extent as well.

 

https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/02/06/correlations-of-iq-with-income-and-wealth/

 

So the rich and or scientists are most likely smarter than the rest of us, non scientists and or poor.  

 

 

 

 

[daveedoe]

the title reminded me of this from the movie HELP, 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlH767uV1z8

 

[norseman]

On 5/22/2017 at 11:07 AM, DWA said:

No.  Most definitely not, as I have taken great pains to point out in hundreds of posts here.

 

I don't like the answer "the experts" are giving me - and I discredit most of them, utterly and wholly justifiably, when it comes to this topic - because any scientist would be able to demonstrate that they used the opposite of the scientific method to come to their conclusions on this.

 

I put my money on the scientists who have done that.

 

(We have specific reasons for requiring lawyers to do what they do, and as I pointed out, there's good reason for that.  Being one who thinks like a scientist, I am not going with "I am a lawyer, trust me." Your work is how you show me you might actually be one.)

 

I back science.  All the way.  Science says hairy hominoids are real, period exclamation point.

 

People who say they aren't?  Irrational blind belief, which I reject.

 

 

Not true.

 

Look at how other species are "discovered", Its with PHYSICAL EVIDENCE.

 

This field isn't quantum mechanics, we are not looking for unseeable sub atomic particles.......

 

Produce real evidence of the creature? Science will fall over themselves to look at it.

On 5/22/2017 at 11:08 AM, Branco said:

Your mule threw a shoe. This discussion was about scientist, not "experts". "Self proclaimed experts" were not part of the topic. A person who walks out with a new science degree is far from being an expert in his chosen field of study, and - if truthful - would admit that. He/she has simply been educated by people who  have more knowledge and experience than he/she in their chosen field.. The opinions of graduates in any field of science are absolutely worth no more than that of a layman or self-educated scientist during a discussion about Bigfoot/Sasquatch simple because that graduate has never been taught about them. In their minds, those animals do not exist, because none of their biology professors even mentioned the subject.

 

A modern brain surgeon is unquestionably an expert in his/her field, but you and your equine tools probably would fare as well in your shop at that chore as a newly graduated biologist (scientist) intending to study South American fruit bats. 

 

Apples and oranges.

 

A newly graduated biologist is far more qualified to weigh in on Undiscovered Primate evidence than you or I are. And one that has been in the field 20 years or so? 1000x more so......

 

Amswer me this....if we don't like scientists then why does this field hold onto Meldrum and Bindernagel like a life preserver!? 

 

Unfortunately those two experts have been unable to prove anything to science either........and they have had quite some time to do so.

[Martin]

27 minutes ago, norseman said:

 

Not true.

 

Look at how other species are "discovered", Its with PHYSICAL EVIDENCE.

 

This field isn't quantum mechanics, we are not looking for unseeable sub atomic particles.......

 

Produce real evidence of the creature? Science will fall over themselves to look at it.

 

Apples and oranges.

 

A newly graduated biologist is far more qualified to weigh in on Undiscovered Primate evidence than you or I are. And one that has been in the field 20 years or so? 1000x more so......

 

Amswer me this....if we don't like scientists then why does this field hold onto Meldrum and Bindernagel like a life preserver!? 

 

Unfortunately those two experts have been unable to prove anything to science either........and they have had quite some time to do so.

 

Well said.

[Guest DWA]

15 minutes ago, norseman said:

 

Not true.

 

Look at how other species are "discovered", Its with PHYSICAL EVIDENCE.

 

This field isn't quantum mechanics, we are not looking for unseeable sub atomic particles.......

 

Produce real evidence of the creature? Science will fall over themselves to look at it.

Which is not how science, nor real scientists, operate.  No.  It is not.

 

THEY HAVE MORE EVIDENCE THAN COULD CHOKE ALL THE WORLD'S HERDS OF HORSES. 

What are the footprints?  TRACE EVIDENCE, PHYSICAL EVIDENCE, SHOWN BY SPECIALISTS as qualified as there are to be as likely of human provenance as you and I are bigfoot progeny.  The number of them alone that still defy scientists are such that billions would have to have been spent on the fake.  NO, I'm right. Simple arithmetic:  just add up the salaries of every world-class specialist in the field; cube the result and multiply by 1000.  And cube that.  That's billions, right?  Get a number-cruncher on it, I'm busy. But it's a ludicrous bet that they're all - or even half - something other than what they appear to be.

 

What, you aren't including the cost of the trackmaking machinery, of which zero evidence has ever been brought to light?  Trust me, the military doesn't have that tech, not close. Not to mention that practically all of the tracks up for discussion were made under circumstances that practically guaranteed they weren't worth the trouble to fake.  The odds on that?  I wouldn't put a side penny on it.

 

What are the sightings?  As likely to be a comprehensive false positive as Halley's Comet is to hit Earth in the next ten years.  It has been shown over and over that for all of those to represent something other than an unlisted species would require circumstances as about loopy unlikely as anything you could come up with (more unlikely than unicorns being real). 

What is the P/G film?  The third leg in an unshakeable tripod of lockdown cross-referring evidence:  The animal people are seeing, to a T; tracks like so many others found (they even found this individual's tracks...30 years apart!!!); in a package that you can't put a human in...and you have to for it to be of human provenance, and YOU CAN'T.

 

Everything with this pattern of evidence, science has accepted as real.  Except this.  And when one of those worthies tells you why, you know he hasn't looked at the evidence and doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.  Prove to me that one of them does; hell, put all of them in front of me and I'll rip 'em apart. 

Standing bet, and no one will ever take me up on it:  let a skeptic tell me why this isn't real, and he will make four fatal mistakes in the first 30 seconds.  And out the other side of the chipper, matey.

 

It's real, gang.  Pretty much proven.  Nothing could have this pattern of evidence and not be; and everyone saying otherwise shows he's in denial.  We bigfoot/yeti proponents are in the coolest position in the natural sciences.  I'd get on the bandwagon; but until you've done the work we have, you can't be there. You will be stuck as either a believer or a nonbeliever.

 

Which is precisely nowhere....'cause this ain't about belief.

 

 

15 minutes ago, norseman said:

 

Apples and oranges.

 

A newly graduated biologist is far more qualified to weigh in on Undiscovered Primate evidence than you or I are. And one that has been in the field 20 years or so? 1000x more so......

 

Amswer me this....if we don't like scientists then why does this field hold onto Meldrum and Bindernagel like a life preserver!? 

 

Unfortunately those two experts have been unable to prove anything to science either........and they have had quite some time to do so.

No a newly graduated biologist isn't.  No the veteran isn't (unless he has a name like Meldrum, Krantz, Mionczynski or Bindernagel).  Or else one of them would be able to say something about this that shows he's paying attention.  And none of them do.

 

STOP ARGUING WITH ME ABOUT THIS!  Get one of those 1000X eedjits in front of me and let me show you he got NUT-TIN.

 

REAL, gang.  I feel for all the frustrated people here; but there's a simple cure.  DO THE WORK.

(Like Meldrum and Bindernagel have.  THEY PROVED IT.  DERE'S YER LIFE PRESERVER, CHAHLIE!)

(If this were any kind of animal other than what it is - a higher primate in North America, which JUST CAN'T HAPPEN donchaknow - it would have been proven long before P/G.  Count on that.)

[Trogluddite]

On 5/21/2017 at 10:19 AM, norseman said:

....

If you had a brain tumor that needed to be removed? Would you want me to attempt removing it in my shop? Or would you rather contact a brain surgeon about your procedure?

How much are you charging?

I'll get back to you...

[norseman]

56 minutes ago, DWA said:

Which is not how science, nor real scientists, operate.  No.  It is not.

 

THEY HAVE MORE EVIDENCE THAN COULD CHOKE ALL THE WORLD'S HERDS OF HORSES. 

What are the footprints?  TRACE EVIDENCE, PHYSICAL EVIDENCE, SHOWN BY SPECIALISTS as qualified as there are to be as likely of human provenance as you and I are bigfoot progeny.  The number of them alone that still defy scientists are such that billions would have to have been spent on the fake.  NO, I'm right. Simple arithmetic:  just add up the salaries of every world-class specialist in the field; cube the result and multiply by 1000.  And cube that.  That's billions, right?  Get a number-cruncher on it, I'm busy. But it's a ludicrous bet that they're all - or even half - something other than what they appear to be.

 

What, you aren't including the cost of the trackmaking machinery, of which zero evidence has ever been brought to light?  Trust me, the military doesn't have that tech, not close. Not to mention that practically all of the tracks up for discussion were made under circumstances that practically guaranteed they weren't worth the trouble to fake.  The odds on that?  I wouldn't put a side penny on it.

 

What are the sightings?  As likely to be a comprehensive false positive as Halley's Comet is to hit Earth in the next ten years.  It has been shown over and over that for all of those to represent something other than an unlisted species would require circumstances as about loopy unlikely as anything you could come up with (more unlikely than unicorns being real). 

What is the P/G film?  The third leg in an unshakeable tripod of lockdown cross-referring evidence:  The animal people are seeing, to a T; tracks like so many others found (they even found this individual's tracks...30 years apart!!!); in a package that you can't put a human in...and you have to for it to be of human provenance, and YOU CAN'T.

 

Everything with this pattern of evidence, science has accepted as real.  Except this.  And when one of those worthies tells you why, you know he hasn't looked at the evidence and doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.  Prove to me that one of them does; hell, put all of them in front of me and I'll rip 'em apart. 

Standing bet, and no one will ever take me up on it:  let a skeptic tell me why this isn't real, and he will make four fatal mistakes in the first 30 seconds.  And out the other side of the chipper, matey.

 

It's real, gang.  Pretty much proven.  Nothing could have this pattern of evidence and not be; and everyone saying otherwise shows he's in denial.  We bigfoot/yeti proponents are in the coolest position in the natural sciences.  I'd get on the bandwagon; but until you've done the work we have, you can't be there. You will be stuck as either a believer or a nonbeliever.

 

Which is precisely nowhere....'cause this ain't about belief.

 

 

No a newly graduated biologist isn't.  No the veteran isn't (unless he has a name like Meldrum, Krantz, Mionczynski or Bindernagel).  Or else one of them would be able to say something about this that shows he's paying attention.  And none of them do.

 

STOP ARGUING WITH ME ABOUT THIS!  Get one of those 1000X eedjits in front of me and let me show you he got NUT-TIN.

 

REAL, gang.  I feel for all the frustrated people here; but there's a simple cure.  DO THE WORK.

(Like Meldrum and Bindernagel have.  THEY PROVED IT.  DERE'S YER LIFE PRESERVER, CHAHLIE!)

(If this were any kind of animal other than what it is - a higher primate in North America, which JUST CAN'T HAPPEN donchaknow - it would have been proven long before P/G.  Count on that.)

 

No. We don't have any physical evidence.....which includes dental resin casts.

 

Sorry.....nothing has been proven. Bindernagel's "defacto" discovery is bumpkis.

17 minutes ago, Trogluddite said:

How much are you charging?

I'll get back to you...

 

Ill take two chickens and a hog.

[Guest DWA]

We have LOADS OF PHYSICAL EVIDENCE.  Tracks are FORENSIC EVIDENCE and we have TONS OF THEM for which the odds of human provenance are low to nil.

 

Bindernagel's right.  Know why I know that and you don't?

 

- I've read all the reports.

- I've used a lifetime outdoors and a solid understanding of animals to think about what I've read. 
- I've connected the dots among the various kinds of evidence.

(Remember saskeptic?  He is the only person I think I've met here - other than WSA who I didn't meet here - who read reports anywhere near like me.  Know what he did?  Evaluate each one as "proof or trash?" and discard if not proof.  He never thought about them in the aggregate; the very things he said showed it. And he was a scientist, or so he said.)

 

This is a bootsole field; the frontiers of science tend to be. If you have not read everything about this; thought carefully about it; and used extensive understanding and experience to make the links...well, yer hosed.  And as I always say:  Bindernagel [Meldrum Mionczynski et al] over you.  Every time.

 

And all they did was corroborate what I'd already determined before I ever picked them up.

 

Gotta do the work.  That's science.  It is so cool being on a scientific frontier.  The air is much clearer up here.

 

 

 

[dmaker]

2 hours ago, DWA said:

No a newly graduated biologist isn't.  No the veteran isn't (unless he has a name like Meldrum, Krantz, Mionczynski or Bindernagel).

Why? What makes them more special than any other published phd? Because they believe in bigfoot, so they get an instant pass? 

1 hour ago, DWA said:

(Remember saskeptic?  He is the only person I think I've met here - other than WSA who I didn't meet here - who read reports anywhere near like me

How do you know what people read?

1 hour ago, DWA said:

- I've read all the reports.

That is not terribly scientific. There you go again fixating on the non falsifiable while waving your science flag. Do you understand how ironic that is? You garner zero scientific currency by loudly proclaiming your obsession with non falsifiable evidence. You think you are making one point, but all you are doing is discrediting your position in a very strong way.

1 hour ago, DWA said:

Gotta do the work.  That's science

Reading reports is not "doing the work" Nothing can be proven from reports. That you think reading the reports constitutes scientific inquiry is so cringe inducing that it is beyond words. 

Edited May 24, 2017 by dmaker

[dmaker]

1 hour ago, DWA said:

(Remember saskeptic?  He is the only person I think I've met here - other than WSA who I didn't meet here - who read reports anywhere near like me.  Know what he did?  Evaluate each one as "proof or trash?" and discard if not proof.  He never thought about them in the aggregate; the very things he said showed it. And he was a scientist, or so he said.)

Yeah, and that person does not believe bigfoot to exist. So, that proves that reading a ton of reports has more than one conclusion. That is something you seem to struggle with. As you said, a scientist, which you are not, has read many reports and arrived at a different conclusion than you. You see, that is possible. I've read far more reports than you give me credit for. I actually kind of enjoy reading them for their folklore value. The reports are a great source of shared mythology. Granted, we approach them from a different mindset, but do not kid yourself when you think I am a stranger to the reports. 

Edited May 24, 2017 by dmaker

[Incorrigible1]

MORE CAPS WILL MAKE THE POINT!!! DON'T ARGUE, IT'S ALL BEEN SETTLED. STORIES ARE COMPELLING EVIDENCE.

[ioyza]

I'm curious what knowledge a new graduate with a degree in biology would have that has relevance to bigfoot? A degree with just the title 'Biology' is going to entail mostly molecular and cellular biology, so what does that have to do with bigfoot? Because they're made of biology? They're also made of chemistry, and physics, so are chemists and physicists equally at an advantage when viewing a sasquatch while hiking in the woods? Does my advanced degree in bioengineering give me an upper hand?

 

You can argue for my advantage if you want, but I'll tell you: "of course it doesn't." It has given me a view of what practicing research scientists can be like and how they think, though. Many of them are not particularly great problem solvers. They know how to make their work look sexy on a grant. They come to me when their MS Word freezes. They shout "I HAVE A PEE AICH DEE!" when they find they can't win an argument (well, at least one particular French post-doc does). 

 

Look I don't mean to pan the whole scientific community just because I have the misfortune to work with some idiot-scientists at the moment, obviously there are many brilliant minds at work, but they (and I know this has been said a thousand times already but here's one more) are not thinking about bigfoot. Even if I were to allow that we were talking about someone with a new degree in Wildlife Biology (does anyone even offer that to an undergrad?), they would still only really have relevant knowledge if they had a particular focus in apes, and if they'd done field work. George Schaller, Dian Fosey, Jane Goodall. One is gone, the other two advocate for bigfoot study, imagine that.

 

I'll use this post as a testing ground for an idea that's been kicking around my head for a while, but don't have much practice articulating yet, here goes: 'Bigfootology' will never be a scientific discipline. Sasquatch will never bend to the scientific method, we will not 'prove' their existence scientifically. The basic overarching reason for this is the impossibility of control over conditions. In order to confidently reject a null hypothesis, we need to be able to set up experiments that have clear outputs for a given set of inputs, that allow for deduction of the mechanism by which the output was produced given our setup. No such experiment is possible when interacting with bigfoot any more than it's possible when interacting with humans; the intelligence of these beings precludes it. Control of experimental conditions in their woods is completely theirs, and we are their willing lab rats.

 

I do think Meldrum's career path highlights a valiant effort at solving this riddle. He pursued an area of study that gives him expertise in the one type of physical evidence in bountiful abundance, and has made great efforts in showing how a huge variety of aspects of footprint casts could only be produced by an unknown hominid - but ultimately, the clarity of the work falls short of overcoming entrenched biases. It's not sexy enough.

 

IMHO, 'Proof' will come about gradually as a snowball of more and more people being led to the aggregate evidence, being taught how to think about it, and getting out in the woods confirming it for themselves. The only possible exceptions are DNA, video, or a body. The former is very murky water, and the latter two are lightning-striking-your-winning-lotto-ticket odds. 

[Guest DWA]

^^^Sounds like we may have a scientist here, Just to me, now.

 

My only potential demurrer comes from my personal conclusion that we can confirm these the way we did gorillas - by getting over our denial and putting people and money in the field that approach this with an open mind and follow the evidence.  NAWAC is trying to do that.  On personal time with personal funds (problem).

 

Full-time money and boots on the ground, the way science solves the problems it wants to solve, will solve this in rather rapid order.  So says me.

 

But somebody has to prove me *right.*

 

(For me to be right, on this one issue, now.  I'm as convinced as ever I need to be.  Evidence does that.)

Edited May 24, 2017 by DWA

[WSA]

My interest in the subject is fueled by the understanding this problem is special, for the reasons all of here appreciate, no matter if you are pro or con. It falls in that crack between the objectively verifiable and the subjectively persuasive.  On top of that, it is exacerbated by the entrenched lines between lay experience and the credentialed --whose livelihood depends on keeping the members' handshake a well guarded secret.

 

What I am certain of is the futility of either side convincing the other it is mistaken. I just have no energy for that exercise, even if I once did. If we are going to solve this special problem we are going to have to act way smarter than we act right now. If that solution comes from any direction, even from a quarter I don't regard as friendly to my conclusions, I would be a fool not to accept it. 

 

So, if a so-called scientist wants to makes good-faith effort to craft a solution to his special problem, I for one would be all ears. (With emphasis on "good faith")