The Concept of Evidence

[norseman]

14 minutes ago, FarArcher said:

 

I think you should do more reading of the sightings, interactions, descriptions, and narratives.

 

You may know of one primate.

 

I know of two.

 

 

 

I said "known". Purposefully excluding bipedal cryptids, of which there are many.

[FarArcher]

2 minutes ago, norseman said:

 

I said "known". Purposefully excluding bipedal cryptids, of which there are many.

 

And I said I know of two.

 

 

[norseman]

Personally? Yes.

 

I used the term "known" as scientifically classified species.

 

Of which there is ONE. Savvy?

[FarArcher]

1 hour ago, norseman said:

Personally? Yes.

 

I used the term "known" as scientifically classified species.

 

Of which there is ONE. Savvy?

 

Apparently, there's a few things not scientifically classified.

 

Their mistake.

 

Not mine.

 

Two.

[norseman]

Well I saw a gnome and a leprechaun......so that makes 4.

[FarArcher]

1 hour ago, norseman said:

Well I saw a gnome and a leprechaun......so that makes 4.

 

You need to take this to the gnome and leprechaun sites for further discussion.

 

Somehow, this doesn't surprise me.

 

Oh.  Did you shoot one?

[norseman]

Tried..... The little suckers are cagey!

 

[MagniAesir]

The funny thing with evidence, is that it does not change. What I mean if someone finds a footprint, the footprint it's self does not change. It is what it is.

What can change is how we interpret that evidence.

 

Now personal bias and experience play a huge part in how an individual interprets evidence.

When I look at the evidence  (and just as importantly the lack of some types of evidence that I find crucial) I have reached the conclusion that sasquatch do not exist.

I can however understand how someone could reach a different conclusion based upon the same evidence.

 

And of course I think that until we have the crucial piece of evidence (body) it should not be a recognized soecies

[MIB]

8 hours ago, MagniAesir said:

Now personal bias and experience play a huge part in how an individual interprets evidence.

When I look at the evidence  (and just as importantly the lack of some types of evidence that I find crucial) I have reached the conclusion that sasquatch do not exist.

I can however understand how someone could reach a different conclusion based upon the same evidence.

 

Yeah.   I see the same evidence ... and notice the same missing evidence.   I have one other piece to consider though: I've seen them so non-existence isn't an option for me, I would be lying if I did so.   Instead, the balance of existing and non-existing evidence points me towards a guess at what they must be to account for that balance.   It's not what most people are looking for though people seem to deliberately misunderstand the difference.   That best guess about what they are changes my approach to finding bigfoot and changes my belief about to do when I find them .. or when they find me ... again.  

 

It's an interesting puzzle both as a participant and as an observer of participants.

 

MIB

[Guest Cricket]

The discussion about one or more species of BF reminds me a little bit of the debate in paleoanthropology between ‘lumpers’ and ‘splitters.’ At any rate, for whoever may be at all interested, I tried to find some articles about the range of variation within primate species, but could really only find one paper online that was applicable:

https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/on-the-human/2010/02/the-challenge-of-comparisons-in-primatology/

Regarding the question of how many BF species may be represented in the variety of witness descriptions, the linked paper deals with “...reconciling the conflict that intraspecific variation poses for interspecific comparisons...” That is relevant because that is a part of what is involved with the question of how many BF (or what ever these descriptions may be referring to) there may be. This particular paper deals mainly with behavioral variation in primates, (but morphology, genetics, and geography are also considerations in species issues, of course). I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone here mention the issue of whether these allegedly different BF species could interbreed or not, and related to that, what kind of geographic/environmental barriers there are (or not) between these proposed regional BF populations. Also, I have heard BF nose shape mentioned before, both in this conversation and elsewhere outside this forum, and what that could signify in terms of identification. While nose morphology does distinguish between Platyrrhine and Catarrhine primates, and Neanderthals have distinctive nose morphology, I’ve not read much else in the physical anthropology literature regarding noses as a significant characteristic in determining whether a fossil is hominin or hominid. That could merely be because nasal soft tissues don’t fossilize, so there’s nothing to deal with. 

About the wolf species discussion: are you also considering ‘coy-wolves’ that seem to be turning up in some places in noticeable numbers?

 

[ShadowBorn]

Quote

Tried..... The little suckers are cagey!

Norseman

Little suckers are you kidding me ! and what do you mean by cagey? I would put it more to the point of staying out of range when being hunted. When being tracked they find a way of loosing the tracker and turning the tracker into being tracked. Now I am not in a state where there are predators that will back track what is tracking them. But the evidence that I have found on these creatures have point that these creatures do exactly do what I am talking about. How can a hunter become the hunted with out the knowledge of the hunter knowing it. The way I have found out is by back tracking my movements  and finding evidence of it's presence of my trail through my GPS.

 

Now I am not sure but is this a concept of evidence. Have I been hunted more then once but this time I have marked it like I have done when I find Buck rubs . Now my self being a watcher now being watched by the watchers. By finding stick figures in odd places where I have walked is it there way that they have been watching me for some time now that I have hunted? They all lead me to more questions that I cannot get answers too since there is no one who can answer these questions. 

 

 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evidence-legal/

[Guest DWA]

13 hours ago, MagniAesir said:

The funny thing with evidence, is that it does not change. What I mean if someone finds a footprint, the footprint it's self does not change. It is what it is.

What can change is how we interpret that evidence.

 

When more and more and more footprints are found, and more and more sightings recorded - and the consistency increases - that's a change, and the change says, more and more, and more and more convincing, evidence, and less and less room for denying it.

It is very beyond obvious that that consistency is not coming from copycatting, comparing notes, or a continent-wide consortium of experts (the only rational explanations other than "real animal."  But one would have to be well acquainted both with evidence and how to think about it to know this.

 

13 hours ago, MagniAesir said:

 

Now personal bias and experience play a huge part in how an individual interprets evidence.

When I look at the evidence  (and just as importantly the lack of some types of evidence that I find crucial) I have reached the conclusion that sasquatch do not exist.

 

I'd have to hear a rationale for that, because everybody that's paid my level of attention to the evidence advocates for the animal.  I actually *overcame* a significant personal bias against accepting this animal.  And the evidence is what did it.

 

13 hours ago, MagniAesir said:

I can however understand how someone could reach a different conclusion based upon the same evidence.

 

And of course I think that until we have the crucial piece of evidence (body) it should not be a recognized soecies

 

I am still not seeing how anyone as well acquainted as I am with it could come down "no."  I'd have to hear that one.  And it is one thing not to say, the animal is confirmed, and quite another to deny anything to search on, when we know much more about this than we have ever known about anything else before its confirmation.

[Guest DWA]

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2017 at 10:11 AM, Cricket said:

Regarding multiple species or not:  There are ways to evaluate the range of variation in primates, so I would say that anyone who is interested might do a literature search and find out how that is done and what really constitutes significant variation.  It may not be possible to apply to BF at this time, but it's still something to think about until such time ever arises. 
 

Right; there is a lot of necessary sorting out to be done, holding in mind that however consistent the eyewitness literature, we are talking about individuals with widely varying levels of expertise reporting, and that taking reports literally can lead to mistakes.  I have wondered for some time now whether the many reports of "juveniles" might in fact be describing different species of NA primate.  The man who shot one in Manitoba in 1941 noted that the Patterson-Gimlin animal would have frozen to death up there; he likened the hair on the one he shot to that of a musk ox!  That could be two animals as different as whitetail and caribou, or races of the same species.

 

As for government suppression of anything:  On the one hand, government takes criticism for not being able to do anything right or well, yet the government could do this so effectively? 

Having worked in government a long time, I am pretty much convinced of two things:  (1) the government knows, or at least a number of government people do, because between military and land management agencies, it would be virtually inconceivable that they don't; and (2) that they aren't talking is not about some kind of concerted hush-hush.  It's simply that government has more than too much on its plate, and officialdom has more or less loosely 'decided' that they aren't going to be the conduit by which the public learns about this.  It's possible that the knowledge doesn't go any higher than mid-level management; in any event, this is just something that is not seen as a priority.

In Meldrum's book there's a story of a couple who found evidence and called an office of the Forest Service.  They got the snickers.  Then after they hung up, they got a call back; the employee, whispering, told them that a few people in the office were keeping an informal log of encounter reports.  You know, like that.  Responses by visitor contact personnel seem to range between the snickers and, well, we get a lot of reports.

 

[Guest DWA]

On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 11:21 AM, Cricket said:

The discussion about one or more species of BF reminds me a little bit of the debate in paleoanthropology between ‘lumpers’ and ‘splitters.’ At any rate, for whoever may be at all interested, I tried to find some articles about the range of variation within primate species, but could really only find one paper online that was applicable:

https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/on-the-human/2010/02/the-challenge-of-comparisons-in-primatology/

Should be a good read.  Thanks!  Lumping and splitting run back and forth (the Baltimore oriole has been lumped and split in my lifetime).  I'm really appreciating your refreshingly scientific approach, BTW.

 

Quote

Regarding the question of how many BF species may be represented in the variety of witness descriptions, the linked paper deals with “...reconciling the conflict that intraspecific variation poses for interspecific comparisons...” That is relevant because that is a part of what is involved with the question of how many BF (or what ever these descriptions may be referring to) there may be. This particular paper deals mainly with behavioral variation in primates, (but morphology, genetics, and geography are also considerations in species issues, of course). I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone here mention the issue of whether these allegedly different BF species could interbreed or not, and related to that, what kind of geographic/environmental barriers there are (or not) between these proposed regional BF populations.

 

So much of this appears to await specimens.  One could potentially make a case for NA analogues for, at least, chimpanzee ("juvenile" reports); gorilla (Patty and her ilk) and orangutan (Myakka/'skunk ape'), and of course those are blind stabs at this point.

[... ]While nose morphology does distinguish between Platyrrhine and Catarrhine primates, and Neanderthals have distinctive nose morphology, I’ve not read much else in the physical anthropology literature regarding noses as a significant characteristic in determining whethea fossil is hominin or hominid. That could merely be because nasal soft tissues don’t fossilize, so there’s nothing to deal with. 

And there's another area that seems difficult to tease out solely on the basis of reports; wildlife artists working directly with witnesses have come up with a variety of nose shapes.  There's another area in which going too literally with witnesses might lead to errors.
 

About the wolf species discussion: are you also considering ‘coy-wolves’ that seem to be turning up in some places in noticeable numbers?

We should; there is much controversy about the source of the gene pool for the eastern coyote, for example.  Some think that this speaks to the possible early presence of a wolf/coyote species or subspecies distinct from the gray wolf or the western coyote. It is generally understood that all eastern coyotes have an admixture of either dog or wolf genes.

 

[Guest DWA]

15 minutes ago, DWA said:

I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone here mention the issue of whether these allegedly different BF species could interbreed or not, and related to that, what kind of geographic/environmental barriers there are (or not) between these proposed regional BF populations.

 

I'd meant to touch on this, and hadn't.  Given an animal that appears to swim extremely well (what amount to flat-out feats of aquatic prowess are ample in the encounter literature), and range widely in very mountainous areas, there may not be any geographic or environmental barriers of significance at all.  The most prominent scientific proponents don't, oddly, spend a lot of time on the issue of multiple potential species.  I'd say that pending further research, which might be able to yield interesting information short of getting a specimen, it's difficult to do more than speculate on whether there are even separate species/subspecies to interbreed.