Cascades Carnivore Project - How Do They Miss The Bigfoots? (2)

[dmaker]

Why? At this precise point it is opinion vs opinion. I have no claim. I merely said it sounds like a coyote to me. The proponent has their claim that it is a bigfoot howl to support. If the claimant chose to support that claim with sonograms of unquestionable provenance and accuracy, that would be great. 

[hiflier]

51 minutes ago, dmaker said:

If the claimant chose to support that claim with sonograms of unquestionable provenance and accuracy, that would be great.

 

Not really. You would shoot it down regardless so it would be a waste of time. But if you provided sonograms of your coyotes then that is a step toward true scientific discussion. Unless everything about this Forum is only opinion based. If that is true, then the dialogues can only be circular. Something we all have witnessed if the necro thread postings from 6 or 7 years ago are any indication. Fun for most I guess.

[dmaker]

41 minutes ago, hiflier said:

You would shoot it down regardless so it would be a waste of time.

You don't believe the reverse to be true?

 

 

41 minutes ago, hiflier said:

Unless everything about this Forum is only opinion based.

You're just getting this now? When claims are unsupported with evidence, then how can things rise above mere opinion? There are precious few facts presented here, and in many cases, opinions are deliberately trumped up as facts that are demonstrably not factual.

Edited June 30, 2017 by dmaker

[hiflier]

3 hours ago, dmaker said:

You don't believe the reverse to be true?

 

No, because as far as I know sonograms don't lie- people do. If a sonogram is outside the library of typical extant faunal vocalizations then only objectivity would keep the door open to other possibilities.

 

3 hours ago, dmaker said:

You're just getting this now? When claims are unsupported with evidence, then how can things rise above mere opinion? There are precious few facts presented here, and in many cases, opinions are deliberately trumped up as facts that are demonstrably not factual.

 

No, but there are newbies here and more always coming so it's A-OK for me to play dumb. Been here too long to think there are a lot of good hard facts regarding this subject. That's why I stay with what little physical evidence there is and even that needs vetting which can be done by credentialed individuals. But then this would revert to this thread: "How do you go about proving Bigfoot?" Right? Opinion is NEVER fact no matter how many times it gets repeated. But repetitious dialogue seems to be the name of the game here on the ol' BFF unless people stay with and follow the physical evidence- what little there is. Of course, it would limit the number of threads considerably to do that and besides, who is in the mood, or has the gumption, to push the right buttons and knock on the right doors for any progress to occur anyway? Me? Absolutely!! You or anyone else? Not so much.

 

 

Edited June 30, 2017 by hiflier

[dmaker]

You keep forgetting, it appears, that I do not believe there is any progress (in the sense that you mean) to be made. I think there is plenty of room (albeit little chance) in regard to debunking bigfoot and exposing it for the myth that it is. That is a tall order considering the target audience is pretty entrenched in their position. It's still an interesting exchange to watch. 

[Guest]

In the spirit of helping anyone newbie or not this might be an educational starting point on how the scientific process works, or should....

 

https://explorable.com/falsifiability

Popper saw falsifiability as a black and white definition, that if a theory is falsifiable, it is scientific, and if not, then it is unscientific. Whilst most 'pure' sciences do adhere to this strict definition, pseudo-sciences may fall somewhere between the two extremes.

 

Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience, while zoology is not. Existence is demonstrable and proponents have done absolutely nothing to demonstrate their hypothesis. You cannot campfire story footie into existence, nor can you "psychoanalyze" an anecdote. No person is a human lie detector and no person can vouch for the veracity of another's personal experiential claim.

[hiflier]

32 minutes ago, dmaker said:

It's still an interesting exchange to watch

 

No It isn't............But that's just me.

[Cotter]

51 minutes ago, dmaker said:

You keep forgetting, it appears, that I do not believe there is any progress (in the sense that you mean) to be made. I think there is plenty of room (albeit little chance) in regard to debunking bigfoot and exposing it for the myth that it is. That is a tall order considering the target audience is pretty entrenched in their position. It's still an interesting exchange to watch. 

"believe"

 

Careful!  You are well aware of what belief can do!  

 

:-)

[Guest OntarioSquatch]

Discussions of this phenomenon in a nutshell

 

Proponent: Alla dis evidence means Bigfoots are realz

 

"Skeptic": No, dats not evidence. Bigfootz a meth.

 

Proponent: We found gigantapifacuss. We found bigfoot

 

"Skeptic": Where da bodies?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Cricket]

3 hours ago, Happy Camper said:

In the spirit of helping anyone newbie or not this might be an educational starting point on how the scientific process works, or should....

 

https://explorable.com/falsifiability

Popper saw falsifiability as a black and white definition, that if a theory is falsifiable, it is scientific, and if not, then it is unscientific. Whilst most 'pure' sciences do adhere to this strict definition, pseudo-sciences may fall somewhere between the two extremes.

 

Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience, while zoology is not. Existence is demonstrable and proponents have done absolutely nothing to demonstrate their hypothesis. You cannot campfire story footie into existence, nor can you "psychoanalyze" an anecdote. No person is a human lie detector and no person can vouch for the veracity of another's personal experiential claim.

 

But isn't something like BF potentially falsifiable rather than completely unfalsifiable? Regardless of what anyone has or has not done?  I would say that anything involving the paranormal is not subject to methodological naturalism, but BF doesn't have to involve the paranormal. 

[Guest OntarioSquatch]

The idea of cryptozoology being a pseudoscience is a fallacy that was made popular on Wikipedia by some denialist who edited it in there. In actuality, there isn't anything within the definition of cryptozoology that would rule it as being pseudoscience. For instance, it's not "the study of non-existent animals"

 

Anyway, these are the paragraphs from the same article that was overlooked by both happy camper and other ISFers 

 

Quote

Anthropology and sociology, for example, often use case studies to observe people in their natural environment without actually testing any specific hypotheses or theories.

Whilst such studies and ideas are not falsifiable, most would agree that they are scientific because they significantly advance human knowledge.

Even 'pure' or 'true' science must make compromises and assumptions on occasion. The testing of any theory must take into account the equipment and resources available.

Falsifiability is not a simple black and white matter because a theory, which is difficult to falsify at the time, may be falsified in the future.

The Raven Paradox shows the inherent danger of relying on falsifiability, because very few scientific experiments can measure all of the data, and rely upon generalization.

 

Edited June 30, 2017 by OntarioSquatch

[hiflier]

3 minutes ago, OntarioSquatch said:

Anthropology and sociology, for example, often use case studies to observe people in their natural environment without actually testing any specific hypotheses or theories.

 

But one can study nearly every organism on this planet in it's natural environment which is science-even without the testing: except for the cryptids. So for many, beyond proponents, the cryptids (lacking the ability to observe them) are a pseudoscience.

[Guest OntarioSquatch]

We actually have quite a few alleged observations that you can vet through analysis (e.g. statistics and psychoanalysis for reports, and physiology for film). Once you vet the data, you can then use it as if it was your own observation. The interesting thing is that even if it was your own observation, you would still have to use analysis to verify it.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2017 by OntarioSquatch

[dmaker]

33 minutes ago, Cricket said:

But isn't something like BF potentially falsifiable

Strictly speaking, I don't think so. How would you falsify the claim that "bigfoot exists"? It can be proven, of course, with the right type of evidence. That is where I look for falsifiability. In the evidence provided for the claim. This is where DNA plays a very large role. A piece of evidence, such as a hair, or tissue sample, or saliva, etc, claimed to have come from a bigfoot can be falsified if the source of the evidence can be determined through proper testing, thus either proving, or disproving the claim. Proving in this case meaning providing strong evidence for existence of an unclassified animal. Disproving when the source of the sample turns out to be a known animal. But even then, more effort would be needed, and warranted, to gather more evidence to classify what animal provided the sample. But at least, at that point, there would be more interest and agreement that something truly is out there.

 

Unfalsifiable evidence such anecdotes should not really be considered evidence of an unclassified animal, since all an anecdote is truly proof of is that somene filed a report. 

4 hours ago, Happy Camper said:

In the spirit of helping anyone newbie or not this might be an educational starting point on how the scientific process works, or should....

 

https://explorable.com/falsifiability

Popper saw falsifiability as a black and white definition, that if a theory is falsifiable, it is scientific, and if not, then it is unscientific. Whilst most 'pure' sciences do adhere to this strict definition, pseudo-sciences may fall somewhere between the two extremes.

 

Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience, while zoology is not. Existence is demonstrable and proponents have done absolutely nothing to demonstrate their hypothesis. You cannot campfire story footie into existence, nor can you "psychoanalyze" an anecdote. No person is a human lie detector and no person can vouch for the veracity of another's personal experiential claim.

Happy Camper, that is a post from ISF made by Resume, he has asked me to respectfully request that you do not copy and paste his quotes without permission in the future. 

 

[Guest Cricket]

2 hours ago, dmaker said:

Strictly speaking, I don't think so. How would you falsify the claim that "bigfoot exists"? It can be proven, of course, with the right type of evidence. That is where I look for falsifiability. In the evidence provided for the claim. This is where DNA plays a very large role. A piece of evidence, such as a hair, or tissue sample, or saliva, etc, claimed to have come from a bigfoot can be falsified if the source of the evidence can be determined through proper testing, thus either proving, or disproving the claim. Proving in this case meaning providing strong evidence for existence of an unclassified animal. Disproving when the source of the sample turns out to be a known animal. But even then, more effort would be needed, and warranted, to gather more evidence to classify what animal provided the sample. But at least, at that point, there would be more interest and agreement that something truly is out there.

 

That's what I was thinking, that a claim that some kind of evidence (hair, tissue, DNA) is from BF, rather than the claim that "bigfoot exists," could be falsified in the manner you describe.  And, yes, going the next step to then classify would be a different and necessary step.