Skeptics

[Guest UPs]

When I read the term skeptic, I immediately associate it with that guy on the MQ TV show. To me, he seems quite silly trying to debunk what people claimed to have seen. It is quite obvious that he is not objective and I know it is just part of the show. His attempt to prove that the witnesses are unable to estimate the height of the animal they saw was a complete failure (at least to me), but he considered the results to prove his point. This is what I consider a skeptic. They are on this forum and its quite easy to identify them as they have convinced themselves bf does not exist (they may be correct). The problems arise when they bait, use sarcasm, name calling, etc, to try and bolster their argument and this is usually a sign that their argument is weak.

Most members here have some skepticism and use it to weed out the wheat from the chaff, but I do not consider them skeptics and I value their input when reading their posts. As for the skeptics themselves, I have a question. If the scientific community finally publishes some type of evidence that you consider airtight in proving bf existence, would you go back and look at the current eyewitness reports, foot print casts, audio, hair, statistics, etc, in an objective manner? Would your conclusions change and if so why? UPs

[Drew]

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3893276

If a new species is documented, you will see a paper that looks similar to this.

[Guest]

That's just it though. "Science" doesn't ignore sasquatch. There are several examples of legitimate, scientific articles investigating purported evidence. I've shared several on the BFF down through the years, as have other folks. These papers demonstrate that there is no bias against publishing on bigfoot topics. The problem is simply that there is nothing in those papers to provide any confidence that there really is a global population of undescribed, hairy, man-apes out there. It's simply a matter that the evidence to-date cannot withstand scrutiny.

Saskeptic with a good answer, once again. I may not have explained myself fully. Basically what I was getting at is that what is enough for me is not enough for science. So what I accept science hasn't. That is what is frustrating. I understand why though and that is why I made this thread.

I don't see too many of the "skeptics" name calling or doing much of the mud flinging. Though both "sides" (and I hate the us and them that it infers) are guilty of such actions.

[Guest parnassus]

They did this with vocals on Unsolved Mysteries back in the 80s, and we've gotten DNA results conclusive for Unknown Primate (the Bhutan Yeti results), and the "skeptics" immediately set in to calling down doubt fire on them.

Every time proponents meet one evidentiary challenge, the "skeptics" move the goal line.

please cite a source for these DNA results you are referring to. I think you will find they are not conclusive. Frankly, time and money and credibility are being wsated by sending specimens to a for profit veterinarian. There are many racial and geographic variations in human DNA. Look back at the Snelgrove Lake Meldrum Nelson DNA fiasco. This guy Nelson who analyzed the DNA works on insects, wasn't an expert on human DNA and didn't understand that the Native Americans in the area had a particular mutation. So he said it likely wasn't human. He was wrong. This veterinarian in Texas is probably falling into the same trap because she doesn't understand the variations in human DNA halfway around the world in another race. Nobody is moving the goal line. The determination of human DNA is a trivial matter who those who understand it. By sending specimens to for profit underqualified labs, you get worthless 'we don't know what it is" results. It's just another way to suck profit out of the bigfoot phenomenon. If you really want legit results, send specimens to Todd Disotell.

Edited September 20, 2010 by parnassus

[indiefoot]

Parnassus,

Dr Ketchum is working on a paper covering her findings, if it gets published, you will have an opportunity to challenge those findings if you are qualified.

[Guest]

I don't think it matters if he's "qualified" or not so much as whether or not he brings up good questions.

Oh, and not to be a jerk, but our personal definitions of skeptic don't fit here. When I started this thread I had the Webster's definition in mind. What Bill said nails it on the head. If "skeptic" is a bad word to you then maybe you should substitute it with being objective.

[Guest parnassus]

Challenge was made that we had no physical trace evidence: hairs going back to the 70s have been provided, blood typing provided, dna results provided. We have recorded vocals that were professionally analyzed and shown to have come from non-human throats (the Unsolved Mysteries results from the 80s, among others). We have a certified report where the creature was SEEN making a recorded vocal (the NA police incident that was documented on the old forum). We have Fahrenbach's track trait distribution paper documenting a naturalistic bell curve indicative of a legitimate population of creatures rather than a collection of hoaxes.

All that and more are hard evidence as demanded, but when the proponents produced it, the "skeptics" said "tain't enough. NOW we want x, y, z, etc".

Moving goalposts.

It definitively proves an unknown primate, and we aren't supposed to have any of those. And once we prove ONE population of said species, the door is forever shut on the contention that we cannot have OTHER populations of said species or related species.

That's not what the vocal analysts in the 80s concluded.

Mulder, I think perhaps the illusion of moving the goal line comes from Meldrum and Fahrenbach and Nelson, and Ketchum and the television producers, who tried to convince the lay public without convincing their peers in the scientific community. The same can be said for other "experts" who, in spite of not being able to convince their peers, nevertheless come to this and other forums or conventions to convince lay people who really don't have a grasp of the science or the technology, or fact that these "experts" don't represent the consensus or even a respected opinion within that field. Then, to account for their failure to convince their peers, they invoke the evil conspiracy of science stuff, and convince the lay public of that. It's not science that jerking you around, it's these pretenders to science. If proponents of bigfoot want this to stop, they should, for example, start sending DNA to Todd Disotell instead of whatever for profit lab promises to report "I don't know." (aka "unknown primate.")

By the way, Fahrenbach's histogram of foot length is just a take off on a scientific paper in which this graphic technique was used for a different purpose. It had never been validated (or even used) to distinguish between real and fake data. I think if you look at the tremendous variations in shape and breadth and even numbers of toes, you would hardly be convinced that this could be a single species.

[Guest]

If the scientific community finally publishes some type of evidence that you consider airtight in proving bf existence, would you go back and look at the current eyewitness reports, foot print casts, audio, hair, statistics, etc, in an objective manner? Would your conclusions change and if so why? UPs

If such evidence is produced and BF is proven to exist through "airtight" evidence. I think it would be beneficial to go back over the past evidence, however, each piece of evidence would need to be evaluated separately and carefully by qualified individuals with no stake in the outcome. I would not immediately assume that all the evidence is indeed related to BF. As always, all other animals must be ruled out (including man). If other animals cannot be ruled out, then the evidence would be still be inconclusive even if BF was proven beyond any doubt to exist. It would be then that my conclusions would change...based on irrefutable scientific evidence evaluated by (once again) qualified individuals with no stake in the outcome.

[masterbarber]

Moving the goal posts? It's more like "not in field goal range."

Mulder, you can keep spouting these examples as often as you like, but it doesn't make a single one of them quality evidence for the existence of any kind of bigfoot/yeti anywhere in the world. Please provide a link to any and all papers in peer-reviewed journals of science that you consider to be supportive of the existence of such creatures. We can examine each in turn, even with a separate thread if you like.

Here's a hint though: Unless you find a paper that is titled something like "A new species of extant hominid from Bhutan," then there really isn't anything of substance in the evidence you claim.

I'm gonna have to second this one.

Put it all out there, Mulder. Links, peer-reviews, DNA anaylsis, and whatever else you have. I don't think anyone would object to a Mulder thread that provided all of the available data you claim is out there. I'd love to see it! It would be a heck of a lot easier for you to just refer to such a thread versus posting individual, sporadic and vague snippets here and there (with no links or citations)...Whadda ya say?

[Guest nycBig]

would be great to have one sticky thread that listed the top bigfoot evidence

[Guest]

I don't want to seem like I'm dog piling, but I would like to say to Mulder that you talk a lot about evidence but you don't provide links or documentation. I asked for links at the BFF 1.0 and you got pretty snippy saying you shouldn't have to or they were provided at some point in the past, or something to that effect. When you did provide enough information for me to follow up on it there weren't conclusions to most of it. So, not to get in your face or anything, but I really think it would be helpful if you did compile the "evidence" all in one post, with links and citations/references where the conclusions could be seen or followed up on. If you got all of the evidence put together, with a link to each piece (i.e., a link to the published conclusions from the labs doing DNA work, or a link to a statement of a hair being of unknown primate) and put it in one post it'd be really easy to reference. Anyway, if there is one or two specific examples of "results" that you could provide I'd really like to see it or follow up on it.

ETA: I don't even care if they are peer-reviewed journals. If there is a lab that did DNA analysis and published results (on their own site, in a letter, etc.) I'd like to see it. As far as I've found there is NO "non-human primate" conclusion to any of the DNA analysis, or any other evidence.

Edited September 20, 2010 by Ace

[Guest Sam]

would be great to have one sticky thread that listed the top bigfoot evidence

How could that work? Evidence (quite obviously) is different to different people.

S

[Guest]

True Sam. What I was thinking (not that anyone is asking ) when I asked Mulder is that if there is a lab that has done DNA work on bigfoot evidence, to post a link to the lab and any published findings. I've seen a link to a lab in the past and their findings, but the findings were that the DNA evidence was inconclusive and the findings were not final. That doesn't really say much and isn't evidence. If the lab said, "non-human primate DNA" was their conclusion or finding, that's what I'd like to have a link to. If a lab said inconclusive or said contaminated or something to that effect, well, I don't need a link to that.

[Guest]

How could that work? Evidence (quite obviously) is different to different people.

Sure. That's why I'd advocate examining the peer-reviewed literature as some kind of evidenciary standard. If some lab has some amazing, bigfoot-proving result, then we must work from the assumption that they will be publishing it somewhere soon. Until they do, it's really not possible to critically examine the claim.

[Guest nycBig]

How could that work? Evidence (quite obviously) is different to different people.

S

well there cant be that much really good evidence out there. I would say post the top 100 pieces of evidence outside film and pictures. The moderators of the board would make the decision what makes the list. I trust they have a good enough background in Bigfoot to come up with a good list. It would be up to the reader to determine if the evidence was convincing or not.