Guest MikeG Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 Intelligence gets selected over size and strength? Sorry, but I don't think so. Chimps fight for who gets to be the alpha male, with breeding rights. Often this fighting is ritualised, but they sometimes fight to the death. Bigger and stronger usually wins. Your skinny nerdy chimp doesn't even apply for the job! Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 Nonsense Mulder. Irving Copi writes: "In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence." Absence of evidence should and does speak volumes. Can it prove something doesn't exist? Of course not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 I believe that the "leak" I read stated human but did not in any way imply specifically Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens sapiens. I believe it was Lindsay but I can't remember where I read it. This squares with my recollection as well. Every leak I've heard about that mentions this "human" issue seems to have come from the Lindsay/Paulides/Strubsted camp. If you don't understand that Neanderthals and the little guys on Flores in Indonesia were also human then it is going to be a bit awkward trying to get you to acknowledge that throughout most of the last few hundred thousand years there have been multiple different species and sub species of human alive on the planet at the same time. We live in strange times in that there currently appears to be only the one.....HSS. Even your own links implicitly acknowledge this. Mike I understand that they might be "humaniod", or "near human" or "hominids", but they are not H Sapiens Sapiens (that is, US).. Therefore they are not human, any more than a tiger is a lion (or vice versa), despite them both being "great" cats, or a chimp is a gorilla, despite them both being apes. How this relates to the discussion at hand is thus: IF the purported finding of an admixture of HSS and non HSS DNA is true (and I stresss again the "IF" part since otherwise certain people get nit picky about what I'm saying), then it would seem to indicate that BF is hybrid of human/near-human origins that has "bred true". Um . . . no. This is categorically wrong, Mulder. Most authorities consider every species within the genus Homo to be human. 1) Argument from authority 2) It's not a settled issue, given the ongoing arguments over taxonomy. 3) I'm not "most authorities" in any event. I've made it explicitly clear what I said, and what I meant by it. Please have the decency to stop trying to recast what I said in a way that does not reflect my words/intent accurately. i could buy that squatch is a different genus, I could buy it being a lost homo bigfooti that existed pre sapien , I could buy it as a remnant smaller version of giganto. I can't buy Bigfoot is a sapien hybrid though.... Too many things seem wrong there. But hybridization would explain the possible presence of "human" dna in a decidedly non-human critter, just as a descendent of a liger or tigon might appear to be either lion or tiger, but still have trace dna from the other side of the origin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 If absence of evidence cannot in some cases provide evidence of absence, then we're going to need to start pouring a lot more money into wildlife conservation. How do we know that Carolina Parakeets are really extinct, for example? What about Bachman's Warbler? To my knowledge, the USFWS has never funded a rangewide blitz for Bachman's Warbler, and it's because no one has produced any credible evidence that they might still be extant. Note how the USFWS did mobilize funds in 2004-5 when some tantalizing evidence of extant Ivory-billed Woodpeckers emerged. (Alas, none of the subsequent survey work succeeded in providing any better evidence, and Ivorybills are rightly considered extinct by most biologists.) At some point, you make a decision that absence of evidence really does rise to evidence of absence. Regarding bigfoot, skeptics are just people who think the time for that decision was long ago; proponents see it as a decision not to be made until some point long into the future. Jared Diamond had something to say about this:Diamond 1987.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDL Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 I would suspect that it would produce a creature with a bit of both. Now a few here and there aren't likely to create a breeding population that diverges into it's own species. But for Bigfoot to be said hybrid, it would seem that would indeed be what happened. Thus, over time, one would expect their intelligence to improve and their size to stabilize (as intelligence in apes seems to be what gets selected over strength anld size). All I'm saying is that I doubt Squatchy is a sapien/neandethal hybrid. I would think a neanderthal/heidelbergensis or heidelbergensis divergence would be much more likely due to the size issues and difference to sapien. I agree with this. Also keep in mind that the hybridization/divergence may well have occurred during the ice age, when environmental conditions favored selection of larger, more robust physiological forms. Also, certain hybrids tend to be larger than either parent species (mule, liger, tiglon), and capable of breeding (liger, tiglon). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 1) Argument from authority 2) It's not a settled issue, given the ongoing arguments over taxonomy. 3) I'm not "most authorities" in any event. I've made it explicitly clear what I said, and what I meant by it. Please have the decency to stop trying to recast what I said in a way that does not reflect my words/intent accurately. No. You are wrong. There is right and wrong, and you are the latter. I'll post this again, with more than the link this time in the hope that you might actually read it and learn something. That something is that you don't get to arbitrarily decide the meaning of ancient Latin words: "Naming Further information: List of alternative names for the human species In biological sciences, particularly anthropology and palaeontology, the common name for all members of the genus Homo is "human". The word homo is Latin, in the original sense of "human being", or "man" (in the gender-neutral sense). The word "human" itself is from Latin humanus, an adjective cognate to homo, both thought to derive from a Proto-Indo-European word for "earth" reconstructed as *dhǵhem-.[6] The binominal name Homo sapiens is due to Carl Linnaeus[7] (1758). Names for other species were coined beginning in the second half of the 19th century (H. neanderthalensis 1864, H. erectus 1892)." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 I think you may be underestimating just how dependent H.s.s. is on technology and culture, and how powerful an advantage that truly is. I don't think it could be argued that BF has the advantage over H.s.s. in either category, even as a hybridized wild-man. Indeed. Technology using man (esp operating in groups) could take down a mastadon, or a cave bear, and could certainly take down a BF if they had to (and were willing to accept the damage from the attempt). The whole thing about NP (Neanderthal Predation), while not explicitly about BF, could serve as an excellent model/analogy for the relationship between BF and humans. Two groups, one of which had a nasty predellection towards the proverbial "raping and pillaging" and who pushed the other into wide-scale conflict that led to one side (in this case the BF) being forced away and kept away by the other side's technological advantage. Thus a new "status quo" is established. BF stays in it's areas and humans stay in theirs. Occasionally, they bump into each other and a few human hunters get pinyata-ed or women get grabbed, or (conversely) the "rogue" BF gets hunted down and killed by the humans. That is what the relationship between BF and humans might be as predicted by the "super-predator theory". It dovetails nicely with the aboriginal people's accounts of their historical relationship with BF. Intelligence gets selected over size and strength? Sorry, but I don't think so. Chimps fight for who gets to be the alpha male, with breeding rights. Often this fighting is ritualised, but they sometimes fight to the death. Bigger and stronger usually wins. Your skinny nerdy chimp doesn't even apply for the job! Mike Yet that is exactly what happened with us. Our intellects improved almost inversely with the "deterioration" of our other natural abilities. We have become increasingly less physically capable, but consistently smarter over time. All I'm saying is that I doubt Squatchy is a sapien/neandethal hybrid. I would think a neanderthal/heidelbergensis or heidelbergensis divergence would be much more likely due to the size issues and difference to sapien. The original stock population, perhaps, but at some point (if, and again IF BF has human dna in it) there would appear to be some interbreeding. so BF might in the case you posit might be more accurately described as a "neanderthal/heidelbergensis/sapien hybrid". Nonsense Mulder. Irving Copi writes: "In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence." Absence of evidence should and does speak volumes. Can it prove something doesn't exist? Of course not. Which begs the whole question of "what is evidence?", which is a bugbear that troubles cryptozoology in general along with ID theory and any other number of topics outside the purview of this forum. Note how the USFWS did mobilize funds in 2004-5 when some tantalizing evidence of extant Ivory-billed Woodpeckers emerged. (Alas, none of the subsequent survey work succeeded in providing any better evidence, and Ivorybills are rightly considered extinct by most biologists.) So was the coelecanth and the 7-gill shark for a very long time. They were wrong about those as well. At some point, you make a decision that absence of evidence really does rise to evidence of absence. Regarding bigfoot, skeptics are just people who think the time for that decision was long ago; proponents see it as a decision not to be made until some point long into the future. No, skeptics are those who refuse to accept the growing body of evidence that says they DO exist, then claim "absence of evidence" as a convenient way to try to kill the debate. It's not that simple. Those reports, hairs, tracks, etc exist and are not going away any time soon, no matter how much you might want them to. No. You are wrong. There is right and wrong, and you are the latter. I'll post this again, with more than the link this time in the hope that you might actually read it and learn something. That something is that you don't get to arbitrarily decide the meaning of ancient Latin words: "Naming Further information: List of alternative names for the human species In biological sciences, particularly anthropology and palaeontology, the common name for all members of the genus Homo is "human". The word homo is Latin, in the original sense of "human being", or "man" (in the gender-neutral sense). The word "human" itself is from Latin humanus, an adjective cognate to homo, both thought to derive from a Proto-Indo-European word for "earth" reconstructed as *dhǵhem-.[6] The binominal name Homo sapiens is due to Carl Linnaeus[7] (1758). Names for other species were coined beginning in the second half of the 19th century (H. neanderthalensis 1864, H. erectus 1892)." Taxonomy is a lot more sophisticated now than it was then. You would do well to stop trying to mix outdated naming conventions with modern ones just to try to "get one over on Mulder". I ain't falling for it, and neither I suspect is anyone other than your usual group of supporters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 No, skeptics are those who refuse to accept the growing body of evidence that says they DO exist, then claim "absence of evidence" as a convenient way to try to kill the debate. It's not that simple. Those reports, hairs, tracks, etc exist and are not going away any time soon, no matter how much you might want them to. There you go again - not so subtley intimating that skeptics somehow "want" the "evidence" to "go away". Or even "kill the debate". I have a secret. No one is trying to kill the debate, and skeptics don't want evidence to go away, particularly evidence that is so poor. Skeptics have asked for, and looked for themselves, better evidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MikeG Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 (edited) Taxonomy is a lot more sophisticated now than it was then. You would do well to stop trying to mix outdated naming conventions with modern ones just to try to "get one over on Mulder".I ain't falling for it, and neither I suspect is anyone other than your usual group of supporters. If no-one else is "falling for it", why can't you produce a single shred of support for your position? Surely there would be one other poster who felt the same as you if your position had any validity? Surely there would be a single biologist whose work you could point to declaring that ONLY HSS was human, and HS (anything else) was an animal? Surely? If you can't, hasn't it ever crossed your mind that you may, just, possibly, be wrong? .......and as for "usual bunch of supporters"......you'll have to do better than that. I expect that sasquatch exists, and assume this will be proven to science's satisfaction very shortly. That doesn't put me in a "usual bunch of supporters" camp with Saskeptic, does it? Earlier, I respectfully suggested you went and did some more reading. Please just give us a link to where you can find support for your position on this taxonomy question. Maybe include evidence that there are two different naming conventions, too, (outdated and modern) whilst you're at it, as per the first line of your quote, above. I don't think I have ever come across anybody so **** sure they're right when they are actually just plain wrong. Mike Edited February 9, 2012 by MikeG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 Taxonomy is a lot more sophisticated now than it was then. By "back then" do mean 2004 when "Flores Man" was given the binomial "Homo floresiensis" by Brown et al? Brown, P.; Sutikna, T., Morwood, M. J., Soejono, R. P., Jatmiko, Wayhu Saptomo, E. and Rokus Awe Due (October 27, 2004). "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia". Nature 431 (7012): 1055–1061. Bibcode 2004Natur.431.1055B. doi:10.1038/nature02999. PMID 15514638. try to "get one over on Mulder". Oh I'm superfluous here, you keep getting ones over on yourself. I'm just a bystander, gawking at how completely unwilling you are to own up to a simple error on your part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indiefoot Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 If absence of evidence cannot in some cases provide evidence of absence, then we're going to need to start pouring a lot more money into wildlife conservation. How do we know that Carolina Parakeets are really extinct, for example? What about Bachman's Warbler? To my knowledge, the USFWS has never funded a rangewide blitz for Bachman's Warbler, and it's because no one has produced any credible evidence that they might still be extant. Note how the USFWS did mobilize funds in 2004-5 when some tantalizing evidence of extant Ivory-billed Woodpeckers emerged. (Alas, none of the subsequent survey work succeeded in providing any better evidence, and Ivorybills are rightly considered extinct by most biologists.) At some point, you make a decision that absence of evidence really does rise to evidence of absence. Regarding bigfoot, skeptics are just people who think the time for that decision was long ago; proponents see it as a decision not to be made until some point long into the future. Sas, If there was no "tantalizing evidence" pointing to the existence of an undocumented primate, I doubt that you or the majority of other members would be here. After all a blurry, inconclusive picture is a burry, inconclusive picture, or repeated sightings and such. In the case of Bigfoot has either "USFWS did mobilize funds" or "subsequent survey work" taken place. If not then the negative as a positive conclusion seems premature. Nonsense Mulder. Irving Copi writes: "In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence." Absence of evidence should and does speak volumes. Can it prove something doesn't exist? Of course not. Two points, An event and a phenomenon are two different things. Different problems. As I mentioned to Saskeptic, the following has not occurred "evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 Two different things sure. But that in no way absolves the BF phenomenon from the exact same logic. It still applies. Since qualified investigators from Krants to Meldrum have not "discovered" BF proof, let alone hundreds plus 'unqualified' investigators, leads to the simple conclusion that BF does not exist. At least I presume or assume they don't, and that's perfectly reasonable...........until there is sufficient proof. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 After just reading Bindernagel's Discovery book I can see some of the standard type arguments he talks about being applied here. 1) IF there was any evidence THEN studies would be done to look into seeing if there is any evidence. Which is a pretty similar argument to .. 2) IF it existed THEN scientists would be looking into it (which will never be done because of #1) and of course... 3) There is no good evidence because ALL evidence is a hoax because hoaxing has been done before -> Translates to: All evidence is therefore fake. Perhaps a better argument might be... "Maybe the evidence is lacking because nobody has any idea what sort of evidence we should be looking for. Maybe we should start by determining what can be categorized as possible evidence." Now we get into where you will have cynics (not skeptics) that will immediately start discounting everything they can so that nothing will be permitted into the category of evidence (ie: see #3 for example). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 Speaking for myself, centuries of presumed coexistence with humans (as evidenced by anecdotal accounts of interactions between humans and bigfoots) without the collection of so much as a single molar gives me zero confidence that real bigfoots explain those accounts. That's an absence of evidence that has convinced me that it's evidence of absence. I could be unconvinced of that tomorrow, should a bigfoot get hit by a snowplow in the Sierras, or a paper be published describing a new species from tissue samples recently collected, or a new analysis of some old bones in a drawer reveal them to be something other than "tall people." I thoroughly reject any notion that the reason we haven't collected a bigfoot is because no one is looking for it. Not only are such statements inaccurate (there are probably more people looking for bigfoot than looking for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers), but they also demean the work of people like Bindernagel, Meldrum, Krantz, etc., who've devoted significant amounts of their careers to the phenomenon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MikeG Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 (edited) It strikes me that there is an interesting parallel between the Sasquatch situation now, and 18th & 19th century biology (botany, ornithology, plant collecting etc). The bulk of the groundwork back then, that laid the foundation for modern zoology, botany etc, was done by amateurs. These were usually landed gentry with the time and money to indulge in their passions. Probably the most famous, Rev Gilbert White, still has a book in print (The Illustrated Natural History of Selborne). It could even be said that Gregor Mendel, the "monk" whose work on peas started the science of genetics, was just a talented amateur. These were amongst many hundreds who spent most of their lives observing, illustrating, cataloguing, collecting and writing about natural history. Maybe we would do well to remember that. If Ketchum gets all the glory for her research when it is published, it would be a bit of a travesty for all the enthusiastic amateurs who have laid the groundwork with endless hours of work in the field. Without the efforts of the amateurs, the scientists would have nothing to study on this subject, and every excuse not to even look at it. Mike Edited February 9, 2012 by MikeG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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