Guest slimwitless Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I've talked to him on the phone, Great guy, and I think you're right. I'm easily confused. Are you referring to my co-author comment or biped's "IN" statement? We should invite him to join this thread and clear up a few things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernyahoo Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 @slim I don't know if he is a coauthor, but he is looking at hair samples, and doing some documentation on that front, maybe another book also. I shared with him about the microscope I use and it's camera setup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cotter Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Well, it won't prove "Bigfoot" if the DNA comes back unknown primate. But as far as "proving" Bigfoot. It will take a type specimen. Maybe not a body, but a bone that matches the DNA would suffice. Hi Wookie: Would you by chance take a few minutes to expand on this a bit? I think your point is that an proven unknown primate doesn't prove BF b/c the sample could be say, from a tiny redwood monkey (100% made up animal), or say, from some swamp dwelling orangutan in the amazon? Personally, if it were proven as an unkown primate, it would be quite the find, especially if it was found to be in North America. Additionally, it sure would put more credence to what people have been seeing, no? Thanks Wookie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dopelyrics Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Wow this thread has gone way over my head I confess! But Saskeptic's post, 2194, makes the most sense to me. Best. Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BlurryMonster Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 This may be a stupid question and if it is I'm sorry, but what is the difference of sapien vs sapien sapien? And was Cro Magnon sapien or ss? Where in the time line did sapien come in, as to where ss came in? The difference is (mainly) based on whether you consider modern humans (us) and Neanderthals to be separate species or not. It can be a bit confusing, but the reent DNA studies are leading to a lot more consensus about taxonomy. Basically: "Homo sapiens" by itself and "Homo sapiens sapiens" can be taken to mean modern humans, unless follwed by a different subspecies (neanderthalensis or idaltu). Cro-magnons were modern humans; there's nothing different about them. The term was orignally used to refer to a specific culture that existed in Europe during the Paleolithic, but has fallen out of disuse, and is not used anymore. Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens or Homo sapiens, depending on who you ask) first appeared around 200,000 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Wookie73 Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Hi Wookie: Would you by chance take a few minutes to expand on this a bit? I think your point is that an proven unknown primate doesn't prove BF b/c the sample could be say, from a tiny redwood monkey (100% made up animal), or say, from some swamp dwelling orangutan in the amazon? Personally, if it were proven as an unkown primate, it would be quite the find, especially if it was found to be in North America. Additionally, it sure would put more credence to what people have been seeing, no? Thanks Wookie. yes, pretty much what you said. the DNA cannot prove 100% for Bigfoot because we don't have any known samples of Bigfoot for comparison. What it can do is show "there is an unknown hominid/ape/wtvr living in N.America" If the data shows this absolutely, then there will be great interest among the mainstream scientific community. It won"t technically qualify as "proof" but it will casually pretty much mean that Bigfoot is out there. Science,however, will require a finger bone,tooth,skull body...etc , for final species comparison and confirmation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernyahoo Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Thats how I look at DNA as proof, it's a statistical relationship to knowns and to their exclusion. This places the samples on the phylogenetic tree and provides a rough description of their donor. Since no two individuals are identical geneticly , species identification is done by establishing what consitutes a match as a percentage, like 99.8% and up could be a positive match for known samples in a database. We need to understand what the threshold number is when matching is done with known species. This tells us when something truely is unknown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indiefoot Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 You never know there could be several unknown primates out there, Bigfoot, Bighands. There is a film that points to Bigbutt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDL Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Don't forget BigBad, the rapping hybrid primate/wolf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Mulder, those logical fallacies I pointed out were neither unsupported claims nor BS. A logical fallacy s simply an error in reasoning, and I pointed out the specific fallacies being used. I can provide links if you need them, but most people can easily find the explanations using Google. It is not a logical fallacy to point out that Skeptics are "trying to have it both ways", trotting out Drs Meldrum, et al when they want to "prove" that institutional science has in fact addressed itself meaningfully to the BF evidence to hand, but then turning around and dismissing their conclusions and denying their qualifications when they make pro-BF statements. What it is is typical Skeptic psuedo-intellectual BS, as I previously said. I realize your frustration at the reluctance to accept Dr. Meldrum or any other scientist as a bigfoot expert, but I have yet to hear of any of them examining an actual bigfoot to confirm their assertions. I would welcome any source you can provide that would show otherwise. A BF is not required to be at hand for a person skilled in a particular field (such as Dr Meldrum in primatology) to look at the trace evidence left behind and say "this has all the characteristics one would expect to find from a) a living creature and one with the characteristics of a primate. Insisting that BF must first be documented before anyone can be qualified to analyze evidence about BF is the sort of intellectual slight of hand I have come to expect from the Skeptical community. It's shoddy, dirty debating at it's worst. Don't lose hope, there are any number of scientists whose work was initially questioned or considered unacceptable. Alfred Wegener is probably the poster child for a hypothesis (continental drift) that was ignored or ridiculed for years, but eventually became accepted by mainstream science. I suspect it was accepted because of the scientific data that was gathered and confirmed, not because of appeals to emotion. Who said anything about "appeals to emotion"? Oh, that would be YOU, Ray. Meanwhile I stand on firm intellectual ground pointing to the scientific observations of Drs Meldrum, et al that neither you, nor any other Skeptic, nor the body of Science as a whole has ever addressed in any meaninful, fact-based way. Instead your side prefers to "shuck and jive" and dance around the issue with shoddy debating tricks a high-school level debater would be flunked out of a tournament for employing. Sure, but if there's no bigfoot then they aren't experts on bigfoot (the hypothetical organism) no matter how well they understand the bigfoot phenomenon, human anatomy, evolution, etc. Not so. Science is continuously using the "known" to examine the "unknown". That is the very essence of investigative science. To wit: we are confronted with a phenominon represented by dataset [x]. What the phenominon behind dataset [x] actually is is unknown, but it is similar to dataset [y] or dataset [z], suggesting that there the possibility that the datasets represent similar origins for the phenominon. If science did it the way you insist, nothing could ever be discussed or examined until it was first fully documented and disclosed, which would render the investigation meaninglessly redundant. Those people (I won't call them "experts") might be fully qualified to come to the conclusions they did, but that doesn't mean that those conclusions are correct. Neither you, nor any other Skeptic has proven them incorrect. You have stated such, but never introduced a shred of counter-evidence to support such a claim. Would you care to back up your claims of that assertion ? Meldrum speaks very clearly about this in Legend Meets Science. Rockie, indie was being sarcastic. Go back and re-read the post he was responding to. yes, pretty much what you said. the DNA cannot prove 100% for Bigfoot because we don't have any known samples of Bigfoot for comparison. What it can do is show "there is an unknown hominid/ape/wtvr living in N.America" If the data shows this absolutely, then there will be great interest among the mainstream scientific community. It won"t technically qualify as "proof" but it will casually pretty much mean that Bigfoot is out there. Science,however, will require a finger bone,tooth,skull body...etc , for final species comparison and confirmation Which is why I hold so little regard for institutional science. DNA doens't generate itself. It comes from a critter. If you have the DNA, you have the critter. Why Skeptics can't understand such a simple fact is beyond me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MikeG Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 ...........and why you can't understand that your pet hate, "institutional science", is about to do the very thing you despise it for not doing, is way, way beyond me. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Wookie73 Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 (edited) Which is why I hold so little regard for institutional science. DNA doens't generate itself. It comes from a critter. If you have the DNA, you have the critter. Why Skeptics can't understand such a simple fact is beyond me. Which is why your opinion is diluted. You want everything, but give nothing. Edited February 11, 2012 by See-Te-Cah NC To remove excessive quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southernyahoo Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 The point is that, despite the difficulties be they logistical, emotional, or other, a bigfoot can be shot and collected. It is inevitable, if such things are really out there. It is a moral and ethical delima to shoot and kill another member of the genus homo, not just an emotional one. Thats why it is illegal and considered homocide. Look at these fossil footprints from australia, is there any difference between them and putative BF footprints? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060803-footprint.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Yet homicides occur every day, despite that dilemma. I can't believe that I've had to point this out now more than once in this thread. Is anyone suggesting that if bigfoots are real that one will never be collected? People murder people; people kill other people accidentally. People kill other highly intelligent animals like great apes, elephants, and whales. If Bigfoot exists, it is inevitable that one will be collected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MikeG Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 (edited) Look at these fossil footprints from australia, is there any difference between them and putative BF footprints? Yes, actually. A fundamental difference. One is transitory and easily hoaxed. The other is virtually impossible to have been hoaxed and for that hoax to escape detection. Mike Edited February 11, 2012 by MikeG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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