Merged Bigfoot follies

[snoop_doxie]

I've taught them to learn about a subject and make their own determinations, whether it was religion, social issues, political matters, and so on.

Thank you for responding to my post. I agree with what you said above, and I have made an effort to teach my kids to ask questions and keep learning. I am very proud of them
and the choices they are making now for their future.

Switching gears, regarding calling myself the master manipulator, I gave myself a field promotion, as I am want to do.

 

[GT/CS]

If the G&P event occured (which I doubt) the candy was dropped by a squirrel.

 

[Northern Lights]

That's an awful lot of squatchy contact for only getting out twice a year. How do you explain your amazing success rate?

Re: Good & Plenty. First, I'll apologize to the Forum: Good & Plentys are white and pink, not white and black. I know that because I bought a box the other day in the hope that I could attract some bigfoots while out in the field this weekend. So far, it's a no-go on the footies.

Next, I just did my own test out in the parking lot: 16.5 m (~ 54'). That's about as far as I could throw a Good & Plenty. The distance wasn't limited by arm strength - the things are just too light to throw with any kind of real distance. I suppose it's possible to get better distance with a good tailwind, but I don't see one going much farther than about 60', and I can't envision it through a tangle of leaves and branches in the woods.

The GNP and my thermal sightings have come at the exact same location, so my success is attributed to where they are at the time. I've also been there on several occasions where nothing has happened, so it is hit and miss. We haven't been invited back this year, so we won't be going, unfortunately.

Regarding the distance a GNP will travel, I do believe based upon where we were sitting on the snow mobile trail in relation to the forest off the trail, it is well within the 60' you tested. I believe it is plausible.

Also, there could have been more than one thrown but only one was on target. Who knows???

If the G&P event occured (which I doubt) the candy was dropped by a squirrel.

We were sitting on the trail with no trees directly over us, so I don't think that is it. We did consider it, and decided it wasn't plausible.

 

[The Shrike]

But a bigfoot stalking your buddy for hours and tossing a Good & Plenty at him was plausible?

Occam's Razor/parsimony dictates that the simplest explanation is very likely the correct one: a candy fell off the guy who earlier in the evening had spilled a bunch of that same candy. If you can't see that this is the case, then yes, it's really difficult to conceive that you're not simply play-acting about this.

 

[William Parcher]

Occam's Razor/parsimony dictates that the simplest explanation is very likely the correct one:

That really isn't what Occam's Razor is supposed to tell you but is instead a common but misleading interpretation of it.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

I've taught them to learn about a subject and make their own determinations, whether it was religion, social issues, political matters, and so on.

Well the primary learning is by example, and when we frame things like the Good & Plenty story as a "bigfoot encounter" it is pretty hard to say that we are simply leaving it up to their own determination.

Growing up, we use to have debates, where we would pick topics and would have to defend a position, regardless of personal views.

Exactly. That's what BLAARGing is. My debate teachers had us do this too. It is not intellectually difficult. The important thing is getting good at having no conscience about it. They claimed it was important to develop debate skills, but only in the sense of having no scruples. I felt uneasy about it at the time and feel more strongly about how unethical it is now.

It is one thing to train people to empathize with other people's view. But that requires developing skill in thinking of other people as fully human with rights and feelings we should not violate. The debate training I was being given was the opposite - to have no considerations whatsoever except manipulating perceptions to our ends.

 

[Vortigern99]

Presented: A Simple Solution.

Snap a Bigfoot, vid a 'Squatch;
For primates keep an endless watch.
Collect the poo and have it tested;
By evidence are skeptics bested.
Demonstrate the bones, the hairs,
The midden-heaps, the secret lairs,
The young, the dead, the pelts, the orts,
Have done with word-of-mouth reports.
Without some proof, the claims smell funky--
That's why we say: “Show us the Monkey!”

+1 internetz.

 

[The Shrike]

That really isn't what Occam's Razor is supposed to tell you but is instead a common but misleading interpretation of it.

So why'd you pass up the opportunity to explain to me where exactly I had misinterpreted it?

From Wiki: " . . . among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected."

Looks like Wikipedia and I interpret it the same way.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

It's an understandable "cliff notes" version. The original is to avoid duplicating, complicating entities. Adding God into a science discussion creates a complicating entity that doesn't actually explain anything. "God did it" just brings about the necessity of explaining everything about God - and it doesn't help us understand how protein chains form, etc.

So here we have a situation where someone already has a good & plenty candy package, and the same person who has that package is the one who has the piece of candy falling in his lap.

Adding bigfoot to that scenario is a hugely complicating factor with a new entity, demanding an infinity of additional explanations spanning centuries of human experience. The guy with the candy dropping a piece for BLAARGing purposes has fewer entities.

In a court setting you have motive, means, and opportunity. What motive, means and opportunity does bigfoot have, even if he existed?

 

[eerok]

We did consider it, and decided it wasn't plausible.

An imaginary creature throwing candy at you is also not plausible, so I guess you'll just have to carry on and live your life without a verified explanation for your experience.

It's not as if you need a default crazy explanation for every little thing. Right?

 

[William Parcher]

So why'd you pass up the opportunity to explain to me where exactly I had misinterpreted it?

From Wiki: " . . . among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected."

Looks like Wikipedia and I interpret it the same way.

Occam's Razor is a constructive suggestion of how to best prepare a thesis - any thesis - even if it happens to be false. It is a suggested way of preparing a thesis for peer review, testing and replication. It is how you best prepare your argument for the contest of scientific acceptance. But it is no assurance of truth or accuracy even if you have ultimately simplified your thesis.

It cannot in any way choose the accurate thesis from two simplified but alternative theses.

Occam's Razor is about how to best prepare your player for battle but not about who is ultimately going to be the winner. This must be true because we can take any good accepted simple thesis and add whatever assumptions we choose and those added assumptions will not make the central thesis false.

 

[LTC8K6]

If I actually believed that an unknown bipedal primate threw a piece of candy at me, I would carefully document the event with a camera and then collect the candy as evidence.

Why?

Because there is a very good chance that the mystery monkey tasted the candy and left saliva on it.

 

[captain koolaid]

I'm going to try and get to some of these other posts. Regarding the GNP hitting Dan's chair, it happened exactly as I stated, ...

You didn't see it, though.

...and yes I do not understand it either because it doesn't make sense...

I understand it. Makes sense to me.

... Regardless of whether it was thrown by the big guy or picked up by an owl, it literally would have had to be holding on to it for several hours before it hit Dan's chair, and that is really hard to believe. I'm stumped on explaining it too, but it did happen. I was sitting right next to Dan and heard it hit his chair. He was probably hoping it would land right in fron of you. He was not moving at all, he was just sitting back and said he saw it as it came down when it passed by the light of the fire...

No owl, squirrel, bat, accomplice or swamp bigfoot required.

...We all thought the same thing, how is this possible. We thought it might have fallen out of a fold in his jacket or something along those lines, but he wasn't moving and immediately stated he saw it come down. We did drop tests as well, to see what it would sound like if one rolled off his pants, and it wasn't the same as what we heard when it hit. In fact, we couldn't hear it when it rolled off his pants. But we could hear it when we dropped it from over his head.

I cannot explain it, and yes it doesn't make sense, but it did happen.

Dude. It was Candy Dan. You know this. You didn't see anything. It doesn't have to "roll" out of his pocket, etc. You didn't see it, you weren't looking directly at Dan. If you were, you would have seen it. He wasn't moving? He doesn't have to move more than a finger to lob a GnP up in the air. It falls straight back down and hits him or his chair. Bam. Bigfoot did it.

What's more likely, NL? Bigfoot chucking good and plentys? Or, Candy Dan was yanking your chain (and still laughing his ass off about it)? It's pretty funny.

 

[Drewbot]

If Bigfoot threw a GNP at me, I'd be pissed off. I hate GNP, Throw a Curly Wurly at me or something. Forget this single tidbit out of a whole box stuff. Toss the whole candy bar over here on my lap.

This Bigfoot may not be long for the world, I mean evolution-wise, wouldn't it have been better for him to have eaten the GNP, and gotten the caloric value from it, rather than expend calories on tossing it at some non-threatening dude sitting in a lawn chair?

 

[Northern Lights]

If I actually believed that an unknown bipedal primate threw a piece of candy at me, I would carefully document the event with a camera and then collect the candy as evidence.

Why?

Because there is a very good chance that the mystery monkey tasted the candy and left saliva on it.

It was my second time out, so I had no clue what to do or how to handle anything remotely considered evidence.

 

[Drewbot]

It was your second time out, you never thought that maybe the people you were with were messin with you?

That would have been my theory until further evidence appeared.

 

[The Shrike]

Occam's Razor . . .

I appreciate the elaboration, but I still don't see my misinterpretation.

Re: Good & Plenty

Scenario 1: Guy who spills a box of Good & Plentys finds a Good & Plenty on his person sometime later in the evening.
Assumptions required: 1 - a Good & Plenty lodged somewhere in his clothing and sometime later fell out.
Alternative Assumptions required: 1 - The guy intentionally dropped the Good & Plenty and was messing with NL.

Scenario 2: Bigfoot threw a Good & Plenty at the guy.
Assumptions required:
1. There's such a thing as bigfoot.
2. Bigfoots live in Minnesota.
3. There was at least one trailing NL and his merry band of footologists on the night in question.
4. A bigfoot watched the guy with the Good & Plentys.
5. Said bigfoot surreptitiously collected one of the spilled candies and held onto it for several hours while it kept watch.
6. At some point, the bigfoot decided that it would be fun to return the Good & Plenty to the guy who had spilled them.
7. The bigfoot successfully tosses the Good & Plenty at the guy.

I realize that Occam's Razor provides no help in deciding the likely explanation between the two alternatives of Scenario 1. I maintain, however, that it is useful in deciding the likely explanation between Scenario 1 and Scenario 2.

 

[dmaker]

It was my second time out, so I had no clue what to do or how to handle anything remotely considered evidence.

This was your first time out with your organization or on a bigfoot expedition in general? Did you not mention here that you went on several BFRO expeditions prior to joining your current group?

 

[Northern Lights]

This was your first time out with your organization or on a bigfoot expedition in general? Did you not mention here that you went on several BFRO expeditions prior to joining your current group?

This was my second time out in general and it was a BFRO expedition, September 2009. My first time out was in May 2009, another BFRO expedition in Wisconsin.

The group I'm with now didn't form until 2012 when three BFRO investigators had a falling out with MM and decided to start their own group.

 

[Gamolon]

I'm going to try and get to some of these other posts. Regarding the GNP hitting Dan's chair, it happened exactly as I stated, and yes I do not understand it either because it doesn't make sense. Regardless of whether it was thrown by the big guy or picked up by an owl,

He was not moving at all, he was just sitting back and said he saw it as it came down when it passed by the light of the fire.

We thought it might have fallen out of a fold in his jacket or something along those lines, but he wasn't moving and immediately stated he saw it come down. We did drop tests as well, to see what it would sound like if one rolled off his pants, and it wasn't the same as what we heard when it hit. In fact, we couldn't hear it when it rolled off his pants. But we could hear it when we dropped it from over his head.

This may have been discussed before.

What was the trajectory of the GNP that Dan actually saw as it passed the fire? You say it was possibly thrown from a bigfoot, but your wording and "tests" were dropped from over head. Also, as Dan saw it come in past the fire, did he have an idea as to which direction it came from? Did you look for clues in the direction it came from?