Merged Bigfoot follies

[ChrisBFRPKY]

How would you ever learn that you are wrong about Bigfoot existence? What would have to happen?

I would have to unsee several different creatures that were present and witnessed on multiple occasions by multiple people present (they would likewise have to unsee the creatures witnessed). I would have to not find and not have investigated and not casted the trackways from some of those encounters.

I would have to unhear the sounds they made, and unsmell the odors that were present during some of the encounters. I'd also have to unexperience a fluttering sensation in one ear during one of these encounters. That with some unobservation of the creatures eating and doing other things as a family group would probably put me back on the fence of debating their existence again. Chris B.

 

[eerok]

I would have to unsee several different creatures that were present and witnessed on multiple occasions by multiple people present (they would likewise have to unsee the creatures witnessed). I would have to not find and not have investigated and not casted the trackways from some of those encounters.

I would have to unhear the sounds they made, and unsmell the odors that were present during some of the encounters. I'd also have to unexperience a fluttering sensation in one ear during one of these encounters. That with some unobservation of the creatures eating and doing other things as a family group would probably put me back on the fence of debating their existence again.

How long do you think this will take?

 

[The Shrike]

Once again, I was referring to the search for a Panda.

What search? A French priest goes to China and collects a bunch of things for the Parisian elite. It's not even clear if he had heard of pandas or ever tried to find one himself. All we know is that a local guy handed him a pelt in or before 1869. That's it - panda proven.

 

[LTC8K6]

On TV, they found a cave where bigfoot was cooking his meals in a fire pit. It had maps on the roof, of bigfoot's travel routes.

 

[barehl]

I saw 2 adult males, 3 adult females,and 1 infant in a stroller.

So, by my reasoning they were ghost hunters. They were misleading as to their true destination. The black cases contained some sort of equipment, possibly sound and or video equipment.

No one takes their infant out hunting ghosts or bigfoot just like people don't take infants mountain climbing or skydiving. When I read claims like this, I'm not seeing the well reasoned thoughts of a rational person; I'm seeing Don Quixote.

 

[barehl]

You missed the point of my statement.

The subtlety defense; haven't seen that in awhile. "There is a hairy primate species hiding in the woods and you don't believe it because you are closed minded." The subtle part of this was...

Yes if Bigfoot is not biological then it can only be of the mind. Either way the phenomenon is worthy of being investigated. That's my point. You cannot ignore both or dismiss both possibilities as one is either true or the other.

The win win fallacy; haven't seen that one in awhile either. "A big, hairy primate hiding in the woods is exciting. However, even if it isn't real, it's still exciting because someone is crazy enough to claim that they believe it."

Let's try another version. "A flat Earth is exciting but even if it isn't real, it's still exciting because someone is crazy enough to claim that they believe it."

If you choose to dismiss both, then obviously you have no interest in the subject and are just here to ridicule others under a cloak of anonymity (which is also not uncommon here).

The false dichotomy fallacy combined with the victim fallacy. We're on a roll.

Again, you choose to be here. I assume no one has you at gun point, no one is blackmailing you, and you weren't sentenced to time on this forum in lieu of jail time. If you honestly felt that you were being bullied, that people here were unreasonable, or that people were ignoring your claimed contributions to science then you could find a more sympathetic ear on a dedicated, bigfoot forum. Descarte might have said, "You post therefore you like."

 

[carlitos]

If I am not mistaken, the pelt came first in 1869, everything else, the fossils etc came much later.



Again, it is the search I was comparing. We're not that good at finding stuff.

Skepticism among scientists tends to delay widespread efforts at recovery until something concrete bonks them on the head. Chris B.

Lol. Real scientists build hundred thousand gallon xenon tanks in old mine shafts to try and detect neutrinos. Bigfoot scientists won't tell you where in the public park they saw a giant freaking ape unless you pinkie-swear not to tell sign an NDA. Someone isn't good at finding stuff, that's for sure. Maybe they got bonked on the head a few too many times.

 

[barehl]

I find the most difficult thing to do here is to have a decent conversation about anything scientific as most here are posers without the mental prowess to do anything other than ridicule or deny. It takes no thought to deny, so it's the safest position for those without the capacity.

It is not unusual when having discussions online to find people who have strong opinions but who are not good at debate. When asked why they believe a particular thing they will usually have someone in mind whom they consider to be an expert. They commonly assume that you will be convinced by the same person or at least unable to refute their expert's arguments.

I've seen Kirk Cameron make the claim that he could show anyone in five minutes that evolutionary theory was wrong. However, after coming to the end of three videos after about 45 minutes, I hadn't seen anything. I could go to the website set up by Cameron and Comfort, The Way of The Master and look for more arguments about Christianity. I find the arguments about evolutionary theory to be amateurish, clearly written by someone who never bothered studying the theory. However, even in what should be their strongest area, I also find the arguments about morality and the consistency of the Bible to be lacking.

I've had Creationist point to Answers in Genesis. It takes some time but you can find the mistakes in all of their claims.

I've had Moon Hoax enthusiasts point to Bill Kaysing and Bart Sibrel. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think when Kaysing can't distinguish between combustion instability and pogo oscillation or when Sibrel can't tell the difference between gamma radiation and protons.

Bigfoot enthusiasts typically point to the PG film. This one is interesting because it is counter to Moon Hoax enthusiasts. In other words, I've never once seen a Moon Hoaxer accept the launch of a 1.3 million lb Saturn 1B as proof of Apollo. I haven't seen one of them convinced by the launch of a 6.5 million lb Saturn V or the fact that each of these had multiple launches, all with thousands of people watching. It is a particularly interesting point when multiple launches documented by thousands with hundreds of cameras and videos is not proof but a single video witnessed by two men is supposed to be overwhelming proof. A simple exercise is to balance the claims of footers and moon hoaxers and try to find a common point of evidential sufficiency.

I've had Christian apologists point to William Lane Craig. He's somewhat tougher because you typically have to refute his points on logic. You can round this out by watching debates with people like Hitchens, Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, Rabbi Boteach, Krauss, Shermer, D'Souza, and Hutchinson. Some of the arguments are very passionate but I've yet to find one that is convincing in terms of God, Christianity, or religion in general. On the other hand, I have not found all of the arguments against religion to be convincing. But I can follow the logic of all of the arguments.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

"I would have to unsee several different creatures that were present and witnessed on multiple occasions by multiple people present (they would likewise have to unsee the creatures witnessed). I would have to not find and not have investigated and not casted the trackways from some of those encounters.

I would have to unhear the sounds they made, and unsmell the odors that were present during some of the encounters. I'd also have to unexperience a fluttering sensation in one ear during one of these encounters. That with some unobservation of the creatures eating and doing other things as a family group would probably put me back on the fence of debating their existence again. Chris B."


It's severely unfortunate that despite all of these amazingly rare encounters with the rarest of the most rare creatures on earth, you never managed to get any evidence at all. I mean, that's like seeing your numbers come up on the lottery several times and each time realizing you forgot to even put it on. Is it possible to unsmell bullcrap?

 

[carlitos]

I love having a fluttering sensation in my ear. So does mrs carlito.

 

[LTC8K6]

I love having a fluttering sensation in my ear. So does mrs carlito.

On TV, the folks that found the bigfoot cave ran into a bigfoot that was controlling the minds of a couple of team members.

 

[Resume]

I would have to unsee several different creatures that were present and witnessed on multiple occasions by multiple people present (they would likewise have to unsee the creatures witnessed). I would have to not find and not have investigated and not casted the trackways from some of those encounters.

I would have to unhear the sounds they made, and unsmell the odors that were present during some of the encounters. I'd also have to unexperience a fluttering sensation in one ear during one of these encounters. That with some unobservation of the creatures eating and doing other things as a family group would probably put me back on the fence of debating their existence again. Chris B.

What creatures? Bigfoot creatures? If that's what you mean, why not just say it?

Myogenic tinnitus (and related phenomena) explain your ear fluttering; why add an unnecessary entity to the conversation?

 

[Pterodactyl]

Be content with what you believe. My opinion doesn't matter in the great scheme of things. I'm nobody, but I do know I'm right about Bigfoot.
Being of the minority opinion doesn't mean I'm wrong you know.
Chris B.

The simple aspect of your inclusion to a minority doesn't play into my or anyone's opinion here, so it is high time to give up the victim routine. This is a skeptical forum, which you well know. And as such, it includes a rich assortment of individuals belonging to and often representing various racial, non-religious, sexual, and/or other cultural minorities, whose unchosen inclusion to said minorities can and often does result in inescapable permanence that can actually have have explicit, real-world impacts. In short, nobody feels bad for someone chasing the magic monkey man. It's not that heavy a cross to bear in the scheme of things.

The one critical and binding characteristic bringing these people together here is an intellectually-driven demand to see past the BS, and to interpret the world as it really is. It's that simple. If someone makes a claim, it is the function of this community to examine it. You have made many claims. But thematically, you have also been extremely careful not to divulge enough detail to have any of these claims examined to any extent. This is an obvious and purposeful affront to the only reliable system we have of determining truth. The system for which this entire forum exists. That is the source for the negativity to your posts, your actions, not your being part of some made-up minority.

 

[dmaker]

^^ Well said!

 

[barehl]

Some of the guys here with similar gripes would be surprised to learn I actually went to bat for most of them with the other Admins, but was outvoted in cases where the evidence for banishment was undeniable. There are only a few cases I felt the individual did not deserve a second chance.

My account on the BFF is marked inactive rather than banned. It's been a year and a half since I bothered making a post there. I simply gave up on the forum when it became obvious that bigfoot enthusiasts there were immune to logic and rational discussion. For example, if I suggested that food resources were a problem then the attempted counter was that nothing was known about bigfoot so any argument about food or behavior was unreasonable speculation. However, when someone else suggested that bigfoot was an ambush predator, this was readily accepted. It was likewise claimed that bigfoot ate rodents and cattail roots. Someone claimed that bigfoot could run as fast as a whitetail deer without making a sound. Five sightings over 20 years is claimed as solid proof that bigfoot exists while the lack of any physical evidence over 50 years is dismissed. It was claimed that someone had recordings that were strong proof of bigfoot. I never listened to them since no link to any sound file was ever given. Notice that over a year later these "amazing" recordings are still not being offered as proof. The links that were available to sound files go to the Michigan Recording Project with its collection of utterly embarrassing human vocalizations.

The BFF crowd had a startlingly fundamental lack of understanding of science, logic, statistics, and even common sense. It was claimed that skeptics needed to disprove bigfoot. It was claimed that anything not disproved could simply be assumed to be true. I could spend the rest of my life there making rational arguments that would be dismissed in favor of rumor and wishful thinking. I understood the futility of that after fewer than 20 posts.

 

[eerok]

The BFF crowd had a startlingly fundamental lack of understanding of science, logic, statistics, and even common sense. It was claimed that skeptics needed to disprove bigfoot. It was claimed that anything not disproved could simply be assumed to be true. I could spend the rest of my life there making rational arguments that would be dismissed in favor of rumor and wishful thinking. I understood the futility of that after fewer than 20 posts.

I made a few posts on BFF with the noble goal of defending science. It wasn't about proving anyone wrong, because I don't ordinarily care much about anyone's personal beliefs, but I consider the promotion of anti-science to be bad for society in general.

As you say, bigfoot fandom is all about rejecting science, reality, logic, and common sense, because you can't sustain these and still believe in (or at least support the pretense of) something as ridiculous as bigfoot. I don't know if it's completely futile to engage footers, though, since occasionally one will wake up and see how silly it all is.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

If someone makes a claim, it is the function of this community to examine it. You have made many claims. But thematically, you have also been extremely careful not to divulge enough detail to have any of these claims examined to any extent. This is an obvious and purposeful affront to the only reliable system we have of determining truth. The system for which this entire forum exists.

While at the same time relentlessly insulting people for not having the very information he is purposefully withholding.

For example, keeping the name of a public park with millions of visitors a year secret so that you can sneer derisively at people for not "being there", as if millions of people a year weren't there already.

Is this reasonable behavior? It is not crazy behavior. It is systematic, logic-driven, and comprehensive. But it is malicious.

We give so much benefit of the doubt. But would any of us walk into a church and start sneering at the congregation? We have more scruples than that.

 

[Drewbot]

I made a few posts on BFF with the noble goal of defending science. It wasn't about proving anyone wrong, because I don't ordinarily care much about anyone's personal beliefs, but I consider the promotion of anti-science to be bad for society in general.

As you say, bigfoot fandom is all about rejecting science, reality, logic, and common sense, because you can't sustain these and still believe in (or at least support the pretense of) something as ridiculous as bigfoot. I don't know if it's completely futile to engage footers, though, since occasionally one will wake up and see how silly it all is.

It is completely futile. In fact. They use the idea that you are there only to destroy belief in Bigfoot as an argument against your response to their claims.

 

[John Nowak]

On the contrary, I know that everything you think you know about Bigfoot is wrong. It's just a matter of time before you realize this. And I can wait.
Chris B.

400 years of nothing and that's just counting white people. Keep waiting.

 

[dmaker]

While at the same time relentlessly insulting people for not having the very information he is purposefully withholding.

For example, keeping the name of a public park with millions of visitors a year secret so that you can sneer derisively at people for not "being there", as if millions of people a year weren't there already.

Is this reasonable behavior? It is not crazy behavior. It is systematic, logic-driven, and comprehensive. But it is malicious.

We give so much benefit of the doubt. But would any of us walk into a church and start sneering at the congregation? We have more scruples than that.

That is why I left the BFF. I had an attack of conscience. I had already realized the futility of arguing with folks like DWA. So what was left? To rain on their bigfoot parade at a bigfoot forum? What kind of A-hole does that make me, then? So I left.