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Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

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We must understand that the PGF is the last-stand for Bigfoot proponents. If they lose this argument (whether PGF is the real-deal), then they have nothing.

1. Casts- Even the 'best' ones have been shown to contain casting artifacts
2. Vocalizations- No one has a Bigfoot to compare them to
3. DNA- No Evidence
4. Hair- No Evidence
5. Other Videos- Nothing which would be considered a 'bigfoot'
6. Photos- Nothing which would be considered a 'bigfoot'
7. Sighting Reports- No physical verifiable evidence to support these

If I am wrong about this please elaborate, but I think the PGF is where any proponent will have to stand his ground.
 
I think one of the reasons they came up with that ridiculous skeleton and gait description is because they won't let go of such obviously fake tracks like the ones John Green is measuring.

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Well, here´s what a proponent would say:
1. Casts- An expert said they were dermal ridges. Are you saying you can not trust an expert's statement? The artifacts were not reproduced in soils from [add place name here]. There are footprints with mid-tarsal break marks; theres a miles-long trackway in the middle of nothing; there are casts showing toe movement. No to mention the Skookum cast (Swindler said its from Gigantopithecus), the anatomically-correct female buttcast and Freeman's handcasts.
2. Vocalizations- No one proved the Sierra Sounds were fake and sound analysis "proved" they could not be made by humans
3. DNA- There are "unidentified samples" others samples could have been contaminated by human DNA.
4. Hair- There are samples, they just look too much like human hair. Human hair that ws never cut!
5. Other Videos- The MDF and Freeman footage have never been proved to be hoaxes.
6. Photos- Many were never proved not to be from a 'bigfoot'
7. Sighting Reports- Are you claiming all those people are liars? Are you saying that everyone who reported a bigfoot sighting can not be trusted?

Can I make some money out of it?
 
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Right CN, but:
1. Dermal ridges are the result of casting artifacts, has the expert ever examined a Bigfoots foot? How can one be an expert on a foot that he has never seen?
2. Please prove they are from a Bigfoot
3. Please provide the comparison sample that the DNA would need to match
4. Please provide the comparison sample that the hair would need to match
5. Please prove they are videos of a Bigfoot
6. Please prove they are photos of a Bigfoot
7. Maybe they really thought they saw a Bigfoot, therefore they are not lying.

+ See how polite I was? Doubters are nicer
 
I know you aren't serious, but these are comonly-used arguments. It amounts to nothing more than institutionalized argument from ignorance (seems to be a common factor in most popular woo).
Well, here´s what a proponent would say:
1. Casts- An expert said they were dermal ridges. Are you saying you can not trust an expert's statement?
Yet those same experts say things about patterns that match nothing else, and ridges that seem to run in odd directions, etc.
The artifacts were not reproduced in soils from [add place name here].
Yet are reproduced in others...
There are footprints with mid-tarsal break marks;
...and footprints without...
theres a miles-long trackway in the middle of nothing;
...that starts and ends and leaves no other evidence anywhere
there are casts showing toe movement.
and casts that don't...
No to mention the Skookum cast (Swindler said its from Gigantopithecus), the anatomically-correct female buttcast and Freeman's handcasts.
yes. And it seems that any remotely-close fascimile to a footprint that can't be positiviely identified as something else is automatically a 'Foot print. There's no consistency between "proven" 'Foot tracks. Some show a mid-tarsal break, some don't. Long toes, short toes, double balls, prehensile toes, human-like foot, etc, etc, etc.
2. Vocalizations- No one proved the Sierra Sounds were fake and sound analysis "proved" they could not be made by humans
Even assuming that's true, no one has proven they couldn't be made by synthesizers, or speakers playing a tape of animal sounds, or any other method of producing, reproducing, or manipulating sound. And once again, there's little consistency between 'Foot reports on vocals...ptich, tone, and timbre all vary, as well as the various types of yells, calls, or similar (from erie silence, to wolf-like howls, to gorilla-like grunts and roars).
3. DNA- There are "unidentified samples" others samples could have been contaminated by human DNA.
Unidentified does not equal Bigfoot. And again, look more closely at those "unidentified" or, more correctly, "unidentifiable" samples. You'll start to see the reasons they are unidentified: sample too degraded by age; sample degraded by supected chemical treatment; sample contained no genetic material (i.e.-synthetic fiber), and similar. I've yet to see any classified as a sample that produces a genetic sequence which can't be identified. THere are many that don't produce a genetic sequence.
4. Hair- There are samples, they just look too much like human hair. Human hair that ws never cut!
See above.
5. Other Videos- The MDF and Freeman footage have never been proved to be hoaxes.
Neither have they ever been proven to be real. Burden of proof. "Don't know" <> "Bigfoot wanders the earth"
6. Photos- Many were never proved not to be from a 'bigfoot'
See above.
7. Sighting Reports- Are you claiming all those people are liars? Are you saying that everyone who reported a bigfoot sighting can not be trusted?
Millions of people see Mickey Mouse every year in Florida.
Millions of children see Santa Clause in malls and department stores around the world every year.
Millions of people have seen the "man in the moon".
There are numerous sighting reports for ghosts, UFOs, aliens, satanic ritualistic abuse, jesus in a tortilla (or other food item), and similar things. People see things. People interpret what they see. Do NOT fall into the trap of confusing what some saw with how someone interpreted what they saw. See the Conspiracy theory thread for a perfect example, where a common claim is that a certain fireball "couldn't have been fuel" because witnesses described it as an "explosion".

Can I make some money out of it?
Don't see why not, the rest of 'footery does :)
 
Debate recipe (proponent side):
1. Cut-and-paste job; Medrum, Noll & Knights. Add more appeals to authority and a mild ad hom.
2. Try to shift the burden of proof. Ignore unconvenient paranormal "details".
3. Say the DNA evidence is "compelling" and worthy of further investigation. Complain it was never carried out by a state agency or unversity.
4. Try to shift the burden of proof and say the hair evidence is "compelling". Add more appeals to authority and perhaps another mild ad hom.
5. Try to shift the burden of proof and say the video evidence is "compelling". Add link to a post at BFF or somewhere else related to MDF or Freeman footage and perhaps another not-so-mild ad hom. Ignore unconvenient "details" related to Freeman's involvment with hoaxes.
6. Try to shift the burden of proof and say the photographic evidence is "compelling" and there were eyewitnesses reports associated somehow.
7. Ignore or twist the previous statement. Add something like "Sheriff John Brown would not like to know you say he's a liar".

Add complain about not being taken seriously by scoffics.

Can we build a footerbot software?
 
Don't forget to claim that Scoffics only promote evidence which promotes their own argument. WTF??
 
I know you aren't serious, but these are comonly-used arguments. It amounts to nothing more than institutionalized argument from ignorance (seems to be a common factor in most popular woo).
Exactly. And predictable enough to allow someone with a better programing language knoweledge than I have to build an answering woobot. Check this one: http://www.jeffcohenstudio.com/bagoftoast/comic.cgi?comic=71 Change "fundamentalist Christians" for the required woo...

Of course the woobot would probably meet the same fate...

This is would be another routine:
Millions of people see Mickey Mouse every year in Florida.
Millions of children see Santa Clause in malls and department stores around the world every year.
Millions of people have seen the "man in the moon".
There are numerous sighting reports for ghosts, UFOs, aliens, satanic ritualistic abuse, jesus in a tortilla (or other food item), and similar things. People see things. People interpret what they see. Do NOT fall into the trap of confusing what some saw with how someone interpreted what they saw. See the Conspiracy theory thread for a perfect example, where a common claim is that a certain fireball "couldn't have been fuel" because witnesses described it as an "explosion".
"I don't do discuss UFOs".
Santa Claus leaves no footprints.
The man in the Moon is an optical ilusion; illusions leave no footprints.

OT comment: I stopped to lurk at CT forums when I realized it was useless to tell them that the dust clouds from WTC collapse by no means were "pyroclastic clouds"...

Don't see why not, the rest of 'footery does :)
First I'll have to change my name or at least my www ID.
And wipe the traces...
As well as those who may later try some blackmail...
 
I think one of the reasons they came up with that ridiculous skeleton and gait description is because they won't let go of such obviously fake tracks like the ones John Green is measuring.

Are you suggesting that Steindorf was already a Bigfooter when he did the animation, and was previously influenced by the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other trackway made with the wooden Wallace feet?

We don't see any image of the Patty trackway (more than one footprint shown in a frame) other than the composite created by LeClerc. It looks like it may be another "single-file" trackway.
 
...and Yvon LeClerc is just another Bigfoot woo scientist. Like Krantz, he has the special sauce to determine fakes from real.

Bigfoot Encounters said:
...a scientist of Our-Lady of Mount Carmel, in the sector of Three-Rivers.

Footprints on Mount Valin Trois-Rivières, Québec

10_leclerc.jpg


LeClerc said:
...the plant of a foot which has all the characteristics of a trace left by the passage an alive being. " I am the only expert in alive prints in Quebec and it is easy to know if it is about a falsified print. The movement which one detects on this print of the Valin mounts is very revealing. I am able to make the demonstration of this expertise in front of all the people who would wish it. I am in possession of all documentation available on this subject and I have results of search which can show that we are in the presence of a phenomenon which was already identified for a long time. For search on the sasquatch, it is a discovery of foreground."

10_emp.gif

10_os.gif
10_contour.gif


LeClerc graphics.
 
Debate recipe (proponent side):
1. Cut-and-paste job; Medrum, Noll & Knights. Add more appeals to authority and a mild ad hom.
2. Try to shift the burden of proof. Ignore unconvenient paranormal "details".
3. Say the DNA evidence is "compelling" and worthy of further investigation. Complain it was never carried out by a state agency or unversity.
4. Try to shift the burden of proof and say the hair evidence is "compelling". Add more appeals to authority and perhaps another mild ad hom.
5. Try to shift the burden of proof and say the video evidence is "compelling". Add link to a post at BFF or somewhere else related to MDF or Freeman footage and perhaps another not-so-mild ad hom. Ignore unconvenient "details" related to Freeman's involvment with hoaxes.
6. Try to shift the burden of proof and say the photographic evidence is "compelling" and there were eyewitnesses reports associated somehow.
7. Ignore or twist the previous statement. Add something like "Sheriff John Brown would not like to know you say he's a liar".
8. You have not earned the right to comment on Bigfoot evidence because you have not been in the field researching these creatures...
 
A dilemma for Meldrum.

He has supported the idea that bigfoot exists, based on the testimony that the casts contain dermal ridges and therefore are real, hasn't it been shown that dermal ridges are actually artifacts from casting? doesn't his entire argument crumble to the ground, even amongst bigfoot supporters?

Didn't Tube have a running battle with Melissa about the dermal ridges being artifacts? What was the outcome of that? Last I heard was the Volcanic Ash vs. Pumice or something like that
 
Drew, you are over-simplifying Meldrum's position by basing it on dermal ridges. He has strong ties to the authenticity of the PGF, the Skookum Cast, etc. Also, don't forget that a Bigfoot entered his campsite many years ago.

Any Bigfooter could discard the claim of dermal ridges (conceding that they are casting artifacts) and simply say that we are looking at genuine Bigfoot prints that also happen to have artifacts from the casting process. You lose the dermal position, but you never lose the gigantic footprint itself.
 
Not so much of a problem for the proponents, I'm afraid I must say.

All it takes is to say something along the lines "some features may indeed be casting artifacts, while others may be something else" and "experts have pointed that some features are better explained as dermal ridges".

And if someone asks if there the same patterns appear at two sucessive footprints of the same foot (Helloooooo, kitakaze... Where are you?), just say something like "no, but the odds of preservation are too small."

Individual problems at every "pro" pieces of evidence, reasonings or hypothesis can indeed be countered, with different degress of plausibility. However, once all the explanations are assembled, the resulting "big picture" becomes utterly implausible, in my opinion.
 
8. You have not earned the right to comment on Bigfoot evidence because you have not been in the field researching these creatures...

Yep, we skeptics are not true researchers... We never spent long times in wildernesses looking for invisible bigfeet...
 
We don't see any image of the Patty trackway (more than one footprint shown in a frame) other than the composite created by LeClerc. It looks like it may be another "single-file" trackway.

The film seems to show a straight line to me.

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/files/bluffcreek.rm

All it takes is to say something along the lines "some features may indeed be casting artifacts, while others may be something else" and "experts have pointed that some features are better explained as dermal ridges".

Krantz specifically said that dermal ridges running around the edge of the print were a sign of a real print, though. Seems like a big problem to me since that is a description of desiccation ridges.
 
The film seems to show a straight line to me.

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/files/bluffcreek.rm



Krantz specifically said that dermal ridges running around the edge of the print were a sign of a real print, though. Seems like a big problem to me since that is a description of desiccation ridges.
Easy ways out:
-A "sign of" must not be interpreted as a "proof of".
-Dermals may indeed look like casting artifatcs; you will also have to take in to account other evidences (foot morphology, reliability of the caster/track founder, etc.).
-The "You can't prove..." line.
-Endless repetition of the same arguments.
-Appeals to Chilcutt's authority.
-Ad homs.

In the believer's mind, big problems quickly fade away under the light of the true belief...
 
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