Sgoodman,
At a skeptics forum, evidence (of the reliable type) rules. Speculation has its place, but we like it well-backed by reliable evidence. You presented the reason why you, as you said, believe. I have no problems with personal beliefs in this case. However, when you present them at a forum where critical thinking is encouraged, you submit them for evaluation and critics. The critics will be focused, in this case, on the poor quality of the evidence available to back the reasonings you presented. And the critics must aim at the arguments, and not at the arguer. So, please note the following is direct at your reasonings, not at you.
This put, please allow me to -once again- expose some flaws in the "out-of-Asia" speculation.
At
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2216728&postcount=130
You will find a quick review of the best candidates for a bigfoot ancestral (assuming bigfeet are real).
First of all, none of them match the requirements. Species from the
Gigantopithecus genus are know from Southern Asia. Its species were not exactly adapted to cold weather. Southern Asia and North America had different vegetation and climate zones during the Pleistocene. Note also that these giant apes would have to cross zones of tundra, steppe, temperate semi desert and dry grassland to reach the distribution inferred by sighting reports in North America.
So, when you write about these animals migrating from Asia to North America, you must understand that you presented nothing but a speculation, and a speculation not backed for evidence. This sort of thing can not be used to back a claim. At least not when one is using critical thinking. It might seem OK for you, but it’s not for others (myself included- at least for the current purposes).
Now, from this shaky start (bigfeet migrated from Asia), you make two other suppositions- the females evolved hairy breasts and the populations of animals that moved to warmer areas still retain this feature. I hope you can see that, once again, that despite the fact that the reasoning is logic for you, for other persons it is not, because it lacks good foundations.
OK, using the controversial Meganthropus or the "standard"
Homo erectus might be slightly less problematic, since erectus had a pretty big and widespread distribution. But you still have no evidence that they came near the land bridge or that any of them looked like Patty. You could argue for the fact that the fossil register is incomplete, but hey, it’s a pretty weak argument.
Unfortunately there are other issues with the reasoning. You say bigfeet migrated at the same time humans migrated. This is, once again, nothing but baseless speculation. Why? Because there were a number of migration "waves" of different animals out of and in to Asia. can Check, for example,
The Evolution of Cats; July 2007; Scientific American Magazine; by Stephen J. O'Brien and Warren E. Johnson to have an idea of how complex the mammal migrations were.
Even humans arrived to the Americas in at least two waves; you seem to be talking only about the latest one (historical European colonists apart)- the one that brought those who most likely were the ancestors of Native Americans- the Clovis people, but there were people living in North America before the Clovis. Check
http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/text54.htm#luzia
http://www.nps.gov/archeology/kennewick/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/first/kennewick.html
See the problems?
This is why, at least in my opinion, regardless on how appealing and attractive some suppositions might be, if they lack reliable evidences at their foundations, they must not be used to back a claim.
OK, for now its enough. This post is already too big for me to enter the sightings distributions and renderings issues...
