Bigfoot DNA

[River]

I don't expect anyone to prove bigfoot doesn't exist, that's an absurd task.

I do expect rational skeptics to concede that they cannot know for certain whether bigfoot exists or not.

One may place the odds of bigfoot existing at ten billion to one, and that's perfectly reasonable.

As soon as somebody claims they are "100% certain" bigfoot doesn't exist, they are being neither skeptical nor rational.

Would you say you are 100% certain mermaids don't exist? If not, why not? Why aren't you sure? The exact same thing goes for bigfoot. (insert your social construct of choice here) Bigfoot doesn't get a free pass. The bigfooters expect it should though. All it takes is someone showing us this monkey they keep bragging about and trying to postulate that it exists. The hand waving gets old. It's just not out there.

"Hey Buffy, I have a unicorn habituated on my land. It doesnt like cameras, and it some how knows when they are around. No one can see it except me, and NO! I WON"T PROVE IT! YOU CAN'T PROVE I DONT!!" ad nauseum.

 

[GeeMack]

I don't expect anyone to prove bigfoot doesn't exist, that's an absurd task.

Indeed.

I do expect rational skeptics to concede that they cannot know for certain whether bigfoot exists or not.

Try it this way: I do expect rational skeptics to concede that they cannot know for certain whether the Tooth Fairy exists or not.

You good with that?

One may place the odds of bigfoot existing at ten billion to one, and that's perfectly reasonable.

Of all the things seen in the woods which were at first believed to be Bigfoot, but which were later identified as some particular thing, how many of those things were objectively identified as Bigfoot? Now plug that number into your statement of chance above and you get... what?

As soon as somebody claims they are "100% certain" bigfoot doesn't exist, they are being neither skeptical nor rational.

Skeptics allow for modifying their position if there's a change in the status of the available objective evidence. Please review the odds calculated above, however. See how close to 100% certain you get when you divide "the number of times Bigfoot has been objectively determined to exist" by "the number of times Bigfoot was claimed to exist".

 

[Óðinn]

How bout using north America and check how complete the fossil record is.

How complete is it? And how can you possibly know?

ETA: The current est is less than 15% of the species on this planet have been classified. That's right, 15%. And 99.9% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct.

 

[LTC8K6]

Fossil, shmossil. How many fossils of "Flores Man" have we found in hundreds of years looking? Ans: 1. How many haven't we found? A lack of fossils is not a good argument for bigfoot not existing, sorry.

Partial skeletons of nine individuals have been recovered, including one complete cranium (skull).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis#Discovery

They were not expecting to find a new species, and were surprised at the recovery of a nearly complete skeleton of a hominin they dubbed LB1 because it was unearthed inside the Liang Bua Cave. Subsequent excavations recovered seven additional skeletons, dating from 38,000 to 13,000 years ago.

Technically, apparently none were actually fossils.

The specimens are not fossilized and have been described as having "the consistency of wet blotting paper"; once exposed, the bones had to be left to dry before they could be dug up.

 

[Óðinn]

Fossil, shmossil. How many fossils of "Flores Man" have we found in hundreds of years looking? Ans: 9. How many haven't we found? A lack of fossils is not a good argument for bigfoot not existing, sorry.

Thx, fixed.

 

[Drewbot]

The shallow oceans that covered parts of north America hAve given us complete ecosystems of fossils. It was perfect conditions for fossil formation.

 

[LTC8K6]

Thx, fixed.

P.S. We weren't looking for human ancestors on Flores for hundreds of years. Excavations started in 1965, I think. Artifacts were found at the time, so it was known quickly that the area was probably inhabited by "humans", and that remains might be there.

Flores is not that small, either.

 

[Robrob]

A lack of fossils is not a good argument for bigfoot not existing, sorry.

No but it certainly doesn't help their argument does it?

 

[Jodie]

That said, don't you think some where in the entire world someone would have hit one, killed one, or run up on a corpse somewhere? If they didn't harvest the entire body someone would have at least brought a piece of the body back to civilization. No one has to my knowledge and even people who live in third world countries would have enough sense to know that this might generate some cash for them, yet it hasn't happened.

 

[LTC8K6]

There should also be a history of encounters with them, battles with them, trophies, skins, etc.

 

[OntarioSquatch]

That said, don't you think some where in the entire world someone would have hit one, killed one, or run up on a corpse somewhere? If they didn't harvest the entire body someone would have at least brought a piece of the body back to civilization.

I think it could very likely happen, but it won't necessarily mean the science community is going to obtain it. If the government collects them and keeps it a secret then I'm not surprised it's been so difficult to obtain hard evidence.

There should also be a history of encounters with them, battles with them, trophies, skins, etc.

There is a very long history. Even the European settlers have reported seeing them. As long as they exist, people will continue to see them regardless of whether the hoaxing stops or not

 

[LTC8K6]

There is a very long history. Even the European settlers have reported seeing them. As long as they exist, people will continue to see them regardless of whether the hoaxing stops or not

People see all sorts of things. That's not a history. Dragons have much more of a history than sasquatch in that case. People actually fought dragons...

There's no history of interaction with sasquatch, or any history of sasquatch at all.

 

[LTC8K6]

Sasquatch would have been battling native people for resources and territory. There'd be battles, trophies, sasquatch skin mukluks, etc.

 

[Jodie]

I think it could very likely happen, but it won't necessarily mean the science community is going to obtain it. If the government collects them and keeps it a secret then I'm not surprised it's been so difficult to obtain hard evidence.



There is a very long history. Even the European settlers have reported seeing them. As long as they exist, people will continue to see them regardless of whether the hoaxing stops or not

All world governments want to suppress knowledge of Sasquatch? Why would they do that if they think it exists? Does that really make sense?

There is a history of "Bear People" with the Cherokee, Trolls with the Scandanavian, and Jontuhnheim with the Norse but nothing exactly fits what is described today. There are also stories of talking coyotes and birds, so which stories are based in fact? Do you just pick and choose?

 

[LTC8K6]

How do you suppress 8 foot tall 600 pound agile bipeds that need a lot of food every day?

 

[Night Walker]

I think it could very likely happen, but it won't necessarily mean the science community is going to obtain it. If the government collects them and keeps it a secret then I'm not surprised it's been so difficult to obtain hard evidence.



There is a very long history. Even the European settlers have reported seeing them. As long as they exist, people will continue to see them regardless of whether the hoaxing stops or not

The trouble is that EVERY culture in EVERY part of the world has some variation of the Wild-/Hairy-Man within their cultural folklore which have always (and still are) being seen/experienced worldwide. Bigfoot is at best a very human-experience, not a undiscovered biological species.

Furthermore, this very same discussion has been repeating itself for at least the last 170 years. Here is a quote from the Australia and New Zealand Monthly Magazine of 1842 – in the formative years of the colony (5 years before the Australian Museum put a supposed Bunyip cranium on public display and 8 years before Australia even had a University):

“… a contested point has long existed among Australian naturalists whether or no such an animal as the Yahoo existed, one party contending that it does, and from its scarceness, slyness, and solitary habits, man has not succeeded in obtaining a specimen, and that it is most likely one of the monkey tribe… The opposite party maintain very firmly that the existence of such a being is purely an imaginary fabrication, and is no more connected with reality than ghosts, goblins, fairies, or such like at home.”

http://home.yowieocalypse.com/Superstitions/

Interestingly, ghosts, goblins, fairies, unicorns, mermaids, etc continue to be seen/experienced yet the evidence remains the same. New technologies bring new hopes which are inevitably followed by new disappointements (ie fakes and misidentifications) but there's always tomorrow and new suckers are born every minute...

It is also interesting to note how the original indigenous descriptions of the Yahoo from 1842 are vastly different from the hairy-super-ninjas of the modern Yowie/Bigfoot lore…

 

[GeeMack]

I think it could very likely happen, but it won't necessarily mean the science community is going to obtain it. If the government collects them and keeps it a secret then I'm not surprised it's been so difficult to obtain hard evidence.

Preemptively making wacko government conspiracy theory excuses for why no evidence will be found is nuts. It demonstrates just how completely empty the pro Bigfoot arguments are and how those who say they believe Bigfoot exists don't really believe it. You're so sure nobody will be able to objectively demonstrate its existence that you've already rationalized not only the lack of evidence to this point, but the lack of evidence into the future. That's no way to rationally explain reality.

Nope. This thread is almost 2500 posts long, been running nearly 4 years. This DNA evidence isn't coming and even the Bigfoot fantasists know it. Talking about DNA evidence is all you've got. Just talk and more talk. The longer the Bigfoot community can play the game, make excuses for their failure, pretend the proof is just around the corner or hidden in some government lab somewhere, the longer they can milk their little kid monster in the closet fantasy. From out here in the real world, it's not working. We're not validating the fantasy. We're not buying the excuses. No DNA, no objective evidence of any kind, no Bigfoot. Sorry, you lose.

 

[dafydd]

I think it could very likely happen, but it won't necessarily mean the science community is going to obtain it. If the government collects them and keeps it a secret then I'm not surprised it's been so difficult to obtain hard evidence.

The CT forum is thataway. What would be the point of keeping Bigfoot a secret?

 

[Resume]

I think it could very likely happen, but it won't necessarily mean the science community is going to obtain it. If the government collects them and keeps it a secret then I'm not surprised it's been so difficult to obtain hard evidence.



There is a very long history. Even the European settlers have reported seeing them. As long as they exist, people will continue to see them regardless of whether the hoaxing stops or not

You makez P.T. Barnum smilez.

 

[Resume]

I don't expect anyone to prove bigfoot doesn't exist, that's an absurd task.

I do expect rational skeptics to concede that they cannot know for certain whether bigfoot exists or not.

Rational human beings can come to provisional conclusions, yet be open to new data/evidence should it become available.

Do you have new (or any) credible objective evidence concerning the cryptid generically known as Bigfoot?