LTC8K6 said:
Where can I read these 40+ opinions again? I don't think they all will be in Krantz's book, just the supporting ones, so where can I read all of them?
I don't know. Maybe the estate has Grover's files?
If bigfoot has these largish dermal ridges and pores, why are they on so few casts? I didn't see a clear reason for this other than some gibberish about authenticity.
Haven't I explained this? Try walking on fresh skid roads, snow, thick club moss and see what you get.
Plaster isn't the most sensitive of casting mediums, but that what was used in many cases.
What? A clubfoot should not show much of a heel print, but this one does....... So they invent a way around the incorrect clubfoot print. Amazing!
Only to a sceptic. Diagnoses differ. Ever get a second opinion from a doctor?
At Krantz' request, Dr. Meldrum researched the literature and found the deformity to be consistant with
metatursus adductus. The crippling could have been caused by a lesion on the spine. That rather rules out Daegling's idea that some hoaxer could have enlarged photos of human skew foot to produce the effect, doesn't it?
Instead of saying, the idiot hoaxer didn't know jack about a clubfoot except what it looked like??????, they invent a way for the tracks to still be real. Incredible? Why does anyone buy this garbage?
It seems you think it's garbage because you're not understanding the arguments.
Even if it could be shown the Bossburg tracks were faked, and it hasn't, that in no way would affect the rest of the evidence. There were other track events in Washington that same year involving other individuals.
To me, this is strong evidence that the hoaxers only had a photo or an X-ray to go by when they faked the crippled print.
You have yet to establish there were any hoaxers involved in making the tracks. Can you produce the photo or X-ray and the names of these people?
How did they step over a 43" fence? How did they lay tracks in snow without leaving any trace of their activities?
So Dahinden heard that Palma thought he saw ridges on the copies and altered the original casts to show ridges for sure? Is that what you meant?!
No.
Michael Dennett, who writes for Skeptical Inquirer, saw ridges on the original casts in Dahinden's possession after Palma had pointed out the areas where they could be seen. Dennett's statement is clear. How did you misunderstand it?
Exactly how does one fake ridges on a plaster cast?
Tunnel evidence and circular evidence are a bunch of believers agreeing with each other and preferring the believer's opinions over the non-believer's opinions. See crop circles.
Scepticism is part of the effort. No researcher likes wild goose chases. Dahinden took three days to consider before deciding to go to Bossburg. Noll says Dahinden was so sceptical he'd have asked his own mother to take a lie detector test if she said she saw tracks going up to her door.
You don't think there's some well-organized cult here do you? The original "four horsemen", as some enterprising journalist dubbed them, mostly hated each other.
The scientists who've done the most work on this worked independently and have arrived at their conclusions independently.
Crop circles have nothing to do with this.
Not everyone agrees with Krantz, so why shoud we believe his opinions over anyone else's?
Not everyone agrees with you either. You might want to consider his opinion because he did the research. His detractors didn't.
Why is Krantz weighted over others like Daegling?
What research has Daegling done? He copycats Dennett right down to a misquote and cites the opinion of a known hoaxer who has never examined the Skookum Cast, but ignores the opinion of the leading primate anatomist in the country as well as that of a funtional primate anatomist with the Museum of Natural History in New York. Have you read the book? I have.
Here's a review (it's kind):
"By far, this is the best book available on the skeptical approach to Bigfoot. It is systematic and reasoned-if not always reasonable.
Just to take one very simple example, those who support or pursue research where the base hypothesis is that Bigfoot is primarily a zoological entity are termed "advocates." The term itself is benign. However, those who espouse that Bigfoot is primarily a cultural myth are termed "skeptics." What is implied is that advocates are not skeptically inclined. One need look no further than Rene Dahinden to realize there is little truth to that.
I actually think the persons traditionally seen as skeptics can be divided into two groups. "Agnostics" are noncommittal regarding the physical nature of the phenomenon, do not pursue zoological Bigfoot research themselves, and are ambivalent about the available evidence. I would coin the term "acryptics" for those who deny there is any undocumented North American ape, diminish the worth of available evidence, and portray advocates as gullible wishful thinkers.
Daegling positions himself as an agnostic, but he does at times exhibit strong acryptic leanings. I respect the agnostic stance, as the position is one of strict empiricism. He never denies that there is a living species, although he does not find the hypothesis to be a parsimonious one.
Daegling's focus on the semiotic value of Bigfoot as a cultural myth does not exclude a physical form for the creature, which he admits himself. A zoological and a sociopsychological existence can go hand in hand. His analysis of the pros and cons of natural history arguments for Bigfoot strongly challenges advocates, but it is balanced in terms of its conclusion. Daegling acknowledges that Bigfoot's existence cannot be refuted on the basis of ecological and biological principles alone.
The problem is that Daegling denounces all of the available evidence as fabricated, tainted, or worthless. Some of the scrutiny of evidence is done with fairness and thoroughness, such as when addressing the case of the Minnesota Iceman and pre-1958 historical accounts. However, very few contemporary advocates would elevate those tales to a "greatest hits" list in terms of evidence, if they are considered genuine at all. In all likelihood, the pre-1958 accounts are brought forth by Daegling to examine their mythological elements as they compare to current accounts. The story of the Iceman just serves to illustrate the duping of two advocate scientists. Therein is the value of the tales, at least to the author.
Evidence that is considered more seriously by current researchers is unfortunately assessed with assumption, misinformation, and derision. The portions regarding the Skookum cast, Ray Wallace, and eyewitness testimony are particularly misleading and omit some important details that are none too difficult to unearth. An informed advocate response to the chapters regarding evidence is essential. Special focus should be given to answering charges against the evidentiary value of the Patterson film and track casts.
Daegling's dismissal of Jimmy Chilcutt's dermal ridge findings as "irrelevant" is simply astounding. If a feature can be observed in a track cast that would support is authenticity, then it can be duplicated convincingly with a modest amount of human ingenuity and a prankster's inclination. No special knowledge is required. Any other position is considered to be hubris flowing from misplaced confidence in one's professional credentials and specialist training. The advocates are told they are underestimating the ability of hoaxers and overestimating the difficulty of hoaxing.
I do recommend that informed advocates read this book, as there is material that can be gleaned from Daegling's work in order to police our own affairs. The chapter on scholarship and pseudoscience is especially important if advocate researchers desire this enterprise to be more than nominally scientific. A good deal of contempt is directed towards credentialed and professional researchers of the phenomenon, more so than even the known hoaxers. The identical legitimate points could have been made in the chapter without the scornful attitude.
Let me be clear. The burden of proof for demonstrating that an uncatalogued animal is the source of this phenomenon lies squarely in the advocate camp. That burden has not yet been satisfied. Daegling could do better, but, more importantly, so could we."
And Green:
"Review
BIGFOOT EXPOSED: by Dr. David J. Daegling, Ph.D.,
An anthropologist examines America's enduring legend...
No need to pay much attention to this book. There are parts of it that are worth reading, but mostly peripheral to the main issue. The book cover appears to promise skilled dissection by a qualified scientist that disposes of all evidence that sasquatch are real animals, but in that regard the book contains nothing at all.
Leaving out "could be" material like old newspaper stories, Indian traditions, unidentified sounds, smells and hair, mysteriously thrown rocks, and so on, there are three lines of evidence that Dr. Daegling has to explain away: hundreds of casts and photos of footprints; thousands of eye-witness accounts, and one remarkable movie.
As to the footprints, Dr. Daegling has read about them, but there is no indication that he has studied them. Since he is sure that there can be no such animal and that the footprints can easily be faked, he has seen no need to, even when he planned to write about them in a book. What has been reported by the people who actually have investigated such footprints has to be mistaken, because if it were correct the likes of Ray Wallace and Rant Mullens could not have made them, and they have "revealed" that they did.
Eye witnesses? Dr.Daegling goes on at length about the fallibility of human memory.
A lot of truth in that, but if its memories were as completely useless as he suggests the human species could never have survived, let alone written books. He has read the stories of some witnesses, but since there is no such animal and memories are so fallible he has seen no need to talk to any, even when he planned to write a book dismissing all of them as dupes and liars
and hallucinators.
Paradoxically, one witness who happened to be a friend of his does seem to have made quite an impression on him, even though hers was a partial on-a-dark-road sighting. He stresses that this lone interview happened to him "not by design," and considering his reaction it seems likely that avoiding talking to people with clear and detailed sightings to describe was absolutely necessary for him to be able to write his book.
It is different regarding the Patterson movie. He has indeed spent time and sought assistance in studying that. Not to prove that it is a hoax, which isn't necessary since there is no such animal, just to try to disprove evidence that what it shows can't be a man in a suit.
Throughout the book there are enough factual errors and ill-founded assumptions to thoroughly mislead anyone who has no other source of information on this subject, but since such a person would not be likely to see this review it hardly seems worthwhile to deal with them here.
John Green
Harrison Hot Springs, B.C. Canada, December 23, 2004"
I don't know if linking to a commercial site is allowed on this forum, but you can find more at Amazon.com, including a review by Richard Noll. There's a whole thread on the book on BFF (which is a forum used by some actual researchers) I can point you to if you want.
It is getting harder to believe in bigfoot as I go along in this thread.....
Your mind was made up to begin with; don't let me confuse you with the facts.
