Merged Bigfoot follies

[Slowvehicle]

Two interesting, if unsurprising, articles about the Royal Society "Sykes Study":

http://skeptoid.com/blog/2014/07/07/bigfoot-of-the-gaps/
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic...foot-dna-hair-study-science-animals-himalaya/

The Skeptoid piece does a good job of dissecting Moneymaker's "response":

In other words, Bigfoot samples aren’t like other samples and thus cannot be detected in the usual way, and in fact bigfoot samples look an awful lot like the kind of samples that would be excluded due to lack of DNA. Not sure how he can claim to know this, unless he knows of a successful extraction of identified bigfoot DNA that we don’t. He’s relying on special pleading to dismiss the study results.

The major takeaway is that, of course, no amount of science will stand in the way of a good pseudoscience. Of course Moneymaker was going to dismiss this study. Both his professional reputation and his popular television program require this study to be flawed.

Both worth a read.

 

[Northern Lights]

Don't forget your thermal scope, there will be another new moon on Saturday.

I don't own a thermal, but Ed is trying to pick one up for the trip. We'll see if he can get it. Thanks for noting the moon cycles. That is something I look into before each trip and was aware.

 

[Northern Lights]

Lots of Minnesota footies it seems. Funny though that the Ojibwe never seem to have bagged one, nor the Europeans that shot, trapped, whacked and stabbed everything in sight, then cut down the trees. Ditto the Scanda/Germanic farmers and settlers. Even now with the bowhunters, the muzzleloaders, the rifle guys, not a single footster bagged.

Funny, that.

You make it sound like every living creature and every piece of timber was eradicated from the entire state. The way you make is sound, Minnesota was basically equivalent to the moon, when in fact there were a total of 6000 people in the entire state in the 1850's. It's a pretty big state.

 

[Castro]

... Thanks for noting the moon cycles. That is something I look into before each trip and was aware.

Sure, cause there's nothing better than a black black night to put on a prank have a good old sighting.

 

[William Parcher]

in fact there were a total of 6000 people in the entire state in the 1850's. It's a pretty big state.

Snapshots don't tell the story.

What is the sum total of humans that have been in Minnesota over the past 400 years? Visitors count too and we are looking for a sum total. What is that number?

 

[The Shrike]

What is the sum total of humans that have been in Minnesota over the past 400 years? Visitors count too and we are looking for a sum total. What is that number?

Not only that, but consider what those people were doing there for so many years: shooting/trapping anything they could, eradicating any predators they could, logging the forests, plowing the prairies . . .

 

[carlitos]

I've got my full kit. Rubber gloves, ziplock baggies, tweezers, magnifying glass, tape measure, camera, sharpie, hydracal, gps, etc., all packed and ready for this weekend.

And yet, you will present zero evidence of this imaginary creature after your visit. Crazy.

 

[William Parcher]

It almost seems like they are forcing themselves to believe.

I still maintain there is a correlation between mental disorders and Bigfoot.

If not just for the hallucination factor, but for the belief factor.

I have long held that Bigfoot belief is an emotional response to a misinterpretation of stimuli, either because the person is afraid to admit such a fault, due to the idea that people will label them 'crazy', or due to an inability to differentiate between reality and false perceptions.

I have found a paper which I think interprets this quite well. It relates to paranormal belief, and I think it parallels with Bigfoot quite well.

We have to disagree because I think that the vast majority of Bigfoot "believers and knowers" don't believe that Bigfoot exists at all. Their Bigfoot belief cannot have roots in mental disorder because they do not have a belief in Bigfoot.

What they do believe in is the joy (and sometimes profit) that comes from participating in Bigfootery as a hobby or business.

I would disagree and say that only a very minor percentage of "folks with a Bigfoot encounter" actually had a hallucination or false perception in the outdoors. IMO, the majority are pure intentional fabrication that amounts to sitting in a chair indoors and writing fiction about the outdoors. Encounter stories are written and told so as to simulate an actual experience in the outdoors when no such experience actually occurred to the author. There was no hallucination or sensory malfunction because there was no encounter event. The person just made it up.

 

[Drewbot]

Northern Lights- Your denial of the vast and complete devastation of the forest is telling.

You refuse to admit that Northern Minnesota was completely logged. I'm talking about a moonscape, yes. So bad that lumber mills closed, railroads were left to rot etc...

I have enclosed a history of Minnesota logging for you to read if you are interested.
This is a depiction of what happened to most of the states east of the Great Plains when they were logged. I also am including a few excerpts.

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/voya/logging_era.pdf

 

[Resume]

You make it sound like every living creature and every piece of timber was eradicated from the entire state. The way you make is sound, Minnesota was basically equivalent to the moon, when in fact there were a total of 6000 people in the entire state in the 1850's. It's a pretty big state.

It's a pretty big state in which the flora and fauna was thoroughly and decisively exploited.

The rapidly growing nation turned to the Great Lakes and the South to feed its insatiable appetite for wood. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota turned into timber colonies for eastern capital almost overnight. The building of railroads to the region marked this transformation. By 1886, more than twenty-five thousand miles of railroad centered in Minneapolis, reaching out to the entire upper Midwest. The period between 1870 and 1890 saw a massive expansion of timbering in Minnesota. But the loggers cut deeper and deeper into the forests; increasingly, timber only remained in the state's remote northern reaches.

From http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=22941

Nearly every wolf gone.

Gray wolves once existed throughout Minnesota; however, removal began shortly after European settlement. Wolves were removed from Minnesota mostly by poisoning. A state-directed wolf control program persisted until gray wolves were added to the endangered species list in 1974. At that time, the wolf population numbered approximately 750 animals

http://www.wolf.org/wow/united-states/minnesota/
Minnesota elk gone by the 1890s.
http://www.otsego.org/prca/articles/eastelk.htm

Whitetail populations greatly reduced, migratory wildfowl decimated, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. This of course doesn't cover the First Nation's exploitation; where did footie-foo-foo hide during all of this?

No, Minnesota is hardly the wilderness you imagine. Bigfoot enthusiasts need to get out more.

ETA: And Wisconsin was similarly exploited and logged moonscape style, nearly every single white pine harvested. Where's Footie?

ETA II: Even the imagined "wilderness" of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area was exploited.

- Logging in the BWCAW began about 1893 named the "era of tall pine logging." Rafting and stream driving moved the logs from the interior to the mills or railheads at the periphery. Several railroad portages like Four Mile Portage and Prairie Portage near Ely, Minnesota, transported logs between lakes. Well over 2 billion board feet of white and red pine was harvested By 1930. Want to learn more about the logging and the ecological history of the region? Read "Lob Trees in the Wilderness" you can purchase the book in our bookstore.

Citation from http://canoecountry.com/about/trivia.htm.

 

[Resume]

deleted

 

[Resume]

http://sasquatchresearchers.org/sra-public-expedition-august-28-31-2014/
SRA get some free pub. No mention of GnP though.

NL, didn't you once tell me there were no footies in WI? I totally agree with you, but there's this . . .

. . . Minnesota where there have been several close encounters within the last year or two and one in Northwestern Wisconsin where SRA-Jim and SRA-Kris have had likely activity on more than one scouting trip in the past year.

 

[clayflingythingy]

We have to disagree because I think that the vast majority of Bigfoot "believers and knowers" don't believe that Bigfoot exists at all.

I would disagree and say that only a very minor percentage of "folks with a Bigfoot encounter" actually had a hallucination or false perception in the outdoors.

I agree. Some skeptics spend entirely too much time trying to convince a bleever their sighting was an hallucination when the answer is "lie".

Reference WGBH. His crock & bull story was treated as an hallucination when he most likely made the whole thing up. All BF stories should be treated as a lie until proven otherwise.

 

[Northern Lights]

http://sasquatchresearchers.org/sra-public-expedition-august-28-31-2014/
SRA get some free pub. No mention of GnP though.

NL, didn't you once tell me there were no footies in WI? I totally agree with you, but there's this . . .

No, that wasn't me. I've never had one there but I know of several that have. Hoping to when I get out there in September

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

in fact there were a total of 6000 people in the entire state in the 1850's. It's a pretty big state.

With essentially none of them believing in the plausibility of what we now call bigfoot. Nobody wrote anything about it or collected any evidence of it - and when we look at how the modern phenomenon got started we see hoaxers and profiteers promoting it for their own interests.

 

[Northern Lights]

I agree. Some skeptics spend entirely too much time trying to convince a bleever their sighting was an hallucination when the answer is "lie".

Reference WGBH. His crock & bull story was treated as an hallucination when he most likely made the whole thing up. All BF stories should be treated as a lie until proven otherwise.

So, guilty until proven innocent?

 

[clayflingythingy]

NL,

That is the correct stance to take with anything BF. Hoax or lie is to be presumed until proven it was an "honest" mistake in identification, etc.

 

[GT/CS]

So, guilty until proven innocent?

Do you not understand what forum you're on?
Give us some evidence bigfoot exists and we'll take you seriously, otherwise you'll continue to be taken otherwise.

 

[captain koolaid]

I've got my full kit. Rubber gloves, ziplock baggies, tweezers, magnifying glass, tape measure, camera, sharpie, hydracal, gps, etc., all packed and ready for this weekend.

Lame. No Bigfootin' kit is complete without a harpoon.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

So, guilty until proven innocent?

Excellent. Playing the victim. By using a false framing.

The choices were basically being a loon or being a liar. He's ruled them innocent of being a loon until proven otherwise. But with the magic of manipulative rhetoric you framed it as innocence or guilt of a criminal charge.

That's the skill in BLAARGing, and why I object to it as something to pass on to children: it is a toolbag of dirty tricks.

Remember how you've defended yourself because you have been "polite". Well, no - this is not polite at all. It's cunning, yeah - and subtle. But polite? lol.