Bigfoot - serious, not follies

[LAL]

quote:Originally posted by bruto
LAL thinks that anecdotal evidence should not be discounted if there's a sufficient quantity of it, and there, I think, lies the fatal problem of faith-driven efforts such as the search for bigfoot.



Have you heard this one ?

" The plural of anecdote is not " data " ... "

You got that from me saying that when people widely separated by time and distance report the same kind of details the eyewitness reports shouldn't be ignored? Amazing.

And why are people seeing large hominids? Why not Great American Dragons, or a California Cyclops?

The original Jersey Devil (Correa posted a picture), incidently, was a real estate hoax. Ivan T. Sanderson found the fake feet that were used, according to Coleman & Clark. (Still waiting for verification of that 15' penquin story. Anyone?)

All strange Jersey sightings tend to be called "Jersey Devil", but there have been sightings of a hominid-type creature. The Pine Barrens are pretty wild and don't resemble Jersey City in the slightest.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by LAL From shifting the weight due to the deformity.

I got one on the outside of each foot from three years on jobs where I had to be on my feet all the time. Bunions too. Overnight.


"The prominent bunnionettes on the lateral margin of the foot mark the positions of the calcaneocuboid and cuboideometatarsal joints, which are positioned more distal than in a human foot. This accords with the inferred position of the transverse tarsal joint and confirms the elongation of the heel segment. Furthermore, deformities and malalignments of the digits permit inferences about the positions of interphalangeal joints and relative toe lengths, as depicted in the reconstructed skeletal anatomy depicted below."

I think you should contact the medical community right away with your new information about how bunions are formed.

 

[LAL]

I think you should contact the medical community right away with your new information about how bunions are formed.

Why is that new information? The manager had two medical degrees. She also had arthritis in her feet. She didn't see anything unusual about what happened to my feet on that job.

 

[MRC_Hans]

You got that from me saying that when people widely separated by time and distance report the same kind of details the eyewitness reports shouldn't be ignored? Amazing.

Have none of those people hever heard about Bigfoot before they reported their sighting? The answer is, yes they have. This goes for all kinds of sightings. People see what they expect to see. Flying saucers were not saucer shaped til somebody described them so, then they were suddenly saucer shaped in nearly all sightings. Aliens were little green men till somebody described a "grey", then everybody started seeing greys.

]And why are people seeing large hominids? Why not Great American Dragons, or a California Cyclops?

Could be because the large hairy hominid fits age-old descriptions of the Yeti (again seing what you expect to see), sightings of bears, and ...humans .

All that said, I do not consider it absolutely impossible that an unknown large hominid might exist, just very very unlikely.

Hans

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Why is that new information? The manager had two medical degrees. She also had arthritis in her feet. She didn't see anything unusual about what happened to my feet on that job.

You might have had something wrong with your feet, but you are not describing the process of bunion formation, nor is the Bigfoot print evaluation consistent with bunions/bunionettes..

You do the googling..

 

[bruto]

So far all I've seen from sceptics are arguments from incredulity, cherry picking, distortions, implausible scenarios and demands for bodies, fossils and roadkill even from areas that don't have roads, fossils or even much in the way of remains of common animals. I haven't seen facts evidence from the sceptical side. Does this mean in this case the "true believers" are the sceptics?

How would I appeal to their emotions?

How can you ask for evidence from the skeptical side, other than the argument that your evidence is insufficient or unverifiable. What would you accept as "evidence" of non-existence if you won't accept the idea that bad evidence has no value? Nobody can ever "prove" that there is no sasquatch any more than you can prove that there are no ghosts, angels, fairies, lake monsters or space aliens. One can only dispute the evidence that is brought forth. Incredible evidence requires incredulity. Get used to it. If what you seek is some new and hitherto uninvented "anti-evidence" or proof of nonexistence, you ask the impossible. Of course, that's the point in a way, isn't it? An impossible criterion makes your position essentially unarguable.

Or maybe we should use the LAL-approved "cumulative bad evidence theory" ourselves. I am 57 years old. Every day of my life, I have looked at the world around me and detected a complete absence of sasquatch. That's over 20,800 positive sightings of the absence of sasquatch*. That is a HUGE body of evidence. My big pile of zeroes is bigger than yours. Prove to me that there really was a sasquatch where I didn't see one, and I'll accept your methodology.

* for many of those days I've carried a good camera, and taken sharp pictures of the absence of sasquatch too. Extra points!

 

[William Parcher]

The skeptical position on the existence of Bigfoot possesses a powerful bit of factual evidence. It is a fact that no scientific institution or other entity has a Bigfoot body or body part for analysis and description. This has apparently always been true.

All arguments for its existence carry the full burden of proof. A skeptic can simply cite the complete lack of tangible conclusive evidence. Nothing means anything until believers (or whomever) produces real physical evidence. Exceptional quality video footage might suffice as good evidence by some people.

If Bigfoot were non-existent and yet people were attracted to the myth and created arguments for its reality... it would probably look just like it does now. The difference between a fantasy Bigfoot and a real one is the physical animal itself.

 

[LTC8K6]

Lu, why do so many people describe ET aliens as being skinny, gray, and having big black slanty eyes?

Is it because that's what they actually saw, or because everyone knows that that's what an ET alien looks like, and they're sure they saw an ET alien?

The fact is that eyewitness accounts are often the worst evidence.

Lu, I think the bottom of Patty's foot looks absolutely ridiculous. I haven't seen the P/G film in a while, but it was brought up in a seperate thread, and I just looked at that frame at the BFRO site.

Would you comment on this in the P/G film thread?

 

[bruto]

A bigfoot search scenario:

Searcher1: "Hey, I just saw a bigfoot! I followed it and I got this tuft of hair."

Searcher 2: "Great! Let's send it off for analysis."

[waits for results....]

Searcher 1: "It came back, and it turns out it was bison hair."

Searcher 2: "Wow, that's great! Much better than the Dynel you got last time! We're closing in. Keep up the good work."

 

[Thurkon]

You got that from me saying that when people widely separated by time and distance report the same kind of details the eyewitness reports shouldn't be ignored? Amazing.

And why are people seeing large hominids? Why not Great American Dragons, or a California Cyclops?

Throughout history, popular and common beliefs have influenced sightings of dubious veracity. In the Middle Ages, people saw angels all the time. When the space age approached, people began to report contact with aliens, except in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the aliens were all men in spacesuits and little green men. This corresponded heavily with the way they were portayed at the time in books and film. Now, everyone sees the small aliens with the large oval eyes. Again, this started in large part after the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which they were finally portrayed in this way...not physically intimidating. Once again popular culture changed our collective perception and ideas. Sagan's Demon Haunted World covers this phenomenon well.

Art, the media, popular beliefs, movies, books, and folklore all influence these things. Is it not strange to you that, since the Patterson film, Bigfoot sightings for a while erupted across the country, and before Patterson and Ray Wallace there were very, very few? Does this not seem to hint that these things...aliens, Bigfeet, angels, Mothmen...by and large, appear to us in whatever capacity in large part because we want them to?

All strange Jersey sightings tend to be called "Jersey Devil", but there have been sightings of a hominid-type creature. The Pine Barrens are pretty wild and don't resemble Jersey City in the slightest.

Now, if you're trying to convince me that shaggy, inhuman creatures inhabit New Jersey...well, I just might believe that.

 

[Thurkon]

The skeptical position on the existence of Bigfoot possesses a powerful bit of factual evidence. It is a fact that no scientific institution or other entity has a Bigfoot body or body part for analysis and description. This has apparently always been true.

All arguments for its existence carry the full burden of proof. A skeptic can simply cite the complete lack of tangible conclusive evidence. Nothing means anything until believers (or whomever) produces real physical evidence. Exceptional quality video footage might suffice as good evidence by some people.

Add to that the fact that serious biologists will readily admit that…even with the ubiquity of camera equipment, specialized nature photographers, field specialists, and the like…there are probably species on this planet that have not been discovered yet. That is in large part because they reside in areas difficult for the biologist, et al to access…lower regions of the ocean, deep Amazonian craters, and such. Take note that the Pacific Northwest is not in that category.

 

[marksman]

The latest Bigfoot sighting turned out to be bison

Article

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Was looking at this report of a recent sighting over at Bigfoot Forums..

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=12192

The reporter has chosen to call his post " Absolute Proof "

Here's an excerpt..

It had no worrys, not concerned or scared of the traffic, just walked right across the street. It stepped right over the 3 ft gaurdrail without breaking stride, didn't bend knees, stoop or lean, just right over like it was a hurdle. The traffic sat their shocked for a minute before finally crawling ahead. I pulled over to where it stepped across to see if I could see it. It was a sheer dropoff 4000 feet straight down.

O.K, I will assume ' 4000 ' is a typo..

But, does it seem strange to anyone else that no one else bothered to stop and investigate ?

One of the responders is doing a major No-No when it comes to investigating.. He's feeding him info in light of some of the report that doesn't sound right..

Most 'semis" do not have a back window and most have a sleeper compartment behind the drivers area. And are much taller than what you were discribing. Could you be talking about an empty flatbed truck instead of a "semi".

The sheer drop off with the possibility that the creature went into a cave sounds too convenient ( but not impossible ).. Should allow for investigation though..



All in all, I think the story sounds a bit contrived..

It is the most magnificent creature we have ever saw, like I said just ripped.

But cynicism is my job after all ...

 

[bruto]

When I criticize anecdotal evidence, LAL writes:

You got that from me saying that when people widely separated by time and distance report the same kind of details the eyewitness reports shouldn't be ignored? Amazing.

Among the sightings cited somewhere back in this thread, there was at least one detailed report of one that took place on a roadside, I think. I take this to mean that she believes that bigfeet are conspicuously present in many different places, and occasionally near roads.

But when others criticize the quality of evidence by suggesting that there ought to be something more concrete, such as a body, LAL brings up the density of the Pacific Northwest woods, the lack of roads, etc.

I take this to mean that she believes that bigfeet are not conspicuously present in many different places, and not near roads.

I find it difficult to reconcile those two positions.

 

[Correa Neto]

Big feet are seen near and at roads...
And never become roadkill.
Humans become roadkills.

Bigfeet are seen at places where people hunt...
And are never shot or fall in traps.
Humans get caught in traps and sometimes are shot by mistake.

These giant humanoid marsupials are smarter than humans, that´s why solid evidence is never found!

edited to add
Bigfeet are seen at places where people are always with cameras at hands, such as National Parks, camping sites, etc...
And not a single sharp picture or footage was ever obtained.
Humans are filmed, without even realizing that they are being filmed and when they obviously dont want to..
end edit

Now, here´s some of the backdoors to this particular sighting´s problems.

-It was not a real bigfoot, since we know they only live in inaccessible areas, far from humans and they avoid caves, as a way to avoid competition with bears. See, we can separate the real sightings from the mistakes and fakes!

-It was areal bigfoot. The bison hair was left by a weird coincidence.

I´m getting more and more convinced I have a bright future in criptozoology

 

[LAL]

When I criticize anecdotal evidence, LAL writes:

You got that from me saying that when people widely separated by time and distance report the same kind of details the eyewitness reports shouldn't be ignored? Amazing.

Among the sightings cited somewhere back in this thread, there was at least one detailed report of one that took place on a roadside, I think. I take this to mean that she believes that bigfeet are conspicuously present in many different places, and occasionally near roads.

There are many reports of them crossing roads. I recently saw a figure of 74 reports of that. In the incident I referred to, Cox was just emerging from a fog bank. He was presumably going slowly on Hwy 14. The animal crossed the road, then scaled a 14' bank in one leap. There was a smeared print 8' up the bank.

There've been other sightings on or near that road. The animals may be crossing the road to get to the river for the Salmon, then going back up to higher elevations.

But when others criticize the quality of evidence by suggesting that there ought to be something more concrete, such as a body, LAL brings up the density of the Pacific Northwest woods, the lack of roads, etc.

There are many roadless areas and areas where there's little traffic. How does it follow there has to be roadkill? Evidently Sasquatches are smart enough to avoid being hit and drivers are smart enough to avoid hitting them. It's hard to get up much speed on a winding mountain road.

I take this to mean that she believes that bigfeet are not conspicuously present in many different places, and not near roads.

I find it difficult to reconcile those two positions.

It don't see a problem, except for your conclusion. Chances for a night sighting are 1500 times greater than for a day sighting. I've mentioned there are only two traffic lights in Skamania County, but the National Forest it contains is larger than the state of Delaware. If there are only 30 Sasquatches in Washington State, as Richard Noll has estimated, what are the chances even of deliberately hitting one?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Chances for a night sighting are 1500 times greater than for a day sighting.

How so?

There is no physiological evidence ( which is made up anyway ) to indicate the creature is nocturnal ..

 

[Hitch]

How so?

There is no physiological evidence ( which is made up anyway ) to indicate the creature is nocturnal ..

If they were diurnal and wandering around in broad daylight, they would have been clearly observed by now.

Which is completely different than concluding the lack of non-blurry photographs meaning that they are shapeshifting aliens.

 

[bruto]

If they were diurnal and wandering around in broad daylight, they would have been clearly observed by now.

Which is completely different than concluding the lack of non-blurry photographs meaning that they are shapeshifting aliens.

There seem to be blurry photographs and movies of them during daytime, so if these photographs are not fraudulent, then they are not entirely nocturnal. The conclusion that they would be seen more often if diurnal is not physiological evidence anyway. It's a surmise based on the fundamental premise that they exist at all. If non-fraudulent sightings are actually errors and misperceptions, misidentifications, etc., then it would stand to reason that many more such mistaken sightings would occur at night when visibility is poor.

The conclusion that they are nocturnal rests ultimately on faith in the sightings rather than any pysiological evidence.

 

[LAL]

How so?

There is no physiological evidence ( which is made up anyway ) to indicate the creature is nocturnal ..

I've posted this before. It's based on reports.

"Nocturnality

The nocturnality of the sasquatch has been questioned on occasion. This trait can be considered from a statistical standpoint. Take a hypothetical area randomly seeded with sasquatches, evenly distributed during day and night. Their apparent temporal distribution will depend on them being seen by human observers. Assume a very conservative ratio of such alert observers during daylight as compared to the hours of total darkness in the mountains to be 20:1. A daylight observer will have a circular observational area with a radius of, say, 500’, over which recognition of the subject will be unambiguous, roughly 800,000 square feet. A nighttime observer has at best the expanding cone of headlights in one direction with recognition of a grey object at 300’ and an expanding width of illumination to 100’, a sector with an area of about 15,000 square feet. Factoring in the number of observers produces a ratio of 800,000 X 20 : 15,000 X 1, or better than 1,000 : 1. This 99.9% : 0.1% ratio describes how sightings should be distributed between day and night, a number that will get more extreme if flashlights or moonlight is the alternative illumination.

An actual ratio cited by Green consists of 735 daytime sightings (58%) and 540 during the night (42%), or a ratio of 1.38 to 1. If only sightings on roads are considered, the ratio shifts to 58% in favor of night sightings. This discrepancy can be interpreted as activity by the sasquatch that exposes it to being seen about 1,500 times more often at night than an even distribution would predict. "