Bigfoot, What's the harm?

To the 26 people that bought the DVD: Way to fund the best bigfoot hunter on the planet :flamed:
 
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The OP reminds me of the tired old cliché. "No one talks more about God that atheists."

It's just a plea for the beliefs to not be challenged.
 
mike3 said:
So how do you get the public in general interested in that stuff (after all, bigfoot is "BORING", as you say, so it should be possible) so that they'll put their money in that direction instead of spending it on Bigfoot and so thereby wasting it?
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Exposure. Videogames offer a fantastic method for this--if we show actual creatures as bad guys, instead of random monsters, it'd help tremendously. Movies are another way. Simple exposures would help, too. When was the last time you saw an Opabinia? Or a walking crinoid?

It used to not be such a big problem. Curiosities were commonly displayed and of great interest to the general public. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. I'm not sure why, and I'm no sociologist so I will neither attempt to explain it nor to offer methods for fixing it. I will say that GalaxyZoo demonstrated that the general public is willing to put time and effort into what is typically the more boring aspects of science, and I've toyed with various ways to get them involved in paleontology. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as with astronomy--to take a good photo of a fossil requires a good paleontologist, and they're likely to identify the thing while they photograph it. Another idea I had was to train bigfoot researchers in basic mammal anatomy and charge them to volunteer at museums, sorting the unsorted stuff in the collections (all museums have a lot). It'd make us money AND get citizens involved! :D

I've put my money where my mouth is in this--I've gone to schools to discuss paleontology and the cool things we do and study. I also make it a point to answer questions kids have in museums or dinosaur exhibits I go to (if I can, obviously; I don't make crap up). It's really amazing to see their faces light up when they realize that this person standing next to them is one of the people this whole display is about. A bit intimidating, too--it reminds me that I've got one hell of a reputation to uphold.
 
Dinwar said:
Exposure. Videogames offer a fantastic method for this--if we show actual creatures as bad guys, instead of random monsters, it'd help tremendously. ........
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Hmmmmmm, not sure about this, at least not on the larger scale. There are enough pressures on wild life at the moment anyway without having a generation growiong up thinking they are all bad guys. The wolf has such a fearsome reputation, for instance, at least in part because of the way it is covered in children's stories (Little Red Riding Hood, The Little Pigs etc). Maybe some giant bed-bugs or the like, but not anything bigger than a rabbit, please!

Mike
 
Personally I hope belief in Bigfoot doesn't wane.

We benefit locally from the increased tourism it generates. I mean, terrible as it might seem, in this modern age there just isn't the desire in many people to go venture into the forests. But pursuing Bigfoot seems to be one thing that does motivate people into trekking through the woods. And since the vast, vast majority of them are only armed with cameras I think of it as a net positive.

And in fact some years back people hunting Bigfoot made an important scientific discovery when they spotted a species of badger that had been thought to be extinct very much alive.
 
Well clearly that vast, vast majority of Bigfoot researchers are not carrying cameras with them or we'd have a decent photo by now. Oh wait . . .
 
Well we do now have an ample supply of blurry photographs of stumps.
 
MikeG said:
Hmmmmmm, not sure about this, at least not on the larger scale. There are enough pressures on wild life at the moment anyway without having a generation growiong up thinking they are all bad guys.
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If you can show me how portraying an amphicyon will impact that species, I'm all ears. ;)

They don't have to be bad guys, either. They just have to be in the games, and pictured accurately.
 
Travis said:
And in fact some years back people hunting Bigfoot made an important scientific discovery when they spotted a species of badger that had been thought to be extinct very much alive.
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I'm not aware of this and North America has one species of badger.
 
Morchella said:
There are already five threads about Bigfoot on the front page of this section. I don't care enough to read a single one. Bigfoot is kindergarten skepticism. With all the pseudoscience really causing harm like quacks and SCAM, why is everyone obsessed with Bigfoot. I see no harm having naive Bigfoot hunters combing the woods. Where do they bother anyone outside this forum? At least they get outside some. So much fretting about Bigfoot only means that someone has way too much time on their hands.
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Well, you did take the time to create this Bigfoot-related thread, so I don't know whether you've answered your own question there without realizing it or not.
 
Morchella said:
I have been browsing here for a long time even though I don't post much. Lately the Bigfoot obsession threads on this page have started to annoy me. Sorry. I just think the demographic that is passionate about Bigfoot is less than 1%. It seems out of proportion. It's like using a pile driver to kill a gnat. Piling on a few Bigfoot believers is like a zombie turkey shoot considering the profound intellect I have seen demonstrated on these forums. I know I can't dictate who is passionate about what. When probably 80% or more believe in religion and SCAM, I would prefer the pile driver be used on that.
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Then why not devote your time to creating threads on the things that really annoy you, as someone else suggested, the Bigfoot topic could've been spared another thread if you'd have just posted your question in an already existing Bigfoot thread, but I digress...

I don't post in a lot of threads, I post in the threads that interest me, Bigfoot, and why people believe in it, is something that interests me. Bigfoot, as a sceptical subject, is no different than ghosts or aliens. I accept that not everyone is interested in such things, but surely you accept that scepticism has it's place in such a topic, especially in these days of Nat Geo Bigfootery etc?
 
Morchella said:
I have been browsing here for a long time even though I don't post much. Lately the Bigfoot obsession threads on this page have started to annoy me. Sorry. I just think the demographic that is passionate about Bigfoot is less than 1%. It seems out of proportion. It's like using a pile driver to kill a gnat. Piling on a few Bigfoot believers is like a zombie turkey shoot considering the profound intellect I have seen demonstrated on these forums. I know I can't dictate who is passionate about what. When probably 80% or more believe in religion and SCAM, I would prefer the pile driver be used on that.
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That's why you post a lot in R&P?....Oh wait.
 
William Parcher said:
I'm not aware of this and North America has one species of badger.
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Maybe it was a wolverine. I don't really remember.

What I do remember is they spent a lot of money to put a motion activated camera out in the deep woods and while it never spotted Sasquatch it did spot an animal that was thought to not be alive still around these parts.
 
Travis said:
Maybe it was a wolverine. I don't really remember.

What I do remember is they spent a lot of money to put a motion activated camera out in the deep woods and while it never spotted Sasquatch it did spot an animal that was thought to not be alive still around these parts.
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A wolverine was caught on trail camera in California where it hasn't been documented in a very long time but Bigfooters had nothing to do with that project.

I'm not sure if any Bigfooter has ever produced anything at all that is of benefit or significance to the public.

The reason why Bigfoot is never captured anywhere on any trail camera is because they don't exist.
 
Morchella said:
There are already five threads about Bigfoot on the front page of this section. I don't care enough to read a single one. Bigfoot is kindergarten skepticism. With all the pseudoscience really causing harm like quacks and SCAM, why is everyone obsessed with Bigfoot. I see no harm having naive Bigfoot hunters combing the woods. Where do they bother anyone outside this forum? At least they get outside some. So much fretting about Bigfoot only means that someone has way too much time on their hands.
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Submission to non-scientific, paranormal rubbish is always dangerous. It corrupts the mind.
 
William Parcher said:
A wolverine was caught on trail camera in California where it hasn't been documented in a very long time but Bigfooters had nothing to do with that project.

I'm not sure if any Bigfooter has ever produced anything at all that is of benefit or significance to the public.

The reason why Bigfoot is never captured anywhere on any trail camera is because they don't exist.
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Well, duh.

But that isn't my point.
 
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