Latest Bigfoot "evidence"

[Slowvehicle]

I stand by my statement.

...and your statement is incorrect.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html

 

[Slowvehicle]

This statement coming from credentials that claim blood is a terrible source for DNA.

I'll weigh it accordingly.

Apparently, even blood found in boot scrapings is sufficient to determine DNA type.

Please attack the argument and not the member. If you have supporting evidence for your statement please list it accordingly.

The statement, "this statement is a lie" is a statement about the argument. A statement about the arguer would be, "You are a liar for making that statement."

 

[Slowvehicle]

There absolutely is not an astounding number of fossils on record for man. In fact, find me an example of 1 complete skeleton used to describe a Hominid on record. You can't.

Do you not realize that every description on the books of any form of fossilized man is based on a few pieces? A skull cap, or incomplete skull?

The links you use are no help to your argument. The Smithsonian link is actually a good one to support my argument, thanks. Take a cruise thru the Smithsonian and view their collection of the fossils of man. You'll find it's mostly bits and pieces used to describe an entire species.

Here's one of the more recent discoveries and one of my favorites please pay particular attention to the bolded part.:

"Hobbit", Homo floresiensis
Discovered by an Australian/Indonesian team in 2003 at the Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores. This find consisted of an almost complete skull and a partial skeleton consisting of leg bones, parts of the pelvis, hands and feet, and some other fragments. LB1 was an adult, probably female, about 1 meter (3'3") tall with an extremely small brain size of 417cc. The skull has human-like teeth with a receding forehead and no chin. The fossil is 18,000 years old and was found with stone tools. This species is thought to be a dwarf form of Homo erectus. (Brown et al. 2004, Morwood et al. 2004, Lahr and Foley 2004)

As I said before, the entire fossil record of man will fit onto one large table.

Chris: you may not realize it, but the highlighted part above is absolutely incorrect. Now that it has been pointed out to you, repeating it will be a lie.

Funny thing about H. floriensis is that the analysis you provided was based upon evidence (you may have heard of that concept). As the evidence has been studied,new theories about the natue and significance of H. floriensis are being advanced and argued about.

Were there as much evidence for,say, a heretofore undiscovered giant north american primate as there is for H. floriensis, the nature and significance of the heretofore undiscovered giant north american primate would be a legitimate subject of inquiry rather than a campfire story.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Shrike, What Dinwar is failing to comprehend is that all hominids were described from partial skeletal remains. Some use only a partial skull cap to describe an entirely new find. (I'm sorry but off the top of my head I can't remember which one I'd have to look it up.)

Admittedly the table would need to be a larger than a coffee table, but I'm guessing a 6 feet by 12 feet surface area space would suffice.

Chris, what you are failing to comprehend is that you are making misstatements about Dinwar's area of expertise. Do you have any idea how much information can be determined by "partial skeletal remains"?

It is not, for instance, like other "primate" claims,where there is no practical, physical, empirical, objective evidence to support the claims of sightings, etc.

 

[Vortigern99]

Shrike, What Dinwar is failing to comprehend is that all hominids were described from partial skeletal remains. Some use only a partial skull cap to describe an entirely new find. (I'm sorry but off the top of my head I can't remember which one I'd have to look it up.)

Admittedly the table would need to be a larger than a coffee table, but I'm guessing a 6 feet by 12 feet surface area space would suffice.

I would applaud your imaginative faculties if they didn't mislead you into such deplorably fallacious conjecture and pure invention. Hominid skull, jawbone and other cranial fragment fossils in the Smithsonian collection alone would take up 75% of your proposed 6' x 12' table, according to some back-of-the-envelope calculations in which six one-foot-wide, 12-feet-long columns are filled up with only the skulls in that collection. That's two skulls per one-square-foot "box", or three jawbones or four fragments. Hundreds of these are known and collected in museums and universities around the world.

You can see 90+ skulls and several jawbone and other fragments laid on shelves next to each other here, taking up an area much larger than your invented table. And that doesn't even begin to include the post-cranial pieces, several of which include pelves, femurs, ribs, spinal columns, etc., such as Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus, Homo erectus and several H. sapiens.

Here is an incomplete list of well over 100 notable fossil finds. You'd run out of space after laying out the skulls and jaws alone.

You're flat wrong about this, and far out of your depth.

You can also view 3D models of many, but not all, of the Smithsonian's collection here) (<---that's page 2 of 5).

 

[The Shrike]

Shrike, What Dinwar is failing to comprehend is that all hominids were described from partial skeletal remains.

Oh, so what you really mean is complete fossils? This is the first you've mentioned this. You know I just gave a lecture to my seniors the other day on the topic "words matter". The point is that when we are not precise in our communications the meaning we are trying to convey is lost. You beautifully illustrate this communication failing by apparently (and suddenly) actually meaning the number of complete fossil skeletons of humans is very small.

Sadly, what you are failing to comprehend (other than the "moving the goalposts" fallacy) is that the number of complete skeletons of an organism matters diddly poo: The important thing is whether or not there are diagnostic pieces of the fossil organism in question. In other words, for the proper identification of something like Gigantopithecus, it doesn't matter if we have a single complete skeleton, the animal was described based on the unique features of its teeth and jaws.

Sorry Chris, but you are way out of your league on this one, and you're demonstrating less than an undergrad-level understanding of the fossil record and its utility in biosystematics.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

Chris: you may not realize it, but the highlighted part above is absolutely incorrect. Now that it has been pointed out to you, repeating it will be a lie.

Funny thing about H. floriensis is that the analysis you provided was based upon evidence (you may have heard of that concept). As the evidence has been studied,new theories about the natue and significance of H. floriensis are being advanced and argued about.

Were there as much evidence for,say, a heretofore undiscovered giant north american primate as there is for H. floriensis, the nature and significance of the heretofore undiscovered giant north american primate would be a legitimate subject of inquiry rather than a campfire story.

Name 1 fossil record of man that the species was named from a complete fossilized skeleton.
Can you?, Just 1?

 

[Vortigern99]

Chris, since you're busy ignoring my most recent post in which I decimate your pretense about tables and human ancestral fossils, take a look at the picture below and try to convince yourself that you're not completely full of baloney. Don't worry about trying to convince the rest of us; we already know you're dishonest, enjoy inventing facts, and refuse to admit error even when its' staring you in the face.

This is only the skulls in the Smithsonian collection, by the way. I count about 90, plus various jawbones and fragments of other bones, cranial and post-cranial. Note that the space these fossils occupy is considerably larger than a 6 x 12 table. And this is by no means a complete collection of human ancestral fossils.

Time to get educated, young man, and stop inventing facts to support your belief in the tooth fairy.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

I would applaud your imaginative faculties if they didn't mislead you into such deplorably fallacious conjecture and pure invention. Hominid skull, jawbone and other cranial fragment fossils in the Smithsonian collection alone would take up 75% of your proposed 6' x 12' table, according to some back-of-the-envelope calculations in which six one-foot-wide, 12-feet-long columns are filled up with only the skulls in that collection. That's two skulls per one-square-foot "box", or three jawbones or four fragments. Hundreds of these are known and collected in museums and universities around the world.

You can see 90+ skulls and several jawbone and other fragments laid on shelves next to each other here, taking up an area much larger than your invented table. And that doesn't even begin to include the post-cranial pieces, several of which include pelves, femurs, ribs, spinal columns, etc., such as Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus, Homo erectus and several H. sapiens.

Here is an incomplete list of well over 100 notable fossil finds. You'd run out of space after laying out the skulls and jaws alone.

You're flat wrong about this, and far out of your depth.

You can also view 3D models of many, but not all, of the Smithsonian's collection here) (<---that's page 2 of 5).

I count 67 pieces of partial skulls and a few incomplete jaw bone sections. There are a few more fossils at the Smithson too. Granted this is only the Smithsonian Institute collection. I suppose a larger museum may have a better more expansive collection? This one is the largest collection I've seen. I make it a point to see as many as I can, as there are, that I'm aware of.

Granted, my guess on size of the table it would take is approximate. I had included room for the first family too (Lucy's folks).

So what size table would you guess it would take to fit the complete fossil record of man? 8x14? 6x24?

 

[Dinwar]

1) So there are no peoples of Asian decent to ever arrive in the North Americas? (I'll give you a hint, land bridge)

2) Giganto's size and body structure has been indicated by the size of the jaw and teeth. Yes, these estimates were/are based on comparisons with gorillas and other modern apes.

3) Even 300K years is just a blink in the evolutionary view. The time period Giganto existed was well within the proposed land bridge theory and that's that.

1) Unless you believe that Gigantopithicus as Homo sapiens sapiens, the presence of humans in North America OVER TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS LATER is irrelevant to this discussion.

2) No. Just....no. We can make VERY rough estimates, but with the amount of diversity in hominid species it's all just a guess.

3) And yet you can't find a single solitary tooth of any hominid other than H. sapiens sapiens in North America.

Your evidence is still at 0. You've yet to present a single datum.

Do you not realize that every description on the books of any form of fossilized man is based on a few pieces? A skull cap, or incomplete skull?

If by "a few" you mean >50% of the skeleton in many cases.

I'm not going to teach you paleontology. I will say that I draw my paycheck in this field, and that in my expert opinion you are completely and utterly wrong. If anyone wishes to know more, we can start a different thread on the topic. You're talking nonsense here, pure and simple.

(As an aside, this disproves nothing I've said about DNA testing--blood is still a bad way to get DNA, blood on a boot is worse yet, and dung is still a perfectly viable way to get it. It simply means I've got more experience addressing degradation of organic remains [or, as we fossil-jocks put it, taphonomy] than a biologist would be expected to have.)

Oh, so what you really mean is complete fossils? This is the first you've mentioned this.

Of course. I demonstrated he was wrong, in a way that couldn't be denied--so of course he changed the statement to make it look like I haven't addressed the issue. I wasn't expecting otherwise, to be honest. I've seen it in the Shroud thread, with DeathDart, with Creationists, etc.

There are, simply put, far more human fossils that can fit on a billiard table (the actual Creationist claim). But that doesn't support the argument that scientists know nothing, so of course Chris changed it. He has to--he's starting with the conclusion, not the data. Compare that to me and the rest of us rational folks: I've given specific ways to prove me wrong, including references. If he can produce one Gigantopithicus fossil--one tooth--from North America I'll admit I was wrong, and accept that there is in fact paleontological evidence for bigfoot. It makes me no difference; my self-worth isn't tied to the existence of any single species, and knowing that there were apes here would have a lot of practical consequences for my job. I wouldn't hesitate to admit I was wrong. And I don't hesitate to give specifics on how to prove me wrong.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

Chris, since you're busy ignoring my most recent post in which I decimate your pretense about tables and human ancestral fossils, take a look at the picture below and try to convince yourself that you're not completely full of baloney. Don't worry about trying to convince the rest of us; we already know you're dishonest, enjoy inventing facts, and refuse to admit error even when its' staring you in the face.

This is only the skulls in the Smithsonian collection, by the way. I count about 90, plus various jawbones and fragments of other bones, cranial and post-cranial. Note that the space these fossils occupy is considerably larger than a 6 x 12 table. And this is by no means a complete collection of human ancestral fossils.

Time to get educated, young man, and stop inventing facts to support your belief in the tooth fairy.

So, you are telling me all those skulls in that pic are fossilized remains of hominids. None are casts, none are bone, none are duplicate 3D models, all are fossilized remains. Is that what you're presenting to me? I wanna be perfectly clear on exactly what you are attempting to lecture me on.

 

[Dinwar]

This is only the skulls in the Smithsonian collection, by the way. I count about 90, plus various jawbones and fragments of other bones, cranial and post-cranial. Note that the space these fossils occupy is considerably larger than a 6 x 12 table. And this is by no means a complete collection of human ancestral fossils.

Not even a complete collection of those fossils the Smithsonian has for humans. They aren't showing the limbs (Archaeology of Human Remains is the reference I'm citing regarding standard lab practices, for anyone curious). In disarticulated human remains it's common to keep the different bones in different places, meaning that they probably have an equal number of limb bones and the like.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

1) Unless you believe that Gigantopithicus as Homo sapiens sapiens, the presence of humans in North America OVER TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS LATER is irrelevant to this discussion.

2) No. Just....no. We can make VERY rough estimates, but with the amount of diversity in hominid species it's all just a guess.

3) And yet you can't find a single solitary tooth of any hominid other than H. sapiens sapiens in North America.

Your evidence is still at 0. You've yet to present a single datum.

If by "a few" you mean >50% of the skeleton in many cases.

I'm not going to teach you paleontology. I will say that I draw my paycheck in this field, and that in my expert opinion you are completely and utterly wrong. If anyone wishes to know more, we can start a different thread on the topic. You're talking nonsense here, pure and simple.

(As an aside, this disproves nothing I've said about DNA testing--blood is still a bad way to get DNA, blood on a boot is worse yet, and dung is still a perfectly viable way to get it. It simply means I've got more experience addressing degradation of organic remains [or, as we fossil-jocks put it, taphonomy] than a biologist would be expected to have.)

Of course. I demonstrated he was wrong, in a way that couldn't be denied--so of course he changed the statement to make it look like I haven't addressed the issue. I wasn't expecting otherwise, to be honest. I've seen it in the Shroud thread, with DeathDart, with Creationists, etc.

There are, simply put, far more human fossils that can fit on a billiard table (the actual Creationist claim). But that doesn't support the argument that scientists know nothing, so of course Chris changed it. He has to--he's starting with the conclusion, not the data. Compare that to me and the rest of us rational folks: I've given specific ways to prove me wrong, including references. If he can produce one Gigantopithicus fossil--one tooth--from North America I'll admit I was wrong, and accept that there is in fact paleontological evidence for bigfoot. It makes me no difference; my self-worth isn't tied to the existence of any single species, and knowing that there were apes here would have a lot of practical consequences for my job. I wouldn't hesitate to admit I was wrong. And I don't hesitate to give specifics on how to prove me wrong.

So what size table would you say would fit the entire fossil record of man?

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

Not even a complete collection of those fossils the Smithsonian has for humans. They aren't showing the limbs (Archaeology of Human Remains is the reference I'm citing regarding standard lab practices, for anyone curious). In disarticulated human remains it's common to keep the different bones in different places, meaning that they probably have an equal number of limb bones and the like.

For the record, I did acknowledge there are more fossils there than those 67 pieces shown in the 3D link on the website.

 

[Dinwar]

So what size table would you say would fit the entire fossil record of man?

I wouldn't. It's an idiotic metric, useful only for dismissive comments only useful to particularly dishonest Creationists. It's not something that any paleontologist would ever use as any sort of metric.

Care to address any of my points? Or are you expecting me to accept you copying my entire post in place of you actually reading it? Remember, ignoring people is rude.

 

[Dinwar]

For the record, I did acknowledge there are more fossils there than those 67 pieces shown in the 3D link on the website.

So you're slightly less wrong than you think I think you are. I don't care. You're still wrong by orders of magnitude, and you're still focused on a completely irrelevant bit of data. What you REALLY should be focused on is the preservation potential of the environments your pet hypothesis allegedly inhabits. If you want a good reference, I suggest "Life History of a Fossil" by Shipman. It's a bit dated, but gives you a good background on taphonomy.

 

[Vortigern99]

Whatever measurement of space we could hypothetically stuff all of the so-far collected human ancestral fossils into, as long as Chris can call it a "table" then his point* remains valid.

22 x 80? Table! 550 x 1000? Table! Football field? TABLE!



ETA: *Whatever that may be, exactly.

 

[Vortigern99]

So, you are telling me all those skulls in that pic are fossilized remains of hominids. None are casts, none are bone, none are duplicate 3D models, all are fossilized remains. Is that what you're presenting to me? I wanna be perfectly clear on exactly what you are attempting to lecture me on.

Please explain why any of this matters.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

Please explain why any of this matters.

I just wanna be sure of what I'm learning from you.

 

[Resume]

For the record, I did acknowledge there are more fossils there than those 67 pieces shown in the 3D link on the website.

And there are zero (0) pieces of fossil, bone, skull, hair, tooth, claw, ****, tissue, jizz, piss, laid out on the bigfoot table.