Seeing Cryptids: The Problems

[Dinwar]

In the debate about whether gear is up to date or not one thing seems to be lost, and that is the unfortunate fact that even woefully obsolete, low-pixel point and shoot cameras, if used with a modicum of skill, can make clear and crisp pictures of a subject at the distances that are being spoken of. And that's not to mention good old fashioned film, which can capture a great deal at very low cost.

Exactly. Real scientists use whatever they can. remember, we don't have unlimited budgets--I often use my personal camera (purchased about 12 years ago now) or iPad to take photos at work, because we have no budget (and I'm private sector--those in universities are worse-off). It's like the SMBC comic about pi: a science fan knows 6,742 digits of it. A scientist says "It's about three."

It's not about the quality of the equipment. No one cares about the quality of the equipment. It's about the quality of the PHOTOS.

 

[ComfySlippers]

I've probably stated my case in the wrong way.

It's very true, as posters above have mentioned, that the gear isn't necessarily the important part of the shenanigans.
Anyone with fully functioning eyes, (that's not a dig- I'm wearing glasses for the first time in my life), and a basic knowledge of how to photograph something would produce results.

The rules of chance would dictate that someone would accidentally get a good shot.
But it never happens.

The "HD" issue is simply people who know nothing about that subject claiming that it will help their cause. It won't.

 

[Correa Neto]

The difference is, I'm not willing to abandon my training and education regarding evaluation of data simply becaues something gratifies some a priori conclusion of mine.

You just admitted that you don't know what the average bigfoot believer believes. You CAN'T know--you don't interact with them. You interact with the self-selected subset that comes to this forum, or a handful of forums. There is a huge difference. The self-selection process renders your sample biased in ways that make it non-representative of the whole--or at least, makes assuming it's representative an error.

The concept is simple: if you wish to discuss a whole population, you must at minimum have a sample that covers that whole population. If your sample is known to be biased, you cannot extrapolate to the whole sample. This is basic data evaluation, and you in particular should know better.

Ah, OK, I see it. Sorry. I'll start writing at ISF just as it were Precambrian Research.

 

[Dinwar]

Ah, OK, I see it. Sorry. I'll start writing at ISF just as it were Precambrian Research.

~shrug~ If you want to abandon the basic concepts of scientific thought merely because you dislike a conclusion, that's your call. Personally, I refuse to do so.

This doesn't mean that I think you should write posts as if they were research projects. However, if you can't see the middle ground between writing a peer-reviewed paper and accusing all bigfooters of being identical to the most irrational members of the group, you're simply not trying.

ETA: We are both scientists--both in the Earth Science field. How in Hell can you defend making statements unsupported by data? How can you honestly defend using an obviously biased subset (remember, I outlined the mechanism) to make broad statements about the entire population? If your education was anything even close to mine the error of such actions was pounded into your head alongside the names of minerals. Simply put, I cannot understand how you justify this. Yes, people like ChrisBFRPKY are contemptable, but we have standards to uphold; it does us no good to undermine our own epistemological framework to prove them wrong!

 

[dmaker]

The obvious assumption in this statement is that hte majority of bigfoot believers frequent such places. I do not believe that to be the case; at the very least, no evidence has been presented to support this assumption. Therefore, we cannot base conclusions off of arguments built upon it.

Logically, you are correct and I must agree. That aside, in your personal opinion, do you believe there to be a large, as of yet unrepresented, group of bigfoot eye witness claimants who could be successfully swayed from their belief by candid discussion or education?

 

[Dinwar]

That aside, in your personal opinion, do you believe there to be a large, as of yet unrepresented, group of bigfoot eye witness claimants who could be successfully swayed from their belief by candid discussion or education?

Yes. I've met numerous peolpe who have seen things they don't know how to explain. They call it bigfoot when they see them in the woods, ghosts when they see them in old houses, demons or angels when they see them in churches, etc. The reason is that in our culture, if you do not actively seek out information on cognative errors, the default is that these things exist.

If I'm a cop, I probably don't do much research into how to interpret wild animal sightings. If I see something weird in a woods, and I watch Discovery Channel programing, I'm going to default to thinking it's bigfoot--after all, that's what I've been trained to think it was. I may not even know that I haven't seen enough to make a firm identification; remember, learning that is in and of itself a complex skill. If, however, I start seeing people demonstrating that humans can make errors, and that many things can be mistaken for bigfoot, I can start to question my conclusions. And eventually, I may reject them.

We've seen it happen on this forum numerous times. Look at the people who believed in various paranormal things until they encountered Sagan, or Dawkins, or Hitchens, or whoever. Each of them is a demonstration of what I'm talking about (we'll leave aside questions about whether they're merely substituting one dogma for another; the fact that their minds were changed is the important thing for the purposes of this discussion).

Most people don't hold any belief strongly. Most accept the cultural norm. Right now, the cultural norm is that bigfoot, ghosts, demons, angels, etc. exist. So most believers will be very low-level believers--people who think they might have seen one, that sort of thing. If better data were widely available, we would change the cultural norm. We will never eliminate shallow belief; human lives are finite, and there's too much data to hold informed opinions on everything. However, if we actually address the cognative issues involved we can switch the norm from assuming it's bigfoot, to admitting you don't know. At that point, the people cashing in on bigfoot belief would become pretty much impotent.

 

[dmaker]

Excellent response Dinwar, thanks. Food for thought.

 

[Correa Neto]

~shrug~ If you want to abandon the basic concepts of scientific thought merely because you dislike a conclusion, that's your call. Personally, I refuse to do so.

This doesn't mean that I think you should write posts as if they were research projects. However, if you can't see the middle ground between writing a peer-reviewed paper and accusing all bigfooters of being identical to the most irrational members of the group, you're simply not trying.

ETA: We are both scientists--both in the Earth Science field. How in Hell can you defend making statements unsupported by data? How can you honestly defend using an obviously biased subset (remember, I outlined the mechanism) to make broad statements about the entire population? If your education was anything even close to mine the error of such actions was pounded into your head alongside the names of minerals. Simply put, I cannot understand how you justify this. Yes, people like ChrisBFRPKY are contemptable, but we have standards to uphold; it does us no good to undermine our own epistemological framework to prove them wrong!

OK. So, you said I (a) abandoned the basic concepts of scientific thought merely because I disliked a conclusion, (b) accused all bigfooters of being identical to the most irrational members of the group and (c) undermined my epistemological framework to prove them wrong. Yeah. This whole thing will soon go down to AAH, but before that, care to back those three claims (accusations, actually) of yours ? Remember to include the context of any quote you use. Cherry picked bits will not do. I mean, it should be easy to show how bad I am, eh?

Guess I remember being through something like this with you before at the philosophy subforum...

 

[bruto]

Just for the sake of perspective, I scrounged up some batteries and a CF card and fired up my Kodak DC240. This is a digital camera from about 1999, with a maximum image size of 1.2 megapixels. That's not a misprint. One point two.

The lens quality is marginal, and the pixel count so low that one cannot digitally zoom in very far without pixellation. There is no vibration control, and the image shown is straight from the camera without further processing, but downsized slightly and reduced in JPG quality by 50 percent in order to display here.

So I went out to the hedgerow, and took a casual snapshot at wide angle. Leaning up on a tree to the right, approximately 60 feet from the camera, you will see a surveyor's stick, which is extended to approximately 13 feet, though the top bit may not be entirely visible. This is to give you an idea of where a 12 foot high object would rise to. The tractor is about a hundred feet away, and the fence line in the distance, in which you can discern a posting sign, about 400. I bought two of these cameras in a bag with some other junk at a yard sale about ten years ago for a dollar. Maybe I should send one to ChristChris to update his stock.

 

[Resume]

I bought two of these cameras in a bag with some other junk at a yard sale about ten years ago for a dollar. Maybe I should send one to Christ to update his stock.

View attachment 32052

Wrong thread. Hell, wrong subforum.

 

[ComfySlippers]

Wrong thread. Hell, wrong subforum.

I missed that. Nicely spotted

 

[bruto]

Wrong thread. Hell, wrong subforum.

Dang you're fast. I still had time to edit!

 

[ComfySlippers]

Just for the sake of perspective, I scrounged up some batteries and a CF card and fired up my Kodak DC240. This is a digital camera from about 1999, with a maximum image size of 1.2 megapixels. That's not a misprint. One point two.

The lens quality is marginal, and the pixel count so low that one cannot digitally zoom in very far without pixellation. There is no vibration control, and the image shown is straight from the camera without further processing, but downsized slightly and reduced in JPG quality by 50 percent in order to display here.

So I went out to the hedgerow, and took a casual snapshot at wide angle. Leaning up on a tree to the right, approximately 60 feet from the camera, you will see a surveyor's stick, which is extended to approximately 13 feet, though the top bit may not be entirely visible. This is to give you an idea of where a 12 foot high object would rise to. The tractor is about a hundred feet away, and the fence line in the distance, in which you can discern a posting sign, about 400. I bought two of these cameras in a bag with some other junk at a yard sale about ten years ago for a dollar. Maybe I should send one to Christ to update his stock.

View attachment 32052

Nice one. Proof positive that you don't need blurryblobitis to prove something.

I'm a glutton for punishment so I went back to Chris's gear page.
One of his kids toys resets it's date to 1970 when you change the AA batteries!
He even offers a warning about this to potential researchers.
Odd for a guy who doesn't need a watch as he can tell the time to the nearest fifteen minutes by looking at the sun.

 

[MikeG]

View attachment 32052

See the two tall trees, centre left, in the treeline across the field? Look at the base of them, and slightly to the right. See the dark patch? Obvious male sasquatch. How did you miss it.

 

[ComfySlippers]

See the two tall trees, centre left, in the treeline across the field? Look at the base of them, and slightly to the right. See the dark patch? Obvious male sasquatch. How did you miss it.

I see it!
In all fairness though, I'm learning how to see thru my new "eyes".
So tbh even the blobpics are taking on a new perspective
Still funny though.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

I'm serious that it's a justifiable reason--from the perspective of someone who believes in bigfoot.

This requires all kinds of special pleading and just-so argumentation. There is a process for habitat and species nomination for protection. I have posted the link to USF&W's process for example, but it is true on all levels of government: Federal, State, and Local. Not only that, but PRIVATE societies as well like Nature Conservancy, Izaak Walton or whatever.

The fact they strain so hard to ignore that these processes and organizations exist is proof that they know bigfoot is BLAARGing. They do not speak with wildlife managers, with archaeologists, with biologists and etc. that are swarming over all of these alleged bigfoot habitats.

You are not doing your job of acknowledging the overwhelming evidence of all these highly informative behaviors at the same time they are making this claim of wanting to protect habitat. Most of their actions are in contradiction to, not in support of preserving habitat.

Oh sure, we are to believe they relegate the "study" specifically to people with no background in the pertinent sciences? The contradictions are like a Mt. Everest here. Your argument requires this extremely stylized special case, and an irrational one, to agree with.

This, my friend is where you have jumped the shark:

I'm also not one who believes all bigfoot believers to be liars.

This straw man is the last straw. You have seen a parade of us all emphatically stating NOBODY is of the belief they are ALL liars. So why do you trot out a straw man like this?

To say you are "not one" means you are distinguishing yourself from people who are. Well just name them. There aren't any.

And start naming the people who you claim fit the description above. So we may see your evidence. We have this BLAARGer from Kentucky before us. Is he your evidence of someone who believes?

We do not have an assumption that people are BLAARGing. It is only after sufficient proof like this Ky. fellow has showered us with that we can state with such high confidence that he has proven it to us.

It is a straw man to say that we pre-suppose. No, we watch actions. We let those actions speak to us instead of the chain-yanking/trolling or whatever you want to call it.

 

[Dinwar]

You know what? I'm done with this. People on this forum are all-too-obviously taking dogmatic stances on both sides. When one has to plead with scientists--scientists--to use proper data evaluation, and gets blasted for straw-man attacks when everyone can go back and find examples quoted in my posts of what I'm talking about, it's clear that reason has left the building. When one is accused of "jumping the shark" for having the gaul to say that the other side believes what it says, it's simply too ridiculous, irrational, and moronic a discussion to participate in.

 

[ComfySlippers]

You know what? I'm done with this. People on this forum are all-too-obviously taking dogmatic stances on both sides. When one has to plead with scientists--scientists--to use proper data evaluation, and gets blasted for straw-man attacks when everyone can go back and find examples quoted in my posts of what I'm talking about, it's clear that reason has left the building. When one is accused of "jumping the shark" for having the gaul to say that the other side believes what it says, it's simply too ridiculous, irrational, and moronic a discussion to participate in.

You seem to keep arguing about the scientific method, whilst berating other rl scientists.

You are aware that there is no such thing as BigFoot?
Ergo, someone who believes in such nonsense falls into one of a few categories:
Hoaxer, conman, gullible, liar or mentally challenged.

Most people can recognise that the liar category seems to be way up there.

Analyse it in a test tube forever but it's rather blatantly obvious to most folk.

@Chris:
Will your HD video be i or P?
50 or 60?
Raw? That would solve your codec problem obviously.
Will you be shooting at 24fps?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Well, mine does.

ETA:
Of course, the people who chose to post their belief in magic monkey men in this forum are not a cross sample from the pool of believers.
It takes a special kind of nutjobbery to make such claims in this particular forum.
Unless games are being played and..... Drumroll.... Something is afoot.

 

[River]

I'm gonna go ahead and address this one though my last post seems to cover the pics question.

The thing is, Bigfooters know some people are going to blatantly lie about having an encounter. Some people are gonna make an honest misidentification. Some will be accurate in their encounter. Some will accidentally make more of the encounter than there actually is (adding details, creative additions, etc). It's part of it. The hard part is trying to determine truth from tale.

Automatically, when one of those folks comes here, they're under attack. And yet I see posts claiming they only want to "help" these people. That's funny.

What about the guy that witnesses a bear on two legs and accidentally presumes it was a Bigfoot? That guy is not questioned about his sighting, he's ridiculed for it here. The result? Now you have a guy that thinks he saw a Bigfoot being called a liar or delusional etc. Isn't that gonna provoke some hostility rather than understanding or discussion? Defensiveness rather than open discussion of the event?

Maybe it's just my way of looking at things but to me you guys are going about it all wrong. What the common MO seems to be is ridicule rather than reason.

Funny thing is, I could talk with that same guy and determine if he actually had seen a bear or a Bigfoot. I've done it before. Chris B.

Every time you say bigfoot, replace it with faerie, or mothman. It is not unfair to say that all social constructs fall into the same myth category. If you'd like people to accept something different, provide evidence proving it so. Period. Bigfoot does not get a special pass card due to your claims.

 

[ChrisBFRPKY]

You seem to keep arguing about the scientific method, whilst berating other rl scientists.

You are aware that there is no such thing as BigFoot?
Ergo, someone who believes in such nonsense falls into one of a few categories:
Hoaxer, conman, gullible, liar or mentally challenged.

Most people can recognise that the liar category seems to be way up there.

Analyse it in a test tube forever but it's rather blatantly obvious to most folk.

@Chris:
Will your HD video be i or P?
50 or 60?
Raw? That would solve your codec problem obviously.
Will you be shooting at 24fps?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Well, mine does.

ETA:
Of course, the people who chose to post their belief in magic monkey men in this forum are not a cross sample from the pool of believers.
It takes a special kind of nutjobbery to make such claims in this particular forum.
Unless games are being played and..... Drumroll.... Something is afoot.

Ah, so you subscribe to the falsification view, but given your location if accurate, I would say you lack the investigation to qualify your opinion. So there's not much conversation we can have until you step up your knowledge and experience on the subject a bit.

You don't need a cutting-edge camera to take photos that count as scientific data. You need clear photos. How you get them is irrelevant. I've heard of scientists painting photosensitive material on all sorts of things to get photos (mostly in the past, but a few still do it because it's fun to take photos with logs! ). A pinhole camera built out fo an oatmeal carton is good enough, IF the picture is clear.

That's a failure of basic field techniques. I don't wear a watch either (I like my limbs, thankyouverymuch!), but my phone has a clock on it. I also have a pocket watch for those times when my phone tries to not charge.

No--you've merely insisted that multiple experts in relevant fields of study are wrong, based on data you refuse to provide, and you further insist on telling us what our jobs require. That is, de facto, claiming to be an expert.

The rest is a typical humblebrag.

I don't use a watch in the field as my notes are not that time specific. Date and weather conditions, phase of the moon are all I require.

Your Kodak camera might, to you, have seemed cutting edge but it wasn't.
Your Sony HD camera isn't either.

Fascinating how a serious researcher into a fairy tale monkey man doesn't understand his "gear".

Interesting how you've already planned who'll be on camera for the big reveal.

Another misconception. Maybe I should have said "It was the best I could get at Walmart at the time." Better?

Chris,

Would you please provide a link?

Thank you.

Certainly: Raw footage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAcA8Ztta0I

Blink animation and full size pics from the 120 feet pics here:
http://www.bfrpky.com/PICS.html

Chris, blurry, fuzzy, pixelated photos are useless to everyone. Get some decent equipment....a full format DSLR with some expensive lenses.... and go get some decent, clear, unambiguous photos, like there are of every single other mammal on the planet. Then, and only then, tell to us to go to your site to view them.

I've got some great photos of lions, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs...whatever, you name it, from further away than that. 40 metres is nothing for decent kit. These aren't photos which require red circles around them. These are photos which absolutely everyone who sees them recognises the animal.......indeed, you can look at the hairs in the ears, or the blood on the lips, of some of them. Get a few photos of that sort of clarity, and you'll get people interested. Until then, you've got nothing.

Whoa Mike, stop the bus. That's a sharp left turn and I want off. lol I'm not suggesting the pics or video are worth squat. I only responded to requests for the links to the raw footage made by Mudcat and Wickedways. If either member is good with video, I welcome them to download the raw footage etc. Although I think I missed Mudcat's quote, I'm sure everyone can find the right links above. Chris B.