There is a fourth option you haven't considered: examining the data provided and determining if there is sufficient evidence to conclude anything. Often, there isn't. For example, a lot of bigfoot encounters are mere glimpses in a woods. Such sightings aren't sufficient to prove ANYTHING--not even that there was, in fact, a sighting (I've hunted a long time, and spend a lot of time in remote areas, so can attest to the ease with which your eye and mind can be fooled). At that point we're not saying that bigfoot doesn't exist--we are in fact saying that we aren't at that level yet. We are saying that there is insufficient evidence to make ANY claim.
The problem with concocting plausible-sounding scenarios by which these various sightings happen is that your explanation is just as fictional and erroneous as the woosters' explanations. Both of you are relying not on the evidence, but on preconceptions. BOTH of you are saying that you can say something without supporting evidence--which means, both of you are in error.
I disagree (mostly because no one can provide a firm division between "mundane" and "radical" [or more commonly, "ordinary" vs "extraordinary"]). The issue here is that all the evidence supports is that someone had some experience. Even if we accept the facts of the eye-witness accounts there's often not enough to prove that they actually experienced anything more than the normal variations in human perception. We can't offer any explanation because in many cases we can't prove there's anything to explain.
Thanks Dinwar for engaging the issue of cryptid sightings. I think some skeptics would rather not offer alternative explanations for sighting accounts because such explanations are open to criticism by the cryptozoology advocate, and therefore would muddy the issue, and they do not want the advocate distracted from holding firmly the burden of proof. I understand that.
For me, though, I want to try to understand how and why we have sightings of, say Bigfoot. To me, that IS the main issue with cryptozoology. Since there is no hard evidence Bigfoot exist, and it would be extremely unlikely we would NOT have such evidence if Bigfoot did exist, sightings are just dismissed by some skeptics as knowing lies or crazy hallucinations. There is no use in explaining any individual sighting further. This robs the issue of any interest or importance, in my book.
As to your points, I have to disagree with some of them. If you see no hard demarcation between the ordinary and extraordinary, then the idea that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is erroneous. Then the idea that a colony of huge bipedal apes, unknown to science, is native to Oklahoma is not an extraordinary claim. It might as well be just an ordinary claim.
Sightings are not evidentially neutral with skeptics competing with “woosters” for explanations. The sightings themselves are the evidence. Unconfirmable evidence not supported by any hard evidence, to be sure. But still, eyewitness testimony with all its shortcomings is considered evidence. In my view, if the skeptic is not prepared to explain a sighting, even if only provisionally, then the evidence of the sighting goes unchallenged.
I understand that the line between the ordinary and extraordinary may be blurred sometimes, but if you do not recognize any distinction between them then I can understand your statement that a skeptic’s “plausible-sounding scenarios” are “just a fictional and erroneous as the woosters’ explanations.” But I recognize a distinction. If you had said skeptical scenarios, which, BTW, you agree are “plausible-sounding,” were fictional and thus not provable, I would agree with you. Then we would agree that we have sightings and skeptical scenarios that are equally not provable.
However, you seem to be saying something stronger: skeptical scenarios are on the same level of erroneousness as the believer’s accounting -- both “are relying not on the evidence, but on preconceptions,” both are saying “something without supporting evidence” and therefore both “are in error.“
Let’s apply this to John Green’s/Ivan Sanderson’s foundational three sightings that helped form the bases of the Bigfoot myth, namely the Roe, Ostman, and Ruby Creek sightings. Roe, Ostman, and Mrs. Chapman all claimed to have encountered a large, bipedal hairy Wildman/ape or a family of them in British Columbia. If I were to make a plausible scenario for each case I would say that Roe made up his story, Ostman read Roe and made up his tall tale in response, and Mrs. Chapman probably saw a bear. What are my "preconceptions" and are they really coequal in possibility to the idea that the three witnesses saw very large hair covered feral Indians or bipedal giant apes?
I agree with you that these scenarios are fictional narratives and are unprovable. That is not an issue between us. What is an issue is that as possible solutions, you apparently would place them in the same category theoretically as a believer’s explanation. Given that you have granted to the skeptic’s scenario building a “plausible-sounding” credibility, would you also grant the believer’s account or explanation equal plausibility?
Fictional does not have to be free of evidence. In each of the Bigfoot sightings I mentioned, the scenarios have some evidence in support. For instance, in the Ruby Creek incident, tracks were found by the interloper and traces were made of one track. Years later, when Green uncovered the story, he found a copy of the tracing and eventually took it to a university scientist who told him it was a bear track. Thus the bear explanation holds some evidence; just as the sighting itself is considered evidence for Bigfoot.
If I have misunderstood you, let me know. If all you are saying is that explaining cryptid sightings by plausible scenarios cannot attain proof, then I agree and accept the provisional nature of the explanation. If, on the other hand, you believe plausible scenarios are skeptical versions of “woo,” then I respectfully disagree.
