Seeing Cryptids: The Problems

[Drewbot]

Extraordinary: Different from Normal or remarkable.

You don't think a 14' tall upright ape man living in the suburbs of Chicago is extraordinary?

You just have a different viewpoint.

The utter lack of any evidence in the fossil record for anything like an ape in North America before the arival of humans is sufficient proof (given the nature of the Pleistocene/Holocene fossil record) for me to dismiss claims about bigfoot.

OK, so based on this, if someone came to you and said, 'Hey Dinwar, I saw a 12' tall hairy, upright beast, with giant mid-tarsally broken feet, and gave off a funky odor, just outside of Toledo.' you would not consider that to be an extraordinary claim?

I'm not even talking about the size of Gigantopithecus by the way, I'm referring to the upright bipedal part.

I agree however that we should modify the saying in question to : "An Extraordinary Claim requires Ordinary Evidence"

 

[Dinwar]

Extraordinary: Different from Normal or remarkable.

Okay.

What defines "normal"?

What defines "remarkable"?

These are not trivial questions. The biosphere is incredibly complex, and things that are perfectly ordinary took our greatest minds centuries to understand. Quantum mechanics and astrophysics are the most ordinary things in the world--the conditions we experience are the abnormal conditions! Yet no one considers Newtonian physics extraordinary.

You don't think a 14' tall upright ape man living in the suburbs of Chicago is extraordinary?

You just have a different viewpoint.

I don't think that a 14' talll upright ape would be extraordinary (taxonomically the term "man ape" makes no sense--you may as well say "seat chair"). As for geographic distribution, it depends. I've heard of Asian species running loose in Ohio, which no one considered extraordinary--most thought it was an inevitable outcome of one person's pet collection. There was a big stink about that three or four years ago.

OK, so based on this, if someone came to you and said, 'Hey Dinwar, I saw a 12' tall hairy, upright beast, with giant mid-tarsally broken feet, and gave off a funky odor, just outside of Toledo.' you would not consider that to be an extraordinary claim?

I would consider it a claim. I have no criteria by which to evaluate whether it's ordinary or extraordinary--no one has provided any. It contradicts what data I have regarding the ecology of the area, but that's hardly new; there are desert and tundra plants literally living side-by-side in areas around Toledo, so seeing a species one doesn't expect is hardly a novelty.

That's not to say I'd believe them. Most people I knew around Toledo have only ever seen bears in zoos, and most aren't really good at interpreting size in the wild. And the foot description is beyond what I'd accept from anyone but world-renouned anatomists; it's INCREDIBLY difficult to interpret that data in the wild (for one thing, it's hard to see the feet in the brush in Northwest Ohio; it's all edge forest, with lots of undergrowth; for another, most don't examine feet that closely). All in all it's an explanation that reeks of after-the-fact interpretation, rather than rational and sober communication of observed facts. I'd believe a person who said such a thing saw a bear.

I agree however that we should modify the saying in question to : "An Extraordinary Claim requires Ordinary Evidence"

I see no reason to go beyond "claims require evidence". The terms "ordinary" and "extraordinary" add nothing to the statement.

 

[Resume]

I don't think that a 14' talll upright ape would be extraordinary (taxonomically the term "man ape" makes no sense--you may as well say "seat chair").

You really wouldn't find a 14' ape wandering around Chicago out of the ordinary?

I'm speaking in the vernacular, as I imagine Sagan was when he coined the maxim.

 

[Drewbot]

So if someone says "I found dog crap in my yard" that should be in the same category as "I saw a Pterodactyl in my yard?" Former: No evidence required Latter: Evidence required

Normal vs. Remarkable

Would a reasonable person think the claim is normal or remarkable?
(Not a Bigfooter or a UFO Believer, but reasonable people in general)

That is how a court would look at it.

If you took 100 reasonable people, would they think a claim of a 12 foot tall hairy apeman crossing I-75 south of Toledo, to be an ordinary claim?

 

[dmaker]

Dinwar, while you do not balk at the notion of an extremely large, bipedal ape existing, do you not find it extraordinary that such a creature could be living in our very midst and leave absolutely zero objective evidence? Perhaps you do not find the creature extraordinary ( at least when all the alleged paranormal and fringe traits are removed from the amalgam), but do you not find the claim to its presence in the backyards and retail lots of all of North America to be extraordinary?

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

Great article.

One of the enduring mysteries in life is why someone will ignore a carefully researched article like this in favor of a blurry photo taken by a known con man.

Some people just prefer the romanticism of a mystery, over the cold, hard facts of reality. Not sure why, life can be just as entertaining and intriguing.

 

[Dinwar]

You really wouldn't find a 14' ape wandering around Chicago out of the ordinary?

I'm speaking in the vernacular, as I imagine Sagan was when he coined the maxim.

In the vernacular? Sure. Of course, that's meaningless to any serious discussion of taxonomy or biology. Think of it this way--would you have a conversation about nuclear physics in the vernacular?

So if someone says "I found dog crap in my yard" that should be in the same category as "I saw a Pterodactyl in my yard?"

Depends on why they say it. The fact that I don't care enough to investigate the dog crap in no way means that the claim should be accepted without evidence. It merely means that I don't care.

That is how a court would look at it.

Are we in court? No. Are we discussing legal issues? No. We can therefore dismiss this line of reasoning. Science isn't law.

Dinwar, while you do not balk at the notion of an extremely large, bipedal ape existing,

I never said that. I said that it wouldn't be impossible. I have seen no evidence of a modern ape of the dimentions or ecology proposed (hypothesized is too noble a designation for such nonsense) for bigfoot, and do not believe any such organism exists in North America.

do you not find it extraordinary that such a creature could be living in our very midst and leave absolutely zero objective evidence?

You're focusing on the wrong thing. You think that me dismissing with the ordinary/extraordinar dichotomy means that I find claims about bigfoot to be ordinary. Nothing could be further from the truth. What I am saying is that I can't know that you will understand "extraordinary" to mean what I understand it to mean. I have given my definition, and it has been rejected, so it's actually worse--I can safely conclude that you WON'T interpret it the way I intended. Because of that, I reject the concept of dividing evidence and claims into categories labeled "ordinary" and "extraordinary". Use of those terms will only confuse the issue.

It is IMPOSSIBLE for member of the modern mammalian megafauna to exist with zero evidence. We both understand what that word means: it cannot happen, the concept can be dismissed without further consideration. I'm more than happy to say that.

In other words: I'm saying that your categories are not valid, and you're trying to interpret that statement in terms of your categories. You can't do that.

 

[dmaker]

^^ Fair enough. I tend to agree with you on this one.

 

[Drewbot]

I think we should change it to:

IMPOSSIBLE claims require extreme mockery.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

As humans, we can't help but use the terms "ordinary" or "extraordinary." Not everyone lives inside a lab, most casual people wouldn't spare a second to even consider it.

Just because I know that T-Rex once existed, it doesn't make a dinosaur sighting any more credible. Clearly, any rational person would consider a claimed sighting of a living T-Rex as being extraordinary. A sighting of a pigeon, however, would be quite ordinary.

Regardless of whether we're using our emotion to evaluate what does or does not constitute as being "ordinary," it doesn't make much difference.

Also, I seriously doubt that anyone can tell whether Giganto was bipedal or not, based on a piece of jawbone and a molar. Since we know that apes are quadrupeds, and by all accounts, Giganto was related to Orangs, why assume it was bipedal?

In my world, a pigeon is as ordinary as a woman wearing too much fake-tan, whereas a giant flying humanoid is most assuredly something that would be deemed as being extraordinary. No matter which way you cut it, that's a common analysis.

A sighting of an ordinary creature, such as a pigeon, or a woman with too much fake-tan, wouldn't require much evidence, as believing such a thing isn't that hard. But in order to believe that a Mothman was terrorising the city-centre on a barmy Saturday night, I'd require a lot of evidence, why? Because the very notion of a Mothman is ridiculously extraordinary.

Scoff at this all you want, it's not an "extraordinary" outlook.

 

[The Shrike]

If you think estimating body size based on that data is uncommon in paleontology,

The point is that reconstructions of the potential size of Gigantopithecus based on the jaw and tooth morphology potentially overestimate body size. Please enlighten us if you know differently, but I'm not aware that there is a consensus on the 3m heights estimated by some for G. blacki. Was this species really that big or did it just have really large jaws, shaped by selection for grinding bamboo?

More to the point, it's really rare for a bipedal human to be physically active (as is claimed for bigfoot) when our frames approach 8' in height. Isn't there a point at which a biped (on a Hominin body frame; theropods aren't relevant here) gets so big that some kind of graviportal limb structure is necessary/beneficial? Bigfoots - even the 10–15-footers - are still claimed to move about pretty much like we do (if not better), which I would consider to be a biomechanically extraordinary claim.

I'm enough of a basketball fan to realize that super-active and athletic 7-footers are rare, Yao Mings come along even more rarely, and I don't know of a single 8-footer who's ever been able to do anything on a basketball court. Yao Ming at 7'6" and about 300 lbs doesn't even come close to the heights and alleged mass reported for bigfoots, and even Yao, athletic as he was, retired early as his knees broke down. I consider Yao to be extraordinary for his athleticism at his size, though I don't know how many standard devs he exceeds above the mean size for NBA players.

BY WHAT STANDARD?

[/QUOTE]
1. Is there a precedent in the fossil record? If there really were bipedal Gigantos exceeding 10' or so in height then there is such a precedent. Otherwise, the really big claims for bigfoot would be extraordinary because they would be unprecedented.

2. Does our knowledge of biomechanics predict that an active, bipedal Hominin exceeding, say 10' and 1000 or so lbs, is untenable? If so, then I'd consider claims of the really big bigfoots to be extraordinary.

 

[Resume]

In the vernacular? Sure. Of course, that's meaningless to any serious discussion of taxonomy or biology. Think of it this way--would you have a conversation about nuclear physics in the vernacular?

I don't think the maxim is meant to be scientifically serious; I think it was directed at a lay audience that didn't understand burden of proof.

That's my take on it anyway.

 

[Dinwar]

As humans, we can't help but use the terms "ordinary" or "extraordinary." Not everyone lives inside a lab, most casual people wouldn't spare a second to even consider it.

And if people kept this on the vernacular level, I'd have no objection. However, they over-extend the phrase by trying to apply it to people who are in the lab (or in this case, the field of study). At that point, we need more than a pithy phrase. We need some actual criteria.

You still haven't said what value this adds to the far more accurate statement "claims require evidence". I also find it rather amusing that skeptics are arguing against that statement. Doing so rather contradicts the entire enterprise of skepticism.

Scoff at this all you want...

I'm not scoffing. I'm asking for clarification.

Your pigeon comments illustrate part of the problem I have with this whole issue: people confuse data and interpretations. "I saw bigfoot" is an interpretation. "I saw something big, brown, and smelly" is data. The data can be accurate without the claim being accurate. Part of the reason I wouldn't demand evidence if someone said they saw a sparrow in their backyard is that I'm confident we can all identify a sparrow relatively easily. More complex identifications require more skill, and most people simply don't have the skill to interprete anything but the most common organisms in the wild. If my brother-in-law said he saw some Asian or African bird in Ohio, I'd believe him; he has a demonstrated ability to identify birds in the field. If I said it, he'd have every reason to demand evidence, including photographs--I have demonstrated a fairly deplorable incompetance in that field (Avis is not my preferred clade).

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

The point is that reconstructions of the potential size of Gigantopithecus based on the jaw and tooth morphology potentially overestimate body size. Please enlighten us if you know differently, but I'm not aware that there is a consensus on the 3m heights estimated by some for G. blacki. Was this species really that big or did it just have really large jaws, shaped by selection for grinding bamboo?

More to the point, it's really rare for a bipedal human to be physically active (as is claimed for bigfoot) when our frames approach 8' in height. Isn't there a point at which a biped (on a Hominin body frame; theropods aren't relevant here) gets so big that some kind of graviportal limb structure is necessary/beneficial? Bigfoots - even the 10–15-footers - are still claimed to move about pretty much like we do (if not better), which I would consider to be a biomechanically extraordinary claim.

I'm enough of a basketball fan to realize that super-active and athletic 7-footers are rare, Yao Mings come along even more rarely, and I don't know of a single 8-footer who's ever been able to do anything on a basketball court. Yao Ming at 7'6" and about 300 lbs doesn't even come close to the heights and alleged mass reported for bigfoots, and even Yao, athletic as he was, retired early as his knees broke down. I consider Yao to be extraordinary for his athleticism at his size, though I don't know how many standard devs he exceeds above the mean size for NBA players."


Also, take into account Nikoai Valuev, the Russian former boxer, 7 foot tall and 150kg's. His body is pretty much breaking down due to his massive frame and his active profession, he's had surgery after surgery and has never really been nimble or mobile even at the beginning of his career.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

And if people kept this on the vernacular level, I'd have no objection. However, they over-extend the phrase by trying to apply it to people who are in the lab (or in this case, the field of study). At that point, we need more than a pithy phrase. We need some actual criteria.

You still haven't said what value this adds to the far more accurate statement "claims require evidence". I also find it rather amusing that skeptics are arguing against that statement. Doing so rather contradicts the entire enterprise of skepticism.

I'm not scoffing. I'm asking for clarification.

Your pigeon comments illustrate part of the problem I have with this whole issue: people confuse data and interpretations. "I saw bigfoot" is an interpretation. "I saw something big, brown, and smelly" is data. The data can be accurate without the claim being accurate. Part of the reason I wouldn't demand evidence if someone said they saw a sparrow in their backyard is that I'm confident we can all identify a sparrow relatively easily. More complex identifications require more skill, and most people simply don't have the skill to interprete anything but the most common organisms in the wild. If my brother-in-law said he saw some Asian or African bird in Ohio, I'd believe him; he has a demonstrated ability to identify birds in the field. If I said it, he'd have every reason to demand evidence, including photographs--I have demonstrated a fairly deplorable incompetance in that field (Avis is not my preferred clade).

On the contrary, a lot of people can't identify even the most basic of local wildlife. One look at reports of mistaken shootings during hunting season can attest to that.

 

[Dinwar]

The point is that reconstructions of the potential size of Gigantopithecus based on the jaw and tooth morphology potentially overestimate body size.

Sure. It also potentially UNDERestimates body size. I note that you're only considering one type of error.

My point was merely that it's not unreasonable for paleontologists to make such estimates. It's actually quite common.

More to the point, it's really rare for a bipedal human to be physically active (as is claimed for bigfoot) when our frames approach 8' in height. Isn't there a point at which a biped (on a Hominin body frame; theropods aren't relevant here) gets so big that some kind of graviportal limb structure is necessary/beneficial?

Depends. Birds get pretty big and are obviously active. Dinosaurs got MUCH bigger than any ape, and were quite active (we can tell from bone structure, which reveals growth patterns, which reveals activity levels). I'd expect bigfoot bones, were such an organism to exist, to be much wider than ours or of a very different structure (hollow with support structures running through them, for example), but they wouldn't necessarily be less active.

I'm enough of a basketball fan to realize that super-active and athletic 7-footers are rare,

In humans, yes. It's dangerous to extrapolate to other species, however. The issue is that 7+ foot humans are abnormal in Homo sapiens sapiens, which leads to physiological problems. If the organism evolved to be that size, however, those problems would be solved in some way (or the organism would die).

1. Is there a precedent in the fossil record?

2. Does our knowledge of biomechanics predict that an active, bipedal Hominin exceeding, say 10' and 1000 or so lbs, is untenable?

Neither one is known with any degree of certainty.

 

[The Shrike]

Sure. It also potentially UNDERestimates body size. I note that you're only considering one type of error.

For good reason: one thing we know about Giganto is its diet. We have precedent for creatures that subsist largely on fibrous, silica-laden plants like bamboo: their jaws and teeth are more robust than predicted by their body size alone.

Depends. Birds get pretty big . . .

I could take you more seriously in this discussion if you'd stay on task. Yes, of course, a bigfoot with pneumaticized bones or cantilevered with a heavy tail behind the hips could easily get bigger than 8' tall, but I don't fear committing the "No True Scotsman" fallacy when I assert that such a thing wouldn't be a bigfoot.

In humans, yes. It's dangerous to extrapolate to other species, however.

You seem to be forgetting (or discounting) how close said bigfoots are supposed to be to ourselves; you can't just consider alleged heights in a vacuum. Bigfoots are supposed to be so similar to us that they kidnap us and interbreed - freely! - with Homo sapiens. I bet if you surveyed the BFF you'd find more people who believe bigfoots are humans than you would people who think bigfoots ever make it to 12 or 15' tall.

We're talking about something with a basically human skeletal structure. I'm willing to be schooled in allometry and biomechanics if such fields could demonstrate that a Homo-shaped biped would work just fine at 10 or 12 or 15' tall and 800 or 1000 or 1200 lbs. My working hypothesis, however, is that creatures like that would be untenable. Thus the demonstration that such a thing existed would be extraordinary.

 

[Drewbot]

dinosaur evolution does not factor in this, 1. they have hollow birdlike bones, 2. the bipedalism of bigfoot is humanlike "Just like you or I" is how they run. humanlike bipedalism was developed on the plains of Africa for long distance movement, dinosaur bipedalism is different, the hips are located laterally of the body, not directly under the body.

Have we found an ancient giant bipedal humanoid in Africa? Is the trend of humans getting larger because of lack of evolutionary pressures keeping us small? Bigfoot doesnt get to buy food at the market, it has to run down its food under all sorts of conditions detrimental to its overladen joints.

From: Bigfoot, an evolutionary argument for it's non-existence

 

[Dinwar]

For good reason: one thing we know about Giganto is its diet. We have precedent for creatures that subsist largely on fibrous, silica-laden plants like bamboo: their jaws and teeth are more robust than predicted by their body size alone.

I get that. I still believe that Giganto would be substantially larger than a modern human.

I could take you more seriously in this discussion if you'd stay on task.

I was highlighting the limited nature of your discussion, and several species that contradict your arguments. Large=/=slow. Period.

You want mammals? Explore mammal paleontology to any depth and you'll see numerous examples of large, active animals. Remember--the world we live in right now is one during an extinction. It is being MASSIVELY upset in terms of ecology. You cannot use the modern biota to make broad conclusions, not without at least acknowledging the errors inherent in such an attempt.

You seem to be forgetting (or discounting) how close said bigfoots are supposed to be to ourselves; you can't just consider alleged heights in a vacuum.

I'm not. I'm comparing assertions about bigfoot's anatomy to other mammals. You are limiting your analysis to humans--ignoring all other primates, and ignoring very real physiological issues inherent in outliers of any given species. If you find an abnormally large, small, fat, skinny, light, dark, happy, sad, WHATEVER member of ANY species they will have physiological problems due to the fact that they are abnormal. Their systems did not evolve to handle those conditions. A similarly-sized organism of a species--even a closely related one--that DID evolve to be that size, in contrast, will be perfectly fine physiologically. It would have adapted to those conditions.

You are looking at abnormal humans and attempting to deduce information about normal members of another species, based only on similar size. Since that's the abnormality in the humans, we cannot, in the absence of other data, conclude that the comparison is valid--we're not comparing like things. It's like trying to figure out how an orangutan's lungs work by looking at someone who's smoked three packs a day for fifty years.

We're talking about something with a basically human skeletal structure. I'm willing to be schooled in allometry and biomechanics if such fields could demonstrate that a Homo-shaped biped would work just fine at 10 or 12 or 15' tall and 800 or 1000 or 1200 lbs.

As I said, they'd need wider bones. And that's something no bigfoot believer has ever commented on, nor can they--you can't identify how wide a tibia is via a photograph.

You get the information on the bones (and we need more than "basically human skeletal structure") and we can continue this discussion. Otherwise, there's nothing to discuss. That's where the answer would be (accepting, ad arguendum, that such a thing exists, which is obviously wrong).

 

[Dinwar]

To be clear: I AM NOT saying that I believe bigfoot exists. I am merely saying that if a 15' bipedal primate were to be found, it wouldn't be terribly shocking to me. Compared to many of the things biologists and paleontologists have found, this doesn't even rank as particularly surprising. We're talking about fields that include organisms that live entirely within rock, ones with skeletons that generate eddy currents, colonial organisms that can go for a stroll, and ones so weird we still don't know how they functioned. Compared to those, mere enlargement is hardly shocking.

It is my opinion that the only reason claims about bigfoot's size, among several other attributes, are considered extraordinary merely because they're associated with bigfoot. Large differences in size are not unheard of in the fossil record. A 15' bigfoot is only double the size of a human, roughly. That's hardly a remarkable size difference.

Now, if you were talking a 100' ape, that'd be different. But 8' is certainly not remarkable, and 15' is a bit larger than I'd expect but not outside the realm of the possible.