Simple Challenge For Bigfoot Supporters

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drapier said:
Two words: Transdimensional shape-shifter
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Well that does fit nicely with a lot of NA bigfoot legends/myths/stories. :boggled:

I've yet to see anyone adequately explain how a bigfoot is able to shape-shift, or where all the energy goes that physics dictates should be generated. :cool:

Maybe a bigfoot will win Randi's challenge. :D

RayG
 
Correa Neto wrote:
Originally Posted by SweatyYeti
People who are rational and sane always have some motivation behind their actions. People just don't do things due to purely random thoughts......if they're mentally well....snip...
While it's true that we can't "probe someone's mind" to determine their motivations...
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But if we can't probe someone's mind, we can't know their real motivations.
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Well, Correa...when you look at my COMPLETE statement...you'll see that I wasn't talking about KNOWING what's inside someone's mind.

Here's the full statement:
While it's true that we can't "probe someone's mind" to determine their motivations...the fact that there IS some motivation behind every sincere person's story, lends some credence to them as a whole....and also individually, in cases where there's no apparant reason for them to be making it up.
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This is the CLASSIC skeptic's response to a statement about the "weighing" of evidence.
They will almost always refer to evidence in terms of proof.... using words such as...knowing...verified...actual.

Evidence only need indicate a chance...even just a small chance....or "degree of probability"....of something being true.
Whether or not that proposition actually IS true is simply irrelevant to whether or not the "evidence" for it carries some weight.

"Evidence" is such a simple concept....yet skeptics cannot understand it, for some strange reason. :confused:
 
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Correa Neto wrote:
Originally Posted by SweatyYeti
the fact that there IS some motivation behind every sincere person's story, lends some credence to them as a whole....and also individually, in cases where there's no apparant reason for them to be making it up.
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Note there is no way to actually know what is the motivation.
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Again...note that I've never said we can know for sure what's inside someone else's head.

I make a statement about "apples".....

and a skeptic replies with a statement about "oranges".
 
Correa Neto wrote:
Nope. A longer encounter may be a longer lie, a longer false memory, a longer daydream, etc.
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A longer sighting reduces the chance of a misidentification of a Bear sighting. It's that simple.
 
SweatyYeti said:
"Evidence" is such a simple concept....yet skeptics cannot understand it, for some strange reason. :confused:
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Maybe it's in the way you're explaining it. :D

Do you mean evidence = information that helps form a conclusion (ie. footprint), or do you mean something else altogether?

Don't confuse evidence with proof.

You know, proof = factual information that verifies a conclusion (ie. actual foot). Do you mean something else when you refer to proof?

That difference in meaning has been pointed out numerous times to you already, what don't you understand?

RayG
 
SweatyYeti said:
I was asked not to say anything more about it, that's all.
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Indeed...I had pm'd Sweaty earlier and asked, although I didn't know if he was talking about me, to please not to because kitakaze and I were fussing (which doesn't need to be rehashed). Apparently he was, so he was just respecting my wishes. Thank you Sweaty for doing so.

Since it was indeed a reference to me (which I suspected, 'cause even when you're not talking about me, you're talking about me), I believe I have already answered kitakaze's question.

ETA: the above was a bad attempt at humor...
 
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RayG wrote:
Do you mean evidence = information that helps form a conclusion (ie. footprint), or do you mean something else altogether?
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Yes...I mean "evidence = information that helps form a conclusion".
The key word in that definition is "helps"...which means that a single piece of "evidence" doesn't need to prove the proposition, in and of itself.
Multiple pieces of evidence can be added together to form the conclusion....to arrive at "proof positive".

Don't confuse evidence with proof.
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I haven't.
 
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SweatyYeti said:
...snip...This is the CLASSIC skeptic's response to a statement about the "weighing" of evidence.
They will almost always refer to evidence in terms of proof.... using words such as...knowing...verified...actual.
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What about instead of writing your (mis)conceptions about what skeptics do or do not, trying to actually address the arguments and reasonings I exposed?

You know, diversion, evasion, obfuscation, that's CLASSIC woo. You don't want us to conclude you may be a creduloid, don't you?

SweatyYeti said:
Evidence only need indicate a chance...even just a small chance....or "degree of probability"....of something being true.
Whether or not that proposition actually IS true is simply irrelevant to whether or not the "evidence" for it carries some weight.
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I'm skeptic (and according to a large chunk of the pro-bigfoot posters here, of the worse kind) of bigfeet as real creatures. I want you to show where exactly I, the skeptic, said sighting reports are not evidence. My point is that sighting reports (as well as the other pieces of evidence presented so far) are not reliable evidence.

SweatyYeti said:
"Evidence" is such a simple concept....yet skeptics cannot understand it, for some strange reason. :confused:
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The above was a claim. I will now make the Claus Larsen move: Evidence?

SweatyYeti said:
...snip...Multiple pieces of evidence can be added together to form the conclusion....to arrive at "proof positive".
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Or to dump the claim in to the garbage bin.
Or to say the presented pieces of evidence are not conclusive.
 
Correa Neto wrote:
Originally Posted by SweatyYeti
...snip...Multiple pieces of evidence can be added together to form the conclusion....to arrive at "proof positive".
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Or to dump the claim in to the garbage bin.
Or to say the presented pieces of evidence are not conclusive.
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That's right....I agree completely.

Evidence for a particular proposition...in this case, "Bigfoot exists"...can turn out to be falsely indicating something.....since we're only talking about ODDS....probabilities....NOT "definites".
In the end, the stated proposition "Bigfoot exists" may never be proven true.
But in the meantime...we at least have some evidence for Bigfoot's existence.
 
Correa Neto wrote:
What about instead of writing your (mis)conceptions about what skeptics do or do not, trying to actually address the arguments and reasonings I exposed?
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I did address your argument directly.

I said:
Evidence only need indicate a chance...even just a small chance....or "degree of probability"....of something being true.
Whether or not that proposition actually IS true is simply irrelevant to whether or not the "evidence" for it carries some weight.
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That was in response to your statement:
But if we can't probe someone's mind, we can't know their real motivations.
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I agree with you....that we can't know their motivations.
What I've been saying is simply that we don't need to know someone's true motivation behind filing a sighting report.
The report constitutes "evidence for Bigfoot's existence" if, after an investigation, there's no apparant motive such as money, need for attention, etc,....because there is then some reason to think they may indeed be telling the truth.
 
Correa Neto wrote:
I want you to show where exactly I, the skeptic, said sighting reports are not evidence.
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I didn't say that about you specifically, Correa.

But check out this statement by Ray...fresh out of the oven :rolleyes: .....
We do (have evidence of Bigfoot)? Such as?
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See what I mean when I say that skeptics don't understand the meaning of the word "evidence"? ;)
 
SweatyYeti said:
See what I mean when I say that skeptics don't understand the meaning of the word "evidence"? ;)
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Sweaty believes he has evidence that I have hostility problems. I believe I have evidence that could show that Sweaty's bat$#!% insane. We've all seen evidence that indicates he's not an adult. Anybody have a scale? I need to weigh it all and measure the probabilities.

Stimpson_J._Cat.JPG
 
RayG wrote:
Yeah, we know how accurate those can be...
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We don't know that ANY of the sighting reports are accurate....and we don't know that ALL of them are inaccurate.

Just as it's inappropriate to declare any of them to be proof of Bigfoot's existence....it's also inappropriate to declare them all worthless as evidence of Bigfoot's existence.
 
SweatyYeti said:
RayG wrote:
Yeah, we know how accurate those can be...
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We don't know that ANY of the sighting reports are accurate....and we don't know that ALL of them are inaccurate.

Just as it's inappropriate to declare any of them to be proof of Bigfoot's existence....it's also inappropriate to declare them all worthless as evidence of Bigfoot's existence.
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Yay! Fun with bolding! I can do it, too.
Yeah, we know how accurate those can be...
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