Simple Challenge For Bigfoot Supporters

[Correa Neto]

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Not always. For example, Roger Knights, originator of the term scoftic, applied his 'scoftic' label to Benjamin Radford, in reference to Radford's Skeptical Inquirer article [SIZE=-1]Bigfoot at 50: Evaluating a Half-Century of Bigfoot Evidence[/SIZE][SIZE=-1].[/SIZE]

Radford certainly seems familiar with bigfoot stories, claims and arguments.

Labels seem to be used in this manner:

1. scoftic = someone who pooh-poohs any claim regarding bigfoot

2. skeptic = someone open to the possibility of bigfoot, who remains unconvinced by the existing evidence

3. proponent = someone open to the possibility of bigfoot, who is sufficiently convinced by the existing evidence

4. credulist = someone who accepts any claim regarding bigfoot

Labels like romantic, fence-sitter, or denialist seem to fit in there as well.

There seems to be a tendency by some to view skeptics as scoftics or proponents as credulists, just because they have a difference of opinion.

RayG

Well, I consider the way Knights reffered to Radford as being quite offensive. Radford is familiarized with the evidence but was not convinced by it. Its not "pooh-poohing" the evidence, unless Knights considers as "pooh-poohing" not agreeing with his conclusions...

This would imply that in Knight's mind, scoffic = denialist, a person who evaluated the evidence and reasonings but still considers bigfeet as a myth. Knight, in this case, instead addressing the issues pointed by Radford, is making an ad hom (quite a common move for fringe subject defenders). He would be in the same low level that some pro-bigfoot posters here are...

Sure, there's still a path for evasion- to claim the "denialist scoffic" has not dug deep enough. He/she never actually went to PNW looking for bigfeet, personally touched the Skookum cast and/or Meldrum's collection of footprint casts, viewed PGF at a teather's big screen, etc.

So far, this foreign evil denialist atheist scoffic [add offensive term of your prefference here] who checked the avaliable evidence deeper than the standard bigfoot proponent has, is convinced that a quest for bigfoot is unworthy of spending money (private or from the government). Unless, of course, the goal is to make some cash out of the bigfoot crowd. Proponents, please feel free to try to change my mind. All it takes are reliable pieces of evidence and/or sound reasonings. Got some? If not, ad homs will not help your cause.

 

[kitakaze]

Mr. Woolheater responds on quarantining (with my reply):

Thank you for the reply, Craig. Was my tone direspectful? I believe I reposted my first post at the JREF so I'll check. Was there a specific comment that you had a problem with? I'd very much like to know so that I may participate as everyone else does. Also, that certainly doesn't explain why my posts were quarantined from the very beginning. Pardon me if I repost this e-mail at the JREF.

Regards,
Kitakaze.


>Because of the tone of your first few comments on Cryptomundo, your comment
>status is on moderation. Your comments are being posted, after moderator
>review.
>
>Mentions of waiting for your comments to appear in your comments will be
>edited out.
>
>Thanks, Cryptomundo
>
>Message:
> After registering to leave comments my password was e-mailed to my
>account and I logged in. When I post comments they do not come up. I tested
>this a number of times and if I try posting the same message twice it tells
>me that I have already posted that message even though it is not displayed.
>Assistance would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
>
>Thank you.

 

[William Parcher]

Because of the tone of your first few comments on Cryptomundo, your comment status is on moderation. Your comments are being posted, after moderator review.

Mentions of waiting for your comments to appear in your comments will be
edited out.

The man behind the curtain will not allow comments about there being a man behind the curtain.

 

[William Parcher]

Rock and pine (cone) throwing are similar examples. Imagine you are a 2 to 3 m tall ape. How would you try to drive the puny human away?
(a) Let him/her see clearly how big and strong you are while screaming something like "Thou shall not pass!" in bigfoot language.
(b) Remain hidden in the bushes and throw some pines or rocks.

Of course, they will have some rationalization like "bigfeet are shy"... Or bigfeet know option (b) would be more frightening...

What might be happening is that Bigfoot evaluates the situation and then strategizes. When Bigfoot detects human hikers (territory invaders) it may observe them while remaining concealed.

If Bigfoot thinks these folks are already Bigfooters (believe in Bigfoot), it will throw a few rocks to scare them away. This is because Bigfooters automatically know that any flying rock in a forest must have been thrown by a Bigfoot. "Get the hell out of here... we got us a big angry monkey!" The group evacuates the area. This ends up as an encounter with a BF, even if the creature is not seen.

If Bigfoot thinks these folks are Bigfoot skeptics, it will step out from behind a tree and reveal itself as the real enormous hairy biped of legend. Suddenly the legend becomes reality, and the whole hiking group becomes believers in one fell swoop. There's no need to throw a rock. "Get the hell out of here... that's a Bigfoot!" The group evacuates the area. This ends up as an encounter with a BF, and we get a multiple eyewitness report on the BFRO.

If anything, we should all understand that Bigfoot is in control of its own destiny. Quite obviously, the creature does not want to be scientifically confirmed, and it has been finding ways to prevent this for many decades. No matter how much humans might want to confirm this creature - Bigfoot holds all the cards in that game, and will simply not fold its hand under any known circumstances.

Bigfoot will only be found when it wants to be found.

 

[CLD]

Another possibility is that Bigfoot is psychic, and has powers of invisibility.

 

[LTC8K6]

I'll sum it up for you, CLD:

People say they have seen bigfoot.

That's it. That's all of the actual evidence for bigfoot in existence.

 

[kitakaze]

Craig Woolheater has explained to me that by default, a new member's comments are moderated until they have one
approved. He believes it was my third comment that was approved, but because of the first two that were not, my comments there are now moderated by
him, or one of the other editors. As they are not always at their computers,
it may take some time before it is approved.

I'm still waiting to hear what it was specifically that caused my first two to be disapproved which hopefully Craig will share with me.

 

[William Parcher]

Best Witnesses: Biologists or Truck Drivers?

We don't need any more Bigfoot witnesses, nor do we need to evaluate their individual or collective credibility. This is supposed to be about a real creature, not about people. The only thing that really matters is the procurement of primary physical evidence. This is biological material, and it should be available to almost anyone who goes into Bigfoot country.

It is very close to being totally ridiculous that after centuries of human habitation and exploration in BF country, we do not have a body or body part of this animal.

The credibility and/or profession of any eyewitness and what they offer as the story of their encounter - cannot serve as any kind of proxy for the real animal. It is boldly irresponsible to try to force a belief in Bigfoot upon the general public just by presenting human testimonies. These testimonies (reports) always end up sounding like campfire folklore no matter who does the telling and whatever the circumstances.

It is not the responsibility of any BF skeptic to explain how or why eyewitness testimony cannot serve as a substitute for a real creature. This ticky-tacky bickering over the credibility or potential motives of eyewitnesses is a red herring designed to add credibility to Bigfootery in general. It doesn't. Switching the focus to the credibility of witnesses illustrates the state of desperation that Bigfootery finds itself in. When primary evidence is completely unavailable, they have to turn to this in order to try to maintain some form of general acceptance for the belief in Bigfoot. Far more effort is being put into trying to "mainstream" the belief in Bigfoot, rather than to find and conclusively confirm the animal itself.

As far as I'm concerned; Bigfoot is for Bigfoot believers. That sounds self evident and even trivial until you try to apply that to something else. It would be pretty strange to say something like - Gorillas are for Gorilla believers. Anyone would rightly ask what the hell is meant by a person stating that one. Bigfooters have no business expecting the general population to accept the reality of Bigfoot without first presenting a real animal. The whining about this being a Catch-22 is not going to cut the mustard. At this point, it is fully justified to regard Bigfoot as being a mythical creature.

 

[kitakaze]

WP, may I please repost that in that thread? You said it excellently and I don't want to parrot your point.

 

[Correa Neto]

Well said, WP, but there's the standard strawman responses (SSR):

"You skeptics say all witnesses are liars! Sheriff John Brown would not like to know you are calling him a liar"

"There are more pieces of evidence than eyewitnesses reports! There`s the PGF (no one proved its a hoax so far), the Skookum cast, footprints and handprint casts, the dermatoglyphs, unidentified DNA and hair strands..."

And more 100 pages will follow...

 

[LTC8K6]

There was that bison hair, too. Bigfoots always carry some with them.

 

[William Parcher]

WP, may I please repost that in that thread? You said it excellently and I don't want to parrot your point.

Go ahead. The thing is, if they pose the same challenge you did (come to JREF if you've got guts) to me; I'm going to have to decline. Not because I lack guts, but because I just don't have the stomach for that stuff. Some of the biggest wacko Bigfooters I've ever seen are right there in that blog forum.

Unlike you, I'm happy just posting on JREF.

 

[William Parcher]

...You get the gist.

If you’re getting good readings from answers to these questions - or even just most of them - you shouldn’t care whether the person is a scientist or not.

They saw something. And someone needs to explain what it is.

No way, Jose. He's trying to sneak past the Catch-22 and reverse the burden of proof. Under no circumstances can it be taken for granted that "they saw something", no matter who the witness is. That's using human testimony as a proxy for a real animal.

Let the witness show the world what they saw, and then the rest of us might voluntarily try to explain what it is. When somebody hauls in a Bigfoot or part of one, I'll probably explain it as an undescribed non-human bipedal primate. THat won't be a very novel or original explanation. The details can get filled in by professionals that examine the creature or whatever part.

Bigfoot skeptics always know that the Bigfooters must use eyewitness testimonies as their best persuader. It really does look like a grand myth when you have thousands of encounters and no Bigfoot to show for any of it. This has been going on for a very long time. I know that "suckers are born every minute", but this is just too much. I guess suckers who show leadership tendencies towards other suckers, are born every so often as well. Sheesh. What a world we live in!

 

[kitakaze]

Thanks, WP. I doubt DWA or the like will accept that invitation. Meh, it get's tired real quick trying to discuss things when you have no idea when or if your comments will be heard while everybody else is bee-boppin' and skattin' all over the place.

 

[William Parcher]

KKZ, all your post are belong to them.

 

[drapier]

I too posted a message to Cryptomundo at the truck driver vs. biologist thread.

Here's what got posted:

DWA:

Where people see them is where they do. Unless there is incontrovertible evidence that they misidentified something or lied.

Are you saying that we should consider eyewitness reports as true unless there is “incontrovertible” evidence that the witness misidentified something or lied?

I also asked this question (or something to this effect. I didn't save a copy.): "Does this standard apply to extraterrestrial alien sightings? And if not, why not?"

That question was edited out by the webmaster.

 

[kitakaze]

KKZ, all your post are belong to them.

*sigh* Too true... All my posts are belong to them. I'm very annoyed to report that it would seem that they've just begun chucking them out or delaying them so long as to effectively eliminate my participation. Loren Coleman/Craig Woolheater, that censorship reeeally sucks.

 

[LAL]

All my (few) comments on Cryptomondo have been posted in full and unaltered.

Kitakaze, I don't have time to find the post I wanted to answer, but, in a Russian context, habituation on a Tennessee farm isn't that far-fetched. They have their stories of Almasty being trained to perform simple farm chores and then there's Zana, whatever she was, who bore children to several Russian men. (Oh, that Vodka!)

Was there something on the farm that required the services of an expert in biomechanics? At least it was checked out rather than dismissed out of hand.

Mary has her supporters. There are actually some credible-seeming reports from the Tennessee-North Carolina border, and those mountains are appropriately formidable.

Ray Crowe thought the Carter samples coming back as human meant we're dealing with Homo erectus. I was thinking the sanitary conditions at the farm must have been appalling. I'm afraid I made Ray's life miserable on Melissa's board. A shame, since I saw him in Washington years ago; he seems to have lost few marbles since then.

Maybe Donskoy did too.

I don't mind getting more modern with an American biomechanics expert, namely Dr. Andrew Nelson.

William Parcher, I found the BH in the suit .gif I've been looking for in a post by a newbie on BFF. Please compare to Davis' animated .gif of the Patterson film subject below.

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=24024

http://members.iinet.net.au/~mang00/bigfoot/mk_davis_pgf.gif

 

[LAL]

The issue of hairs in nests came up at some point.

According to Scott Heriott, on Todd Partain's Eyes in the Dark (http://home.bellsouth.net/p/s/community.dll?ep=16&groupid=309381&ck= ), he and Daryl Owen investigated the area of their sighting/filming the next day and found an apparent sleeping area. There were hairs in it which were found to resemble gorilla hairs, but were not gorilla.

There's an aerial shot of the area in one of Scott's DVDs showing just how dense it is, even as viewed from a helicopter. I'll do a capture if I ever get around to it.

 

[kitakaze]

All my (few) comments on Cryptomondo have been posted in full and unaltered.

Well that makes no sense at all. JK

Kitakaze, I don't have time to find the post I wanted to answer, but, in a Russian context, habituation on a Tennessee farm isn't that far-fetched. They have their stories of Almasty being trained to perform simple farm chores and then there's Zana, whatever she was, who bore children to several Russian men. (Oh, that Vodka!)

They have their stories... no shortage of stories. We can often see in bigfootery literature how comparitively ammenable Russian (and Chinese) beauracracy was/is to the notion of hairy wildmen. And still no reliable evidence. What Zana has to do with bigfoot I don't really know. I do know bigfootery 'experts' getting suckered by Mary Green doesn't help their case. So does Dr. Nelson observe something impossible to be a man in a suit?