The Mentality of Skeptics

[Resume]

It's not tyrannosaurs that people are constantly reporting. If it was, we'd be debating the existence of that instead of Bigfoot.

But they also report Elvis, chupacabras, menehune and werewolves.


ETA: Also, you cannot demonstrate you assertion that people are "constantly reporting" footie. This is hearsay.

 

[OntarioSquatch]

I'm not setting up anything. There are conditions for existence and extant animals confirm this. There is no appeal to ignorance because these conditions can be demonstrated. All animals leave evidence of their passing, and it is this that allows us to observe, hunt, and capture them. We don't even need to capture them; we find them dead or fossilized. This has been demonstrated over and over.

I highlighted your red herring. An appeal to ignorance is still an appeal to ignorance, there's no getting around it. Also, bigfoot isn't a common or recognized animal, so why would you apply the conditions of known animals to it?

 

[Slowvehicle]

The truth about whatever phenomenon that's troubling them.

Well, at least you are not depending upon circular reasoning...

...Oh, wait.

 

[Slowvehicle]

There's people who are troubled by the fact that they don't know if Sasquatch exist or not. I've seen them both here and on the Bigfoot forums. Some of them switch back and forth between believing that they do exist and believing that they don't, but one thing that they never do is accept the fact that they don't know.

Now would be a splendid time to produce evidence of such, outside your bald, unsupported assertion.

I was going along with his idea of "strawman" skeptic.

It might help you make your point if you would limit yourself to actual, demonstrable people rather than your persons of straw.

 

[Resume]

I highlighted your red herring. An appeal to ignorance is still an appeal to ignorance, there's no getting around it.

You don't know your red herring from your appeal to ignorance. All biological creatures necessarily leave signs of there passing, this is demonstrable and demonstrated, and there is no getting around that.

, bigfoot isn't a common or recognized animal, so why would you apply the conditions of known animals to it?

Special pleading; argument from assertion.

Argument destroyed, again.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It's not tyrannosaurs that people are constantly reporting. If it was, we'd be debating the existence of that instead of Bigfoot.

So if Footie is so magically undetectable how are people "constantly" seeing him to report him? You're trying to have your magical monkey man and eat him too.

Your argument is that Figboots perpetually exist in some magical sweet spot between observation (so enough people can see him for you to play that "where there's smoke there's fire" fallacy) but never to the point where he leaves a single trace of evidence (so you can special plead all sorts of copouts as to why there's no evidence.)

So we have a giant magical monkey man breed by aliens that is completely undetectable to scientist and quality cameras, leaves no bodies or scat or hair... yet is tangible enough for enough random yahoos to "constantly" see him for you to use that number of sightings as your main source of evidence.

To sum up. Your argument is that too many people have seen the undetectable animal to ignore, but the animal is too undetectable to prove.

That is not how reality works. That's functionally identical to just making something up.

 

[William Parcher]

It's not tyrannosaurs that people are constantly reporting. If it was, we'd be debating the existence of that instead of Bigfoot.

It doesn't have to be constantly reported in order to exist. Recall the coelacanth and the okapi and others. You can look at new animal discoveries and see that they weren't constantly reported from sightings.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Well you know what you should do then? Actually provide even the tinniest shred of evidence for your magical giant monkey man. That sure would show those strawpseudoskeptics.

...Shirley, I think you mean "pseudostrawskeptics"...

 

[OntarioSquatch]

All biological creatures necessarily leave signs of there passing,

You mean like footprints, hairs and scat?

assigning properties to undemonstrated entities

Isn't that how you determined that it can't exist?

 

[Slowvehicle]

While it's true that many of them use to believe, having a history of believing isn't some sort of prerequisite.

What is the sound of one goalpost moving?

 

[OntarioSquatch]

To sum up. Your argument is that too many people have seen the undetectable animal to ignore, but the animal is too undetectable to prove.

It's not too elusive to prove. It just hasn't happened yet.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Argument from ignorance (Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance stands for "lack of evidence to the contrary"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa).

By claiming that a body would have been collected long ago, you're setting up pre-conditions for its existence in your mind and appealing to ignorance. Maybe there's a cover-up and/or maybe it's super elusive? There's possibilities that need to be considered.

Oddly enough, you are misstating the "argument from ignorance".

 

[William Parcher]

The existence of Sasquatch and alien UFOs are the only "woo" that I've defended and they're they only woo that I've believed.

What then about other "woo" as you say? For example, what is your position on mermaids?

 

[Resume]

You mean like footprints, hairs and scat?

None of these has ever been confirmed. You cannot demonstrate a single confirming example. They are all anecdotal.

Dismissed.

Isn't that how you determined that it can't exist?

I edited. You ignored that edit. Dishonest at best.

But if you'd like to talk about assigning properties to non-existent entities like footie, we can, but it will only demonstrated the futility of the bigfoot hypothesis.

 

[OntarioSquatch]

Oddly enough, you are misstating the "argument from ignorance".

How so?

 

[JoeMorgue]

It's not too elusive to prove. It just hasn't happened yet.

Oh yes the elusive Footer "Any day now...."

 

[William Parcher]

It's not too elusive to prove. It just hasn't happened yet.

The government has proof of the existence of Bigfoot, right?

 

[Resume]

It's not too elusive to prove. It just hasn't happened yet.

Baseless assertion.

 

[OntarioSquatch]

I edited. You ignored that edit.

I didn't see the edit. I saw the first one, but anyway, it seems like you realized what was wrong with that statement

 

[Slowvehicle]

You mean like footprints, hairs and scat?

Orts, middens, dens, bones, scat, hair, bodies...

Isn't that how you determined that it can't exist?

And now we get to the reversal of the onus probandi.