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Top 5 Skeptical Fallacies

Dinwar said:
What OntarioSquatch ignores is that a lack of expected evidence is evidence for a lack of the thing.
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Logically, this isn't true. Lack of evidence is NOT evidence of lack. This is an established proposition for argumentation.

Lack of expected evidence is sufficient reason to reject a claim.
 
Donn said:
Patty should be part of a network of expected evidence. Sparse jots of data punctured by gaps is evidence of manipulation, or evidence that a new hypothesis is needed.

The longer the periods between jots, the more isolated the islands, the more they disconnect from the narrative. This isolation is more particular where other narratives have continued apace, in real-time, leaving dense and rich traces in the network. The strange peak of evidence that suddenly looms having no tie to the surrounding fabric is a red flag, at the very least.

Yes, I like the expected part in that. Absence of expected evidence is evidence that something's amiss.

ETA - What Dinwar said.
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How does this translate to paleontology, where the fossil record is extremely disjointed, with massive gaps in time? I wouldn't think that sparse evidence is sufficient to assume manipulation.

In the case of bigfoot video, I would say that there are plenty of reasons to assume manipulation. The paucity of other evidence just isn't one of them.
 
Dinwar said:
I'll go ahead and claim it. Bigfoot does not exist. My evidence is the complete lack of all expected physical evidence.
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Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.

Even within your own field (I'm assuming you're a biologist, based on the depth of knowledge presented), the guidelines you've presented don't provide room for concluding the nonexistence of a creature. They only provide justification for rejecting the claim of existence.

From a statistical standpoint: You test whether H1 is sufficiently different from H0 to reject the null hypothesis. If H1 is NOT sufficiently different from H0, you cannot conclude that H1 is the same as H0, you can only fail to reject the null. Insufficient difference is just that: insufficient to be able to tell whether H1 is different from H0. You haven't proven H0.

Contextually, you test whether there is sufficient evidence for a species to reject the null hypothesis that the species doesn't exist. If there is NOT sufficient evidence, you cannot conclude that the species absolutely does not exist, you simply can't reject the non-existence of it. You just can't tell whether it exists or not.
 
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Emily's Cat said:
Hmm. I'd say that the list of fallacies, and the basic descriptions of them are correct... it's the application of them in this context that is false. The fallacies are real fallacies, but the veracity of the statement cannot be measured using that fallacy.

For example:

The maroon sections are correct. That is a true description of an appeal to ignorance.

The error is in the application. The OP is assuming that the lack-of-belief in the existence of bigfoot, in light of an astounding lack of evidence, is an appeal to ignorance. It's an incorrect application of the fallacy.

For it to be an appeal to ignorance, someone would have to be making the negative claim that bigfoot does not exist, and using as evidence in support of that claim the fact that no evidence exists.
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The example I posted is a negative claim that Bigfoot doesn't exist.



the example:

"After thousands of years of being on the continent, we would have had proof of Bigfoot by now if Bigfoot was real."

paraphrased:

"Bigfoot doesn't exist because we haven't found it"


The rest of the examples are correct as well, but for some reason people are misinterpreting it.
 
Garrette said:
...Years ago on this forum I predicted just such a reaction by saying the psychic proponent would object because the prediction in my counter example involved a different color shirt. He complained exactly in that fashion.
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:D But no million dollars huh?!

OntarioSquatch said:
Anything I post will be argued against with more dishonest tactics and fallacies. That's how the discussion here works. For many here it's about staying in denial at all costs, not about getting to the truth. That's how it's always been over here, at least in the Bigfoot threads.
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:D Yer funny. So got any "truth" for us to "get to"? And don't look now but you point out so perfectly if not unwittingly what your presence here is really about. BLAARGing. That is, no "truth" will be forthcoming. Besides, we're so obtuse, so overbearing, so dishonest about Bigfoot that...you're only giving us two weeks to stop it or you're really outta here fer sure no lie no erasies? What about three weeks?

Are you really contemplating defrosting claims that say all you're trying to do is show us the "truth"?
 
OntarioSquatch said:
The example I posted is a negative claim that Bigfoot doesn't exist.



the example:

"After thousands of years of being on the continent, we would have had proof of Bigfoot by now if Bigfoot was real."

paraphrased:

"Bigfoot doesn't exist because we haven't found it"


The rest of the examples are correct as well, but for some reason people are misinterpreting it.
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I understand that this is how you're casting the argument. I believe that you have misunderstood.


You have two statements:
1) "After thousands of years of being on the continent, we would have had proof of Bigfoot by now if Bigfoot was real."
2) "Bigfoot doesn't exist because we haven't found it"


Statement 1 would not occur all by itself. Nobody is going around saying "Hey everybody, bigfoot doesn't exist!" Just like nobody goes around saying "Hey everybody, did you know that unicorns aren't real?"

In the absence of a claim for bigfoot's existence, nobody would ever utter statement 1. Statement 1 is a response to a positive claim.

Thus, your paraphrase to statement 2 is in error. It isn't a claim that big foot doesn't exist, based on the reasoning of it not having been found. It's a rejection of a claim, and that rejection is based on no supporting evidence being present.
 
Both statement 1 and 2 imply that Bigfoot doesn't exist. Statement 1 may or may not be a response to a positive claim.
 
To me it makes sense. Here's examples of both positive and negative claims that are an appeal to ignorance


"There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore, UFOs exist."

"There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are visiting the Earth; therefore, UFOs don't exist."



Using Bigfoot

"There is no compelling evidence that Bigfoot doesn't exist; therefore, Bigfoot exists."

"There is no compelling evidence that Bigfoot exists; therefore, Bigfoot doesn't exist."
 
The Atheist said:
I still don't understand the vehemence with which people attack people who think there's a large, hairy beast on the loose. They're not selling sasquatch cure-all, or reading minds or casting spells, they're walking in the woods.
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Because the Bigfoot claim isn't simply that there's a large, bipedal, furry ape living in North America that somehow managed to survive the past few thousands of years without even so much as winding up on the business end of an Indian arrow.

They also promote all kinds of nonsense, claiming that Bigfoot have all kinds of magical abilities on top of being hyper smart. And yes, Bigfoot proponents put people's lives and safety at risk while simultaneously milking them for their money. So it's hardly innocent fun escapism.
 
OntarioSquatch said:
To me it makes sense. Here's examples of both positive and negative claims that are an appeal to ignorance


"There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore, UFOs exist."

"There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are visiting the Earth; therefore, UFOs don't exist."



Using Bigfoot

"There is no compelling evidence that Bigfoot doesn't exist; therefore, Bigfoot exists."

"There is no compelling evidence that Bigfoot exists; therefore, Bigfoot doesn't exist."
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Did you read the post about the concept of the null hypothesis?

But let me just try it a different way: do you think that it is equally logic to assume something exists without any evidence for it as to think that something probably doesn't exist if there is no evidence for it? Just in practice? I can think of so many things for which there is no evidence for them existing; does that make them as likely to exist as not exist?

What do you think the words "no evidence"mean? If there were pink unicorns living in major cities, a lot of people would have seen them. But people haven't. So the absence of pink unicorn sightings is not a lack of evidence, but evidence that they don't exist.
 
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Giordano said:
Did you read the post about the concept of the null hypothesis?
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I doubt the post was his first encounter where it was explained, just as I'm equally sure that he ignored it and anything else having to do with the null hypothesis. It is a woo blind spot.
 
It's not just that there is no evidence, it's that there is no evidence where it would necessarily be expected.
 
Emily's Cat said:
How does this translate to paleontology, where the fossil record is extremely disjointed, with massive gaps in time? I wouldn't think that sparse evidence is sufficient to assume manipulation.
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The search for Bigfoot is contemporary biology (as claimed), I'd not invoke paleontology. I agree that far back in time, and into the rocks, one is getting fragments and the network of ancient creatures is harder to arrange. Dinwar is the one to ask about that.

In the case of bigfoot video, I would say that there are plenty of reasons to assume manipulation. The paucity of other evidence just isn't one of them.
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The Bigfoot hoax does its own damage, we shall charitably call it "evidence", but this is about expected evidence.

The paucity of expected evidence isolates this proposed Patty walking on a living landscape covered in a network of demonstrable inhabitation by thousands of other species.

If Patty had a real history, there are no traces. If she had a future, beyond the film, she lived no life that impacted the network in any way at all: no part of her huge physical body touched any part of Earth or other life.

It's as if she walked off-camera into a wormhole to another planet where her body was free to shed skin and hair, to bleed when hurt against hard nature; where her bladder and bowels would regularly void, mixing with that network. Where she could affect nature: strip bark, eat her foods, generate young and raise them. Fart into the chemical record. Lose teeth into the loam. Leave a skeleton.

On the left and right of the Patty peak there is no sign upon the network of nature that she ever was. At the same time, all other forms of life and material were going on apace. Patty's visit impacted for a moment and then vanished.

That's a jot of evidence in the network. An aberration. The nothingness of Patty before the jot and the nothingness beyond are not expected.

We expect that if an animal walks across a scene there will be a history and a future; that more such walking will occur; that it remains on Earth, breathing our atmosphere, highly likely to appear again.

And yet, there is no Bigoot evidence found on the natural world — which is intensively observed at all levels of human skill.

Every other non-controversial plant and animal appears in the network. The normal processes of their lives and deaths is plain to see. They are at every node, in copious abundance. At no point is their routine disturbed by a Bigfoot-like creature who would attempt to hunt, gather, move, sleep and compete. No pressed-earth overnight, no scat, no hair left anywhere, no mosquitoes that have strange DNA in their bellies, no flies that betray them, no parasites that form unique life-cycles and leave traces, no dead bodies — not even buried. No skin cells on wood and trees. No smells left in marking. Nothing. Nothing.

Until. Another peak. Sudden. Large footprints badly formed in plaster. They came from nowhere, they went nowhere. Did anyone try to follow the scene like a Sherlock of the woods? No — there's a strange urge not to look for negative signs. These hunters are beleavers.

Bigfoot is truly alien — he never drops an atom of his body upon the ground. Never eats our nature, leaving tooth marks. Never presses into the ground when he steps, other than when he wants to leave controversy. Never needs to void waste — perhaps it all becomes oxygen and breezes from a small chimney in his head. Never needs to fight other Bigfeet for territory, for mates. Never gets sick. Never meets modern vehicles on roads and gets struck. Never makes any sound that has raised a query in naturalists who could not resist such data.

All of this expected messy, grimy, chaotic, destructive mass under gravity ruled by survival honed by natural selection: is absent.

The conclusion is that every other plant, insect and animal has left expected evidence and fits perfectly into the network of what we observe.

The conclusion is that whatever does not maintain a history, a narrative, a life through space and time across the same network — is not expected when it suddenly appears.

Unless Bigfoot is Predator from Hollywood, it does not exist in our natural world.

I know it sounds too certain for skeptical tastes. I think the classical intonation about absence and evidence is fit for Sagan's Dragon. When Bigfoot is described, on purpose by some, as mystical and invisible, then we can't apply the expected evidence argument. Until then, I don't see why not.


Put it this way. If you laid out a large sheet of paper and surrounded it on all sides with shallow rills full of coloured paint and then waited for animals to walk in the paint and across the paper — you would eventually get a nice palimpsest of footprints.

(We did this (my sister and I) with zoo penguins once. It was chaos I can tell you; those little buggers had to be bribed with fish before daring the paint.)

That palimpsest is like a snapshot of the network — recording only feet; but that's gravity and kinematics and shows details about their skins. Also, the paper had dribbles of fish and the odd wing-print.

If there was a single hoof print on that paper — in an exhibit with only penguins in it — we would not have assumed a buck had leaped in, left one print and leapt out. That would be pressing impossible too hard.

If a small deer had lived in that exhibit there would be more prints on that paper, there would be scat around the place. Naturally the keepers would also know for they'd feed and care for the deer. There was no expected evidence for the deer as there was for the penguins.

This makes that lone hoof print unexpected and weird. A hoax, or some new thing under the sun.

The absence of expected hoof prints on that paper was evidence of the absence of deer in the exhibit.

Make the exhibit the size of North America and the same applies to Bigfoot. If he exists, we'd expect certain real stuff that physics and biology demand. We don't find any of that, ergo he does not exist.

It really makes sense to me. Where am I going wrong?
 
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Mudcat said:
They also promote all kinds of nonsense, claiming that Bigfoot have all kinds of magical abilities on top of being hyper smart.
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Gotcha.

If I'd known from the start "they" were involved I wouldn't have asked.

Who the hell is "they"?

I'll grant you a small number of people think like that, but again, you're using Fred Phelps as a yardstick fro christians. Your typical mainstream bigfoot fan does not think it's at all magic/kal and hate those people more than you do.

Again, if you think I'm wrong, please go and visit bigfoot forums - there is an exponentially larger base of supporters there than here and that "they" don't stand for that nonsense at all.

Mudcat said:
And yes, Bigfoot proponents put people's lives and safety at risk while simultaneously milking them for their money. So it's hardly innocent fun escapism.
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Putting their safety at risk? In what way? The bigfoot tours and hunts I've seen haven't seemed anywhere near as dangerous as say, living in Chicago.

Yeah, a few people get ripped off, but it's very small potatoes and I don't believe that's a driver for many skeptics. It's a convenient red herring. If the amount of money people made was an issue, James Randi was much worse than any bigfoot salesman has ever been, but people don't like to criticise him.
 
OntarioSquatch said:
Anything I post will be argued against with more dishonest tactics and fallacies. That's how the discussion here works. For many here it's about staying in denial at all costs, not about getting to the truth. That's how it's always been over here, at least in the Bigfoot threads.
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Where is the condemnation of the 'footer being (as usual) so rude to skeptics?

From this poster in particular, along with others, it is a virtual conveyor belt of nasty attacks like this.
 
OntarioSquatch said:
The example I posted is a negative claim that Bigfoot doesn't exist.

the example:

"After thousands of years of being on the continent, we would have had proof of Bigfoot by now if Bigfoot was real."

paraphrased:

"Bigfoot doesn't exist because we haven't found it"


The rest of the examples are correct as well, but for some reason people are misinterpreting it.
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You continue to try to shift the onus.

Are you going to support, or retract, your accusation of "dishonesty", or do you lack the integrity so to do?
 
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