Top 5 Skeptical Fallacies

[John Nowak]

Bigfoot in the state. Bigfoot in the continent. Same deal.

Well, yeah, but you get my point. When the suggestion is "there is an [OBJECT] in [DOMAIN]" the bigger [DOMAIN] gets (or, more precisely, the harder it is to search) the less confident we can be saying "It's not there."

In the case of Bigfoot, North America's been so thoroughly searched that discovering any novel ape here is, to be kind, wildly implausible. The difference between "zero" and "not quite zero" is so tiny in that case that I wouldn't take issue with someone saying either one.

Bigfoot is many times less likely than our stumbling across an undiscovered mermaid civilization that lives in the Abyssal Zone.

 

[Donn]

Well, yeah, but you get my point. When the suggestion is "there is an [OBJECT] in [DOMAIN]" the bigger [DOMAIN] gets (or, more precisely, the harder it is to search) the less confident we can be saying "It's not there."

Sure, I'm just redundantly thinking out loud.

Bigfoot is many times less likely than our stumbling across an undiscovered mermaid civilization that lives in the Abyssal Zone.

That's where Nessie is.

 

[jaydeehess]

Not exactly like bears.
http://bigfootforums.com/index.php/topic/50678-urban-bigfoot-seriously2/page-4

I spoke with the witness in phone.

In summary:

• The animal was estimated at 6 feet tall.
• The animal was thinly built.
• The hair was solid dark in coloring.
• The witness was about 200 feet from the animal when it darted across the road.
• The animal was easily seen in the headlights of the vehicle.
• Although the area is heavily wooded the moon was full and had not set yet. The moon set at 4:38 a.m. a little over a half hour after the sighting.

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=45830


Willow Springs is a southern suburb of Chicago; the Cook County Forest Preserve district is entirely urban/suburban.

Police report: Suspect is 6 foot tall, slightly built, with dark hair and clothing. Was last seen by a witness through 200 foot distance in heavily forested area, half an hour before moonset at approx 4am.

I cannot help myself... Aaahahahahaha!

 

[Dinwar]

Police report: Suspect is 6 foot tall, slightly built, with dark hair and clothing. Was last seen by a witness through 200 foot distance in heavily forested area, half an hour before moonset at approx 4am.

I cannot help myself... Aaahahahahaha!

How many people get shot because idiot hunters (not all hunters are idiots) mistake them for deer?

The fact that it is at least 1 pretty much means we cannot take eye witness data at face value.

 

[John Nowak]

That's where Nessie is.

Nah, that's a tiny little lake, way too small to be a credible habitat for a monster that big.

 

[barehl]

I'd argue that your examples have an implicit boundary that you're leaving off.

I agree that there is evidence there is no car in the garage.

I agree that there is evidence there is no rain visible out my window.

I can state with complete confidence that there is no bigfoot within the borders of Indiana. We had a black bear sighting this summer and it made the news in Chicago. It got the attention of the department of natural resources in both Indiana and Michigan because no bear had been sighted in Indiana in 144 years. They analyzed scat that they found and confirmed that it was from a bear. They asked people to call and send videos and pictures of any evidence of this bear. This was printed in Reuters and the Associated Press. If a bigfoot were spotted, the response would be 10x that.

 

[barehl]

And I am arguing that there is no non-human hominin in North America.

We could expand that further to no naturally occurring, non-human primate in North America. Also, no naturally occurring, non-human primate in the Western Hemisphere larger than 20 lbs (Howler and Spider monkeys).

 

[jaydeehess]

How many people get shot because idiot hunters (not all hunters are idiots) mistake them for deer?

The fact that it is at least 1 pretty much means we cannot take eye witness data at face value.

My favourite part was this:

• Although the area is heavily wooded the moon was full and had not set yet. The moon set at 4:38 a.m. a little over a half hour after the sighting.

If the Moon was low its light was fading. Moonlight is already low enough that even in a wide open space only those with extremely good eyesight would be able to read a newspaper by its light. In addition this setting moonlight would be coming through the trees of the "heavily wooded" topography. Yet the fact that the moon had not quite set yet is supposedly very significant in that it would have allowed great visibility.


Its simply more of the same from Bigfoot proponents, eye witness sightings, fuzzy pictures, plaster casts of tracks. This is not an unknown species of worm or beetle crawling around an isolated part of Colorado. Its supposedly a large hominid with a range of a large part of N. America, including some close to urban areas. The null hypothesis must therefore be that this being does not actually exist. Its up to those making the affirmative claim that it does, to demonstrate it with a specimen. That ball has been in their court for so long it is quite amazing that it still has proponents.

 

[jaydeehess]

There was a post like this made on another forum, but since I can't re-post the content, I'm posting a new version. The examples shown here can apply to any cryptid, not just Bigfoot.


Top 5 Skeptical Fallacies


1) Appeal to Ignorance

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

This is a fallacy where something is considered to be false either because it hasn't been proven to be true or because it's just hard to believe that it could be true. It's not possible to know about something you haven't discovered yet, so it doesn't make sense to conclude that something isn't real, simply because it hasn't been discovered.


2) Argumentum Ad Populum

"The current consensus is that Bigfoot isn't a real animal, therefore it isn't real and isn't worthy of scientific investigation."

A fallacious argument where it's concluded that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it.


3) Burden of Proof and False Default Position

"Bigfoot doesn't exist and it's up to proponents to prove otherwise."

The denialist assumes a negative default position and shifts the burden of proof to others.

It's not possible to prove a negative in the case of Bigfoot, so the burden of proof in this case can't ever be fulfilled. It's important to at least be theoretically able to back up the claims you make.


4) Special Pleading

"No other film like the PGF has surfaced since 1967, therefore, the PGF isn't evidence for the existence of Bigfoot." or "The film doesn't qualify as evidence."

Moving the goalpost after the claim of there not being any evidence has been shown to be false.



5) Genetic

"The PGF was made by a person with a questionable history, therefore, the film itself should be dismissed."

This fallacy avoids the argument by shifting focus onto something or someone's origins. It's similar to an ad hominem fallacy in that the skeptic leverages existing negative perceptions to make the PGF look bad, without actually presenting a case for why the film itself lacks merit.

[QUOTE=OntarioSquatch;10739607]All straw mans.[/QUOTE]
You simply will not answer critics. Demonstrate the existence of this large hominid or admit that you cannot.

 

[Axxman300]

I reading a lot of philosophy class debating tactics, and not a lot of science-based arguments from the Bigfooters (Bigfeeters?).

Again, it is really simple: go find one.

I am a Marine Geology major, and geology means I have to go out to where the rocks, faults, sediment layers, and volcanoes are and take sampled and record observations and data.

Now if I want to look at Black Smokers and mid-ocean ridges things get more complicated and expensive, but I can still drop a DSRV over the side of a research ship and and go find them.

Same process applies to Bigfoot. You move to the rural Pacific Northwest, buy comfortable boots, a bunch of cameras (35mm DSLRs, IR capable trail cams), motion detectors, batteries, and a backpack. Then you go into the woods...every day. You go deep into the woods and stay there for weeks on end. You make notes of everything that you see, plants, animals, weather, terrain, and your daily activities. Develop the situation and repeat.

One of two things will happen, you will prove Bigfoot is a resident, or you will have enough data and pictures to write a book on backpacking and survival in the Pacific Northwest.

Either way it is more productive than wining and splitting non-existent hairs on an internet message board.

Get a Kickstarter campaign going and see what happens.

 

[Dancing David]

In a county not too far from here in Central Illinois, a freaking cougar was spotted on a game cam. Myself while walking and waiting at night I have seen foxes, beavers, deers and the like. During the day I have even seen river otters in my heavily farmed county.
Yet no good pictures of a bigfoot.

http://www.effinghamdailynews.com/n...cle_095f78d9-a1ae-5fad-b89e-850d4c04e71f.html

This one is farther from me
http://www.galesburg.com/article/20121030/NEWS/310309974

 

[Resume]

As for hair, if you can prove it came from an ape in North America that is more closely related to humans than chimps (ie, that it didn't come from a zoo or escaped zoo animal or exotic pet) I would at least not dismiss it out of hand. To the best of my knowledge, no such hair sample has been presented.

I believe OS will rear this ugly head shortly:
http://undebunkingbigfoot.blogspot.com/2014/02/best-evidence-for-existence-of.html

Wolf-Henrich (Henner) Fahrenbach, Ph.D., is widely considered to be adept in the identification of hair and, as of 1999, had accumulated a collection of over a dozen samples thought to be of sasquatch origin. - Source: http://www.northwestbigfoot.com/H--FAHRENBACH-STATS.html

 

[Jerrymander]

We know that organisms of the size and robustness of bigfoot are routinely preserved (or at least parts are) in the fossil record of the areas where bigfoot allegedly lives. We know the environments most likely to preserve them. We have techniques for finding individual teeth and scraps of bone that retain identifiable characters on a scale that would blow most people's minds--I've done multiple analyses for rodent teeth, for example. And let's not forget, ape bones raise all KINDS of alarm bells. Paleontologists are not, in most cases, allowed to make the final call if there's any doubt about it being human (and hominin is close enough to trigger this)--the county corroner is typically the one who has to make this determination. And many of us are cross-trained with archaeologists, so we have more than a passing familiarity with the differences between human and other animal bones. All put together, we have a remarkably complete understanding of the Pleistocene/Holocene of North America, particularly on the west coast.

Have heard footers claim that bigfoot remains could have been mistaken human remains or that they are among the hundreds of unclassified fossils in the drawers.

 

[Dinwar]

Have heard footers claim that bigfoot remains could have been mistaken human remains or that they are among the hundreds of unclassified fossils in the drawers.

No chance of being mistaken for human remains. It would be akin to someone mistaking Obama for Michael Jordan--we ALL get training in human vs. non remains. There are legal issues that make it critical.

The stuff in drawers, I can see. We're I a Bigfoot advocate, that is where I would look. I once jokingly suggested we convince them all to look there, then set up an expensive class to train them, and charge them to sort through and classify the remains. Odds are, though, that this isn't terribly likely. Hominids tend to be classified pretty quickly.

 

[Giordano]

No chance of being mistaken for human remains. It would be akin to someone mistaking Obama for Michael Jordan--we ALL get training in human vs. non remains. There are legal issues that make it critical.

The stuff in drawers, I can see. We're I a Bigfoot advocate, that is where I would look. I once jokingly suggested we convince them all to look there, then set up an expensive class to train them, and charge them to sort through and classify the remains. Odds are, though, that this isn't terribly likely. Hominids tend to be classified pretty quickly.

Exactly! Human-like remains, especially, trigger a lot of legal concern and investigation. Plus an 8 foot Bigfoot's remains are very unlikely to be mistaken for human.

I think the opposite is often true: that humans and their activity are often mistaken for Bigfoot.

 

[Dinwar]

Exactly! Human-like remains, especially, trigger a lot of legal concern and investigation. Plus an 8 foot Bigfoot's remains are very unlikely to be mistaken for human.

I think the opposite is often true: that humans and their activity are often mistaken for Bigfoot.

Barring gross incompetence we can dismiss the notion of something mistakenly being classified as human. As for human activity, unless you are suggesting Bigfoot makes stone tools that is equally unlikely.

At best, you could argue that bogfoot trace fossils (tooth marks on bones and the like) are unidentified--most such trace fossils are unidentified as to the creators. But that is a pretty weak argument, and amounts to a confession that you have no actual data supporting your conclusion.

 

[jaydeehess]

The remains of the first humans in N.America are few , but have been found. These date to ~10,000 years ago, iirc. We can assume Sasquatch to have existed here that long as well.
The uncovering of the first humans has always been quite an event. I would expect no less excitement if Sasquatch remains were found, and the bones, though resembling the early humans, would be much larger.

 

[Dinwar]

The uncovering of the first humans has always been quite an event. I would expect no less excitement if Sasquatch remains were found, and the bones, though resembling the early humans, would be much larger.

More robust--which translates into thicker bone. So even a fragment could fairly easily be distinguished.

 

[Fudbucker]

Apologies if some of this ground has been covered.

There was a post like this made on another forum, but since I can't re-post the content, I'm posting a new version. The examples shown here can apply to any cryptid, not just Bigfoot.


Top 5 Skeptical Fallacies


1) Appeal to Ignorance

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

This is a fallacy where something is considered to be false either because it hasn't been proven to be true or because it's just hard to believe that it could be true. It's not possible to know about something you haven't discovered yet, so it doesn't make sense to conclude that something isn't real, simply because it hasn't been discovered.

It depends on how much (and how well) you've searched. If the police have torn a house apart looking for a murder weapon, and can't find it, there's a good chance it's not there. That's a correct conclusion to make.

In the case of alien life, it's absurd to conclude it doesn't exist just because we haven't found any evidence. If we eventually search 99% of the galaxy, and can't find it, then yeah, you could assert it's probably not in the 1% we haven't looked at. But we've examined only a tiny sliver of galaxy so far.

So in the case of Bigfoot, have we done a good search for it? Is there an expectation that if one existed it (or its remains) should have been found by now? Yes. It would be very surprising to discover an intelligent large humanoid creature living in the forest that's really adept at not being spotted, filmed, photographed, and apparently leaves no trace of itself when it dies.

2) Argumentum Ad Populum

"The current consensus is that Bigfoot isn't a real animal, therefore it isn't real and isn't worthy of scientific investigation."

A fallacious argument where it's concluded that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it.

Again, it depends. Sometimes it's perfectly valid in informal logic, which is what goes on in these discussions. If 99% of climate scientists claim X, then that carries a lot of weight. The person appealing to the 1% that claim Not-X has a much higher hill to climb to prove their position.

The reason is that when 99% of experts agree on something in their field of expertise, they're usually right. Not all the time, but for every Pasteur that comes along and overturns the consensus position, there's a million crackpots who've advanced competing theories and utterly failed.

If your position is supported by a large number of experts, you're in a good spot, epistemologically speaking.

3) Burden of Proof and False Default Position

"Bigfoot doesn't exist and it's up to proponents to prove otherwise."

The denialist assumes a negative default position and shifts the burden of proof to others.

It's not possible to prove a negative in the case of Bigfoot, so the burden of proof in this case can't ever be fulfilled. It's important to at least be theoretically able to back up the claims you make.

The burden of proof is always on the person going against what the consensus position of the experts is, for the reasons I already gave: the reason a consensus exists is because a lot of smart people have looked at the evidence, and come to the same conclusion. To go against the consensus is to assert that you're seeing something that a whole lot of experts aren't seeing, or that they're all making some mistake, or ignoring some vital evidence. It happens in science, but not that often.

4) Special Pleading

"No other film like the PGF has surfaced since 1967, therefore, the PGF isn't evidence for the existence of Bigfoot." or "The film doesn't qualify as evidence."

Moving the goalpost after the claim of there not being any evidence has been shown to be false.

Or a claim that Big Foot skeletons don't exist because they rapidly disintegrate after death. Or Big Foot (feet, what the hell is the plural?) has psychic powers that alert them when they're being observed or filmed.

5) Genetic

"The PGF was made by a person with a questionable history, therefore, the film itself should be dismissed."

This fallacy avoids the argument by shifting focus onto something or someone's origins. It's similar to an ad hominem fallacy in that the skeptic leverages existing negative perceptions to make the PGF look bad, without actually presenting a case for why the film itself lacks merit.

Yeah that's a fallacy, but it's usually done to save time, and if you do it correctly, you can usually get away with it. For example, I generally don't believe anyone who sources wattsupwiththat.com (climate denial website), and in doing that I'm pretty safe, but I imagine they might get something right every once and awhile.

 

[Dinwar]

#5 is not a fallacy. The argument isn't that it is wrong; the argument is at it is inadmissible. The issue is, it would be difficult to impossible to distinguish a good fraud from reality, that is the whole point of fraud. If there is suspicion of fraud, ignoring that data keeps the dataset free from such doubts.

Plus, if your best data are fairly obviously frauds, that just about says it all for your conclusions.