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66 Responses to “Believing in Bigfoot”

1. DWA responds: February 16th, 2010 at 5:04 pm

   Jerrywayne acknowledges the only point I feel needs to be made about the evidence for the sasquatch. It is impressive enough to warrant scientific scrutiny. FACT. It is.

   (So good to run into a skeptic who gets it.)

   There are other things he says however that warrant comment (and actually contradict the above, albeit incorrectly and perhaps unintentionally).

   “My suggestion that we move bigfoot sightings from a nature event to a paranormal event, in theory, is not as you characterize it. In fact, I make this suggestion because of the tug of realism, not in the face of it.”

   Not true. You make the suggestion because of what you want to believe. THIS IS NOT ABOUT BELIEF. “The tug of realism” is said another way in science: THE EVIDENCE. The tug of realism in science says, irrefutably and always: Follow the evidence! No matter what you want to believe, the evidence leads to the truth. Follow it, not your beliefs.

   “You have to explain why bigfoot is sighted all over the place, and according to you sighted even more than reported, and yet always remains a fugitive to irrefutable confirmation.”

   No I don’t, no way no how no never. Don’t gotta explain nothin’.

   THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTS THAT PROPOSITION. Follow the evidence!! Talking about “why” it is that way at this point has another name, both in science and in the everyday. It is called “putting the cart before the horse.” Irrefutable confirmation has NOTHING to do with how many sightings there are, or where. It relates only to how scientists dispose themselves toward evidence. There could be 200 million sasquatch, living only in suburbs, and only under the foundations of apartment buildings, and hitching rides to work every day, and if science simply didn’t want to consider the evidence, i.e., behaved exactly as it is behaving: voila! No confirmation! The evidence says that, no matter how impossible that quote sounds to you, it is happening. FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE. (Hey, I’ll be danged! I did explain it! OK, you have to change your mind now. LOL)

   “I think you err too when you talk about the “VOLUME” and “CONSISTANCY” of the evidence giving it substance it wouldn’t have otherwise. Logically, if you add up tons of “inconclusive”, you do not get “conclusive”.

   No. I am right.

   Volume and consistency (frequency and coherence) automatically validate evidence as worthy of scientific scrutiny. AUTOMATICALLY. They tell anyone who understands how science works: it is time to figure out what is generating all this evidence. Because everything else that has ever looked like this has been proven real.

   Of course you are right about adding up tons of inconclusive. So what? That is not the point. The evidence is inconclusive. Conclusive requires field research to obtain the proof, and the evidence says, as strongly as anything short of proof can: GET OUT AND GET THE PROOF ALREADY.

2. jerrywayne responds: February 17th, 2010 at 1:47 pm

   Dang amigo—I thought we shook on it and we were done?

   To clear up this issue a bit. I doubt bigfoot exists. However, I understand I could be wrong. Let’s present the evidence and hope some impartial scientific organization might investigate.

   Now, if such a study is commissioned and undertaken, would you accept its conclusions if it concludes bigfoot does not exist? Or, would you insist science present precise counter-evidence of the type you seem to imagine is required? By that I mean, if such an inquiry concludes sightings are attributable to human error or dishonesty or unduly influenced by preconceived beliefs, would you cry FOUL and DEMAND every sighting instance have tangible counter-evidence to refute it? (Such as, farmer John sees a 7ft tall ape walking on two legs one night. The sighting stands as evidence unless a scientific team has uncovered a video of farmer John actually seeing something else that night?)

   I know this seems like a ridiculous demand on your part—–but you do seem to be making it!

   What if this scientific team decides the Patterson film is too inconclusive to use as evidence? Would you say: NO ITS NOT! IT IS EVIDENCE. YOU GUYS HAVE TO PROVE IT IS NOT A GIANT BIPEDAL APE AND INSTEAD PROVE IT IS A MAN IN AN APE SUIT! SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE!

   In your advocacy, you miss and entirely overlook another type of evidence—-negative evidence. If you say you saw a cat in a bank vault and then closed and locked the door, that is certainly evidence of a cat in the vault. However, if we open the vault that has been closed since your sighting, and find no cat or cat droppings or cat hair, then we can not confidently say that the vault once held a cat.
   Why? Because we have negative evidence—-
   there is no cat in the vault.

   What if we find some old money bags crumpled up in the corner of the vault and we can see how one might mistake them for the shape of a cat? What if we find you had a belief antecedant to your sighting about paranormal cats being seen in vaults all over the land. Could we use this in our understanding of the “sighting” you had?

   According to you——NO! We have EVIDENCE that a cat was in the vault: your sighting! We have no counter-evidence in which to call in question your evidence. An empty vault means nothing to you. An empty vault needs no explanation, according to you.

   Apply this little story to alleged bigfoot sightings everywhere and hard evidence nowhere.

   Come to respect the skeptic: He is your friend!

3. DWA responds: February 18th, 2010 at 11:34 am

   I can’t shake and done when there are still so many targets to shoot at! Sorry. It’s my nature, amigo. But I did try. 😉

   Given that we DO agree that scientific investigation is warranted…

   (pause for impact and isolation of the important fact)

   …we must also agree that it requires an open mind to the evidence, and not a priori decisions that we will use a “mundane” explanation for anything we can’t explain. The skeptic is my friend. HE IS ME. I AM ONE! And I am very skeptical of any toss-off assumption that comes without evidence.

   P/G is not negative evidence. IT IS EVIDENCE. That the scientific mainstream cannot get its arms around that is not my problem. It looks like no other ape suit, ever (and all the others look alike, in their human proportions if in nothing else); no skeptical analysis has ever been done of it (just toss-off assumptions); scientists in relevant fields say it is authentic. IT IS EVIDENCE, and must be admitted, or you bet, as a hard-core skeptic, I will cry foul. You have labeled yourself a scoffer if you don’t give P/G a fair hearing. Period. It is as clear as any subject shot at that distance with that equipment could possibly, ever, be. You don’t have a good reason for not admitting it. (Inconclusive is not a reason; nothing short of proof IS conclusive.)

   Note: negative evidence dries up and blows away in the face of positive evidence. And we have tons of that. That it isn’t proof owes to one thing: science hasn’t said it is. That’s the only criterion of proof, science’s say-so. Don’t let anyone tell you different; you’re not a skeptic if you don’t get this point.

   “Now, if such a study is commissioned and undertaken, would you accept its conclusions if it concludes bigfoot does not exist?”

   Depends. Based on what I’ve seen of science’s track record first, I’d have to see what the study looked like, how many a priori assumptions it made, how much it looked at the evidence, etc. You can bet your bottom dollar that science inspires no confidence in me when it comes to crypto. I would have to see what they did, chapter and verse. Hint: no Hilary Yeti Smear allowed.

   “Or, would you insist science present precise counter-evidence of the type you seem to imagine is required?”

   Seem to imagine? THIS IS WHAT SCIENCE DEMANDS MUST BE DONE! What are those people seeing? DON’T IMAGINE IT; SHOW ME YOUR EVIDENCE!!! (Sorry, amigo, that was for mainstream scientists, not for you….I hope…. 😉 ) What kind of examination do you IMAGINE is taking place if science makes its case without EVIDENCE? How, praytell, could science “conclude sightings are attributable to human error or dishonesty or unduly influenced by preconceived beliefs” without the very kind of evidence that I am asking for?

   It should occur to you right about now that if I am making what sounds like an unreasonable demand, maybe it’s impossible to assemble a skeptical case.

   In which event science demands an impartial field investigation of the evidence.

   Period.

   Whether scientists choose to do what science demands they do is their issue. Not mine. I’m just skeptical, that’s all.

4. DWA responds: February 18th, 2010 at 9:41 pm

   I misstated something – and very, very seriously – in my last post. I say of P/G:

   “…no skeptical analysis has ever been done of it (just toss-off assumptions); …”

   This is, obviously, not true.

   A number of very seriously skeptical analyses – cross-checking every calculation, taking into account any reasonable alternative explanation – have been done.

   BY PROPONENTS. And only by proponents. And each of them, as it should, rates it “highly likely” that that is a sasquatch.

   But as the best of the proponents are unfailingly skeptical – in the true sense of that word – this is only what we should expect.

5. Reality Bytes responds: February 22nd, 2010 at 8:51 pm

   Gavinf, I am more than happy to address your issues.

   Gavin:

   RB: You use the rhino camera as proof Bigfoot should have been found by now. However, the cameras were set up where field teams already found the rhino. Bigfoot camera traps are set up in areas where maybe only one or two sightings have occurred. Not quite the same. There are hundreds of sightings of Bigfoot. But not hundreds a year.

   Gavin, first of all, I think it’s important we have clarity on what constitutes proof. I did not use the cites of the Javan and Sumatran Rhino camera trap projects as proof that Bigfoot should have been found by now. I really hope I only need to say this once. I can not prove that Bigfoot doesn’t exist. The entire concept is unscientific and makes little sense. I can not prove a negative nor is there anything I can offer that would be satisfactory to a community of people that are invested in the belief of Bigfoot. You might as well be a Scientologist taunting me that I can not prove Xenu exists. You might want to counter that there are not hundreds of people claiming to have seen Xenu, but I would ask you before you bother doing that, can you please give me a specific requirement of what would constitute proof for you that Bigfoot doesn’t exist?

   Scientifically, all that we can do is eliminate the negatives, not prove them. You might ask me to explain how all the people who have ever claimed to see Bigfoot are lying, crazy, or mistaken. It isn’t complicated, I absolutely have no problem with the concept that every Bigfoot report ever made is either a fabrication, a misidentification, or some other form of human fallibility. Wishful thinking happens, creating stories for attention and acceptance happens, seeing things that aren’t there doesn’t happen. These are proven and studied facts, Bigfoot is not. I would ask you to explain to me how plausible that every person who claimed to see a Reptoid or Grey alien is lying or crazy. Social constructs happen. These things occur and are the product of human behaviour.

   You had an issue with my cites of the Javan and Sumatran Rhino projects. Let’s use the Javan rhino project in Ujung Kulon National Park. Yes, the Indonesian government knew that there were rhinos in the park. What they did not know was exactly how many were there or any idea where they were. That’s why they and the World Wildlife Fund went in December of 2007 with 30 cameras around the 1,206 km² park in areas they thought the animals might come to. They were then able to obtain footages of nine individuals, including a mother and calf from an estimated population of about 50.

   I think before we continue that we should have a look at the park we are talking about so you can get a sense of the scale of what 1,206 km² of Indonesian deep jungle looks like. Have a look at this Google satellite image.

   The park is that entire peninsula you see there as well as Krakatoa and the surrounding islands. Now let’s flip it over to the previous example I provided with the TBRC’s Operation Forest Vigil. You said “Bigfoot camera traps are set up in areas where maybe only one or two sightings have occurred.” I don’t know what made you pull that random pseudo-factoid out of the air, but it simply is a gross generalization that has no basis in reality. It seems as is often the case, the skeptic is more informed than the Bigfoot enthusiast and indeed, I think you are selling the efforts and commitment of those whom devote themselves to the search for bigfoot far too short.

   One of the TBRC’s main research areas is the Big Thicket National Park in East Texas where the TBRC estimates 80% of Texas Bigfoot sightings occur. Here from the TBRC’s Daryl Coyler.

   In Texas, 80 percent of the sightings in the Lone Star State came from East Texas, Colyer said, where most of the land is densely forested, receives lots of rain and is sparsely populated. Of those interactions, hunters, who as a practice go out of their way to find remote places, report most of the sightings.

   Now compared to 1,206 km² of Indonesian deep jungle, Big Thicket comprises a paltry 97,830 acres or 395.9 km2. The area occupies much of Hardin County, Liberty, Tyler, San Jacinto, and Polk Counties. You can read more about Big Thicket here.

   And check out Craig Woolheater’s Cryptomundo blog about efforts in the Big Thicket here.

   Now compared to your “one or two sightings”, let’s have a look at what the reality is for recorded alleged sightings is in Operation Forest Vigil’s main research area. The TBRC’s own website gives us a total of 35 sightings for the area. The BFRO gives us a total of another 20. See for yourself.

   That’s a a mountain more than your one or two sightings. Looks like you were shooting from the hip on that one, to say the least. Now what we need to do is check out exactly how well the TBRC has outfitted themselves for this comparison. We need to know exactly how many cameras they’ve been employing and for how long. I can tell you exactly that. Here you go.

   Additional camera traps will be added to current arrays as TBRC personnel and interested donors contribute funds or equipment for the operation, and/or as grants are acquired. As of May 2007, the TBRC had approximately 20 digital camera traps deployed; by December 2007, roughly 30 digital camera traps were deployed. The long term goal is to have 100 camera traps in the field and fully operational by 2012.

   Now, being 2010, I don’t know how close the TBRC has gotten towards their goal of 100 camera traps, but I know in 2007 they had at least 30. So let’s see what we have here. 30 camera traps set up in 1,206 km² of Indonesian deep jungle based on what researchers thought was good rhino habitat from December of 2007 yielding shots of nine rhinos within months versus up to 30 cameras in 395.9 km² of flat Texas woods in the Big Thicket running since 2006 – four years later: bupkis. We can have a look here at all the things the TBRC did get on camera, though…

   I think the TBRC is to be commended for their perserverence and commitment to finding Bigfoot, I can only say that their failure to find their quarry after four years of camera traps in an area with so many sightings is disappointing. For me, the reason is simple – there were never any Bigfoots in Texas to begin with. For you, it’s excuses time. It’s that point where you have to unload on me all the excuses about intelligence and infrared this, heightened hearing/vision that. You know, being an intelligent, elusive, and rare ape never stopped Bili apes from being caught on camera traps.

   I guess Bigfoot is so amazingly intelligent that not only can it recognize game cams and comprehend their function, intent, and threat to their elusiveness, that they will outright avoid food and water in their habitats to avoid them. Other times, however, they will become flippant about their stealth and risk pain and death at the hands of humans to go scream at them and toss pine cones their way. LOL

   But there is actually another very telling failure of appearance on camera by Bigfoot. Here is something very interesting that very few proponents of Bigfoot have any knowledge of. When I say Bigfoot, one of the very first images that is going to pop into the mind of believers is the visage of Patty turning towards us on Patterson’s shaky film. Indeed, Northern California should be considered the spiritual homeland of Bigfoot. That is where the modern myth was born. What you don’t know is that since the mid-nineties there has been a vast array of camera traps set up across the forests of Northern California for conservation research. You see, there is this little magnificent creature called the American marten, a member of the mustelid family including otters, minks, weasels, badgers, and wolverines. In NorCal, the martens have slightly larger cousins called fishers. For some reason, whether it be due to changes in the landscape such as logging, or something else, the fishers were thriving while the martens numbers were dwindling. This was important actual wildlife work and so the array of cameras along with track plates were set up across the northern part of the state to observe the martens and other animals.

   But then, in 2008, something totally and completely unexpected happened. No, calm down. It wasn’t Bigfoot. It was a wolverine! A wolverine in the wild of California for the first time in 86 years! Wow! There it was right on video clear as day.

   The animal was recorded in Tahoe National Forest, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Six Rivers National Forest where Patty was filmed. What happened then was everybody went nuts trying to find the animal. And they did. Hair and scat samples were obtained and DNA work was done by ten federal scientists who concluded that the animal, a lone male, had come from a population in Idaho with a 73% confidence level versus less than a 5% chance of being from any other North American population. So what I am on about the wolverine for?

   Tell me this, how could a vast camera array in Northern California detect the first scientifically confirmed wolverine there in 86 years, but they missed the breeding population of 8 ft apes skulking around? They can find one big weasel but they can’t find Bigfoot? Wow.

   You know, if I was really interested in the reality of bigfoot’s existence, I would be thinking carefully about why it doesn’t turn up in exactly the places that it’s supposed to be. I’d start considering not abusing Occam’s Razor and suspecting that rather than super anti-camera ninja techniques, maybe Bigfoot just isn’t there.

   Moving on, Gavin states…

   You seem to accept no eyewitness evidence. That is weak science. Many scientists claim that eyewitness evidence isn’t helpful, but, as in the discovery of 125,000 gorillas in 2006-8, eyewitnesses told the scientists where to look. OOPS! How do scientists, who said for years and years there are only 100,00 gorillas, miss 125,000 more!? Bias, perhaps? Unwillingness to accept eyewitness testimony, perhaps?

   I’m going to help you be a better Bigfoot proponent by showing you how poor of an analogy that was, in the hopes that you will find one better. Here’s a quote from the NPR story on this…

   One of the main reasons the gorillas have been thriving is obvious to anyone who’s ever spent time in the swampy forests that make up what explorers like Richard Ruggiero of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sometimes call the “green abyss.”

   “You go into it, and it’s a world unto itself,” said Ruggiero, who wasn’t involved in the current research but who has studied gorillas and elephants in central Africa for 15 years.

   “These swamp environments are extremely difficult to get along in,” Ruggiero said. “There’s literally no place to pitch a tent and sleep.”

   And since there aren’t any logging operations in the heart of these northern forests, Ruggiero said, roads are all but nonexistent. That, in turn, has led to low levels of poaching or subsistence hunting. Basically, there aren’t many humans here, Ruggiero said.
   

   Let’s see… a vast “green abyss” with no roads, no hunting, and no humans where you can’t even pitch a tent to sleep. Oh yeah, and it’s in the Congo and surrounded by war and strife all around. No, I could never understand how scientists missed that. LOL Not really a fine anaolgy for Bigfoot in America, is it, now? If I find a better analogy you can use, I’ll let you know.

   Gavin states…

   You state that ”Bigfoot with a mid-tarsal break would hardly be able to walk, let alone the wild sprints we hear about.” What? If I’m not mistaken, chimpanzees exhibit a mid-tarsal break, and they can walk. And if an animal developed an adaptation to fit it’s environment, your argument falls apart. And I’m pretty sure that’s what animals do.

   Gavin, I suppose the futility of comparing the foot morphology of a habitual quadruped that would be about approximately 1/8 the weight of a full grown sasquatch that is bipedal kind of went over you head there. Hint – chimps/Bigfoot > locomotor anatomy comparison = fail. But of course, don’t take my word for it. I am no expert on bipedal locomotion and foot anatomy. But before you let a guy, Meldrum, who’s had a case of the Bigfoots since he was a kid, have the final word, maybe I could convince you to hear what Dr. Richard Eisner, D.P.M. has to say about Meldrum’s ideas about mid-tarsal breaks and Bigfoot as well as the way Meldrum has reacted to that criticism (not good). Have a read and listen.

   It seems Meldrum in his desire to rationalize features of Bigfoot prints that could easily be accounted for by hoaxing, has overlooked some anatomical basics for what Bigfoot would need to walk.

   You claim that thousands of bones of other animals have been discovered across America in all sorts of environments. Really? I live in Arkansas, a state with thousands upon thousands of deer. Deer hunting is huge and ultimately necessary in this state. I’ve talked to hunters. I’ve asked about carcasses. They don’t come across them on a regular basis, if ever. And unlike Borneo or the Congo or other places, there are no ‘native’ groups truly living in the deep forests of the Pacific North West. And be honest, you wouldn’t believe them either. Another thing, forests are not like the concrete jungles of the cities. Bodies just don’t remain.

   Oh my goodness. Gavin, could you please take the 30 seconds to google “deer carcass” or “dead bear” or whatever it is you need to do to get rid of that silly idea? If we’re going to debate Bigfoot existence here, you’re going to have to take off the training wheels. Here, I’ll help you. Dead carcass Arkansas.

   

   Here’s a caption… “This carcass was found next to an Entergy power station inside the city limits of Hot Springs, Arkansas, 100 yards from Central Avenue, the main vessel of traffic within the city.” Trust me on this, the Bigfoot believer’s tired old “you never find blah blah blah” that they trot out every three days or so is stinkier than that dead deer. If you need a pile of bears dead in the woods, let me know. I can set you up.

   Finally, Gavin states…

   Finally, if hair samples are found, or perhaps a bone or piece of skin, there is no template or baseline to compare it to. If it comes back ‘unknown primate’, the ‘it has to be an escaped zoo animal’ will be the most that mainstream science will look at. Which explains why the evidence we do have is commonly ignored. And that purposeful ignorance is the saddest part of this whole discussion.

   Gavin, please, please, please, do me a favor and take this interview on Monster Talk with New York University Professor of Anthropology, Prof. Todd Disotell, and pass it around to DWA and any of your Bigfoot believer associates so as not to perpetuate that stinker you just dropped. You can learn all about exactly where we stand with Bigfoot and DNA. Enjoy…

   I look forward to your reviewing the material I supplied you with and any response you may have.

6. DWA responds: February 24th, 2010 at 12:50 pm

   Reality Bytes:

   Before we go on and on about reality, I’d get the name of the Big Thicket National PRESERVE correct. Big diff there. 😉

   Lotta stuff you put up there. I can shoot it down pretty quick, and I won’t need any references.

   OK, training wheels off. I won’t even need to talk about the rhino, or the bear, because the rhino and the wolverine and the bear are, precisely, apples and apples. (And apples.)

   What happened when somebody got a bad photo of a wolverine? I’ll let you tell us:

   “The animal was recorded in Tahoe National Forest, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Six Rivers National Forest where Patty was filmed. What happened then was everybody went nuts trying to find the animal. And they did. Hair and scat samples were obtained and DNA work was done by ten federal scientists who concluded that the animal, a lone male, had come from a population in Idaho with a 73% confidence level versus less than a 5% chance of being from any other North American population. So what I am on about the wolverine for?”

   Boy, I’d like to know, I really would. But I DO. And thanks for the help! “Everybody went nuts.” Wow. EVERYBODY! This is what happens with a BAD photo of a wolverine. A BAD PHOTO. TEN FEDERAL SCIENTISTS! Who believe each other’s statistics! And give each other credit for decent research! Not a bunch of amateurs, the vast bulk of whom spend a significant percentage of their almost-negligible time fighting and discrediting each other, and most of whom aren’t even scientists!

   “Tell me this, how could a vast camera array in Northern California detect the first scientifically confirmed wolverine there in 86 years,…”

   I’ll tell you how. VAST, key word there, VAST camera array. As in money dough buckage and plenty of same, compared to sas researchers who have to use their own money and unpaid time. SCIENTIFICALLY CONFIRMED, key words there, as in SCIENTIFICALLY CONFIRMED species, as in, when a scientist says here’s one, EVERYBODY GOES NUTS!

   “….. but they missed the breeding population of 8 ft apes skulking around? They can find one big weasel but they can’t find Bigfoot? Wow.”

   No. EASY, pal! You didn’t see one of those because THERE ARE NONE. You didn’t see one of those because cows and horses are pretty big, and we know what happens to them when you’re on drugs, right? And by the way THERE ARE NONE

   [can’t talk about the one I saw, it would be my job if I did]

   …oh, and, oh, THERE ARE NONE.

   We get A GOOD MOVIE of one of those animals of which THERE ARE NONE, and what do we get?

   A whole bunch of people who know nothing of what they are talking about who say, THAT’S not a Bigfoot!

   (And yes I’m including scientists; because when they looked at P/G their comments made their ignorance clear.)

   And a few brave and technically-qualified souls, bucking the weight of scientific ignorance, who have a pretty good idea of what that is…whom the ignorant feel comfortable ignoring, because the whole society, basically, is comfortable enough with its ignorance to agree with the vocally ignorant.

   RB, you’ll just need to see a sasquatch one day to understand what I’m talking about I guess.

   And if you have me down for a believer, you don’t pay attention. Which is how EVERYBODY GOES NUTS! over a stupid weasel. And the zoological discovery of the last two centuries will be delayed, if it’s real of course, until everyone but the scientists knows already.

   One thing a solid perusal of the copious evidence for the sasquatch will tell you, in spades: people don’t pay attention, period.

   Actually it’s worse than that: people are very, very determined not to see stuff that they just don’t want to.

   (BTW: Eisner’s counter-analysis of Meldrum’s midtarsal break theory: flawed. And you don’t even need to be a scientist to pick them out. Talk about not seeing what you don’t want to.)

7. DWA responds: February 25th, 2010 at 8:24 am

   Oh, and adding something else: gavinf is absolutely right about sasquatch DNA, and Disotell, the enlightened know well, is just another manifestation of what gavinf is talking about.

   Which, of course, those determined to Grasp Every Straw in their effort to keep science from getting off its duff just take at face value, because it agrees with what they want to think. I mean, look how BUSY RB got up there! Did he really think that was doing something? Does he really think a photo of a dead deer says ANYTHING in a discussion about a giant primate? It wows me, folks. Address THE EVIDENCE FOR THE APE. Is this THAT hard to grasp? (As Disotell shows, science doesn’t. Wotta crock.)

   [sigh] True Believers – in existence or otherwise – just tend to get in the way, don’t they, Gavin…?

8. DWA responds: February 25th, 2010 at 12:25 pm

   And while we’re on belief, the bigfoot skeptics (and the fringe proponents) really need to read this, because Doyle has them down:

   

   While I might quibble a bit about “all the evidence” (seems to me that that’s called “proof,” one way or the other), he’s got it nailed as it needs to be.

   This isn’t about

   1) belief;

   2) whoring yourself to Institutional Skepticism, harrumph, Todd;

   3) calling for people’s tenure when you don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about;

   4) attempting to explain something for which science doesn’t even look at the evidence in terms of things for which science automatically accepts the evidence, RB (that was a lot of WORK you went to for nothing up there, I mean like, Gavin and I KNEW ALL THAT, man!);

   5) deciding before you even look what you want the evidence to say, rather than looking at the evidence, then deciding what the evidence should say to you (actually, RB, you may qualify under this one too! A twofer, man! Excited for you!);

   6) not reading up on your topic before bloviating, because you know that ignorant people will look at the letters behind your name before they ask what you know about the topic.

   All the negative takes I’ve seen on the sasquatch can be lumped under one of the above. ALL of them. Sorry, that’s a fact. If you are feeling peeved at this, maybe that is a signal that you need to raise your game and live up to science.

   (Hint: THERE IS NO PROOF. We know that! STOP REPEATING IT OVER AND OVER. The only difference between evidence and proof is SCIENCE’S SAY-SO, which can’t happen until science has reviewed the evidence. We’d like you to use some of that time you have been wasting so far perusing the evidence, and telling us what you think of it.)

9. DWA responds: February 26th, 2010 at 3:26 pm

   Oh, and I’ve got to add, because I think I missed it: I agree with gavinf on the gorilla too. (And apples.)

   Gavinf says this, just reminding everybody:

   “You seem to accept no eyewitness evidence. That is weak science. Many scientists claim that eyewitness evidence isn’t helpful, but, as in the discovery of 125,000 gorillas in 2006-8, eyewitnesses told the scientists where to look. OOPS! How do scientists, who said for years and years there are only 100,00 gorillas, miss 125,000 more!? Bias, perhaps? Unwillingness to accept eyewitness testimony, perhaps?”

   I’d say so! Wouldn’t you guys? Sure you would. But RB alleges Green Hell, totally impenetrable to scientists.

   Any minute now, I know somebody is going to tell me how someone, anyone, anyone AT ALL could possibly have gotten into that green hell with no trails no roads no place to sleep and, my God, no breathable atmosphere, surrounded by 24-hour total war, TO CONFIRM, TO COUNT FERPETESAKE, ONE HUNDRED, THAT IS ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND GORILLAS IF THAT AREA IS TOTALLY INACCESSIBLE.

   And let’s say nobody had gone in there. The place is on maps, isn’t it? Don’t you think they could have just looked at a map and said: Heeeeeeeeyyyyyy, our population counts don’t include THIS HUGE AREA THAT IF WE DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT’S IN THERE, MIGHT NOT A LOT OF GORILLAS BE IN THERE?

   Right! (I love it when you folks are paying attention. Good answer!)

   So this just illustrates one more time those nagging issues that “bigfoot skeptics” have.

   1. They’re NOT skeptics. They’re ready to swallow anything that fits the puzzle they want to see.

   2. They can’t figure out that you can’t use any info about scientifically confirmed species to compare to the situation for something science simply refuses to acknowledge no matter what.

   3. They continually confuse evidence and proof. Despite copious evidence, which gavinf and I note well, scientists missed 125% of the acknowledged population of gorillas. There wasn’t proof they were there, but there was tons of evidence that, well, we might be missing some gorillas here.

   4. And if they don’t buy that, they need to deal with their unflagging faith in the infallibility of science.

   5. They get their scales mixed up. This is a restricted geographical area with a dense population of animals. The sasquatch is a much thinner animal on the ground – with a lot more ground to cover. Further camouflage is scientists’ inability to believe the animals could be there. (Total camouflage = no one looking for you.)

   If scientists can miss those gorillas, fact is, missing the sasquatch is a piece of cake for them. As they are showing. 😉

10. DWA responds: February 26th, 2010 at 3:28 pm

    Oh, and I forgot to add one other gorilla thing.

    Ruggiero’s Green Abyss comments (which RB swallowed whole) are a most classic case of mainstream science covering its ignorant butt.

11. Reality Bytes responds: February 26th, 2010 at 8:12 pm

    DWA, I find it entertaining how increasingly incoherent you become when faced with reality, though it is quite difficult to discern any meaningful arguments from your shrill ranting.

    1) Bad wolverine photo? LOL. Somebody needs a trip to Lenscrafters. Try completely unambiguous quality video from a distance of about 8 feet in broad daylight against a white background. I don’t know what you were looking at but it wasn’t the great big video I put in front of your face.

    2) The game camera and track plates set up all over Northern California have recorded every known mammal of marten size and larger living there. No Bigfoots. Can’t handle it, can you?

    3) I’ve been looking at Bigfoot claims for 25 years. Not once have a I ever seen any reliable evidence. Feel free to present some. You keep prattling on about it in your comments and yet you never present any. What’s with that?

    4) Eisner’s critique of the basic anatomical failure of Meldrum’s midtarsal break theory is flawed? That’s interesting how you just toss that out there like people or just going to take your word for it. I presented readers the information to review themselves and the best you have in your arsenal is “it’s flawed.” LOL. Why do you guys always do that kind of thing? DWA, not only are the training wheels on, you’re sitting on the bike backwards with the helmet pulled down over your eyes.

    5) Same thing with Disotell. You said, “Address THE EVIDENCE FOR THE APE. Is this THAT hard to grasp? (As Disotell shows, science doesn’t. Wotta crock.)” LOL. DWA didn’t even check the Monster Talk interview with Disotell. Todd is devoting his own time and lab’s resources to examining alleged evidence for the ape all the time. DWA didn’t address a single sentence Disotell said. The irony, it burns.

    6) You utterly failed to comprehend the futility of comparing a large population of gorillas that flourished in a dense mass of Congo jungle cut off from roads, logging, hunters, human activity in general to Bigfoot. Please feel free to demonstrate the relevance to claims of a massive upright ape living across two of the world’s most industrialized nations from Alaska to Nova Scotia to Arizon to Florida often in human inhabited areas.

    7) “(Total camouflage = no one looking for you.)” LOL! Oops, I fell down. *wipes tears from eyes* DWA, you are hilarious. Nobody looking for them… Yeah, tell that to Craig Woolheater and the TBRC breaking their butts looking for them. Tell that to Mr. Money at the BFRO and his multi-millionaire backer, Wally Hersom. Tell that to the people of their 28 expeditions last year and the up to 100 expeditions they have planned for this year.

    Nobody looking for them… Who is this guy? Can somebody get Gavin or Photoexpert back in here? ‘Cause I’m bee-boppin’ and scattin’ all over this DWA character. 😉

12. DWA responds: February 27th, 2010 at 12:57 am

    RB: we’re gonna cut you some slack. Posts like this sort of reveal the young, naive and ready to swallow anything.

    I’m just gonna number your paragraphs and respond.

    1) Compared to P/G: bad. BAD. You guys who don’t look at evidence are never gonna understand that it’s easy to see what Patty is. Show me a suit like it. Ever, anywhere.

    2) Answered that one. You can go back over it and read it. (They throw the bigfoot hairs out. As to track plates: what tracks? I didn’t see any tracks.)

    3) What would you call reliable evidence? PLEASE don’t answer that question; just read my posts first so you’ll know why you’re wrong. (CONSTANT failure to understand evidence, proof, or what science – and they themselves = consistently does to evidence that doesn’t comport with what they want to think. Am I right, people?) No evidence reveals your, um, need to read up like this paragraph.

    4) No. It’s interesting that Eisner (and lots of other armchair experts like him) does that, not me. Summing him up, real neatly; he has no idea who he’s talking to. He’s a VW mechanic, calling Meldrum, who by comparison has designed top-selling cars for a dozen companies, a LAYMAN of all things. He’s on Meldrum’s ground; and he can’t understand how a compliant gait (NOT characteristic of humans, ya loon) and a midtarsal break AND a human-like foot can combine to be VERY biomechanically efficient for an animal traversing steep backcountry slopes. Shoot, that was EASY for me to grasp. So who’s the expert? I’m taking an architect over a hardhat, and a design guru over a single-species foot fixer, every time. People who don’t know enough to follow common sense? They won’t. (Meldrum has found subfossil evidence of midtarsal break in a hominoid with, wait for it, a humanlike foot. Now watch RB come back and assert he’s smarter than Meldrum. These guys make me laugh.) I’ll leave out the people who report seeing Meldrum’s foot in operation, firsthand – having no idea of Meldrum’s research at all.

    5) Disotell devoting his own resources to it? You have got to be kidding me. And you don’t know SKEPTIC Magazine? Institutional skepticism – at least on this topic – walks around with its hands over its eyes and its fingers in its ears. Where’s Disotell’s book? Let me have that and I’ll reduce it to TP. No, it is NOT worth the effort for me to look for it or pay for it. SKEPTIC Magazine. He brings Parakeet Liner on here. SHEESH. Hint to the young fearless and naive: anything with Ben Radford’s name attached to it – “panel,” sheesh, stop killing me here – put down and walk away, slowly. He’s the Scoftical Patron Saint.

    6) Shows an absolute inability to comprehend what I wrote. Ok, copy and paste. Just in case.

    “I’d say so! Wouldn’t you guys? Sure you would. But RB alleges Green Hell, totally impenetrable to scientists.

    “Any minute now, I know somebody is going to tell me how someone, anyone, anyone AT ALL could possibly have gotten into that green hell with no trails no roads no place to sleep and, my God, no breathable atmosphere, surrounded by 24-hour total war, TO CONFIRM, TO COUNT FERPETESAKE, ONE HUNDRED, THAT IS ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND GORILLAS IF THAT AREA IS TOTALLY INACCESSIBLE.

    [Hint: cut off from general human activity probably means there are 400,000 gorillas in there. That it? Sheesh, they COUNTED them, the area is so absolutely inaccessible.]

    “And let’s say nobody had gone in there. The place is on maps, isn’t it? Don’t you think they could have just looked at a map and said: Heeeeeeeeyyyyyy, our population counts don’t include THIS HUGE AREA THAT IF WE DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT’S IN THERE, MIGHT NOT A LOT OF GORILLAS BE IN THERE?”

    [Right. Scientists don’t look at maps. Gotcha. Eunice? I think we’ve isolated the problem!]

    “They get their scales mixed up. This (that would be where all these gorillas are, Dr. Fever) is a restricted geographical area with a dense population of animals. The sasquatch is a much thinner animal on the ground – with a lot more ground to cover.”

    [Watch. He’ll show again that if he read it, he don’t get it.]

    7) No, YOU are hilarious. Have you seen how often TBRC updates their website? Oh yeah, they are on this all the time. Shoot, I have ten things I spend more time on than they do bigfoot research. Their real jobs have nothing to do with science, but for a few exceptions; and for them, sas ain’t paying no bills. NO ONE LOOKING FOR YOU. Can you read?

    OK, folks, did I tell you they repeat themselves, over and over? Watch, he’ll do it again.

13. DWA responds: February 27th, 2010 at 1:15 am

    But I do have one specific question for RB, who writes in his tear-stained letter:

    “3) I’ve been looking at Bigfoot claims for 25 years. Not once have a I ever seen any reliable evidence. Feel free to present some. You keep prattling on about it in your comments and yet you never present any. What’s with that?”

    Dunno, RB. The same thing that’s with you, must be. 25 years. Twenty-five years. TWENTY-FIVE.

    OK, I have shown, repeatedly, on this site that if you know (Schaller) what I (Bindernagel) know (Swindler), you (Meldrum) th(Mionczynski)ink what I (Goodall) think (Chilcutt)(Krantz).

    And you GOT NUTTIN’.

    TWENTY-FIVE YEARS!

    Either you are not reading it; you are drooling on it; [hmmmm, both…?] or you…gosh, what ELSE are you doing to it?

    (Hint: the National – and Skeptical – I(E)nquirers don’t count.)

    (Hint 2: 4) above. Eisner presents NO EVIDENCE FOR WHAT HE THINKS other than his opinion (which he clearly states as such) and the old chestnut about how P/G can’t be analyzed. Evidence: kinda, ya know, required in a scientific debate. Find somebody with longer horizons, if you really want to make a point. Other than how quickly you swallow stuff.)

    Watch him come back and tell us he’s smarter than all those guys. That’s their favorite one. Then you ask for evidence for THEIR claims and you’re being UNFAIR. Lightweights.

    (Watch him come back with how the proponents need to provide the evidence. Which they HAVE. Did I include “boneheaded refusal to understand how this stuff works”?)

14. DWA responds: February 27th, 2010 at 1:21 am

    Shoot. one more thing. About RB’s number 7).

    He clearly doesn’t pay any attention to what’s on the websites. And that’s the return on pitifully part-time work. Almost every BFRO or TBRC outing I’ve read about has encountered stuff that would be pretty hard to attribute to known species – but not so hard to attribute to the animal people are seeing. Then the three days are up, and everyone has to go back to work.

    Does it require any kind of mental stretch to ask what a full-time outfit might bring back?

    For some people, way too much of one, I guess.

15. DWA responds: February 27th, 2010 at 1:40 am

    I’m sorry. RB puts up this HYOOOGE BARREL and there are SO MANY FISH IN IT!

    “6) You utterly failed to comprehend the futility of comparing a large population of gorillas that flourished in a dense mass of Congo jungle cut off from roads, logging, hunters, human activity in general to Bigfoot. Please feel free to demonstrate the relevance to claims of a massive upright ape living across two of the world’s most industrialized nations from Alaska to Nova Scotia to Arizon to Florida often in human inhabited areas.”

    HAHAHAHAHAHA! *I” didn’t fail to do the comprehension, dude; YOU DID! You’re the one who went to all that trouble to point out all this stuff that is totally irrelevant to the discussion, not me! Wasn’t I the one who told you to stick to the ape WE ARE TALKING ABOUT? Follow my advice next time, Hansel! As Dr. DWA points out, in his inimitable fashion, but of course RB ain’t reading…..AGAIN:

    “2. They can’t figure out that you can’t use any info about scientifically confirmed species to compare to the situation for something science simply refuses to acknowledge no matter what.

    “3. They continually confuse evidence and proof. Despite copious evidence, which gavinf and I note well, scientists missed 125% of the acknowledged population of gorillas. There wasn’t proof they were there, but there was tons of evidence that, well, we might be missing some gorillas here.”

    So, class, what RB went to all that length to help me with – and provides even MORE help in the above passage – are the following:

    1) He’s right. Comparing sas and gorillas is ridiculous (so why did HE do it??? One can guess, can’t one? Hint: RIDICULOUS. 😉 ) Gavinf used that gorilla info in the RIGHT way, to show that….

    ….2) Scientists can on occasion display in spades the sort of raging incompetence – OK, we’ll just call it the sort of whoops, forgot to look at a map here! – that would make missing a few thousand apes on a continental land mass many times the size of that isolated-and-smaller-by-the-day Congo jungle, well, quite the plausibility, wot?

16. DWA responds: February 27th, 2010 at 5:22 pm

    OK, it occurs to me that Reality Bytes is probably:

    1) doing more research into more known species to do precisely the comparison I told him was futile…before HE SAID THE SAME THING, thinking that was HIS point;

    2) coming up with more brickbats and assertions that he’s smarter than any scientist I’ve listed (*my* 15-year-old thinks so, too);

    3) wasting time he could spend talking about the evidence. If he ever read it.

    So in an effort to save him time, I just want to tell him it’s time to move on.

    Every Institutional Skeptic I talk to does the same things, over and over. And it’s kind of sad, actually. Here’s RB’s entire point. First his quote, then my translation:

    ” I’ve been looking at Bigfoot claims for 25 years. Not once have a I ever seen any reliable evidence. Feel free to present some. You keep prattling on about it in your comments and yet you never present any. What’s with that?”

    translation:

    “I am looking for PROOF. I just don’t know the difference between evidence and proof. I don’t understand that you can’t give me proof because science – having not reviewed the evidence – hasn’t proven it yet, and they are the ones RESPONSIBLE for proof in our society. (sub-translation: no matter the phenomenon, it IS NOT PROVEN UNTIL MAINSTREAM SCIENCE SAYS SO.) I know you say there is no proof, but I don’t know what that means. I know you say that the evidence demands followup to a conclusion, but since I am a true believer in what makes me comfortable, I’m not comfortable with that, so I just let it go in one ear and out the other. So I keep asking you for proof, just like the other guys and gals like me you have tried to educate, and continue to fail to understand that if it were proven – if science had just looked at the evidence and followed it up – we wouldn’t even be talking about this here because the sasquatch wouldn’t be a cryptid.”

    Does anybody else wonder, with me, what is behind the extreme lack of CURIOSITY among these folks? What motivates all that spinning of wheels up there? What motivates all the denial that there’s anything for science to look at? What motivates the smugness? What motivates, well, the ignorance of how science works, and the extreme lack of desire to learn about that? WHAT IS BEHIND THE EXTREME, STULTIFYING, AND INSISTENT CHAMPIONING OF THE MUNDANE?

    This isn’t about hope, faith, desperation or anything like that. It’s about evidence. Who wouldn’t want to know about this? Who wouldn’t want to see the evidence followed up and ignorance lifted? Who in his right mind would want to DISCOURAGE scientific inquiry by wholeheartedly joining the Donkey Chorus?

    Somebody believes in something here all right. Isn’t it kind of sad? Isn’t enlightened, informed, true skepticism more FUN? (Nod.)

    I am more than happy to let my posts stand. Because they’ve answered RB many times over. Just read ’em, pal. And have some coffee somewhere in there, you need a wake-up call, and read a book or two on the topic, ferpetesake.

    Wow. Onward. More scoftical fish to fry. But done here.

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