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"There is no Bigfoot," said University of Iowa anthropologist Russell Ciochon.
This guy went to college, so he must be correct -- "There is no Bigfoot".
why are there Dwarfs in RPGs?
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No Bigfoot?! Both Eddie Murphy and Six Million Dollar Man reruns lied to me!
Dwarfs are in RPGs because the awesomeness of Peter Dinklage send shockwaves backward through time that imprinted the idea on Gygax's and Arenson's brains.
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"There is no Bigfoot"
And this is news, somehow?
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Yes. There is a lot of evidence, in particular a number of hoots and howls that have been recorded from the deeper forests of North America that have yet to be identified. Cryptozoology is alive and well.
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Something is making strange noises in the woods.
Therefore bigfoot, and not a new species of something more easily concealable, like a frog or subspecies of owl.
And sorry about the odd howls, i'm working with a vocal coach to fix it!
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No there is not a lot of evidence. Hoots and howls recorded in the forest that at best result in an inconclusive identification is not really evidence of anything. The breeding population required to support a giant ape like mammal in North America would result in stronger evidence - like a corpse. Not to mention the long history of fraudulent claims that have to do with Bigfoot.
I have always gone by the belief that proof does not determine someone /something exists. I believe god exists, even if there is no proof, just like I believe in bigfoot, aliens, and nessie.
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I have always gone by the belief that proof does not determine someone /something exists. I believe god exists, even if there is no proof, just like I believe in bigfoot, aliens, and nessie.
That is fine with me. What makes me angry is when people try to elevate purely belief based positions with science based positions in terms of ideas with supporting evidence.
I only believe in things with tangible evidence to support that belief. I am open to accepting new and reviewing old evidence in order to change my position. I am open minded but I am not gullible.
No there is not a lot of evidence. Hoots and howls recorded in the forest that at best result in an inconclusive identification is not really evidence of anything. The breeding population required to support a giant ape like mammal in North America would result in stronger evidence - like a corpse. Not to mention the long history of fraudulent claims that have to do with Bigfoot.
Pretty much this.
Now, it's true that the lack a skeleton or a corpse we can put on display doesn't necessarily mean that the creature does or does not exist. Case in point: the North American Grizzly Bear. For a long time, not a lot of scholars believed that grizzly bears existed, despite numerous eye-witness accounts (and mauling survivor's tales), and even having the pelts of the bloody things brought to them, because they didn't have a skeleton to study. Now, we all know that grizzlies exist. Many of us have seen them in zoos. But bears are very private creatures and frequently go off to deep dark caves to die, so running across the skeleton of a bear that died naturally is a pretty rare thing. Still, until a corpse was brought out, if you'd told a New England resident "Out west, they have bears that stand seven feet tall and weigh nearly eight hundred pounds!" they'd have laughed you out of the room. Why? Because no one could produce a skeleton.
However! (and there is always a however!) Even though there are legends and myths and folklore about Sasquatch and the Skunk Ape and the Hairy Man Of The Mountain going back a ways in time, and even though we don't have a skeleton, that doesn't mean that Bigfoot does exist, either. When reduced to their simplest components, unknown phenomena usually have a very well known basis that can be determined.
For example, the Skunk Ape. I'm more inclined to believe that the Skunk Ape is actually a reference to a European from the perspective of a Seminole than it is a cryptid. Consider - a big, hairy, smelly creature that walks on two legs and makes awful sounds with its mouth - is easily seen as a derogatory description of a European made by a Seminole tribesman that quickly spread through the lore after first contact in the 15th and 16th centuries. Why? Because to the Seminole, Europeans WERE big, hairy, smelly creatures that made awful sounds with their mouths. Europeans were taller. They stank. They spoke several different languages, usually all in the same crew.
I watched a grizzly bear walk not a hundred feet from my camp, atop a rise. When it stood up, it looked just like a man. But it was still a bear (and I'm damned lucky it wasn't hungry). I've seen strange lights in the sky, and aircraft that I couldn't identify flying slowly over the California desert at night. That doesn't make them alien spacecraft. It makes them experimental dirigibles and the stealth bomber during an early classified flight. I believe there is life on other planets (the universe is too awesome for there not to be), but that doesn't mean they're HERE.
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I thought it was determined that he did exist, but was perpetually blurry.
Yeti, Ohio Grassman, Chinese Wildman, nearly every culture I can think of has an apeman legend.
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Yeti, Ohio Grassman, Chinese Wildman, nearly every culture I can think of has an apeman legend.
there's a few explanations
1) People generally have low opinions of neighboring tribes
2) Tall tales get taller in the telling. Og fights Grolm (a hirsute 5'8'' caveman with red hair) and when he tells the story Grolm is 6 feet tall and covered in fur. When he tells his grandkids the story Grolm is 6 foot 6. When his grandkids tell their kids the story he's 9 feet tall and his hair is made out of fire.
3) We whipped out other hominids not that long ago: a short enough time for their presence to have a reflection in our oral history. There was a recent comparison between an island that flooded at a known date 20,000? years ago and the history of tribe that survived it. It was fairly accurate.
Yeti, Ohio Grassman, Chinese Wildman, nearly every culture I can think of has an apeman legend.
Nearly every culture also has legends of dragons and little people. That isn't an argument for their existence, but for the psychology of the human mind.
Apparently, it's also an argument to pay a guy a lot of money to fly around the world and fumble around uselessly in the dark looking for monsters.
when did I say I was arguing for existence? all I did was make a statement that there were legends everywhere. I never said that it was an argument if proof. Don't put words in my mouth. I believe in bigfoot, noone else here seems too. I never tried to make you believe, quit trying to make me not believe.
Woah, touchy...
Yeah, a little. Sorry. Saw a bigfoot thread and bigfoot makes me happy, so I thought I'd read it. been in a perpetual crappy mood the past few weeks. Seeing no other believers was kinda a last straw.
Sorry.
Yeah, a little. Sorry. Saw a bigfoot thread and bigfoot makes me happy, so I thought I'd read it. been in a perpetual crappy mood the past few weeks. Seeing no other believers was kinda a last straw.
Sorry.
This might cheer you up a bit:
Personally I think the man from Iowa is right. If Bigfoot existed, we'd have solid proof by now. A creature that large can't simply remain hidden from a species as nosy as numerous, and as widespread as we are.
But we do find new species all of the time. I'm not saying that there is a Bigfoot but there are some extremely remote areas of even the USA not to mention the rest of the world that very, very few humans ever get into. To cite that a human-sized creature can't hide in the remote areas of the world just doesn't ring true for me.
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New species are discovered all the time, but generally they tend to be related to already documented species native the the region. On the other hand, no evidence of *any* ape species, aside from Homo sapiens sapiens, has ever been found in the new world, to my knowledge. By comparison, we have a great deal of fossil evidence for species that are now entirely extinct, and we have human remains dating back to periods when there were likely very few members of our species in North and South America.
Based on the data we do have, it therefore seems that even if bigfeet were a relatively recent introduction to the Americas (as humans are), and have never existed in very large numbers, we would still expect to have found some evidence of them by now. Obviously it's still possible that new data could emerge to prove us wrong, but one could definitely build a strong argument that bigfoot does not exist.
Not that you really have to; people who say that bigfoot doesn't exist aren't really making a statement they have to justify. The burden of proof falls squarely on the people claiming that such a creature does exist.
Yes, I was also not trying to say that there was a definitive 'bigfoot', but there are some type of large animals in some wooded areas that make hooting, howling sounds that have as of yet not been identified when compared with known animal sounds.
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Understood; I don't actually know much about the sounds you're talking about, so I can't really comment. When it comes to mysterious sounds, however, I'd be much more interested in finding out what was responsible for the Bloop. ;)
Understood; I don't actually know much about the sounds you're talking about, so I can't really comment. When it comes to mysterious sounds, however, I'd be much more interested in finding out what was responsible for the Bloop. ;)
Mermaids :)
It was on TV so it had to be true.
Russell Ciochon was responding to Jeffrey Meldrum who is a fellow anthropologist and a believer. He is working under the assumption that if gigantopithicus existed in Asia at one point it made sense that it could also exist in the US.
But more to the point LOL
The burden of proof falls squarely on the people claiming that such a creature does exist.
While I will agree with this statement, I feel that it should not be dismissed without serious study.
I am a skeptic (not a scoff-tic). The Patterson-Gimlin film has been studied numerous times and has yet to be completely debunked. That does not mean it is not a fake, just that has yet to be proven one.
One of the more interesting studies is located here: Munns Report
Personally, I think most of the stories are based on prehistoric encounters that have carried over into to legend. Some more recent sightings may also be the result of misidentifying Native American shamanistic practices in some areas (a period of surviving in the wild without any man-made item).
On a somewhat related note, what do any of you think of the Orang Pendek (or hobbit)? The locals have numerous tales regarding them, there are still reported sightings, and possible skeletal remains have been found.
I am a skeptic (not a scoff-tic). The Patterson-Gimlin film has been studied numerous times and has yet to be completely debunked.
And in what way shape or form is that evidence for bigfoot? I mean if you're going to set a standard to be debunked at complete epistemic nihlism then what does that standard mean?
Its not proof, just inconclusive as a fake, so therefore compelling. One of those things that puts points in believers favor since it still could be real.
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Understood; I don't actually know much about the sounds you're talking about, so I can't really comment. When it comes to mysterious sounds, however, I'd be much more interested in finding out what was responsible for the Bloop. ;)
They traced the Bloop to R'lyeh.
Seriously.
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Understood; I don't actually know much about the sounds you're talking about, so I can't really comment. When it comes to mysterious sounds, however, I'd be much more interested in finding out what was responsible for the Bloop. ;)They traced the Bloop to R'lyeh.
Seriously.
So...
Uh...
A while back I got curious about the overall relative locations of these sorts of things.
I made This Map.
Don't judge me!
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I am a skeptic (not a scoff-tic). The Patterson-Gimlin film has been studied numerous times and has yet to be completely debunked. That does not mean it is not a fake, just that has yet to be proven one.
Bob Heironimus, who had ties with Patterson-Gimlin, said that the video shows him in a suit. It looks fake. His gait matches well with the image in the video. Eyewitnesses say they saw the suit in his vehicle. He has passed two independent lie detector tests. If the only way to "completely debunk" the video is to produce the suit or to get Patterson and Gimlin to confess, it is possible that it will never be "completely debunked" regardless of the status of its validity. Thankfully we can disregard the idea of "completely debunked" if it is "debunked enough" that we feel reasonably confident.
/QUOTE]On a somewhat related note, what do any of you think of the Orang Pendek (or hobbit)? The locals have numerous tales regarding them, there are still reported sightings, and possible skeletal remains have been found.
In this case, there is tangible evidence of another possible hominin species. Where Bigfoot and "related" hominids (hominoids?) are concerned, show me the money. Where's the beef? Put your tangible evidence where your mouth is. Etc.
I'd like to think there might actually be such a creature, but I truly don't believe there is, at least not until the parade it around the media and Jerry Falwell decries it as God's punishment for all those liberal tree huggers living out there.
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"There is no University of Iowa" said Bigfoot. Now that would be real news.
I am a skeptic (not a scoff-tic). The Patterson-Gimlin film has been studied numerous times and has yet to be completely debunked.And in what way shape or form is that evidence for bigfoot? I mean if you're going to set a standard to be debunked at complete epistemic nihlism then what does that standard mean?
I was simply stating that one piece of evidence that gets held up has not been debunked. That one piece of evidence is not proof. The quality is too poor to stand on its own. Proof has yet to come, but at the same time no serious study has been performed to look for such proof.
Did anyone besides crazy people believe there was?
You never even entertained the notion as a child? I think as children we all want to believe in things like Bigfoot.
That doesn't mean we were crazy.
Bob Heironimus, who had ties with Patterson-Gimlin, said that the video shows him in a suit. It looks fake. His gait matches well with the image in the video. Eyewitnesses say they saw the suit in his vehicle. He has passed two independent lie detector tests. If the only way to "completely debunk" the video is to produce the suit or to get Patterson and Gimlin to confess, it is possible that it will never be "completely debunked" regardless of the status of its validity. Thankfully we can disregard the idea of "completely debunked" if it is "debunked enough" that we feel reasonably confident.
There is a reason lie detector test are not allow in court anymore, a truthful result does not guarantee the truth. That said, he is the leading candidate if it is a hoax. There are some issues with his description of the suit, but that does not rule out his story.
Despite this, serious study by costume experts, digital film enhancement, and experts in the field of body mechanics have yet to rule the film out.
This is what I find fascinating. Bigfoot has yet to be really studied in a scientific manner, but the film has on a number of occasions. The link I posted in a previous post is a good example. Scientifically, has not been debunked and so keeps being held up. It is not proof, though. I think it supports a more scientific study in the whole phenomena.
Edited.
No there is not a lot of evidence. Hoots and howls recorded in the forest that at best result in an inconclusive identification is not really evidence of anything. The breeding population required to support a giant ape like mammal in North America would result in stronger evidence - like a corpse. Not to mention the long history of fraudulent claims that have to do with Bigfoot.Pretty much this...
...For example, the Skunk Ape. I'm more inclined to believe that the Skunk Ape is actually a reference to a European from the perspective of a Seminole than it is a cryptid. Consider - a big, hairy, smelly creature that walks on two legs and makes awful sounds with its mouth - is easily seen as a derogatory description of a European made by a Seminole tribesman that quickly spread through the lore after first contact in the 15th and 16th centuries. Why? Because to the Seminole, Europeans WERE big, hairy, smelly creatures that made awful sounds with their mouths. Europeans were taller. They stank. They spoke several different languages, usually all in the same crew.
The Seminole believed the Skunk Ape (a name they could not have called it since they would not have known what an ape was) favored them, and hated Europeans.
They would tell Europeans that it was more inclined to attack them, than native peoples. That would imply that whatever they thought it was, and whether or not it even existed, the Skunk Ape was a separate entity in the minds of the Seminole, Cherokee, and other peoples in the region, from the Europeans.
This simple historical fact would seem to bring us back to the thing being more an entity of myth and imagination, than based on any actual hominin, including humans.
im of the thought that bigfoot and most of his brethern were northern cold apes of somekind..odds are that they died out years ago..maybe towards the founding of this country..native american cultures remembered them from tribal stories..same can be applyed to most of the sighting around the world, example the yeti..all myths tend to hold some kind of kernal for truth..sometimes its not the truth we are looking for..but still truth
The Seminole believed the Skunk Ape (a name they could not have called it since they would not have known what an ape was) favored them, and hated Europeans.
They would tell Europeans that it was more inclined to attack them, than native peoples. That would imply that whatever they thought it was, and whether or not it even existed, the Skunk Ape was a separate entity in the minds of the Seminole, Cherokee, and other peoples in the region, from the Europeans.
This simple historical fact would seem to bring us back to the thing being more an entity of myth and imagination, than based on any actual hominin, including humans.
I was unaware of that! Which makes me rather sad, considering how much I've studied the lore and myths of the area, all things considered. Now you've got me all worked up to go read some more about it. (Thank you!)
It does tie back to what I said, though - when you look into where the myths come from, they'll usually have some sort of cultural/historical basis in myth and legend, rather than in any sort of big hairy beast.
The Seminole believed the Skunk Ape (a name they could not have called it since they would not have known what an ape was) favored them, and hated Europeans.
They would tell Europeans that it was more inclined to attack them, than native peoples. That would imply that whatever they thought it was, and whether or not it even existed, the Skunk Ape was a separate entity in the minds of the Seminole, Cherokee, and other peoples in the region, from the Europeans.
This simple historical fact would seem to bring us back to the thing being more an entity of myth and imagination, than based on any actual hominin, including humans.
I was unaware of that! Which makes me rather sad, considering how much I've studied the lore and myths of the area, all things considered. Now you've got me all worked up to go read some more about it. (Thank you!)
It does tie back to what I said, though - when you look into where the myths come from, they'll usually have some sort of cultural/historical basis in myth and legend, rather than in any sort of big hairy beast.
Oh, I agree with that. Something happens to set people's imaginations off. Now, that could be something as simple as a misidentification that grew in the telling, until a myth was created from it. Or it could be a story, like a fable, that was repeated for so long it became "historical" in the minds of the tellers.
Or, it could be some collective psychology. Something inherent in our brains, that comes out in our culture, and creates these myths.
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Bob Heironimus, who had ties with Patterson-Gimlin, said that the video shows him in a suit. It looks fake. His gait matches well with the image in the video. Eyewitnesses say they saw the suit in his vehicle. He has passed two independent lie detector tests. If the only way to "completely debunk" the video is to produce the suit or to get Patterson and Gimlin to confess, it is possible that it will never be "completely debunked" regardless of the status of its validity. Thankfully we can disregard the idea of "completely debunked" if it is "debunked enough" that we feel reasonably confident.There is a reason lie detector test are not allow in court anymore, a truthful result does not guarantee the truth. That said, he is the leading candidate if it is a hoax. There are some issues with his description of the suit, but that does not rule out his story.
Despite this, serious study by costume experts, digital film enhancement, and experts in the field of body mechanics have yet to rule the film out.
This is what I find fascinating. Bigfoot has yet to be really studied in a scientific manner, but the film has on a number of occasions. The link I posted in a previous post is a good example. Scientifically, has not been debunked and so keeps being held up. It is not proof, though. I think it supports a more scientific study in the whole phenomena.
Edited.
Whenever I see "experts" study the film (like in the link you posted) it often turns out that the so-called expert is also a Bigfoot enthusiast. The claims they typically make is that an average shaped human could not be in a suit and move like the "Bigfoot" in the film. However, what does average even mean? They typically do not say that it is impossible. A true scientific study will not be done because it looks fake, there hasn't been any other convincing evidence associated with the animal, it doesn't fit with any evolutionary models for hominids, and scientific studies cost money and that money is better allocated elsewhere.
The burden of proof is on accepting it as reality. Humans encroach EVERYWHERE, it is simply impossible for such a creature or the very least a cadaver not to be in our hands now if it was real.
Actually it is quite possible. Planes have crashed in the Pacific Northwest that have never been located and new animal species are discovered all of the time around the world. Simply put, there are a lot of areas we think we know well, but not really mapped well.
I am from Louisiana. According to Wildlife and Fisheries, there are no cougars in Louisiana. Yet, I know two people that have seen them. One of them has pictures of one on his land. Our swamps make create homes for such creatures, which likely migrated from Florida. Cougars are a known species, but according to experts they are not suppose to be in Louisiana.
That is the reason I would like to see some actual research done on the subject.
Whether or not it's possible that such a creature exists, I find it perplexing that so many people *want* to believe in Bigfoot. The mysteries of the universe are virtually infinite; why spend so much time and energy looking for evidence of a probably fictional apeman?
That is a good question. My wife was an anthropology major. She has long wondered if some of this may be a sort of racial memory (backed up by folklore and tales) of a creature that did exist at one time in prehistory.
With me, it stems from my belief that "the truth is out there". I think that those in charge tell us less than we know, and Bigfoot is just a part if it.