The Jane Goodall link I provided is from that site. The BFRO is the organization that was used for the show. I would say that their credibility is important to this. They are not completely objective however. The organization does consist of actual scientist (as opposed to the mail-order variety). But It certainly looks as though they all believe in the existance of bigfoot. Which would make peer review of their findings that much more important. I wish I could trust the Discovery Channel more. It really did seem to be a well-done show.
I’m not an advocate for the existence of Big Foot, but I gotta ask: Didn’t ANY of you follow the Jane Goodall Link? Or do we now feel that the good Dr. Goodall is not reputable?
existance=existence How many times in this thread did I screw that up?
Khadaji: No general statement is true.
Er, uh, I meant, except that one. 
You know, there hasn’t been a lot of poetry about Bigfoot. But there was one outstanding example published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, I think it was the December 1976 issue. It was a Christmas poem in which the Magi come to visit the Christ Child, but also Bigfoot comes to visit. Baby Jesus loved meeting Bigfoot with his shaggy fur and the atmosphere of the great northwestern woods better than any gifts brought by the Magi. It was a totally offbeat idea for a poem, and I thought it was pretty cool. Does anybody remember this poem or who wrote it?
I think most scientists would admit the bare possibility, as in “anything is possible”. Me, too. The quote from Hamlet is on the same level. But that’s not the point. The point is to find out if this particular phenomenon is real. Scientists want compelling evidence before accepting something as fact. That’s different from being close-minded.
Link to 12/05/2002 AP story about man who claimed to have originated the Bigfoot hoax.
I repeat: No reputable scientist takes Big Foot seriously.
too many people put ‘scientists’ upon way too high a pedestal. i know a few of them. they can be just as whacky as anybody. i think that one of the apollo astronauts was playing tarot cards on the way to the moon. that isn’t ‘scientific proof’ of the ability to tell the future. also, jane goodall, as well as carl sagan, who was no slouch, can all get certain wild hares on any subject (let’s be real-how many people really wanted to see the Cosmos episode “My Personal Journey”). isn’t that guy who wrote about the face on mars a bona fide scientist?
the sykes quote doesn’t mean anything, because it’s appropriately vague. someone could have slipped him a sample of motor oil or something like that.
also, many scientists will do all kinds of nonsense for a few bucks. it’s human nature. Jane goodall may be saying that so that she can get funding for a new ‘Jane Goodall foundation’. many academics make a livelihood based on grants, famous ones equally or more so than unknowns. who knows, there may be as big a motherlode for bigfoot as there was for the roswell/area 51 business.
What grants were given to whom in connection with Roswell/area 51? Cites?
a.) i no longer give cites. b.) i never said that there were grants given to area 51/roswell studies. c.)yes, i should have put that sentence into another paragraph.
How do we know whether a scientist is reputable? Just ask whether they think Bigfoot exists. How do we know that Bigfoot doesn’t exist? Just query the reputable scientists. But are they REALLY reputable? Well, if they say Bigfoot exists, they’re not.
Therefore, whether or not Bigfoot does exist, Bigfoot CANNOT exist.
But seriously, this is called EXPERIMENTERS’ REGRESS. When theory is derived from evidence, yet the quality of that evidence is judged according to that theory, then we end up in a strange loop.
Theory1: Bigfoot doesn’t exist.
Evidence: I witnessed an ape in the deep woods. (But according to theory1, it MUST have been a man in a suit.)
Accumulating evidence: if many people see Bigfeet, according to theory1 this proves that Bigfoot hoaxes are very common, or that the eyewitnesses are liars.
Now try this:
Theory2: Bigfoots are real, but rare
Evidence: I witnessed an ape in the deep woods. (According to theory2, it could have been real, or it could have been a hoax.)
Accumulating evidence: if many people see Bigfeet, then according to Theory2 this suggests that Bigfeet are perhaps more common than we assumed, since it’s more likely that the eyewitnesses are seeing valid Bigfeet, than that millions of hoaxers are running around in the woods.
Even Stephen Hawking sez:
“If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make reality the basis of our philosophy? …But we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory…it makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of a theory.”
In many cases Science really does operate in this way. It’s little else but a concensus viewpoint held by a majority of experts. “Experts” are experts for good reason, so their viewpoint is usually right. However, there are many famous cases where the mass of experts was totally wrong, while the “crackpots” were correct.
How can we know for certain whether the majority is correct and Bigfoot is a hoax? We can’t. All we can know is probabilities. Concensual expert opinion is ALMOST always correct, so Bigfoot VERY PROBABLY is nothing but a hoax.
So, if someone becomes certain that Bigfoot exists, or certain that Bigfoot doesn’t exist, that person is no longer rational. Their opinion has become a type of religious belief.
“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
- Mark Twain
"A man receives only what he is ready to receive… The phenomenon or
fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest of what he has
observed, he does not observe. - Thoreau
“The man who cannot occasionally imagine events and conditions of
existence that are contrary to the causal principle as he knows it will
never enrich his science by the addition of a new idea.” - Max Planck
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
- Phillip K. Dick
See:
KEEPING YOUR BEAD ON THE WIRE
http://amasci.com/freenrg/bead.txt
Well, if there were millions of people who said they’ve seen bigfoots, I’d tend to think that it just might be so. But we don’t have that. What percentage of people who have been to the woods, would you expect might hoax a bigfoot sighting? Maybe one in 10,000? If a million people have been to the woods in the Northwest, then I’d expect something on the order of 100 bigfoot sightings, maybe more if my estimate of dishonesty is low. How many bigfoot sightings are there? A few dozen?
Now how many bigfoot sightings would you expect if they really existed? I’d say tens of thousands minimum. And how much hard evidence, such as bodies, hair, etc? Quite a bit. How much do we have? Zero.
So let’s see - which hypothesis fits the evidence?
If Sasquatch really existed, by now some hunter would have potted one and hauled the body back. They shoot everything else that’s out there, why should bigfoot be immune?
I submit that the mass of experts was right many more times than wrong.
For every famous case of a crackpot being right there are hundreds were they are just still crackpots.
No scat.
No bones.
No young.
No old.
No leg chewed off in a trap.
No nothing. If a man-like primate existed in the Americas someone would have shot and stuffed one by now. All the quotes from all the humorists and science-fiction authors in the world won’t change that.
The burden of proof is on the believer in Sasquatch. Show me one in a cage and I will believe.
“He’s called ‘Sasquatch’ because that’s the sound Bigfoot makes when he steps on a Winnebago.”
-------Johnny Carson
In the 1900’s, no “reputable scientist” took mountain gorillas seriously either, depsite similar stories and a few reported sightings by local natives from africa.
Until 1938, no “reputable scientist” said it was possible that the extinct coelacanth could still be alive.
Until the 1980’s, no “reputable scientist” thought that deer were in Vietnam since millions of americans, japanese, french, were there in a heavily populated small country and nobody saw one.
In many states, millions of people go in the woods all the time, and never ever personally see a badger, bobcat, ermine, or wolverine,(except in zoos, managed national parks, or on tv) naturally in the wild, despite a huge population of tens of thousands of them being in those same woods.
In my experience, most of those who deny the existance of bigfoot, are armchair geek city boys who have never ever personally seen a badger, bobcat, ermine, and wolverine naturally in the wild woods.
Likewise, despite hundreds of thousands of bear being in the woods, no one finds the bones of bear who die naturally.
If there are only a few hundred bigfoot animals around in large great forests, then accidental sightings of them, would be very very rare, and little evidence of them would be found.
The “originators” of the bigfoot story did not “die recently”, the “originators” of the bigfoot story, were indians, who lived hundreds of years ago, and who had no personal motive in promoting tourism. The stories of bigfoot were very ancient and legendary even when Teddy Roosevelt first experienced them on his hunting trips.
“Reputable scientists”, and anyone else with a closed minds, will never believe in the possiblity of bigfoot until somebody shoots one and brings it in(same as what happened with the mountain gorilla) - except it is illegal to shoot one.
I’ve never heard this before.
I just saw a PBS documentary on a pair of bear researchers in Siberia. In that film, I saw about 3-4 scenes where they examined bear remains. All died naturally, except for the one bear that was killed by poachers solely to extract the bear’s gall bladder, for which they can get big bucks by selling it to the Chinese who use it as a medicine.
So, I’m surprised to read your statement that ‘no one finds the bones of bear who die naturally.’
Can you elaborate, please?
I was speaking of the states that I live in.
Siberia? That is another matter.
I dont know much about Siberia(I have never been there), except that I know that they also find wooly Mammoth remains there. (We dont find any wooly mammoth remains here abouts either)
I met a game warden last year- he has been a warden for 12 years now, working every day in the forest, and he has still never seen a bear, dead or alive, in the woods, despite a bear population of tens of thousands in that state.
It is common so to see starved deer carcuses in the woods in the winter or early spring, because there are so many millions of them(anybody, even a geek, can see a deer) . But to see dead bodies of nearly any other species which die naturally is quite rare.
How many dead bodies of bear or wolverine or bobcat have you ever seen in the woods?
If there exists only a few hundred of any elusive animal living in millions of acres, it would be against all odds for anyone to encounter one. (e.g. mountain lion and wolf sightings in the Dakotas and in lower Michigan, are quite rare despite little cover in North Dakota and high population density in Michigan).
http://www.blather.net/archives/issue1no16.html
"New Animals from Vietnam
The remains of a previously unknown deer-like animal were recently displayed at a news conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, by members of the the World Wildlife Federation (WWF).
It has been identified as a species of muntjac, a large barking deer, making it one of the ten new large mammals ‘discovered’ by scientists this century.
The researchers haven’t yet found a live one, but it’s known locally, where it is hunted for meat, and is known as ‘sam soi cacoong’ - ‘the deer that lives in the deep, thick forest.’ It’s the third new Vietnamese mammal to be recognised by science in the last five years, joining the Saola aka The Vo Qoung Ox (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) and the Mang Lon muntjac deer (Megamuntiacus vuquangensis), as well as the Ga Lung Pheasant aka Vo Quy’s Pheasant(Lophura hatinhensis).
Interestingly, there’s quite a lot of research going into the search for the Nguoi Rung or Vietnamese Wildman, following the 1982 discovery of a footprint by Professor Tran Hong, now of the Pedagogic University of Hanoi, measuring 28 by 16 centimetres, wider than a human foot, with much longer toes.
The Nguoi Rung or ‘Forest People’ (Also a direct translation of the Indonesian name ‘Orang Utan’) are said often to visit the firesides of Vietnamese highland people, but never speak in anyway intelligible, and have been seen climbing trees or shaking them to get at insects. Bernard Heuvelmans author of ‘On the Track of Unknown Animals’ (Which this Blatherskite is reading avidly), reckons that it could be what he has named Homo Pongoides, a hominid remnant of early man, although some of this research is based on a rather dubious specimen known as the ‘Ice Man’ which was toured from 1968, through sideshows in the U.S., by Frank D. Hansen (who also owns the world’s oldest John Deere tractor). For more about ‘The Abominable Showman’, see Ian Simmons article in Fortean Times FT83:34. The reports from Vietnam still persist, however. "
http://www.wing-wbsj.or.jp/~vietnam/news/news016.htm
"The 50,000 ha of forest that spans the southwest of Gia Lai province guards a precious secret: it is home to many species of large mammal, some of which have rarely been recorded in Vietnam before.
In April of this year, BirdLife International Vietnam Programme, in cooperation with the Forest Inventory and Planning Institute (FIPI), conducted field surveys in Chu Prong district as part of a European Commission funded review of the protected areas system in Vietnam. The results that were gathered confirmed the suspicion that Chu Prong is an area of immense biological importance and species diversity. A total of 40 mammal species were recorded alongside 170 bird species. Among these recorded mammals, 15 species are currently listed in the Red Data Book of Vietnam.
Eld’s Deer Cervus eldii has only been recorded in Vietnam twice before and hasn’t been recorded at all since 1986, so the identification of Eld’s Deer tracks at Chu Prong, in April, was a very exciting discovery.
Fresh Tiger Panthera tigris tracks were identified and this too was an exciting discovery because Tiger has never previously been recorded in the area. In the past Tiger was known to occur at Yok Don National Park, Dak Lak province but there have been no positive records from there since 1995, which suggests a sharp decline in numbers of individuals.
Fresh footprints of both Gaur Bos gaurus and Banteng Bos javanicus were also found at Chu Prong on several occasions. Like Tiger, there were no previous confirmed records of Banteng from the area.
The highlight of this series of discoveries was the sighting of an Asiatic Jackal Canis aureus. One Jackal was spotted chasing an Indian Muntjac Muntiacus muntjak close to the road. In many scientific documents, it is stated that Asiatic Jackal is completely absent from Indochina except for a small area in Laos. However, there are a few records from Yok Don National Park and Tay Ninh province in Vietnam, as well as from Laos and Cambodia, which indicate that this species does in fact still occur in Indochina. Unfortunately, both Asiatic Jackal and Dhole Cuon alpinus, also identified at Chu Prong this year, are hunted for their noses and other body parts, which are used in traditional medicine. "