The Science of Bigfoot

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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The Science of Bigfoot

Post #1

Post by Dimmesdale »

I was encouraged by nobspeople and We_Are_VENOM to start a Bigfoot thread. Honestly, I only know a little about the Patterson-Gimlin footage (which I happen to think is authentic). I am not very knowledgeable about much else though. Still, I want to provide links to two videos which I think are worth looking at:

Blevins best proof of Patterson Gimlin Bigfoot is real:



The Patterson Gimlin Film, "One Minute to film, 45 years to explain":



Hopefully more participants can contribute. Thanks.
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein

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Re: The Science of Bigfoot

Post #31

Post by Dimmesdale »

brunumb wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 1:31 am
Take a step back and establish that it is not a costume first.
Ok, I will admit, I haven't established that, yet. I am not quite sure how to go about it. It seems very clear to me it isn't a costume based on the details I have explored, but I see now that this same assessment isn't as obvious to others.

Like I said, I'm not sure how to establish these facts, I think it would require going into technical specifics I am not so adept at explaining. But they are there, scattered throughout the videos.
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein

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Re: The Science of Bigfoot

Post #32

Post by Tcg »

[Replying to Dimmesdale in post #31]

What is probably more interesting than the claimed evidence of Bigfoot is the lingering desire for some to believe in spite of the astonishingly weak evidence:
Why Do So Many People Still Want to Believe in Bigfoot?
The appeal of the mythical, wild man holds strong

“Interest in the existence of the creature is at an all-time high,” the paleontologist Darren Naish has observed, even though “there’s nothing even close to compelling as goes the evidence.”

Of course, Bigfoot is not the first fabled hominid to roam North America. Sasquatches long populated the mythologies of American Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest, but those 1958 footprints transformed the myth into a media sensation. The tracks were planted near Bluff Creek in Northern California by a man named Ray Wallace—but his prank was not revealed until his death in 2002, when his children said it had all been “just a joke.”

By that point, more important evidence had entered the Bigfoot file. In 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed a few seconds of a hairy creature walking on two legs by the same Bluff Creek—the most famous and contested piece of Bigfoot “evidence” to this day. That the Patterson-Gimlin film was created in the same place that Wallace had staged his hoax is just one reason to doubt its authenticity. Skeptics say the animal was a man in costume, while believers argue that the creature’s movements and body proportions cannot possibly have been human. The debate has been raging for half a century, which raises a question of its own. “How is it that the evidence has not gotten any better despite the exponential increase in the quantity and quality of cameras?” asks Benjamin Radford, a research fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

Still the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence either. Wild animals don’t exactly mug for photos, and the planet’s ever-shrinking forests still regularly unpack surprises, such as the saola, an untamed cousin of the cow that was discovered by scientists in Vietnam in 1992. But the saola did not have legions of amateurs hunting it with cameras. With or without hard evidence, many people clearly want to believe in Bigfoot. Which suggests we are dealing more with human imagination than human evolution.

...

Bigfoot also embodies other less romantic but no less enduring American traits, like gullibility and a hunger for attention. “There are so many fake videos,” says Loren Coleman, the founder of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. The problem has grown worse with social media, where viral hoaxes, like drone footage of a supposed Bigfoot in a clearing in Idaho, can rack up millions of views. Coleman, for his part, believes there is evidence for Bigfoot’s existence, but he and his like-minded peers find it difficult to focus attention on this material amid the growing number of obvious shams. “Technology has ruined the old cryptozoology,” Coleman says.

His complaint echoes concerns in more mainstream American life, where technologies that promised to build consensus have, in fact, made the truth more difficult than ever to discern. On the internet, Bigfoot has found a habitat much more hospitable than North American forests. It turns out that Bigfoot does not need to exist in order to live forever.

<bolding mine>

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ ... 180970045/
Similar to religious myths, the object of this myth need not actually exist to attract believers.


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Re: The Science of Bigfoot

Post #33

Post by Tcg »

Dimmesdale wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 12:04 pm
Oklahoma has developed a plan to profit from this joke:

A Bigfoot hunting season in Oklahoma? Here's why a lawmaker filed this unusual bill.

State Rep. Justin Humphrey admits his legislation to establish a Bigfoot hunting season is primarily intended to draw tourists to southeast Oklahoma and not to bag the fabled creature.

Humphrey, R-Lane, told The Oklahoman on Thursday that he is not a Bigfoot believer but keeps an open mind.

"I have been in the woods all my life and I have not ever seen any sign of Bigfoot," Humphrey said. "I have never heard Bigfoot, but I have some people that I know that are good, solid people who I will guarantee you 100% have said they have had experience with Bigfoot. So, I know there are people out there that you will not convince that Bigfoot doesn't exist.

"There are a lot of people, who really, really believe in Bigfoot and so it is going to give them the opportunity to come down. We want to make it a real deal. You can have a license. You can get out there and hunt this thing. I want to be really clear that we are not going to kill Bigfoot. We are going to trap a live Bigfoot. We are not promoting killing Bigfoot. We are promoting hunting Bigfoot, trying to find evidence of Bigfoot."

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/ ... 324126007/
Pure brilliance. Sell licenses to hunt something those selling the licenses don't believe exists. Generating profit from mythology. Sounds familiar for some reason.


Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

- American Atheists


Not believing isn't the same as believing not.

- wiploc


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- Irvin D. Yalom

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Re: The Science of Bigfoot

Post #34

Post by Dimmesdale »

Tcg wrote: Wed Apr 07, 2021 11:00 pm
Dimmesdale wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 12:04 pm
Oklahoma has developed a plan to profit from this joke:

A Bigfoot hunting season in Oklahoma? Here's why a lawmaker filed this unusual bill.

State Rep. Justin Humphrey admits his legislation to establish a Bigfoot hunting season is primarily intended to draw tourists to southeast Oklahoma and not to bag the fabled creature.

Humphrey, R-Lane, told The Oklahoman on Thursday that he is not a Bigfoot believer but keeps an open mind.

"I have been in the woods all my life and I have not ever seen any sign of Bigfoot," Humphrey said. "I have never heard Bigfoot, but I have some people that I know that are good, solid people who I will guarantee you 100% have said they have had experience with Bigfoot. So, I know there are people out there that you will not convince that Bigfoot doesn't exist.

"There are a lot of people, who really, really believe in Bigfoot and so it is going to give them the opportunity to come down. We want to make it a real deal. You can have a license. You can get out there and hunt this thing. I want to be really clear that we are not going to kill Bigfoot. We are going to trap a live Bigfoot. We are not promoting killing Bigfoot. We are promoting hunting Bigfoot, trying to find evidence of Bigfoot."

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/ ... 324126007/
Pure brilliance. Sell licenses to hunt something those selling the licenses don't believe exists. Generating profit from mythology. Sounds familiar for some reason.


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Re: The Science of Bigfoot

Post #35

Post by Athetotheist »

[Replying to Tcg in post #33]

I have two questions:

1. Have you watched the Blevins "Walk of the Bigfoot" video?

2. If so, do you think the Blevins footage is as good as the P-G film?

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Re: The Science of Bigfoot

Post #36

Post by nobspeople »

Dimmesdale wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 12:04 pm I was encouraged by nobspeople and We_Are_VENOM to start a Bigfoot thread. Honestly, I only know a little about the Patterson-Gimlin footage (which I happen to think is authentic). I am not very knowledgeable about much else though. Still, I want to provide links to two videos which I think are worth looking at:

Blevins best proof of Patterson Gimlin Bigfoot is real:



The Patterson Gimlin Film, "One Minute to film, 45 years to explain":



Hopefully more participants can contribute. Thanks.
Having a participating interest in cryptozoology, I've looked into, studied, reviewed, re-reviewed and read up on the subject (although BF isn't the cryptid I'm most interested in). Most all videos of the PG film are copies or copies of copies etc. This means much of what's been viewed is of poor quality.
While it's been said one of the film participants, 'on his death bed', admitted what's become known as the PG film was faked, I have yet to find proof of that statement. Additionally, many there has been much scientific studies on the PG film from scientists, video specialists as well as current special effect artists/houses that have said it's not fake and or wasn't able to be faked to this detail at the time.
Other videos I've personally found interesting are the ones from (I believe his name is) R B Davis. His videos, to me, make the PG film look amateurish at best. That's not to say the PG film isn't a real creature. However, from other claims I've seen and read, the PG creature doesn't look like others that have had experiences. But then again, it's said there are several different 'species' of bigfoot that look and act differently.

There are other random videos showing bipedal creatures walking from a distance, through tree lined areas, from above, etc. that seems rather legit.
What's often seen along side bigfoot sightings that many BF researchers 'over look' are mysterious lights in the sky.

There are a couple of things for sure going on here:
1) some people are seeing 'something' (though many sightings can be dismissed as mistaken encounters and or lies, even if one is real there's something more here than science wants to admit) &
2) we don't know everything about our world, much less the universe; discounting such things as momo, mothman, bigfoot, etc out of hand just because we don't have an official record of them is as intellectually dishonest as saying every report of such things are legitimate.

Like many things, for me, a bigfoot (or dogman, or mothman, or whatever) has to be seen to be believed. That said, I won't poo-poo ideas of many of these creatures. The universe is a much, much more intricate and mysterious and unknown place than many of us (in the world and on this site) care to admit.
Have a great, potentially godless, day!

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