Fight fire with fire, I always say.

Bugs Bunny

A roundtable discussion is a great idea, and will give more legitimacy to the 06 conference. Instead of being a bunch of people who already believe in bigfoot talking about how awesome bigfoot is, it can be a group of people interested in getting to the truth.

No one is ever convicted on eyewitness testimony alone, but it IS a major factor. If a tree falls in a forest with no one around, it still happens, it still makes a sound. Bigfoot sightings don’t just happen where people are there, and they don’t just happen where there are a lot of Bigfoot. We need to make a survey of all Bigfoot sightings except the definite hoaxes, and send a crew out to do widely dispersed infrared, visual, and sound searches of the biggest hotspot for an extended period.
While the eyes are usually reliable, they do get fooled. One time I coulda swore I saw a beaver, but it was just a chunk of wood.
As for that roundtable forum, it needs an online part for those that can’t be there in person.

But you did have a body, right? And evidence other than that of a child? So you didn’t convict based upon single eyewitness testimony, I would assume?

If the McMartin preschool trials (among others) has taught us, the memories of children are especially malleable.

But science isn’t a courtroom. Eyewitness testimony isn’t ever enough for science. It is, however, good for focusing on finding good evidence.

Important thing is that both sides of the argument have solid reasons. And the hunter example is good. Yes people do shoot thousands of animals that they see, but also people do mistake things and shoot their kid in the head.

Personally I think it is great that Mr. Radford is here to keep us in line. Remember, we have the burden of proof. We are not looking for a recently “extinct” bird. There has never been any proof that the scientific community says is valid (or at least that is publishable). We need to find that.

Don’t construe this into that I don’t believe any of the sightings or tracks etc. I have hunted for years and if I saw a big hairy bi-pedal creature it would have to be A.) bigfoot (whatever that is) or B.) a man in a suit. By the way I don’t believe in the other options I’ve heard about an alien or a mystical paranormal being. To me saying that makes you even sillier.

We also know another something else, people do fake this stuff.

So why all the fighting with the diehard skeptics???

I agree with the previous post by Sasquatchery that there should be a round table forum with skeptics at the next conference in Texas. The only stipulation would be that those included must not be the extremists from both sides of the argument. Each side must be willing to accept the others view, otherwise there will just be more fighting, which is useless. You might be able to learn something from each other.

If you believe that bigfoot really is an undiscovered primate then we all need to be professional and document its existence. DOCUMENTING IT. Thats the key. Its not whether you believe it or not. Some do, some don’t. If you have seen it then I bet you will always believe. If you haven’t seen it, but believe because of the available evidence, then great. If you don’t believe any of it, then I respect that, I won’t try to convince you, I’ll just work harder to get some definitive evidence.

Some say that debunkers’ real function is to distract us from the subject, to divert the conversation from the real meat of the matter with meaningless drivel, thus convincing us that the whole thing is an illusion and that there’s nothing of value here…

Many years ago, during the Adamski uproar, I read Danald Menzel’s book whitewashing UFOs, and almost bought his arguments. Almost. Menzel was my first recognized debunker, but his techniques were specious and transparent, and I quickly learned to avoid broad-brush arguments.

Debunkers have an answer for everything, and the woods are full of them (pun intended), so be wary.

Like I said far, waaaay far above…
“Let’s dismiss time-wasters,
and get on with our Search.”
Fuz

Sadly, Mr. Radford seems acutely unaware that thousands of deer and wild hogs are seen, correctly identified and shot every year by hunters who thought they were seeing deer and wild hogs. Regardless of exceptions, such as the one involving my very own grandfather, who was shot by another hunter while hunting, the overwhelming, vast majority of cases involve hunters who correctly identified what they were seeing. The proof is in the thousands of deer and wild hogs that are slain every year.

“Seeing is believing.”

Questor asks, “How can I be sure that the deer at which I am aiming is not a person for whom I am misidentifying a deer?” Sadly, he seems unaware that exactly that situation has repeatedly occurred; in fact, in my upcoming book, I devote a chapter to the case of Dennis Plucknett, an experienced Florida hunter who in Janury 2004 shot his son in the head, mistaking his son’s black cap for a large, living boar. Go tell Mr. Plucknett how ridiculous it is that he would be mistaken.

“Yet, he claims that he has never downplayed or dismissed eye witness accounts?” I did not write that I never downplayed the validity of eyewitness accounts; what I said was that IN MY ORIGINAL ARTICLE, the topic of this post, I did not do that; it was about the lack of Bigfoot in the search for the woodpecker, not eyewitness accounts.

2400bc suggests that the mistaken assumptions those have read into my piece (a few of which are listed in my original reply) were somehow either intended or the result of poor or coy writing. I offer it’s neither; people are jumping all over me for assertions that I never even made. Clear thinking requires clear and precise word usage, while fuzzy thinking thrives on fuzzy words and concepts. It’s easy to jumble topics together, to extend logic inappropriately, etc. I am probably more literal-minded than most people, but that should not be taken as a sign of deceit. Refusing to accept someone else’s interpretation of what I wrote, or of my position, is not a “journalistic shell game.” I think that if we had an open and honest debate, my position would me much clearer and more understandable, and at least some of the apparent misdirections would evaporate.

“He who does not understand his opponent’s arguments does not fully understand his own.”