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“Mainstream scientists don’t want anything to do with it,” he [i.e., Craig] said. “They’d be risking their careers by sticking their necks out.”

“It’s the amateur scientists who are out there, trying to solve the mystery.”

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From the San Angelo Standard-Times, San Angelo, Texas, “Some Texans claim Bigfoot is among us,” by Rick Smith, Sunday, August 14, 2005.

Just for the record. And oh so correct.

Science is denying Bigfoot researchers respectability in what may eventually amount to a backfiring effort to preserve its own.

I won’t say “intellectual cowardice.”

Promise.

If it hasn’t gone either way by now, it’ll never go either way, which is probably why so many proponents wish it would just go away. All the rehashing has now degenerated to rehashing of rehashing.

While my personal response to it is almost exactly yours, I am most certainly willing to let this one go. What I would like to see happen now is science putting more time, money and effort into this search.

I simply don’t buy the idea that science should be sitting back and picking its teeth waiting for a bunch of weekend warriors with real jobs and real families to raise to do its work for it. Which so far is precisely what’s been happening (with the notable exceptions). I think that Bigfoot researchers are seeing enough smoke to lead a reasonable man to conclude there’s a fire out there someplace.

No one’s going beyond any evidence here.

As I’ve said on another thread, this ain’t lake monsters, and Patty isn’t a full-scale model or a dark, curved form in the water. Patty’s a bipedal animal. The only question is whether the bipedal animal is wearing a suit.

There’s plenty for science to go on. Science only has to go on it. Scientists waiting for non-scientists to bring science to the debate is kinda like the garbagemen’s union wondering who the heck’s gonna pick up all this trash.

Following up on the copious evidence is science’s job. Researchers have told them precisely where to look and what to look for. That’s why the folks whose names I’ve cited here are doing what they’re doing. It’s their job.

The evidence for Bigfoot gets stronger and stronger every DAY. It’s why we’re here. It’s why YOU’RE here, Ben, if you thought about it for a second.

That the Patty walk could not be duplicated is not exactly a scientific position to take. As such, it’s not worth responding to. Humans are, if not the best, at least the most versatile mimics in the animal kingdom. Of course it could be duplicated: the question is whether it is likely that someone did so, in great form, in a bulky, cumbersome suit that had to get there somehow, under the conditions that existed on Bluff Creek, CA in 1967. Showing that a human can do it unencumbered (as Sergio points out) in no way contributes to the discussion of whether the critter on the film is a real animal.

Science doesn’t just respond to critics making invalid points (and “that walk CANNOT BE DUPLICATED” sounds a little true-believer for a skeptic like me). Science adds to the analysis of the film, not to the analysis of spurious comments people make about the film, regardless of those people’s stance on its validity.

Said another way: that a proponent, in analyzing the film, made a stretch comment — and that-cannot-be-duplicated is quite a stretch, and I’d say wrong — in no way weakens what was really his point, if the point was that a human isn’t very likely to do that, and look that nonchalant doing it, on take one, in a suit like that, in 1967 on Bluff Creek, CA.

Science must address that point, and show (as Sergio says) whether the complete execution of the hoax, or the animal, is more likely. I believe that the great preponderance of such analysis shows the latter to be the more likely.

Just a skeptic talking. If it’s a man in a suit, you have to show me. And obviously, no one who says it’s a real animal is right until we get final proof that the species exists.

And BTW: where the general public stands on this issue really means nothing. After all, science led them there, and if science is wrong so are they. At one time it was a standard belief that the earth was flat.

And good science is the responsibility of scientists. You know, science. The people complaining about the lack of scientific involvement aren’t true believers; they’re non-scientists, in the possession of powerful evidence, frustrated at having to do the heavy lifting because establishment science has gone ivory-tower on this one.

It may just be that science is not more involved on this one because science is WRONG on this one. Says this skeptic, not knowing and not having any way to know until science gets involved.

Which it may not, ever, because of fear of the irrational ridicule that dogs anyone who’s really interested in an answer. Part of the reason so many of us have to use initials instead of give our real names.

“DWA managed to completely avoid the points and issues I raised. Well done!”

It’s what you’ve been doing with mine, Ben. But wait, another post!

Thank you for your reasoned response and lack of sarcasm; it’s a refreshing change, and merits a response.

“Merely showing that it is possible for a human to walk using a compliant gait demonstrates absolutely nothing relevant to the film subject.”

Again, I can’t and won’t speak for Daegling (it’s his research and comments, not mine), but I think he was responding to the specific claim that was made that Patty’s locomotion COULD NOT be duplicated. I do not think that Daegling’s research shows that the P/G film is definitely a hoax, nor do I think he ever really claimed that.

For that matter, I’m not sure that you are correct that his hypothesis is necessarily that:

“the subject in the Patterson-Gimlin film footage was a person in some sort of custom costume with complete mask, head covering, rubber, realistic, unclumsy feet, in 1967, who fluidly executed the so-called compliant gait, with water bags or some such underneath the costume to act as musculature,”

We don’t know if it was a costume or not; if it was, we don’t know for certain that there were any water bags or anything like that for the musculature; there simply isn’t enough detail and info in the P/G film to make such assumptions. We don’t know for certain that the feet were clumsy or not. This is part of the problem. Yes, if it’s a hoax then it’s a costume, but there is no way of knowing for certain what kind it was, how much it weighed, what the feet were like, etc. One can guess, but that’s all it is, guessing.

The Patty film is very similar to the famous Champ lake monster photo I investigated. One believer dismissed a hoax explanation as saying that the subject was clearly an “excellent, full size model of a monster” out on the lake. Yet that was a simple guess; the photo simply showed a dark, ambigious, curved form in the water, not an excellent, life-sized model. In the same way, people need to not go beyond the evidence, and admit that there’s little to go on.

Ben and Matt are acquainted with one another. See this post here on Cryptomundo for the evidence.

I suggest that we cool the personal attacks and name calling and see if we can discuss the issue calmly and rationally.

Craig

That point was taken. However, it still does not abdicate him [Daegling] of his responsibility to conduct tests that support (or refute) his supposition relating to costumes, gait, water bags, etc. Merely demonstrating that a human MAY (in a very contrived manner) be able to walk in a laboratory setting using a so-called compliant gait did absolutely nothing to demonstrate his overall hypothesis, which is, that the subject in the Patterson-Gimlin film footage was a person in some sort of custom costume with complete mask, head covering, rubber, realistic, unclumsy feet, in 1967, who fluidly executed the so-called compliant gait, with water bags or some such underneath the costume to act as musculature, while negotiating a creek bed strewn with stumps and debris in Northern California, while keeping chin down below the shoulders, etc., etc., etc.

If Daegling, or anyone else, has a theory or hypothesis about how the film was perpetrated, it is absolutely incumbent on him/them to demonstrate how it was done. Merely showing that it is possible for a human to walk using a compliant gait demonstrates absolutely nothing relevant to the film subject.

Those who believe the film subject was an unknown species have a responsibility to somehow validate that theory, most likely through obtaining film of another kindred subject.