“… . I’m waiting. And if the skeptical tack is Radford’s, I’m gonna wait longer than he has, I think.”

My first brush with the data was in a 1968 article in National Wildlife Magazine, a pretty conservative mouthpiece indeed, yet an article so balanced and thoughtful and respectful of the evidence that quotes and images from it have stuck with me even though I was only 10 when I read it. (One of my favorites, paraphrased, from a scientist specializing in a relevant field: you could find a guy that big to put in that suit. But you’d have to break both his shoulders to get him in the suit.)

So, Ben, I’ve been waiting almost twice as long as you — over 38 years to be more precise.

Sas lives, until you kill him. And I’ll believe it when I see the evidence.

That’s called SKEPTICISM.

I think they found out when they were fifteen that Santa Claus wasn’t real, and they’ve never gotten over it.

I have no way of backing this one up. But I think the walk would be pretty hard to fake.
It would be nice if I had a dog in this fight. But I simply think that the best evidence — and that evidence’s standing four decades and more after it was found against all critical attacks thus far — satisfies me that we have something that’s unexplained, that looks like it’s a North American ape, and that’s enough for me until I’m shown that the preponderance of evidence is too shaky to accept.

So I’m waiting too, Ben. But my time in the woods informs what I’ve seen — and what I’ve seen is a lot — and tells me it’s better than what the skeptics have come back with so far.

I’m open, if I can be convinced. But evidence has to do it.

In B. Radford’s first post in this blog, he launched into one of his blatantly patronizing, belittling rants with a verbal attack on Al, one of the Cryptomundo posters, with this gem: “This is patently ridiculous.”

What wonderful manners.

At that point, Al and other posters such as DWA and Patrick Bede apparently took umbrage, as did I.

It became obvious to me how actually undiscerning Radford is when he gave a blanket endorsement to DWA of David Daegling and his book, as if DWA would see the light, if he could only be exposed to Daegling’s book of disinformation and half-baked science.

True skeptics should bristle that this guy and others like him call themselves “critical thinkers” and “skeptics,” when he is really nothing more than a know-it-all cynic who likes to boast of his self-inflated importance.

Unless….hey, here’s a wild speculation- Is it possible that he’s not going into detail about his analyses because it’s all in his upcoming book? If he just tells us gratis there’s no reason for us to buy his book. Hmmm….just speculation, though.

Look, for the reasons that all of you have written, and as I wrote earlier, you may as well be talking to a wall. The guy is laughingly high on himself, and “sadly” low on others. That is quite evident in his interactions here. and elsewhere.

His main emphasis was: “None of you can be right, because you’re not as educated, not as intelligent, not as experienced, not as discerning as ME, you pitiful, sad little Meldrum minions.”

Now, I find THAT “sadly telling.” If he doesn’t care who he is speaking to, then that in itself speaks volumes about his self-love and smugness.

If he doesn’t realize that 99% of the posters here use pseudonyms, and he could be talking to Frank Peretti, Daris Swindler, John Green, Patrick Bede, or Stephen Hawking, then he is not quite as discerning as his self-love and smugness will allow him to believe.

But we gave Ben more than one string to tug on here. I didn’t say it in as many words, but the way he and Daegling approach to the Patterson film as a possible hoax is like me postulating that the Pearl Harbor attack may have been done by birds and not by the Japanese, because among other things birds can fly.

Nice point. But there’s more that needs to be taken into account, doesn’t Ben think…?

Although I admit — for precisely the reasons you state — that doing that got a bit hard. Ben will think what he thinks, judging by the performance I saw here, no matter what he hears. In fact, I think that other than selling books and lectures, what he’s doing is pointless. He clearly will not be swayed by anything but a body. So why is he even on here talking about evidence? None would sway him. Don’t expect him to report a personal sighting. I honestly believe that’s the last thing he would do. That would cut into precisely what’s putting bread in his mouth, don’t you think? From his posts, boy, I do.

As I said earlier: if your livelihood depends on not understanding it, it’s going to be damn hard to make you understand it.

He didn’t address a single substantive point any of us made, even when a skeptic or two told him point blank what skeptics need to address. And he won’t, because his modus operandi carefully skirts the opposition’s strengths. Fortunately for him, the lake monster crowd’s evidence isn’t that strong. I’m a real skeptic on those. I’ve seen enough lumps in the water to know that a lake monster could be anything.

The debunking style of Radford’s book on those — and yes, Amazon gives you enough of a look to know it — simply won’t wash with the sasquatch. You don’t have hundreds, let alone thousands, of eyewitness acconts by divers in Loch Ness or boaters on Champlain, with descriptions that fit the profile of all the other reports, by people who didn’t even think about sasquatch before their sightings. That’s powerful if you ask me. Could you fake one or two of those reports? Sure. Half of them? Eyebrows up. ALL of them? you HAVE to show me that. Sheesh, it’s easier to accept the ape than the skeptics on this animal.

Again, so far. I’m waiting. And if the skeptical tack is Radford’s, I’m gonna wait longer than he has, I think.