” Let’s say that I’m on the fence as to whether you’re a complete crackpot — and then you go off (as some enthusiasts do!) on how even though you haven’t studied science since freshman year, you clearly understand it better than the Ph.D.s, who are either lazy, stupid, or in on a conspiracy.”

The arrogance – and the ignorance – in that statement goes so deep you probably aren’t aware of it. Here, let me enlighten you.

Scientists

1. Spend a damn long time learning a lot of boring and difficult stuff so that they can make the world more interesting, fun and livable for the rest of us.
2. Are the people, more than any others in the society, under pressure to be the expert, even on things of which they know nothing. They probably feel that pressure every time they are asked a question.

We owe them a big debt for that. But some of them – actually, make that many – tend to go overboard with their positions of responsibility and authority. And make statements like that one you did.

I don’t have a science degree (too boring and difficult for someone who wanted to do other things with his life. School is for girls and beer. OK, occasionally for allnighters and coffee). But I think like one. And I’m a pretty smart cookie, even if I may sometimes be the only one who thinks so. And I gotta tell ya, what I think of the mainstream on the sasquatch question has nothing to do with that nest of quadratic equations up there (thanks for taking THAT bullet for me), or passing PHYS 899, You Are Now Smarter Than Anybody So Wear Non-Matching Socks With Sandals It’s OK.

It has to do with literature that it takes a solid high-school reading level, max, to peruse; NOT reading it; and pronouncing on it as if one has, having no idea that the pronouncements themselves scream IZE IGNANT, in huge block letters, to anyone with a solid high-school education who has.

I can say, with extreme comfort, that I know more about the sasquatch – OK, I have read more and understand more based on that reading of the state of the evidence – than, oh, say, 99% of the world’s zoologists. OK, more than 99% of them who have bothered to speak to the public on the subject. How do I know? WHAT THEY SAY. If I told you two plus two was cleearly 22, I couldn’t display my ignorance more clearly than they do. When you say what you think, to me, you must say WHY. These guys/gals either don’t, or give reasons that transparently DO NOT SCAN to anyone with that high-school-reading-level command of the evidence.

Period.

The argument from authority does not work with me. Give me a 25-word-or-less statement of your opinion on this specific topic, and I need not scan Credential One. I will have an instant read on where you stand relative to me in terms of knowledge on this topic. Hint: it will probably not be good news to you.

If I told you that I had more physics knowledge in my little finger than exists in your family, or if you actually wear non-matching socks with sandals, you could consider yourself approximately equally insulted to what you are doing here.

(Non-matching socks with sandals may actually be In now. But then, it appears that everything is.)

Don’t lecture anyone who can read your words and say, um, he knows a lot less than me about this.

OK?

Exposing oneself to the evidence really is much more fun than what you are doing.

And you continue to argue with me – frustrating ain’t it?

…instead of with the scientists who know you’re wrong.

Um, good luck with that, while we’re on “crackpot.”

There’s no exception there, only the rule. Get the evidence first, then announce the discovery; don’t be utterly convinced in something before the evidence warrants it. Announce the discovery of the coelacanth when you have physical evidence, not just stories. It’s the same with the others: the key thing is to have quality evidence!

You know very well that biologists do in fact go out into the woods all the time, though less often than hunters do. Now it’s true that they are much more likely to be looking at the impact of mining on mussels in the local watershed than to be looking for Bigfoot, but if you’re teaching a bunch of undergrads, ridiculously high risk / ridiculously high reward is not the way to go. But the important thing is that they *are* in the woods. Then there are the biologists from the timber companies, the state and federal agencies, and private foundations. There are as many real biologists in the field at any time as there are weekend Bigfoot hobbyists.

If Bigfoot is real, as the coelacanth is real, eventually adequate evidence will turn up and he will be scientifically confirmed. It’s a sure bet. In the meantime, complaining that scientists are not as impressed by the existing evidence as you are DOES NOTHING GOOD. Let’s say that I’m on the fence as to whether you’re a complete crackpot — and then you go off (as some enthusiasts do!) on how even though you haven’t studied science since freshman year, you clearly understand it better than the Ph.D.s, who are either lazy, stupid, or in on a conspiracy. At that point I would stop wondering if you’re a crackpot; I would have evidence of it, and if hanging around with Bigfoot witnesses would put me in contact with people like you, I would find something else to do.

There are 11 other ninjas in the same film. You know they’re ninjas because you can’t see them.

Adjust your meds.

How about the Laotian rock rat? Same basic story: it was being sold as meat at a market?

Or Walter’s Duiker? Also described only after being found in a bushmeat market.”

Those aren’t contradicting my statement; they’re emphasizing it.

All of those animals were described by scientists, paying attention, who just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

(And weren’t afraid they’d be adjudged crazy. Like the scientists who have – anonymously – reported sasquatch sightings.)

In other words, they were lottery scores. They were the “exceptions that prove the rule,” not at all the rule.

They were also kinds of animals (fish; rodent; duiker) that science already knew about, not a kind that scientists adamantly insist isn’t real.

Again:

There will be no proof until the mainstream starts paying serious attention. Ask yourself: how many animals have been confirmed by some random hunter or motorist killing one? Right.

Unless you are willing to wait for Powerball.

It’s a guy in a suit.