Just to muddy the waters further, while few people older than 5 believe that Santa Claus is objectively real, even that entity may have some basis in objective reality. Many folklorists suggest that the Santa Claus legend is a hand-me-down from European hunter-gatherers attempting to honour the spirits of the bears they hunted by retelling the story of its life, mating, death, and rebirth. Surely the bears, at least, were real.
One could also say that people of faith don’t believe either, but draw conclusion just as we do. A bible-thumper reads the bible, and concludes, perhaps based more on feeling than on thought, but perhaps not, that it is the literal truth, and evolution and geologic time must therefore be an experiential phenomena amongst scientists, but not objectively real. Perhaps he experienced an angel, and concludes that they must exist, therefore literature that speak of their existence must constitute evidence. But here, at last, is perhaps where we can reach some sort of, pardon the pun, conclusion, for scientific conclusions (or those based on rationality and reasoning…same difference in my book) can be modified, whereas religious conclusions tend to be more definitive, and as a consequence thereby also dismiss any subsequent contradictory evidence as false.

I don’t know how nutritious this food for thought was, but at least it should provide you with a little roughage to ruminate on…

1. The vast majority of people don’t believe that Bigfoot exists.

2. People who don’t believe Bigfoot exists won’t say they saw one unless they unequivocally did.

3. The vast majority of people will not misidentify a known animal as a Bigfoot, but rather the other way around.

Could it be this easy to knock away one of the main props of the argument that the animals don’t exist?

Say yes.

Doesn’t matter, if they are.

How close to his/her residence was the sighting? And in what season?

The easy answer — not without its own flaws — to the correlation of hi-sighting with lo-pop density is: sure. People see these, i.e., see things, when they’re in the woods on R&R, i.e., on vacation. Transient visitors don’t count in pop density numbers, right? In other words, the potential-Bigfoot-sighter density in a region may be higher by a lot, at least seasonally, than the official pop density due to hunters, hikers, fishermen, etc. “swelling” the official pop figures.

You can discount that argument by showing that sighters, whatever they were doing, were doing it where they live, not as transient boosters of the official pop numbers. Lots of sightings in “off” seasons are probably made by residents; or at least the chance of a transient boosting the numbers is very small.

Just a thought.

I agree that, while this work on the correlation between rainfall and reported sightings, Meldrum’s work on the bone structure of primate feet, etc. isn’t as “sexy” as field expedition work, I do feel it is this kind of “circumstantial evidence” that will eventually get this field taken seriously and will eventually lead to a breakthrough.

Yes, it is circumstantial evidence compared to, oh, say a clear and detailed photo of Bigfoot waving to the camera.
But men have been sentenced to life in prison on less…

While this individual failed to produce the video while they were there (unless he finally provided it on the final day of their stay), and they were understandably skeptical, they impressed me by taking the time to listen to the individual, to consider his story and offering to seriously consider any hard evidence he might be able to produce.

They didn’t trip all over themselves to accept this story, and in fact regarded it with more skepticism than I would have expected from a group that included individuals who claim experiences of their own. But I was highly impressed with their willingness to consider his story despite their skepticism. (And with their scrutiny of the alleged witnesses story for consistency over several tellings.)

dblondon’s last post: pretty good too.

Here’s to the people who were rational and logical enough to start looking. Seriously.

And to those of us rational and logical enough to know: there might be something here.

For the skeptics, we’re still combing the globe for skeletons and roadkill.

Read an analysis like this one.

If you are a logical, rational thinker, i.e., someone who thinks like, well, like scientists are supposed to, you must come away from an article like this thinking: hmmmmm. Maybe there is something here.

If on the other hand, you’re an irrational science worshipper (an….ummmm….Scientologist…..? heeeey, just doing some figgerin’ here ), you’ll go: “HAH HAH! These things don’t exist. OK….?”

In truth, the Bigfoot skeptics are the ones who come off looking and sounding like irrational conspiracy theorists, to me!

While I agree with the requirements laid out here, and that cryptozoology should be based on the evidence, not faith.
I must DISAGREE with the assertions from Loren et al. that science and religion are so distant. While much of the research we are talking about is a matter of “when the hard evidence materializes” much of science is accepted on faith. In the same way that illiterate villagers accepted the Latin liturgies and their priests’ translations many of us non-trained scientists take on faith the “foundations” of science as provided to us by that elite class of specially trained priests… errrrr, scientists. While this isn’t as prevalent in sciences like zoology, advanced physics is RIFE with it. For instance, I don’t “know” that the universe is expanding the way physicist tell me it is. I take it on faith that their esoteric calcuations are accurate (Or, actually, I don’t, but I find it amusing that so many do)
The Big Bang and the Big Crunch are as much creation and end time myths as the Garden of Eden and Armagedon, as the World Tree and Ragnarok…
But I digress…
I’ll believe when I get to shake Patty’s hand (or the hand of her grandchildren).
Until then I’ll keep an open mind while examining all evidence with a critical eye.