For anyone who is frustrated that mainstream science does not accept certain things at this point, I’d say it is nothing to worry about if the phenomena in question is real. Even in mainstream science, new discoveries often come under a lot of fire, there is a process of peer review by which other scientists are going to pick apart the data and research from all angles. This is a good thing, as it helps us come to the truth and lead to a consensus as whatever is left is likely fairly reliable since it has been checked and rechecked by other scientists.

Coming against disagreement and critical evaluation of one’s research is par for the course in any scientific field. Other scientists can often strongly oppose the findings of another, and anyone who thinks scientists are always in agreement on everything is mistaken. There is a lot of debate and opposition even with mainstream research, let alone revolutionary ideas.

Anyone proposing new ideas needs to understand that of course it is going to be picked apart, that is actually one of the strengths of science. In the end, the strength of the evidence and how it holds up to scrutiny will be what leads to the truth. So I’d say that if the evidence is out there, sooner or later it is going to come to light as long as there are people willing to follow where it leads.

You just need people willing to investigate it, and for that to happen, they have to know that what they are looking for is going to stand up to this scrutiny and be convincing enough to warrant funding.

I’d say don’t get too down because some of these ideas aren’t accepted as of yet. Much knowledge of today wasn’t either at first. In the end, it will be all about the evidence and where it leads, and that is a good thing.

Sasquatch research would be the biological equivalent. Which is why it should happen.

It is OK to test even those things that wind up “so bad it’s not even wrong.” (From the evidence, the sasquatch isn’t close to bad, let alone that bad.)

As long as science plays by the rules that have succeeded - spectacularly - over the generations that science has been in operation.

Alcalde- Good post! Well said! The rules are revised, and paradigms shifted, by evidence. If the rules need to be changed, it has to be shown why the old way was wrong, or why it needs to be amended, not the other way around. The foundation we have was built by hard work and research that has been built upon by other scientists. It is so reliable in fact, that one reason scientists don’t have to start all research from scratch is because they can rest on the solid principles that came before. If we were to doubt the foundation without evidence to suggest why, then everyone would have to do everything from scratch, and that is a somewhat preposterous notion. Anyway, you explained it quite well I think.

MultipleEncounters- Well, I certainly agree that a somewhat open mind is needed in conjunction with science. Evidence is no good if people refuse to look at it or pursue it, and that is one reason why some paradigms in the past were so slow to change. One could argue that belief without evidence kept us thinking the world was flat or that the sun revolved around the Earth, but in fact the evidence was becoming available and there were those in important positions who refused to accept it. Close mindedness can be detrimental to science and the advance of knowledge in my opinion, and many groundbreaking discoveries were made by those who were thinking outside the box, but there does have to be something to make us suppose something might be true. We can’t let our brains fall out our heads, there are rules and ways of coming to the truth that are reliable. The corner might be small, but it is science that is shining the light out into the dark to see what else is there rather than just guessing about it.

Anyway, you are absolutely right that it should be about learning more about the universe. That is exactly what science is about, and I’m glad you basically agree that science itself (and not close mindedness) is a good way to do that.

Thank you for always taking the time to explain your position and discuss these things openly even though we don’t agree on a few points. You always keep a cool head when faced with opposing arguments and I do enjoy hearing your perspectives even though I might not always agree.

This has been a pretty good discussion by all those involved!

As to “What I’m saying is that science may have to listen to some of the country bumpkins out there who make claims of continued encounters and what goes on in those encounters. Science needs to ‘humble itself’ a bit in this field….”

Well, yes to the latter (as in scientists need to stop responding with flip answers where they have no expertise just because the media expects them to be experts in everything). Scientists need to admit that they don’t have all the answers…and maybe even save a little face in dong so by going further to chastise others who scoff without having done their homework. “I don’t know whether the sasquatch exists or not; and I’m tired of hearing people go off with unschooled opinions on this, one way or the other. We should all withhold judgment on things we don’t know.” Like that.

Now the question is how much listening we should expect from scientists to (as you put it) the “country bumpkins.” Again, science needs evidence, or else it’s not proceeding responsibly, neither to colleagues in the lab and in the field nor to the public for whom science is arbiter of what’s real. Science – for good or ill – has left the sasquatch sleuthing to amateurs. Some of these amateurs are excellent, and are trying to cleave to scientific bases for research. Others…not so much. To whom should science listen? My money is on those who are doing research that follows the great bulk of what’s being reported; because long experience tells us that is where the payoff is likeliest to be. It will be hard accepting a fellow, albeit big and hairy, human with language thoughts and dreams similar to ours, when no one’s shown you evidence you can sink your teeth into that even so much as the big and hairy exists. I’d rather focus on the big and hairy first, ‘cause we have metric tons of evidence for that, and more comes in by the week. I would thrust this in science’s face until a critical mass gets needed research under way.

Cryptidsrus pointed out in another blog that you can find flesh and blood, and go from there to finding things that right now seem woo-woo to us. That would be great. But you have to have the first before you can divine the second. I just want the searchers to focus that way, because, whether they themselves know or not, I WANT TO, and am relying – as is the public, as are the professionals – on them to deliver the goods because I’m not out there looking and won’t see my way clear to be so for a bit yet.

Now I’d have to disagree on your response to alcalde’s apple tree example. Brains or not makes not a jot of difference because so far as the bulk of the public is (or seems to be) concerned, there is no sasquatch, brains belly or anything. They need to see THAT proof (and the search needs to focus, exclusively, on that, first) which to them is precisely the same as apples falling upward, i.e, don’t happen. I think, therefore, that alcalde’s example is precisely spot on.

Most people need to see evidence, leading to proof, of (seemingly) absurd no-way-possible things like unicorns, centaurs, up-apple-trees, Nessies, and sasquatch before we can even begin to address the (seemingly) ever further way out there proposition that they’re talking to us, in English.

How can one prove an animal is speaking in tongues when there is no proof that the tongue allegedly speaking even exists?

As for String Theory and all the rest of Quantum Physics, tell the thousands of scientists who work at the Hadron Collider which spans two countries and costing several billion dollars and 27 Kilometers that. Then there are the equal number (or more) of scientists in this country who conduct their own similar research. I suspect the ‘vast majority’ of them are trying to prove such Quantum Physics theories with all their investment of time and equipment, not disprove them. I don’t think a few books by some who might even be considered ’scoftics’ to those who dare to propose new ideas, can be considered a wave of non-support. Hmmm, where have I heard that term before?

I’m not all that certain that Lee Smolin’s ideas necessarily say these phenomenon don’t exist either, after reading a short summary on him. He may be saying some things may not be provable or observable, but, well I haven’t read much about him either. The Hadron Collider exists to test many of these theories.

Everything follows “the rules”, or else “the rules” need to be revised. Scientists aren’t stuck “in the mud”, they’re just not tossing out all the collected data without reason. If I told you I have an apple tree in my backyard where the apples fall _upward_ into space rather than down to the ground, would you just blindly accept that tale and throw away all you believe you know about gravity just because I said so, with no evidence? And wouldn’t you demand a lot more evidence than a photo or a blurry YouTube clip before you’d accept it? In fact, you’d probably refuse to believe it without seeing the tree for yourself. And then if I told you that the apples don’t fall upward if strangers are around you’d take your leave of me for sure. Now replace upward apples with bigfoot and you’ll see that science isn’t unreasonable. What is unreasonable is to believe things without any reason for believing them. The sensible thing to do when encountering a claim that goes against “the rules” is to reject the claim without proof, not revise the rules without proof. That’s why the rules are the rules.

In regards to string theory, it is not only considered implausible by those in other fields, it is increasingly being regarded as so bad it’s “not even wrong” by those within physics. We’ve seen two books so far, including Lee Smolin’s “The Trouble With Physics” that have taken it to task. It’s akin to what you’re arguing for above about “the rules”: it throws away science’s theorizing from observational evidence then creating testable hypotheses, and instead builds wild theories without a shred of observational evidence. Not only that, many ideas it proposes are untestable, and others have failed their tests - yet these new theories contain so many variables untied to observational reality that their values can be changed or new values added to match any result. A theory that can’t be falsified isn’t a theory. I’m not sure how you can be so confident that string theory will be vindicated when there exists no evidence today that points in its direction. Much of physics, particularly cosmology, is heading in this direction, favoring ideas that are mathematically “beautiful”, or replacing observation and experimentation with math entirely, but fortunately some are beginning to pull it back from that slippery slope. It’s confusing the map for the territory. Ten dimensions might make an elegant math theory, but we have no evidence of any spatial dimensions beyond the three we can observe, let alone evidence of other universes within those dimensions.

Anyway, I’m not saying we don’t use science. What I’m saying is that science may have to listen to some of the country bumpkins out there who make claims of continued encounters and what goes on in those encounters. Science needs to ‘humble itself’ a bit in this field because these creatures are a bit more non-conforming to the rules them scientists want to follow. These sasquatch want our respect, they don’t like being tricked, they don’t like being hunted. They appear to even possess some of the abilities that Native Americans have claimed they have all these decades/centuries. But how can modern science possibly conform to Native American beliefs, which are not based on modern science, or the laws of earth as we know them for that matter? Hence we have a division.

The problem is, science can be so sterile, and yes there are many scientists out there who stubbornly deny things like sasquatch because of various reasons, such as it goes against the laws of this earth. Sasquatch? — Blasphemy! How could there be such a creature on earth, they say. Most scientists would not consider sasquatch to be something that exists on this earth even, so I guess in that way it doesn’t follow their idea of the laws of earth as they know it.

Nobody is saying science is not needed or that there is anything wrong with science in wanting to know and find out more. But science needs to budge from its high chair when it deals with things that may not follow its rules.

Yes this is a discussion about sasquatch speaking english so I’d rather not take the discussion any further away from the topic.

I will give another example however of how they could be learning our languages, just as they probably learned Native American languages. How many reports have you read of sasquatch looking in peoples windows after dark? Well there are plenty FYI, just like similar experiences people have while out camping. And that’s just when they are noticed. But how much time do they really spend listening to conversations without ever being noticed? Are they possibly learning language from long term observation of us?

What our small little corner of science is going to have to do in order to proceed, is to get off its safe high seat which views sasquatch as just some extant giant ape species. All because of a stinkin jaw and teeth found in China of something that doesn’t even resemble sasquatch in the models. But that’s the only piece of evidence the scientists have to grasp onto. So they remained stuck for a long time on very poor evidence because they didn’t know how to push the envelope. Within archeology, it would be considered professional suicide to propose that we are not the only living Homo whatever species on earth. Our science field is stuck in the mud. Until open up their minds to other non-conventional possibilities, it will be impossible for scientists to fathom how sasquatch could possibly speak language, yet alone english. They will be stuck with trying to rationalize it as mimicry, or that we are only hearing what we want to hear in recordings. For those scientists who consider the possibility that they may indeed be a primitive form of human, then these possibilities of speech become much more plausible.

Multiple_Encounters: science MUST think that EARTH follows the laws of the entire UNIVERSE, until directed research shows something different. What m_m and I have been saying is: evidence opens minds. I take a back seat to no one in my high dudgeon against scientists who make numbskull pronouncements in areas where they have done zero research (like this one). M_m is pretty much the example I can find, on this site, of what a grounded scientist MUST say when confronted with the unknown: I don’t know, and we won’t, until we follow the evidence to a conclusion.

So (he would then ask): what is your evidence…?

It’s a fair question.

I’m not sure what you mean by the universe not following the laws of the earth. The earth is part of the universe, so why would it not follow the same laws? Are you saying there are different laws for the earth and for the universe it is in? How did you come to this conclusion? Is that based on anything other than what you think it must be like? How can we learn about this for sure if not through careful study rather than speculation? Why is science wrong to want to know and find out more?

I think you are misunderstanding my post. Science is perfectly Ok with amending the rules, but there are certain ways of going about it. Science is a way of learning about the universe, a tool, and I trust it to bring us to the truth a whole lot more than unfounded conjecture. The argument that we should accept these new ideas because “science doesn’t know about the universe,” and so on, is faulty. Science IS trying to figure out the universe and its laws, it DOES want to know more, and it is doing so through means other than saying we should 100% believe such and such because it COULD be true.

So far, science has been the best, most reliable way to gain new knowledge that we have about the universe. It would be a shame to throw that out and just start taking on all manner of far out ideas that might be true. How do you suggest the rules of engagement change? Who decides what is worthy of study? How do we know what is worth pursuing if not for the evidence and knowledge we do have? What is better than carefully coming to conclusions based on evidence? I just don’t see anything wrong with the way we do things now.

Anyway, we are talking about language in sasquatch here, on Earth.

Are you saying it is better for me to accept language in sasquatch based on the idea that the universe doesn’t follow the same laws as the Earth? Or is it perhaps better to come to that conclusion based on evidence that comes up? Which is the better way to come to a reliable conclusion? What change to the rules of engagement do you propose? Do you mean accepting things without adequate evidence, or sometimes even a solid reason for thinking so other than “we don’t know everything”? I am open to many ideas, but I do know that I would rather be sure I was headed towards the truth.

What is wrong with science other than that it currently won’t look at what you think it should look at based on so little presented evidence? Blindly believing things has never gotten us anywhere. I’m NOT saying the things you propose are not true or are impossible. We don’t know, but I would at least like to find out. If there are mysteries like this out there, I think a scientific approach is a perfectly good way to pursue them. Many of the things we take for granted today were once considered magical or mysterious. What brought them to our knowledge? Yes, science.

Science is not the problem here, it is a way of reliably arriving at the truth. I think you mean that close minded people are the problem, and this is a big distinction. On that I’d totally agree!

“What we all learned in schools was incomplete. … Everything we learned about our being a solely unique bipedal species on earth was inaccurate. …”

Science is supposed to be about investigating new unproven things. To do so effectively, sometimes the rules of engagement also change. Science can’t think that the entire universe follows the laws of earth.