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rbhess wrote (post #96, 9/24/07, 11:14 AM):
“This model tells us that there was probably never any large primates (other than man–believed to be a relative latecomer) in North America. If there were, they’d have left behind some trace …”

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Um, that’s a flawed model (Roger’s demurrer aside). Here’s why:

1) As I said above, models tell us what has been determined to be true. they don’t assess probabilities for something that is either a 100 (exists) or a zero (doesn’t). They can only address things that aren’t in the model by saying: there is nothing sufficient to prove that contention. (Yet.)

2) The fossil record is nothing to predict from. It will always be, by definition, incomplete. Not only is it, in fact, incomplete (a very small percentage of prehistoric animals are known from full sets of remains), but fossilization is such a fabulously rare process - bet: you will NOT become a fossil, no matter how you intend to improve the odds - that the absence of something from the fossil record being taken as evidence that the thing did not exist is, in essence, proving a negative. With no evidence from which to draw. It’s simply conduct unbecoming a scientist to state that if something had existed, it would have left some trace. There’s no theory - much less conceivable proof - supporting that notion.

And as all of us here know, there’s much closer to overwhelming evidence for the sasquatch than there is to an “overwhelming absence of evidence.” Whether now considered proof by mainstream science or not, that is NOT a minor point.

With this thread, looking over it again, a few things bothered me about the P/G film. They’re things I don’t recall seeing any skeptic on the sasquatch ever address, and I can’t help but wonder why. (No, I haven’t brought up more than like one or two of them. Hey, I can’t do all the thinking around here.)

1) Many folks seem willing to come on to Cryptomundo and argue this film with us. None of them ever address the analyses of this film by qualified experts in relevant fields, virtually all of whom came back saying either “unknown animal” or “can’t tell” (which I think is a sotto voce way of saying, “that’s not human.” But that’s just me.)
1a) One of the “con” votes on P/G said that the film conclusively showed him an unknown animal - then deumurred on the grounds that “I can’t believe the Sasquatch exists.” This is what happens to scientists on this topic; they forsake their training. I never see it properly accounted for.
2) The most scathing skeptical analysis of this film that I have seen (David Daegling’s) doesn’t address the substantive aspects of the proponent analyses at all, uses junk science to make its points, and still, in the end, states that “the identity of the film subject cannot be determined with any confidence.”
3) I keep hearing – from rbhess, primarily – that scientific models are intended to tell scientists what the world is like. Don’t know about you, but I always felt that scientists create the models, don’t allow models to restrict free exchange of thought – which clearly happened to P/G – and revise them upon further information. Not only that, but models describe what is. They do not – they cannot – describe what isn’t. (Yet.) Either the sasquatch exists or it doesn’t. It’s either 100 or zero. A model that says the latter when fact is the former is bad wrong. Science uses models to guide thinking, not to think for it. The major crime scientists - with few exceptions - made with P/G was not thinking for themselves, but letting groupthink rule.
4) A restatement of 3): if anyone asks whether there are, or ever have been, apes or other non-human anthropoids in North America, the only answer a scientist can truly give is: not that we know of, yet.
5) Models do NOT allow one to make assumptions about an unknown that suddenly shows up on the radar screen. Speculate on the basis of what is known, yes. Assume, no. When a scientist sees a film of what looks as much like an unknown primate as it does like a human in a suit – never mind that people with serious credentials are telling him so, and some of those are saying it’s the former – the only assumption the scientist is allowed by his training to make is: I can’t state what that is.
6) Assuming it’s a man in a suit is NOT allowed. Models don’t act as a club against knowledge; they simply require proof before they are changed. The tack I hear rbhess taking is: science can’t consider any evidence contrary to a model unless it amounts to proof. Indeed, science must assume the evidence is a false positive! Not sure where research can go with that. Pluto would still be a major planet if that were so (look how quick that model got overturned). And OK, Pluto shouldn’t have been demoted. But scientists don’t seem to know when democracy applies. 7) That scientists are abandoning their training when it comes to the sasquatch is illustrated, pretty conclusively, by this: I have never heard a scientist on this topic who sounded like anything other than an unschooled layman spouting off at a cocktail party. Unless he either thought the animal was real, or thought a harder look was required.

And now, if you take exception, you really have to just reread. Because you are, quite clearly, jumping to conclusions. Qualified folks who reviewed P/G could tell you that.

I’m guilty of saying – even right here – that P/G has been terminally polluted as evidence. But J. Darren Naish is only the latest piece of evidence that maybe *I* jumped to a conclusion there.

“… did the horses scare the ‘adorable woodsman,’ which is my name for the lady?”

I’d very much like to know the magazine the Don Post gorilla suit ad appeared in, and its exact date. I’d like to cite it in an article, but I need to “source” it properly.

Response: The odor was not faint at the source, but faint at the distance that I gave.

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AtomicMrEMonster wrote (post #78, 9/22/07, at 2:02 PM):
“I’m surprised at what I’ve found. Patterson once referred to Patty as a “son of a buck,”

That’s not a serious contradiction. “Daughter of a buck” doesn’t come trippingly off the tongue; and he’d no doubt had it engraved in his mind for years that Bigfoot sighting = male, because that’s what over 90% of reporting persons describe.

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AtomicMrEMonster wrote (post #78, 9/22/07, at 2:02 PM):
“I’m surprised at what I’ve found. … [Patterson's] references to Patty having drooping breasts match the Roe sighting, but not what we see on film….”

No, the Roe-creature’s breasts were horizontal, or perky, as shown in the drawing made by his daughter under Roe’s direction, which is reproduced on p. 54 of Green’s “Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us” and p. 36 of Murphy’s “Meet the Sasquatch.” Roe described her similarly, using the discreet and indirect diction appropriate to a 50’s-era Canadian newspaper, as having “a complete well-proportioned female figure.” (Source: “Hunter spots Sasquatch girl” in “The Province.”) Patterson would have seen and made a copy of that article when he visited John Green in 1964 or 1965. And he may even have seen Roe’s drawing at that point too. The drawing of the Roe creature by an artist for an outdoor magazine (“Field and Stream” I think) that is reproduced on p. 101 of “The Bigfoot Film Controversy,” and that does have Patty-like breasts, was obviously (to Patterson) based on the artist’s guesswork.

The creature with truly pendulous (vertical) breasts was the “Old Lady” described by Ostman–see Patterson’s drawing on p. 121 of “The Bigfoot Film Controversy.” Patty’s breasts were in between–at a 45 degree downward angle. “Pooped” would be a term intermediate between perky and pendulous to describe them. Patterson followed neither template.

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AtomicMrEMonster wrote (post #78, 9/22/07, at 2:02 PM):
“I’m surprised at what I’ve found. … Of the two, Bob Gimlin seems to have been better to sticking to his story, even to the point of openly contradicting Roger at events. I find it very odd that after Bob Gimlin did this a few times, he later stopped appearing with Roger Patterson or talking about Bigfoot until after Patterson’s death.”

Gimlin contradicted Patterson in interviews before the events (film screenings in theaters) at which they appeared together. I’m not aware of any contradictions AT such events, although they may well have occurred. (Can you cite a source for them occurring there?)

Patterson’s brother-in-law Al DeAtley, who was present during the film-showings, gave a different rationale for Gimlin’s departure: “Gimlin had gone bye-bye. … I understand that Gimlin’s wife wasn’t too happy with all of this sh*t. I think she put her foot down and said, “Enough’s enough.” (”The Making of Bigfoot,” p. 265)

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jerrywayne wrote (post # 84, 9/22/07, 4:31 PM):
“And it should be noted that a self-confessed [make that "self-proclaimed"--RK] hoaxer, Bob Heironimus, is 6 foot or 6foot 1 inch.]”

And thus too tall to fit into a 6 foot 1 inch [Skeptical Greg’s estimate) Patty suit that contained a three-inch high sagittal crest.

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rbhess wrote (post #96, 9/24/07, 11:14 AM):
“This model tells us that there was probably never any large primates (other than man–believed to be a relative latecomer) in North America. If there were, they’d have left behind some trace …”

That’s not so, according to Myra Shackley’s 1983 book, “Still Living?” p. 48: “North America has no other primates today, but this has not alwys been the case. A single upper molar tooth was sifted from tones of rubbish at a site in Montana called Purgatory Hill, and must represent a primate which, with its friends, was living in North America 40 million years ago.”
(That would be the Miocene Era, I think.)

But wait. My thoughts are that if someone has the means and desire to pursue the matter further, that to me is not a bad thing. The fact is that there are people out there trying to collect viable evidence to prove sasquatch in a scientific manner, and I find nothing wrong with that. If they want to use the PG footage as a lead to how sasquatch MIGHT be, then as long as definitive presumptions are not made, I say fine. It does not count as any serious evidence, but who knows, maybe they WILL come up with a needed preponderance of evidence to support their claims. I don’t think we can fully rule that possibility out yet. Sure, I do have contentions about the way evidence may be skewed or misrepresented, such as broken branches being assumed to be the doing of Bigfoot, or assuming the PG footage must be real, as well as your example regarding Heuvelmans and Sanderson. Making mistakes like that does not help anyone and I feel it can lead to dangerous assumptions based on questionable data. However, I urge anyone who has a theory that they feel is worth investigating to be all means delve into it further if they can. I see nothing against science in taking a theory, in this case sasquatch, which is while not a feasible theory in some people’s minds is nevertheless pointed at by a heap of circumstantial evidence, and then trying to follow that to where it leads. It is absolutely up to the believers, the ones that propose an extraordinary hypothesis to prove it, so I say have at it. If their evidence is not admissible, then no harm done, we merely continue with our accepted model of the world. But if they by some chance manage to successfully challenge that model, we will be better off for it. I agree the PG footage is quite likely a dead end, and I don’t think we are at the stage where any serious research funding will be applied to this field, but I am glad someone is out there giving it a go.

rbhess: you may be starting to see how close you and I are on this.

Where we differ is on the preponderance of evidence that the Patterson film is real, and what that means.

I don’t believe that we have to “go with the simpler, more likely explanation” on this film, because we don’t have any explanation at all. The scientific need for rigor which you stress repeatedly says you can’t go with any explanation not backed by evidence tantamount to proof. And as many of us have said many times, “man in ape suit” is not a simple explanation, and certainly not simpler than the simple existence of a highly plausible animal. Particularly if that animal simply EXISTS.
How could the logistics required for a suit hoax be a simpler explanation, if (a) it has never been plausibly explained how such a thing could have reasonably happened and (b) the critter has (possibly) simply been there all this time? If there is one thing the copious encounter evidence tells me it is that this thing is as plausible as anything we know to exist - the difficulty in confirming it (amost wholly a function of science’s lack of followup) aside.

Extraordinary evidence will never be found unless someone finds it; and to find it someone has to look.

Hikers tend not to scientifically confirm unknown animals. Fully funded scientific expeditions - devoting the time and the effort required - do.

People are seeing this critter, in droves. But until someone brings back more than an encounter report it will remain unconfirmed. “Someone” probably won’t be a layman.

I can’t blame science for simply not looking. But I can blame it for stating - based on nothing - that there is nothing to look for. Which science in fact does not say. But too many scientists who should know better do.

On the one hand–no one, scientist or otherwise–can say anything conclusive or definitive at all about the film.

Simply put, it could be a man in a suit, or it could be a real animal. If the former, we’re done as far as the Patterson film goes–though it would not disprove the existence of bigfoot. If the latter, then it has to be an unknown, and the biology books need re-writing.

I have said time and time again that from a personal standpoint, the film troubles me. I am left on the fence by it (I won’t repeat myself as to why). One thing I also feel however, is that we’ll never be able to know for certain what it is. Oh sure, maybe if someday the existence of bigfoot IS established, and it looks just like the bigfoot in the Patterson film, then maybe. But even then we can’t be certain that Patterson didn’t fake it, could we? (Though of course it would be far less likely, in that event).

NOW… partly because we can never be certain of what it is, this is why I say that the film is left worthless as evidence. As an individual, I can say “maybe.” Maybe I see something in that film that bothers me, that makes me think it could be a real animal. But science itself isn’t allowed such luxuries of “iffy-ness.” It has to be this or that. NOT on the question of the existence of bigfoot–but simply on the question of a piece of evidence. EVEN THEN I do not mean that science makes a judgement call in some final, ironclad sense, which is where I think you’re misunderstanding me. I only mean that science must judge an item or an artifact in the moment as demanded. Maybe someday some technology we can’t even dream of will be able to look at that film and tell us definitively that it’s a real animal, or definitively that it’s a man in a suit. Until then, yes—the film remains an open question. But an open question is, then, useless as a piece of evidence. Are you beginning to see what I mean?

This is a form of Occam’s Razor. We have an artifact, the identity of which we can’t determine. But then, we need to make a call on that artifact. So we have to go with the simpler, more likely explanation—for the time being.

Here’s another way of looking at it. Let’s say you lose a valuable possession… say, a painting. Then I come to you and show you a picture of the painting, a photograph of it, in someone’s home–(we’ll say that at first neither of us knows whose home it is, so you can’t just go and look at it to verify for certain that it’s yours). In a court of law, that would be a suggestive piece of evidence which would say that maybe that person had stolen your painting, and a judge could at least issue a warrant to have the painting confiscated or something, so that it’s identity could be firmly established. And let’s say it gets confiscated, and an expert says, “well, that’s probably the same painting.” And maybe there’s other evidence which suggests this person stole it from you. The court can finally make a judgement call on that, and award you the painting back. The law can come down on one side or the other of such a question. But science has to maintain a greater rigor. Sure, a scientist could say, “sure looks like the same painting.” But SCIENCE can’t say that it IS the same painting until we get a hold of it and examine it and make tests of it. Maybe it’s a copy. Maybe it’s a print. Science isn’t allowed “maybes” though. Science can’t say if that painting definitively is or isn’t yours—so then scientifically, the photograph is worthless. Yes, to the court it raises suspicion. But scientifically it means nothing. Nothing can be said scientifically until we have the painting in our possession and can test it.

Take it further. Say that we know that there WERE copies of the painting made, and many prints. Then the situation is worse. Then we can’t even have as reasonable a suspicion about the photograph. Then there’s a good chance that it IS just a copy or a print. Now we’re in a worse spot. We can’t even be all that suspicious… not without more evidence. And let’s even say that this other person who has this possible copy, is a pillar of the community—the last person in the world who would steal a painting. Even less ground for suspicion.

So it is with the Patterson film. No, we can’t say anything conclusive or definitive about it. But therefore, until we can, it is, in the abstract, worthless as a piece of evidence.

But I don’t know if it’s helpful to pursue this further. I am upholding the scientific method when I say the film is worthless as evidence, because it remains quite possible and plausible that it is a man in a suit.

To claim that it is MORE likely to be a real animal than a man in a suit is an extraordinary claim… and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Not vice versa. That doesn’t mean the door is closed on bigfoot itself or for that matter the Patterson film. It merely means that we still have an open question.