(I do have to say: spending much time here and remaining ignorant of evidence strikes me a waste of time. READ UP.)

Tom’s bear paw in a jar he claims is bigfoot’s hand and that “toe nail” from awhile back?

And that’s a cow, ferpetesake, living in a very small area compared to the above cryptids. That science recognizes and has been actively seeking for decades.

I think it’s even more endangered than the Saola…

I said in my last post “I have less reason to think the saola is fake than I do to think the sasquatch is fake, because the former has been proven to science’s satisfaction.”

That is clearly wrong. But if you read my post, I corrected myself.

So let me restate this properly.

“Although the saola has been proven to science’s satisfaction, and the sasquatch has not, there is no more reason to think that the sasquatch is fake than that the saola is. Any protestation to the contrary bald-facedly broadcasts ignorance of the evidence.”

Thank you.

Simple. Ever seen a saola, in the flesh? Personally, yourself?

That simple.

I don’t think it’s fake either. I have less reason to think the saola is fake than I do to think the sasquatch is fake, because the former has been proven to science’s satisfaction. I’m just trying to make a point that non-scientific thinkers simply don’t get when it comes to crypto: EVIDENCE COUNTS.

Whether proof, or not.

Lots of people – far, far more than claim to have seen a saola, by orders of magnitude – claim sasquatch and yeti sightings. They run the gamut of education and social class. The pattern of encounters follows, pretty much exactly, that for all other large animals we know of, in that those in their territory most often have the most sightings, and they happen where the mass of other reports would lead one to suspect they would happen. In their own vernacular, witnesses describe very consistent features – down to hair length, head shape, nose shape, relative size of hands, fullness of lips, extreme muscularity, speed and athleticism – you get the idea. Included among their number are scientists, with knowledge in relevant fields. These scientists have examined forensic evidence – yes there IS – and come up with consistent findings on that evidence. The scientific mainstream – which society depends upon, utterly, for proof – simply refuses to follow up. For a variety of reasons, some of them (I have a job doing another kind of science) valid.

As I’ve never seen a saola, why should I have any more reason to discount someone who seems sincere and gave a good description of a sasquatch? Any scientist who is being honest would tell you: there is no logical reason; to do so without evidence that one should do so is to jump to the exact sort of conclusion logic resists. When people describe something that is consistent with the mass of reports; when there is no reason to think it’s a copycat report or a hoax (not so fast! You need EVIDENCE before you make those pronouncements), and when the mass of descriptions describe a perfectly plausible animal…then you have frequency (lots of reports) and coherence (they all check generally with one another). Any scientist being honest would tell you that you have a basis, right there, for further scientific investigation of the phenomenon, because frequency and coherence alone tell you that you are likely to find an unrecognized source for all that evidence.

No proof is NOT a logical reason. Proof doesn’t happen when evidence isn’t followed up and the follow-up accepted by the scientific mainstream. That’s science’s job; and science has been lax when it comes to the sasquatch.

It is far, far more plausible to believe that a wild ape-man runs over the North American continent – frequently reported but never truly investigated, leaving lots of evidence of its passage that is thrown out without review because of a pigheaded refusal to believe something like this even possible – than to think that a 300-pound ox, a quite “believable” animal and kind of a dumb one compared to an ape, could wander through three (I said two; it’s three) WARS in its territory in the past sixty years alone and go unconfirmed by science.

Yet the latter happened. And the former, remember, is more plausible. And that all of that evidence has been faked? Please. Faking the saola would be much easier. If you doubt that, you need to get acquainted with the evidence. No one who thinks that the sasquatch, or the yeti, aren’t real is acquainted with the volume and depth of the evidence. That’s a fact, not an opinion.

So it’s not that I think the saola is fake. It’s just that anyone familiar with the other two critters knows that they aren’t any less plausible.

Fact, not opinion.

Which takes me to my next question: why does no skeptic debate this with a scientist who disagrees with him…? I’d pay money to hear that one.

(Back to the saola. Off soapbox.)

Ditto for Nessie, Ogopogo or Mokele Mbembe…

I think it all depends on what you think they are. If you think bigfoot is a relative to humans I don’t think you would. If you think BF is an animal like a rhino, elephant, or even fish, I don’t see any problem with it being in a zoo.
Although ogopogo would need a big tank.

Would you ever want to see Bigfoot held captive in a zoo facility?

Ditto for Nessie, Ogopogo or Mokele Mbembe…