The “true believer” – This is someone who believes in Bigfoot because they CAN, not because of EVIDENCE.

The Shyster or “Cryptidiot” – This is someone who pretends to be a Bigfoot researcher in order to get people to waste their money. They are sometimes called Cryptidiots because they’ve earned it.

The Skeptic or Cryptozoologist – The fence-sitters. They honestly research Bigfoot, with no crippling bias or hidden agenda behind their research.

The Scoftic – An individual who BELIEVES Bigfoot CAN NOT exist, without doing much field research or actually looking at the evidence. Some Skeptics are Borderline Scoftic, like Ben Radford, who does field research, but may dismiss evidence out of hand, or ridicule others.

Just came across this quote:

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.- John F. Kennedy

I’m not sure I’ve read anything that describes more succinctly than this does – not even what I’ve written! lol – the scoftic take on the sasquatch.

The more the evidence mounts, the more I’m persuaded that contrary to the scofftic notion of hoaxers and unbalanced people making us imagine that an animal exists, it’s science’s scoffing and inattention that is making us imagine that it DOESN’T.

This isn’t UFOs. It isn’t ghosts. It’s dots – that science could connect. IF it wanted to.

I don’t weasel-word – nor does he – what we say about the sasquatch here. It all needs to be taken with the grain of salt called: “evidence seems to indicate that….”. That doesn’t mean we’re bleeding proponents. It means that this is stuff that could well be confirmed with further research – or not. I may sound as if there is no room in my mind for the notion that all of this is concocted – lies, hoaxes, wishful thinking and other fluff. Again, I’m not going to weasel it. But I am certainly open to evidence that this is what’s behind the sasquatch phenomenon.

It’s just that when most of the evidence I see points to an animal, and the isolated hoaxes don’t seem connected to anything bigger, and sightings continue by people who are not seeing guys in ape suits, and don’t read like they’re lying….well, sometimes one wants evidence to be pursued.

Until it is, just label me skeptic. I question – strongly – the apparently unexamined assumption that there’s no new ape here.

But skeptics can be convinced otherwise. Convince me. Evidence only, please.

Yeah, I’m a scientist, but that in no way makes me able to talk with authority about all the stuff involved in this field with authority and it certainly doesn’t give me the right to dismiss some of the very good ideas coming out here from you and others. There are aspects involved here that I know very little about. Psychology, archeology, anthropology, heck, even expertise in photographic processes and analysis. These are things I am learning about all the time on this site and in hindsight, I can see that I used to try and dismiss these areas that I didn’t even know about, like my own training somehow excluded me from having to have any knowledge in those areas in order to deny them. But not anymore. Now I am open to this sort of knowledge and willing to take into account compelling things I may never have even thought of. A scoftic just doesn’t do that.

Man, I was a denialist, big time. Sigh. But I am through with turning off the lights and now wish to shed light instead. Like you said, sometimes I think I come off as a proponent because I entertain the existence of the creature, and will speculate on its behavior at length. Of course I will, because it is fascinating for me and I can see all of the possibilities, and that’s just it, I am not closing any doors on good theories. But at the same time, I am a skeptic. I abhor jumping to conclusions. I indeed do question the dogma (and there certainly is a lot of it on both sides), I will challenge some proponent beliefs, and I will settle for nothing less than the concrete stuff that science needs but which I feel CAN be done in this field if the creature is indeed out there. Likewise, I do not swallow blurry videos very well (as you know) and I can occasionally slip a little towards my old close minded ways, but mostly I try to keep an open mind with all evidence presented both skeptical and otherwise. I will argue equally against needless assumptions towards Bigfoot or far fetched true believerism. (Is that a word? If not, it should be )

But I will not deny that there is good circumstantial evidence and things that could point us to that concrete evidence, where a scoftic will often write this sort of evidence off out of hand. This is an important distinction, I feel. I am just trying to see the truth for what it is, not what we want based on any agenda and regardless of how unlikely I may think Bigfoot is. You and things-in-the-woods are like this too, and you appreciate the beauty of the scientific method.

I also think another very important aspect is that when good points are proposed by proponents or even scoftics that I may be debating with, I am willing to admit that I’m wrong and do not know everything and that a hypothesis has merit. The difference from the way I was before is that now when I challenge proponent ideas, I challenge these things from a fair appraisal of what is presented, and I think usually rational reasons, not from any close mindedness, reluctance to accept I am wrong or desire to disprove. I can now say “Ok, show me what you’ve got” and I can say it without any ridicule towards the one showing me. That’s a big difference from what I see a scoftic as doing. I could go on and on, but the point is, a scoftic is NOT a skeptic in my eyes.

And so I need a word to make that distinction. So here, coming from an ex-scoftic, I can say that in my mind, there is a diference between “skeptic” and “scoftic”. Just as I think there is a difference between “proponent” and “true believer”. It is an extreme form of skepticism and it needs a name. “Scoftic” is the name I shall give it.

And I did. For a few exploratory posts there. And things-in-the-woods may keep trying. He may show us all how to do it. And maybe he already has; it’s clear from his responses that he has the ammo for an alternative approach. But maybe we lack his patience.

I get distinctly uncomfortable every time I type “skeptic” for people whose approach is clearly based on utterly unexamined assumptions. That’s NOT a skeptical approach! Now some of these people may lack my background as an outdoorsman and my layman’s familiarity with animals. But when you shine that light into those unexamined corners, and keep getting responses that go, what light? – well, m_m, I feel your pain. And I was never one to feel pain and not yell, sorry ’bout that.

You’re not a skeptic “of sorts,” m_m. You’re a skeptic. I’ve never seen you settle for dogma. You question every assumption; which is what skeptics do. It’s not a noble word – and I think it is, or should be – if it’s anything else. There are many assumptions on the negative side of this argument, and as many negative belief-spews and talismans on the Bigfoot-isn’t-real side of this argument as there are on the yes-he-is side. And equal amounts of ignorance and dogma on both sides. You and I and things-etc. come off, sometimes, sounding like proponents. And the reason is that we see lots of dogmatic, rote blather coming over the airwaves here from the not-skeptics-but-something-else-and-some-of-us-think-a-single-word-might-help-to-illustrate-that.

Um…see?

It’s like a file on my teeth to read such as Ben Radford talk about how much legitimacy they’ve lent to this topic. (And others agree with him.) Here’s The English Translation: “You guys are regarded by most people as fools. My paying attention to you, at all, lends legitimacy to what you do. I mean, I Have A Psychology Degree and Publish Books. You should be thankful, and you should thank me when I come on here to lead everyone off topic, try my best to make you look silly, which I can’t seem to manage, and disrespect what you do.”

You and I and things (things: you have one of the best names on the board. I’m just trying to keep my typing momentum going, OK? ) and several other earnest, informed people here lend more legitimacy to this topic in each post than Ben has in his life. We shed light. We encourage the searchers. We add new tidbits of information and informed thought and speculation. Every moment Ben’s on here, people are responding to things that are so stale that even talking about them constitutes a distraction from what should be going on, which is: coming to a consensus on search protocols that will tell us, one way or another, about the cryptid in question. Has Ben ever offered one such? Has he ever said what should be done with the evidence? Has he ever said that a search is legitimate, and offered thoughts on how it might proceed? Anybody? I stand corrected by anyone who can offer me an example. One. What I see is Ben asking us to document – by instance – what everyone who has ever encountered the sasquatch knows is as real as the animal he just saw: ridicule for reporting what your eyes told you as clearly as they ever told you anything.

That’s just my opinion. But there it is. The biggest help Ben could give the field is ignoring it. Legitimate scientists, with reason to believe there’s something here worth looking at, read Ben, or scan scofftic sites, and go: no way am I exposing myself to that flat-earth crap. My boots get dirty enough as it is.

You’re right, mystery_man. Sometimes (for most of us, things; maybe that’s why we need you ) that one-word shoe just, well, fits.

Because we know there’s more important stuff to waste words on than discuss those who don’t help the search, one bit.

———————–

“If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it’s still a foolish thing.”

- W. Somerset Maugham

If you don’t suffer fools gladly, sooner or later a good one-word dismissive comes in handy.

Don’t want to be pasted with “scoftic”? Don’t act like one. I’ve given you pointers. Let’s summarize them:

1. Don’t keep coming back with the same old Urban Arguments Against when we’ve shot them full of holes. Particularly when it’s clear to us you’re cherrypicking, and not confronting our arguments and addressing them.

2. Show you know something about the sciences involved. (About science in general would sure be nice. We’re not your parents and this isn’t fourth-grade science fair. Evidence means more than one thing, honey.)

3. Please stop saying there’s no evidence. It marks you an unschooled rube. I wouldn’t pretend to sit at the table discussing today’s most important astronomy topics with the world’s most prominent astronomers. Don’t you sit at this table and show, in post after post, not only your ignorance of data, evidence, and the relevant sciences, but also your unwillingness to listen to any point of view other than your own. OK, we’re nicer than astronomers. But if you’re ignorant, show you can learn.

4. STOP TALKING DOWN TO PEOPLE WHO KNOW MORE THAN YOU AND CONTINUALLY DEMONSTRATE IT.

Now, balance a book on your head and show us a compliant gait. Yeah. It’s kinda like finishing school.

Um, does this sound like a lot to post?

See where “scoftic” comes from?

“It is highly illogical to suggest, that the millions of visitors ( workers, employees, tourists, etc. ) to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest are overlooking any/all verifiable evidence for a breeding population of a 500 lb. primate.”

You’re right. It IS quite, quite illogical to say that “overlooking” it is the only thing they’re doing.

Many could be overlooking it. Many could just not recognize it when they saw it. They wonder what it is, muse for a bit, and walk on. Many (I’d be one) could see something but not report it because they presumed, probably quite correctly, it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Many could simply not encounter any evidence on their visits. (Most of those millions of visitors could be attached to their cars by 300 feet of chain with no discernable impact on their visits.)

Many (Gifford Pinchot NF? Would that be, um, WA?) FILE ENCOUNTER REPORTS.

READ THEM.

“Which, of course , doesn’t mean that it is not possible.”

RIGHT.

No, I really did mean probability.

You suggested that it ’stretched logic’ to suppose that bigfoot existed despite the fact that no bigfoot corpse had been found.

I was trying to point out that there is, in fact, no such thing as stretching logic. Either something is logically possible, or it isn’t (so i don’t really know what you mean by ’stretching possibility’ either). And that nobody has discovered an example of something that exists is not a logical impossibility.

In this case, however, it is relatively improbable. The odds on it being the case are long (quite how long we don’t know, for all the various reasons discussed on this site). This is what I mean by probability being stretched. The longer it goes on that we do not find a corpse, the longer the odds are that, if BF does exist, this should be the case. However, at no point does it become a logical impossibility that it should be the case (at least, at no point we are likely ever to reach- i.e., that we have constant simultaneous survellience of every square inch of the north american continent).

Think of it this way. We put an object randomly in a room. We then put a robot in that room that moves randomly about the room. The longer we leave the robot randomly moving about the room, the longer the odds become that it wont bump into the object. But it might still move around that room for ever without bumping into it. It is not logically impossible, it does not ’stretch logic’ if it does so. It simply stretches the odds (’stretches probability’).

And I never suggested it was ‘probable’ (which, in any case, is an entirely relative term). I only suggested it did not defy logic.