“This is one of the major areas DWA and I disagree as I believe if our camp is making a positive assertion that Bigfoot exists, we are the ones who have to bring forth proof. Although absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

“We” (if you mean the proponents) are not the ones charged with bringing home the proof.

The scientific mainstream is. All amateurs can do is put the evidence on the table. We don’t believe them, right? We will only accept this when the mainstream does.

And this is my point: if the scientific mainstream had gone after evidence in the same exact way that dedicated amateurs have, the sasquatch would have been proven long ago …1968 at the outside. Patterson-Gimlin would have been the final nail in the coffin (if the 1950s CA footprints that put “Bigfoot” in the national press weren’t). Scientists would have gone into the field right on the heels of that film; and they would not have stopped until they had proof.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding regarding evidence and proof that plagues both sides in this discussion: Evidence must be FOLLOWED UP before proof is obtained. Science doesn’t – when it is working properly – sit on its hands and wait for a body. Didn’t do that with the saola, did it?

What the scientific mainstream does, in every search in which they have bought in, is take each inconclusive piece of evidence and build upon it until the documentation of proof.

The “skeptics” – and it is a shame cryptos and the mainstream fail to understand this – have a preposterous thesis. They never state it, but it is clear: all of this evidence amounts to a false positive. The volume and consistency of the evidence argues, virtually conclusively, against that thesis. It is simply not rational, if one does not believe that thesis, to do what “skeptics” do: say of every additional piece of evidence that, well, that is not proof, so this whole thing is a crock.

What the “skeptics” would be doing, were they truly skeptical, was calling on the mainstream to address this pile of evidence and shut the proponents up. They don’t. And still the mainstream – collaborating in the obstruction of a scientific investigation – continues, cheered on by the peanut gallery, not to address the evidence.

It is not kosher to oppose a thesis and not propose one’s own. Proper scientific practice – to which all parties are held – does not allow it.

The pile demands attention.

To have a position in this discussion, one must address that pile. If one does not, one MUST state why.

(And that why would not hold up with this pile.)

Period. That is how science works.

My gripe is the fact that we do have a decent amount of circumstantial evidence yet very few main stream scientists will look at it. Unfortunately that is because the term “Bigfoot” and “Sasquatch” has been tainted by far too many hoaxes. If we would call it an unknown bear species or possible hybrid I think you’d get a lot more zoologists and biologists looking into it. The other major problem our camp has is the fact that ‘we’ can’t even agree on what constitutes proof. We have no real system to weed out anything other than poorly thought out, obvious hoaxes. We either don’t have the ability or haven’t bothered to do research in a way to prevent outside contamination (like the vocalizations that turn out to be two different research teams answering each other). At this point, short of an actual body, I do think our best bet is with DNA evidence, but if Bigfoot is a fairly close relative of ours most labs will probably send the sample back as contaminated. If that happens, perhaps someone could resend it to the Human Genome Project to see what that comes up with. If it is different enough from human it might give us some interesting results and possibly show if Yeti and Sasquatch are the same species or divergent species filling the same niche.

Well he better had, eh?

This is the first word the aspiring zoologist needs to understand properly. In fact, it’s one most scientists – never mind lay people – don’t.

Skeptics, real ones, question. And they demand evidence.

Troodon’s questioner is most of us, much of the time. I’m not sure how much religion has to do with this, but there seems to be a societal consensus that we are allowed to make many judgments, including scientific ones, without the benefit of evidence. “Bigfoot skeptics” don’t believe they need to put a thing on the table, when the proponents’ contention is a reasonable one supported by evidence, and theirs is about as preposterous as a rational person has ever swallowed.

Scientists swallow it too, whole. No fossil evidence in our hands means no sasquatch, despite rampant speculation how many more dinosaurs remain to be found as fossils, and despite universal understanding of fossilization as a fabulously rare process. (Hint: you won’t be, no matter how hard you try.) It’s estimated – by mainstream scientists – that approximately two to five percent, depending upon whom you listen to, of all primate species that ever existed have left evidence. How does one leap from that supposition to, sorry, but no fossil record means that this is just unlikely? How, praytell, was “unlikely” calculated? Well, it wasn’t, and it never is, any more than intelligent design is calculated, or God is calculated.

“I don’t need evidence, I just know” is mainstream science’s attitude toward anything it doesn’t understand. That ain’t skeptical. The single-species hypothesis wasn’t skeptical. Setting the vintage of humankind based on the latest fossil find – um, not gonna find any more, is that it? – is really not skeptical.

And scientists have to be skeptical, all the time. They are forbidden to scoff by the nature of what they do.

Which depends – utterly – on enlightened consideration of evidence.

Which says – whether you want it to or not – that sasquatch and yeti are real.

I hate comfortable assumptions like that’s-not-possible. If the evidence says it is… it is.

Sorry, that’s just the skeptic in me talking.

You did get an ‘A’ for the report, right?

For example, back when I was in 7th Grade, I wrote a persuasive essay about Bigfoot, for my Writing class, in which I attempted to persuade the reader that the evidence for Sasquatch’s existence was convincing.

Before one of my classmates heard my speech, he said to me, “What? Your topic can’t be Sasquatch! Sasquatch isn’t even real!” I then asked him, “What evidence has led you to come to that conclusion?” He then said, “Well, none, really. But I don’t need any evidence, because I KNOW that Sasquatch is fake!” I then asked him, “How do you know?” He replied to me, “I don’t know, but I just KNOW, that it’s fake!”

So, if a person was observing our conversation, they would probably label me as the “believer”, and my classmate as the “skeptic”. However, in reality, I am the Skeptic, and he is the True-Believer. This is because I have painstakingly examined the evidence for the Sasquatch, and I have come to the conclusion that it most likely exists, based on my studies. He, however, just denied the existence of Bigfoot, based on preconceived notions. Indeed, many people accuse cryptozoologists of approaching their field of study, with preconceived notions, about the existence of cryptids. However, I know many honest cryptozoologists, who approach the matter, purely from an objective, and scientific, point-of-view. Indeed, it is the debunker, in this case, who approaches the matter, with an agenda, in mind.

So, in conclusion, I have to say that, once again, the vast majority of skeptics do not attack, simply for the sake of attacking. It is the cynics, and the debunkers, and the scoftics, that do this.

No more – and no less – mature a challenge than the skeptics deserve.

Well played.

In keeping with M_M’s POV, skeptics should view Cryptozoology or other Fringe field as new game, and themselves as Beta testers.

They should be willing to find out where the bugs in the game’s code are, when the action becomes too repetitive, and where the story plot too sloppy. By doing that they will make a solid contribution to the company making the games, and the consumers at large.

But, first and foremost, they should keep in mind that they’re supposed to play the goddamn game. That means all the heavy, tedious work of unwrapping the actual box, taking the disc out and inserting it in the console, followed by the pushing of the PLAY button.

Then, and only then are you allowed to say either “this game totally rulez!” or “this game totally blows.”

You are not, REPEAT, *not* allowed to judge the game merely by its cover and say “Meh… this looks retarded”. That’s a scam, pure & simple.

Now, game on!

The word skeptic is not the problem. I would argue that all of us here are skeptics. We look at every bit of information that comes at us on this site and we look at it skeptically. What did someone see? What were the conditions? What is that person’s experience with the environment? Could they have seen something mundane that they misinterpreted? And so on. To me that is being skeptical. It’s looking with doubt in an effort to realize the truth.

I just don’t like it when debunkers, cynics and scoftics seize the badge and monicker of “Skeptic” when they have no affinity with it other than just bashing something. I’m not going to give them the respect of being skeptical because they’re not really trying to get at the truth as much as they’re trying to roll their eyes at everything that comes down the road.

To me, that’s not skeptical, it’s just being argumentative for the sake of it.

Fortunately, cryptomundo was really the first site I latched onto for cryptozoology, and I’ve never gone looking for others because the people on here are intelligent and like to actually discuss crypto-related things (for the most part) in a constructive way. I think that’s a credit to Craig for keeping the posters on track of what’s important!

Surely the opposite of believer is disbeliever, and the opposite of skeptical is gullible.

Those who divide contributors into believers and skeptics (a.k.a. debunkers) are treating the subject as a belief system rather than a scientific endeavour. Of course, there’s a lot more money to be made from belief systems than from science, provided you market it properly.