Um, Ben, I’ve hit that one head on in practically my every post. That would be it, your main criticism, far below us, trailing smoke on its way down to the deck.

What is “invalid research”? You’ve never said that, and I think there’s a reason. You don’t think ANY research into this subject is legitimate. What is there to do research ON, Ben, other than reports, also known as sightings, also known as EVIDENCE, and trackways? Unless — and this is funny — it’s yet another rehashing of the Patterson film, or another discussion of another long-beaten-dead-horse trackway that some people will never acknowledge as genuine and some others will never acknowledge as fake.

Science — that’s full time scientists, exercising science’s social responsibility to roll back the unknown — needs to go elsewhere: into the field, for a long-term stay, in areas suggested by heavy concentrations of SIGHTINGS, to find the animal. Or else, Ben, what? It’s clear that any use of any Bigfoot evidence for purposes of analysis is, to you, illegitimate.

Next argument?

Here’s mine. A challenge, to science. Who cares how many subspecies there are of the yellow-bellied red-butted mouse lemur of Madagascar?

Fund something exciting. Do something interesting to more than the pocket-protector set. Find the world’s most spectacular animal, guys! Have you forgotten how to have FUN?

Besides, who says the fake foot that is being compared to the cast noted is the one that goes with that cast. Wallace made several sets of fake feet and how do we know that we have seen them all.

But please look at the photographed track of the left footprint and tell me that is an imprint from a living foot?

The square big toe (hallux) and the peas-in-a-pod look of the rest of the toes are diagnostic of one set of Wallace’s fake wooden feet, indicative of a carving style found in the fake prints, and very apparent in the photographs seen in many books of Wallace Bigfoot fake prints, including even my first Tom Slick book before I came to grips with the reality of the bad apples in the bushel basket.

There are plenty of good tracks to examine, discuss, and analyze, so why persist in have the pranks that Ray Wallace and friends pulled live on? Throw them out.

Drawing conclusions about a skilled opponent’s qualifications based on no information is NOT good science.

As Jeff Meldrum could tell you.

And slagging cryptozoology smacks, just slightly, to me of biting the hand that feeds.

Just an informed observation.

And speaking of reading: Ben, just read my posts. I mean really read them. Your response sounds like a canned reaction to the appearance of your nemesis. I’m no one’s nemesis. And last I checked, I don’t bite.

No one is afraid to have his name associated with saying the animal doesn’t exist, right? That’s the EASY postion, Ben, not the tough one.

Meldrum is doing good science on the only information available to him. It would be nice if mainstream science got off its duff and did its job on this one, but as a skeptic, I’m not holding my breath.

Not acknowledging my points is what constitutes tacit acceptance. But I know you tacitly accept that.

I’m not going to comment further on DWA’s opinions, as from past experience I know it would be fruitless. People like DWA hide behind fake names, posting anonymously, and criticizing any experts and scientists they happen to disagree with while wilfully ignoring any skeptical studies or criticism.

Unlike DWA, I am not afraid to have my name associated with Bigfoot. I have actual academic credentials related to the field, and have done published fieldwork in cryptozoology. Also unlike DWA, I have read extensively on both sides of the topic, not just the one I agree with. Then again, getting both sides to a story has never really been a strong point in cryptozoology.

Anybody who knows anything about the raft of new species discoveries in Vietnam (maybe the best example) over the past fifteen or so years knows how they happened:

1. Sighting reports by locals.

2. Sketchy scraps of dubious evidence.

3. Full-time, professional, real scientists, following up.

“Good scientists distinguish valid evidence from invalid evidence, real from fake.”

One can’t do this, no matter how good a scientist, if one is working from the current base of information. With a wolverine, you can say what constitutes valid evidence and what doesn’t. Although, as Barry Lopez points out so eloquently in “Of Wolves and Men,” long-term observation of an animal in the wild can yield data that one would have considered totally non-characteristic — if one hadn’t seen it firsthand.

If you don’t even know, for certain, that there is an animal out there, you don’t know what “valid” is. (And you can only pronounce “fake” if you see a trace of artifice clearly left by a human.) You work with what you have.

When the apple fell on Newton’s head, he didn’t consider it valid evidence of the earth’s gravitational field. He said, what the hell?…and took it from there.

1. In the absence of a holotype, sightings, footprints, hair, video and other less-than-proof are all we have to work with.

2. As the animal is unconfirmed, there’s no way to say FOR SURE what it looks like. Again, sightings are all we have on this, which is why Fahrenbach annotates the analysis as “reported.”

It’s my belief that, if there’s an animal out there, it’s teaching us one hell of a lot about how much we think we know — about everything — compared to how much we really do. And we sure haven’t confirmed it by rehashing old evidence that many have simply refused to go with and never will.

The next thing to do is field research, by professionals with the resources and time to spend in the field. (Not just amateurs who can only donate the occasional weekend if they want to keep a roof over their heads.)

If this is going to happen, where should the pros go? Well, it only makes sense to go where there have been concentrations of good sighting reports by what appear to be reliable witnesses. That IS good science. When something isn’t known, you don’t have the known to go on.

If you ask me, it says a lot for the quality of the reports as evidence that almost anybody could look at a composite sketch, based on all the ones I’ve read, and say yep, that’s what I saw. The consistency on so many points of so many reports is nothing short of remarkable, no matter how you slice it.

Other than that, you’re just waiting for some yahoo in a pickup truck to shoot a Bigfoot. Hasn’t happened yet.