Bigfoot

Crash, your crazy bullshit insults and strawmen are making me extremely tired.If you'd like to take a time out and think about what you did, then maybe we can continue talking at some point in the future.Until then, you should probably go hang out at the sandbox or something.

Evidence. Still waiting for it.But I guess that's kind of the point, isn't it? Was it even evidence that convinced you in the first place?

Words alone would not be good enough to convince me.
But seeing bigfoot, wouldn't always be a life changing experience.Now if my best buddy went camping, and then claimed he saw bigfoot, then devoted his whole life to trying to capture bigfoot on film or something, then I might be more inclined to believe it.But there is no requirement to accept bigfoot on faith anywhere, in order to see him.Plenty of people believe in many different things, doesn't mean they exist, including God.Besides, we all know bigfoot exists, he's on TV, in the beef jerky commercials

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"the only acceptable evidence is a dead bigfoot"

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Well, I've seen dead, or live, examples of every other large North American mammal in zoos, museums, etc.

NugginCrash's post had valid points and not a single strawman that I could identify.I'd love to see your response to Crash's valid, interesting points.

And what is wrong with that standard? It's actually pretty close. A live Bigfoot would be even better evidence, by the way.But you are also misrepresenting what I said. In fact, in the message that you are replying to I listed several areas where evidence should be found.Unfortunately, there just doesn't seem to be such evidence. No field biologists have even come forward saying "There is something living in XYZ forest and we do not know what it is."Edited by jar, : No reason given.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Other posters have pointed out the reasons why they don't think there is any 'bigfoot' due to lack of evidence.To summarize the objections are:1. No live specimens.
2. No dead specimens, not even one tooth.
3. No hair, no scat, no other remains that one could get DNA from.
4. No plausible mechanism by which a viable breeding population (around at least 50 individuals) could exist without any trace of the above.
5. No believers among trained researchers who are spending most their waking hours in the ecosystem.However, there is historic evidence that people can be mistaken about the existence of large animals in the past. Think dragons, unicorns, ogres, titans, trolls, giants (over 9 feet). Or we could go for small like poltergeists, faeries, leprechauns, elves, gremlins, and so on.The history of belief without a shred of evidence is huge. Look at Loch Ness, UFOs as metal spaceships, crystal healing, astrology, numerology, Feng Sui, divination, tarot, palm reading, and so on.And so on, and so on.Considering the history of extraordinary claims, extreme skepticism is the most rational response. Number me among the skeptics.

I think your characterization of how field biology works is a good one (so sez me, 'cause I are one - sort of). Trace is extremely useful. Scat, track, hair, prey remains, teeth marks on bones, etc, are often the only evidence we have of the presence of even smaller organisms in a region. For instance I "know" beyond any doubt that we have ocelot in our reserve. Scat and the very occasional track are all I need to definitively report they exist. I can also state without much fear of contradiction that we don't have jaguar. Not only the lack of trace (in spite of locals' claims to the contrary), but also because of the ecology: the jaguar prey animals are also absent. One would expect at least some unambiguous trace to indicate, as you said:

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"There is something living in XYZ forest and we do not know what it is."

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if there was something there.I do disagree with a few of crashfrog's rebuttals to nuggin, however.1. MVP (minimum viable population) for primates is actually pretty low. A population of less than 50 Alouatta seniculus (red howlers) is considered viable - even without recruitment. Around 20-25 Callicebus moloch (dusky titi) is a sustainable number. Admittedly, these small populations are highly susceptible to local extinction due to disease, local climate fluctuation, hunting pressure, etc. In fact, disease is my working hypothesis on why the howlers in the reserve went extinct. In short, "bigfoot" may not require a population of "several thousand" to be genetically viable.2. Nutrition requirements. If we accept that some adaptation permitted the existence of cold-resistant large primates in the Pacific Northwest (evolution has done stranger things), I don't see any a priori reason to state there aren't sufficient nutrient resources in the region to support a small population. Even taking into consideration the broken vit C gene in hominids (which everyone claims bigfoot must be), there are plenty of native fruits up there to at least seasonally provide the missing vitamin. There are also certainly enough examples of near-obligate folivores among primates - both Old and New World - to indicate that such a gut adaptation is possible as well.In short, theoretically at least, such a critter could exist. However, and here's the catch, in order to get enough food - especially over the long northwest winter - a man-sized primate is going to HAVE to have developed cooperative foraging and hunting behavior. All of the alleged sightings to date have been of single individuals. I don't care what time of year it is, or whether you're an obligate or facultative folivore much of the time, you're going to have to be living in a group. ALL known primates do. You're simply NOT going to see singletons wandering around no matter what they eat. Primates are ALWAYS in groups. This IMO is the most telling evidence against bigfoot. If you're going to see one, you're going to see bunches. If you only see one, then you're not seeing a primate.

I appreciate your reply. I think even 50 individuals are too many to hide, though. Also I thought this: was very on-point and interesting.

I understand what you are saying Jar and don't disagree with it.What I was pointing out is that if a field biologist witnessed Bigfoot, or found plants he believed had been eatten by Bigfoot, or found tracks, or found scat (from which no dna could be retreived) - pretty much anything short of a live/dead animal - their evidence would be discounted out of hand.I'm not saying that a live/dead animal wouldn't be great evidence. It would. But people have pretty much said, anything short of that evidence is unacceptable.

I have absolutely no argument with 1-3. Even if CS remember something on a show about a hair sample. If it was solid proof, it would be known to everyone.On #4, first I'd like to thank you for being reasonable with your population assessments. Crashfrog seems to think there need to be "thousands" of an animal for the animal to exist.However, I disagree with the idea that there is "no plasuible mechanism" for their existance. The Pacific Northwest is a very big area. A small population of anything could hide out there quite effectively.Is it likely they could go for a long time and leave no evidence of 1-3? No. Not likely.
Is it possible? yes.
Is it plausible? (your actual question) I think that's a matter of perspective.As for point #5 -
First we don't know that there are no believers among trained researchers. (And by "trained researchers", I assume we are talking field biologists and not "bigfoot experts").But even if it were true that there were no believers among the trained researchers, that would not disprove anything.There was a long period of time in which no one believed in germs - however, it's pretty likely that germs did in fact exist during that time.

Go ahead and post your evidence, Frog. I've been waiting for it as well. You're the one making outrageous claims like - everyone who's witnessed bigfoot is a drunk backpacker.If you are unwilling to support your claims, I don't see why I should bother doing even a google search for you.

Actually you haven't Zhimbo. You've seen examples of everything we currently have evidence for.Certainly there were species alive during, for example, the megafaunal, for whom we do not have fossil representation.Just because we don't have a fossil example of the Snow Sabertooth (yes, I just made that up) doesn't mean that one didn't exist.I'm not suggesting that one did exist. But clearly there have been large animals in the past for which we do not have a fossil record.

Intersting topic Yet once again insults and harsh debate take over a lot of good points have been brought up on both sides here, though I believe Nuggin has had the better argument. The rebuttals by the skeptics have been targeted in the book "sasquatch: legend meets science" by Jeff Muldrum (mainstream scientist, not a kook). several scientists contributed to his work, and both jane goodall and George schaller endorse it openly.As for Gigantopithecus: he is not known only through teeth; several jaw bones have also been found, though the rest of the skeleton is still absent ("The simon and schuster encyclopedia of dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures, page 293).be back sometime. Chao!Edited by LudoRephaim, : No reason given.

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"The Nephilim where in the Earth in those days..." Genesis 6:4

Crash's Strawmen & outrageous claims: To the best of my knowledge, no one anywhere has claimed the Bigfoot uses tools or builds shelters. Still waiting for evidence that all the witnesses have been either drunk or backpackers, let alone both. I claimed that wolves survived the winter. How this makes Bigfoot a ruminant is beyond me. Have yet to see evidence for this. First Crash decides for himself that there must be thousands of these things, then declares that because there must be thousands they can not exist. But, he's the only one making the claim for thousands. But anyone that disagrees with his assessment of "thousands" must therefore be talking about 1 animal. When asked to address his claim of drunk backpackers being the only ones able to see Bigfoot, he counters with the idea that he'll only accept that accounts of "research field biologists", since clearly no other person alive could ever witness anything.Additionally, he fails to realize that research field biologists are capable of both drinking and backpacking, and therefore are in his own eyes completely unreliable - since they would necessarily have partaken in both these activities. Here he claims that eyewitness accounts must be wrong because there are no eyewitness accounts. If something had been "completely undetected" then it has not been witnessed. If something has been witnessed it has not gone "completely undetected". Here he indicates that tooth size is a disqualifier for bipedalism - something that TRex would be interested in hearing about, I'm sure. If this isn't a strawman, then what is? No only didn't I claim that bigfoot was a ruminant, I went so far as to point out that I didn't claim that. Yet, here it is again.Further, I didn't calim that bigfoot hibernates, nor that it survives solely on a diet of fish.I DID however claim that humans were not the only species to catch fish, and I pointed out that several other species manage to catch fish without fishhooks.But apparently THAT's just crazy talk. This is his response to my sentence: "Am I asking that you give Bigfoot a species designation? No."Please explain to me how you think that that quote as a response to my quote is "valid". Here is his claim that in the history of aviation, only one airplane has ever been lost over the Pacific Northwest.So, if this is what you feel are "valid point and not a single strawman", then I suppose there's no convincing you. You'll just turn a blind eye to his behavior.