Posted on 11/26/2012 9:40:22 AM PST by Coleus
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency recently issued a statement indicating it knew of no evidence of the existence of “aquatic humanoids.”
This remarkable statement was prompted by calls from viewers of Animal Planet’s “Mermaids: the Body Found,” which claimed such creatures exist. A swarm of television programs, listed as “scientific” and “reality based,” perpetuate similar pseudoscientific ideas that are gobbled up by viewers, especially kids.
This incident illustrates a dangerous trend: Viewers’ acceptance of claims made by untrained laypeople as authoritative, and their simultaneous rejection of work done by experts in science, history and politics. This idea argues that egg-headed specialists — with a lifetime of focused academic work, peer-reviewed scholarship and study — are hiding the “truth” from us so that the only way to get answers is from down-home folks with little schooling but good sense. In other words, formal education is bad.
One program that encourages this fallacy is “Finding Bigfoot” (also a product of Animal Planet). It follows members of a group called the Bigfoot Field Research Organization as they search for the elusive creature. The investigators travel to various locations of supposed Bigfoot activity, with the genre staples of night vision cameras and hushed voices. While full of enthusiasm, the BFRO members don’t seem to have any technical training or follow scientific method in their search. They often say, “There are ’squatches here!” but viewers never see the big hairy beasts. And that’s about all. The show imparts no knowledge of environmental science, animal behavior studies, primate anatomy or even the history of monster hunting. Yet with spurious “evidence,” the group makes claims that the creatures are real and just around the corner, and expects us to accept it.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.nj.com ...
This method showed that wolverines were in an area where they were supposed to be extinct. They should easily catch a hairy Sasquatch.
Having reviewed much of the data, I find the evidence for Sasquatch more compelling than that for man made global warming. I’m pretty confident both are hoaxes, but if I had to put my money on one of them being real, bigfoot would get the nod.
Bo Bo is science personified.
Actually, with bigfoot (and by that I’m referring to the general Sasquatch/Yeti/Skunk ape proto-myth) there is a ton of testimonial evidence going back centuries. Granted, an overwhelming portion of it can be readily dismissed, but there is some from credible sources who had more to lose than gain by reporting it.
I remember when leonard nimoy hosted a tv show call “in search of” where he talked about this and the bermuda triangle, lock ness monster and so on. One thing I always noticed - that there was never a clear photograph of anything they showed, same with the national enquirer.
Folklore going back hundreds of years from unrelated areas of the world tells of the same creature, with consistent descriptions. Footprints are frequently found; calls are occasionally heard. The Patterson film of 1967 and a couple of more contemporary dashcam videos from police units are evidence that has not yet been disproven. The attempts to get them on wildlife cameras have been unsuccessful, but an intelligent primate would tend to shy away from anything new in its environment; it's a survival instinct.
I’ve often been amazed at how well Bigfoot is able to dispose of their dead. Instead of looking for live Bigfoots these clowns should be looking for dead Bigfoots. But they never find any bones.
Scavengers.
Footprints and visual recordings are conjecture?
As I said, many can be dismissed out of hand or with minimal follow up. There are; however, those sightings from experienced outdoorsmen, trappers, sherpas, etc. who have spent their lifetimes in the wilds and frequently use phraseology such as, "unlike anything I've ever seen." Again, I'm not going to argue the theory that vociferously as I generally don't believe, but as long as there is one credible sighting that can not be explained, I will continue to find it more credible than anthropogenic global warming.
In Africa, in gorilla territory, are gorilla bones commonly found?
Patterson film was disproven...the guy came forward and admitted he rented the suit.
There was less interest in the exposure of the hoax than there was in the hoax itself though.
if folklore going back centuries is proof of anything, then why aren’t there fairies, pots of gold at the end of rainbows, leprechauns, giants, mermaids, etc... folklore doesn’t automatically mean credibility.
if there WERE bigfoots (bigfeet?) then why after all these ‘centuries of folklore’, hasn’t anybody found a carcass? or anything that can be studied or analyzed?
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