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The Role of the Skeptic

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naturalplastic
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26 Oct 2020, 3:32 am

cyberdad wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:




So the same theory could be applied to native Americans from whom the name Sasquatch (big foot) comes from. The memory of big foot in north America from 10,000 years in the past enters the imagination of European settlers who hear tales of bigfoot from the native people.



The word "sasquatch" does not mean "big foot" (not literally). Native Americans had myths of 'forest giants', and each tribe had it's own name for them. "Sasquatch" seems to be Anglicization of the word used by Salish Indians of Washington State, and it means "wild man". Nothing to do with shoe size.

White Americans began seeing them even in colonial times. But it became the modern urban legend it is today in the Fifties, thanks to adventure magazines like Argosy, and in the Sixties because of the Patterson film. Because the creatures' most conspicuous traits are its scary big foot prints Whites came to call it "big foot". As an afterthought White researchers equated Bigfoot creatures with the Indian legends. So Sasquatch also became a popular term because it came from the Pacific Northwest - the core region for bigfoot sightings.



cyberdad
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26 Oct 2020, 5:21 am

The aborigines in Australia also have stories of a being called the Yowie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yowie

We also have Yowie hunters like your Bigfoot investigators



naturalplastic
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26 Oct 2020, 6:35 am

Have heard of the Yowie in Australia. Not real versed in it though.

But to me thats even weirder than our Bigfoot because Australia is an unlikely home for a non human primate. In fact its an unlikely home for ANY large placental mammal.

If real: Bigfoots and Yetis would be cousins of the living great apes, and cousins to us too, as well as having many extinct fossil kin as possible ancestors. But all of these kin, including the ancestors of man, evolved in Africa or in Eurasia. The Yetis would have just remained in the heart of Asia and retreated to the mountains, and the ancestors of bigfoot would have just crossed the Bering Strait land bridge into the Americas just like (and maybe even at about the same time, or even earlier, than the fully human ancestors of the Native Americans crossed the same bridge).

But its hard to imagine a non human ape creature making its way to Australia because there never were any land bridges connecting Australia to Eurasia even during the Ice Ages. The ancestors of the Aboriginonies seemed to have had crude boats. And thats how they got to Australia -as early as 60 thousand years ago. And they seemed to have brought early not-quite-domesticated-dogs with them. The later became the wild dingo. Humans, dingos, and bats, are the only placental mammals native to Australia as far as I know. No monkeys or apes live there. And fossil hominids have never been found there.



Last edited by naturalplastic on 26 Oct 2020, 10:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

Fnord
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26 Oct 2020, 8:11 am

cyberdad wrote:
... heat signatures given off on radar captured on camera ...
Radar operates at wavelengths far longer than an infrared camera could detect.  Unless you were irradiating Mr. Bigfoot inside a huge microwave oven, associating his heat signature with microwaves makes no sense.

Because, Science!



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26 Oct 2020, 8:26 am

cyberdad wrote:
Wandering in the dark without flashlights in the middle of the forest in a monkey suite does seem odd but for skeptics that's what explains all the photos...
Purposely wandering around in semi-darkness for the benefit of your friends with their infrared cameras is a more rational explanation.  Never discount outright fraud and trickery.



naturalplastic
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26 Oct 2020, 10:10 am

Yeah. "Radar" doesnt have anything to do with it. Dont know why Cyber dragged radar into it.

Radar is bouncing radio waves off of a target to detect it. Your set emits radio waves and then detects the echo of the radio waves coming back. Humans, and animals, dont give off radio waves, and they arnt very good reflectors of radar either.

But your body does give off infrared light just because its warm. They dont even have to shine the light on you (as per either radar or visible light from a flashlight) because your body just gives it off because it has heat.

So they can use a infrared camera to detect you at night. And to detect any creatures in the woods at night.



Fnord
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26 Oct 2020, 10:24 am

naturalplastic wrote:
Yeah. "Radar" doesn't have anything to do with it. Don't know why Cyber dragged radar into it.
There is a lot of misinformation being presented today.  It is not surprising that Bigfoot fans would be part of it.
naturalplastic wrote:
... your body does give off infrared light just because its warm. They don't even have to shine the light on you (as per either radar or visible light from a flashlight) because your body just gives it off because it has heat. So they can use a infrared camera to detect you at night. And to detect any creatures in the woods at night.
Infrared images are notoriously blurry and lacking in detail at medium to long range.  You could photograph someone at fifty meters and be unable to determine if you were looking at a human being, a walking bear, or a deer facing you head-on.



cyberdad
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26 Oct 2020, 6:32 pm

Fnord wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
Wandering in the dark without flashlights in the middle of the forest in a monkey suite does seem odd but for skeptics that's what explains all the photos...
Purposely wandering around in semi-darkness for the benefit of your friends with their infrared cameras is a more rational explanation.  Never discount outright fraud and trickery.


Sorry Fnord, you are correct, I think they used an infrared camera to capture night images of bigfoot.

Discovery channel's bigfoot programs are suspicious, they have a track record for fake documentaries.



cyberdad
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26 Oct 2020, 6:34 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
But your body does give off infrared light just because its warm. They dont even have to shine the light on you (as per either radar or visible light from a flashlight) because your body just gives it off because it has heat.

So they can use a infrared camera to detect you at night. And to detect any creatures in the woods at night.


So I think the theory is that bigfoot is hairy all over so the heat signature should be even and the image height is around 7feet tall whereas for humans wearing a jacket there should be an uneven heat signature and the image height is around 5foot8-10.



Fnord
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26 Oct 2020, 7:27 pm

cyberdad wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
But your body does give off infrared light just because its warm. They dont even have to shine the light on you (as per either radar or visible light from a flashlight) because your body just gives it off because it has heat. So they can use a infrared camera to detect you at night. And to detect any creatures in the woods at night.
So I think the theory is that bigfoot is hairy all over so the heat signature should be even and the image height is around 7feet tall whereas for humans wearing a jacket there should be an uneven heat signature and the image height is around 5foot8-10.
Without standing "Bigfoot" next to a tape measure, it is impossible to know how tall "he" is at a distance. Even the original video does not show any measurement being taken of the alleged creature.



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26 Oct 2020, 8:49 pm

Fnord wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
But your body does give off infrared light just because its warm. They dont even have to shine the light on you (as per either radar or visible light from a flashlight) because your body just gives it off because it has heat. So they can use a infrared camera to detect you at night. And to detect any creatures in the woods at night.
So I think the theory is that bigfoot is hairy all over so the heat signature should be even and the image height is around 7feet tall whereas for humans wearing a jacket there should be an uneven heat signature and the image height is around 5foot8-10.
Without standing "Bigfoot" next to a tape measure, it is impossible to know how tall "he" is at a distance. Even the original video does not show any measurement being taken of the alleged creature.


In the bigfoot discovery series they use one of the cast members of known height (Bobo is about 6 foot 5inches) to recreate the photo in exactly the same spot then overlay the image with the original photo. It's not accurate to the nearest cm but the bigfoot images are often bigger than Bobo in the realm of 7-8 ft.



naturalplastic
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26 Oct 2020, 9:28 pm

cyberdad wrote:
Fnord wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
But your body does give off infrared light just because its warm. They dont even have to shine the light on you (as per either radar or visible light from a flashlight) because your body just gives it off because it has heat. So they can use a infrared camera to detect you at night. And to detect any creatures in the woods at night.
So I think the theory is that bigfoot is hairy all over so the heat signature should be even and the image height is around 7feet tall whereas for humans wearing a jacket there should be an uneven heat signature and the image height is around 5foot8-10.
Without standing "Bigfoot" next to a tape measure, it is impossible to know how tall "he" is at a distance. Even the original video does not show any measurement being taken of the alleged creature.


In the bigfoot discovery series they use one of the cast members of known height (Bobo is about 6 foot 5inches) to recreate the photo in exactly the same spot then overlay the image with the original photo. It's not accurate to the nearest cm but the bigfoot images are often bigger than Bobo in the realm of 7-8 ft.


That's "Finding Bigfoot" on Animal Planet. Yes, they do do rather systematic reconstructions of regular photos , infared photos, and eye witness sightings, and do what seem to be fairly objective measurements of the mysterious figures- using Bobo, and measuring rods. And the figures do seem to always be over seven feet tall. Whatever.

But yes. With infrared light you use a camera, or a movie camera. Or an infrared sensing device. Not a radar set. And in theory if a Squatch were lurking in the woods at night you could see his upright glowing image among the dark colder trees on the screen of the device. And sometimes it looks like they DO find that.



cyberdad
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27 Oct 2020, 2:32 am

naturalplastic wrote:
That's "Finding Bigfoot" on Animal Planet. Yes, they do do rather systematic reconstructions of regular photos , infared photos, and eye witness sightings, and do what seem to be fairly objective measurements of the mysterious figures- using Bobo, and measuring rods. And the figures do seem to always be over seven feet tall. Whatever.

But yes. With infrared light you use a camera, or a movie camera. Or an infrared sensing device. Not a radar set. And in theory if a Squatch were lurking in the woods at night you could see his upright glowing image among the dark colder trees on the screen of the device. And sometimes it looks like they DO find that.


Yes I have tried googling the bona fides of the editorial accuracy of the claims made on the show and its difficult to confirm. But assuming they are accurate then it does seem to be unusual why such huge people are wondering in a dark forest dressed in a monkey suite and crave peanut based products to the extent they can be witnessed on infrared crawling toward a tree stump with a chocolate nut bar.



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03 Nov 2020, 12:44 am

One of the main issues that I have with skeptics today is this. Skeptics as far as I interpret sees themselves as totally objective without any kind of subjective experiences as all. The scientific establishment and the scientific method is one and the same. You can't separate the scientist the man from the scientist the scientist. They see themselves as above reproach and above it all. So objective that nothing influences them and there are no biases at all as though they live in a vacuum.

But, the human experience is much more than just quantified data and boolean based thinking. The human experience has a complex range of experience and human emotions that one can't ignore easily and simply set aside. Life is more than just science, mathematics, logic, reason and objectivity. Life is the experiences we have as well. And, it is these experiences that influence how we as individual human beings approach issues.

In other words, is it possible to be totally objective and set aside all biases and emotions in all possible cases? My experience is I say no.



cyberdad
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03 Nov 2020, 12:57 am

cubedemon6073 wrote:
One of the main issues that I have with skeptics today is this. Skeptics as far as I interpret sees themselves as totally objective without any kind of subjective experiences as all. The scientific establishment and the scientific method is one and the same. You can't separate the scientist the man from the scientist the scientist. They see themselves as above reproach and above it all. So objective that nothing influences them and there are no biases at all as though they live in a vacuum.

But, the human experience is much more than just quantified data and boolean based thinking. The human experience has a complex range of experience and human emotions that one can't ignore easily and simply set aside. Life is more than just science, mathematics, logic, reason and objectivity. Life is the experiences we have as well. And, it is these experiences that influence how we as individual human beings approach issues.

In other words, is it possible to be totally objective and set aside all biases and emotions in all possible cases? My experience is I say no.


There's also a conflict of interest. Most of the skeptics are employed as scientists in government run organisations and so data that runs contrary to their own learning is unable to be processed especially if they are conditioned from the time they were in highschool that people who see UFOs or bigfoot are nutjobs/losers to be laughed at etc...its called conditioning.



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03 Nov 2020, 1:01 am

In my apartment we lived in long ago my SO claimed to see a ghost of a little boy standing there. When I lived there with her I didn't see it and none of our other roommates saw it as far as I know. I'm married to her to this day and I love her to this day. As far as I can see she has no mental illness nor does she have any delusions or hallucinations. If she has no hallucinations as far as I know or delusions, she doesn't take drugs, has no mental illness as far as I can tell, and no one including me saw anything did she really see anything? Was there something there that she saw that the rest of us could not see? And, could it have been possible that others saw it as well but didn't want to come across as crazy?

If it was not a ghost than what did she see exactly? And, could there be things that one group of people can see that others can't? Is that possible?

Another thing, all of the disorders that are in the DSM have no physical, laboratory tests. So, how do you test for the presence of schizophrenia without having to observe the symptoms which is what psychology does?