deLurch wrote:CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:If you have Vicky on ignore you will miss out on the dangers of English Bigf**t. I was skeptical, but I could not ignore the overwhelming evidence of sticks and noises.
I believe you are misrepresenting Vicky's position on Boringfoot. If I am wrong, please point me to a post where she suggests the existence of Boringfoot is likely or certain.
As much as the Boringfoot fascination has bored me since leaving grade school, I do think the basic exploration of the subject does have some merit in training for skeptical thought. I think that Vicky is correct that we should not absolutely rule out and close our ears to such possibilities of fringe theories (or even the "pizzagate" investigations) without looking at any of the purported evidence as you never know when one might pan out.
You are absolutely right, they have misrepresented my position on just about every subject. But that is not quite my position on Bigfoot.
My problem is that skeptics say, "there is no evidence" when this is untrue. There is evidence. The next question is, what is it evidence of?
If you just want to be an armchair skeptic, you can just say it's a hoax, it is fake, it is just a bear print... but any asshole can say that, and it's usually assholes that do. I would prefer to check the claim that a bear print can look like a giant human print, but despite the claim I have seen no evidence of it yet.
On the other hand, I have just been looking at stick structures which are claimed to be made by bigfoot. It would be easy to just dismiss them and say a human could have built them. But logically, if bigfoot did exist, there is no real reason that a bigfoot couldn't also have built them. However, pointing out that the ends of the logs appear to be cut with a chainsaw tends to tip the balance of probability firmly in the direction of human construction.
It is not a question of if the notion of bigfoot having any merit (although there are more scientists interested in this than you might imagine), it is a question of investigating it properly, following the evidence wherever it might lead, and coming up with solutions. James Randi never said, "It's probably just a trick" and left it at that, he proved it was a trick, learned how to do the trick, and showed everybody how it was done.
If you saw me debating a creationist or a climate change denier, and I was making mistakes and demonstrating that I myself had no understanding of the science, I am sure you wouldn't hesitate to put me straight. It isn't enough to be on the right side, you have to be right.
And yet the people out there who are doing bigfoot skepticsm make the dumbest mistakes such as saying that North America couldn't support a large primate -- aside from any other argument, I think the native indians are evidence against that claim.
Incidentally, every time free thoughtpolice posts another idiotic bigfoot video, he is just demonstrating that he fails just as badly in reading comprehension as he does in reading animal spore.
Likewise, I follow the science on matters of Islam, terrorism and Palestine. I have weighed up the evidence, weighed up the issue, and come to the conclusion that we need to go on the attack against Islam in Europe as it is a threat to our way of life. That doesn't mean that I have to the further rationalize my position by knocking over all objection, ignore the merits of counter arguments and discredit the evidence that works in their favour. The research says that religion does not cause terrorism, not even Islam. It is more complicated than that. I am not going to allow anyone to rewrite history either, or spread propaganda and lies, even if it would support my position.
Garbage in, garbage out. I still might come to the wrong conclusions, but I would at least like to base my opinions on facts rather than some nonsense I read on camera.org
