Friday, August 15, 2008

Bigfoot update


Now, I don't know if I'm proud of this, but I've spent a good amount of time-- think tens of hours over numerous sittings-- talking about the possibility of Bigfoot actually existing with my dissertation advisors. (For the record, it's two for and two against.) So when stories about Bigfoot come across the wire, it's always interesting to see what the Bigfoot hunters are up to.

I don't think Bigfoot is a reality. Usually the argument comes down to:

1) People have been looking for this creature(s) for quite a while now, and there hasn't been anything beyond shady evidence to show for it.

2) The scientists that look for Bigfoot-- they're not exactly at the top of their field. As such, any argument and evidence for Bigfoot's existence has to be taken with a grain of salt since it's probably not done in any sort of rigorous scientific manner.

3) Related to #2, it also stands to reason that if the possibility of Bigfoot existing were sufficiently large enough-- and p probably doesn't have to be too large-- then it would attract more academic effort. Maybe everyone is vastly underestimating p.

If we had any zoologists that read this blog, it'd be interesting to hear their take on the possibility of Bigfoot existing.

2 comments:

Justin M Ross said...

As someone who does not believe in Bigfoot, let me throw out something to inflate p. Most of North America is completely uninhabited and experiences no contact with humans or human development in any manner. Not only that, but the proportion of the North American continent that does come into contact with humans/development has declined over the past 2 centuries as we have become more industralized, concentrated into urban areas AND with the near elimination of the Indian population.

I'll end with one of my favorite Futurama segments:
Bender: "Look it's Bigfoot!"
Park Ranger: "Where!?!"
Bender: "He's gone now, but he says you should keep wasting your life."

rolub said...

Re: 1.

Back in the 1960s, I could stand the fact that only blurry photographs/video of Bigfoot existed. But now that most cell phones contain better photographic technology than the best cameras of 40 years ago, i need something better than 6 pixels that look like a brown blob.