Reading Loren Coleman's blog, Cryptomundo, is a chore I willingly do to try and keep up with the status of special pleading and positive confirmation bias being presented as evidence and reason within the cryptozoological community. Usually, this is an exercise in reading posts which appear to be meant to generate website traffic and/or blur the line between legitimate Zoological/Biological discoveries and the “field” of cryptozoology. Anyone who reads this blog is aware of my opinion of the quality of Cryptomundo's material. It's hard to get much lower into stupidity without being an antivaxxer, Holocaust denier, or homeopath cancer-quack. Occasionally though, I do get a gem or two that makes me laugh out loud when I read them. One of today's offerings is just such a case.
In his post, How Kids Films Destroyed Sasquatch Research, Coleman tries to make the claim that movies made for children are responsible for the increase in what he calls “silly skepticism”. To support his argument, he presents a movie called “Little Bigfoot” which was released in 1997. Ever hear of it? I certainly hadn't before I read Coleman's post but it appears to be making the rounds today. Regardless, blaming bad movies (in his opinion anyway) on what I interpret to be his apparent observation of the decrease of true-believers in cryptozoology is a prime example of special pleading and I thought I'd point it out and provide a rebuttal.
While Coleman asks for debate on his blog, I know he is not willing to really open up that can of worms on his site. Myself and others have posted criticisms and the like on Cryptomundo only to have them disappear or never get posted at all. Obviously, Coleman and the site's owner are not interested in real ...
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...nd their fundamental lack of evidence and are making more rational and educated decisions based more upon the evidence rather than belief alone.
Whether Coleman addresses any of these points remains to be seen. However, I think the recent rise of Skepticism which Coleman clearly abhors is being seen in other venues as well. Dr. Novella, Orac and others have already written about the positive effect of Skepticism on what appears to be the downfall of Homeopathy and the recent turn of events which have shown the absolute failures of the antivax movement. While the internet does make it easier for the wack-a-loons to get in touch with each other, it is also making it easier for the Skeptics to criticize and get our message out. As a result, the public is becoming better informed and educated and that, unfortunately for Mr. Coleman, damages belief in cryptozoology.
Do the authors appear to be treating the issue seriously? Does Brooks or Tannen seem to be more serious?
The experience happens in the middle of the night in Orick, California when the encounter of Bigfoot took place, in the house of two men and their children. The house was surrounded by the forest, woods, and there were not many people around.
There was a period of time, before the appearance of Europeans on the continent, that the Nephilim did not have this “rule” or “compulsion” to keep their existence hidden from humans. The Bigfoot were known to the Native Americans by many names. Legends and lore sprang up from the Native American’s interaction with the Bigfoot. The Native Americans always considered them to be a “society” or “tribe.” The relationship the Bigfoot tribes had with the Native Americans was precarious at best. Many Native American tribes described the Bigfoot as cannibals, mountain devils, kidnappers, rapist, and thieves.
Bigfoot also known popularly as the Sasquatch, Momo, Skunk Ape, the list goes on and on, is without a doubt, the most famous of all hairy man-like creatures. The following will make you a believer in this overseen creature, it made me one. Bigfoot is seen in every possible location throughout the North American Continent, mountains, swamps, forests, crossing desolate and some not so desolate roadways and on open farmland. While its demeanor varies from docile to curios to almost threatening, its general appearance varies. Bigfoot is a massive animal, its average height is seven and a half feet tall, its weight is said be between 400-500 pounds. It is covered almost completely in fur, and its fur ranges in color from the moist widespread dark red-brown to brown, black, red, gray and even white. It leaves its footprints behind as a calling card, almost taunting the researchers that reverently research this undiscovered animal. While its prints resemble mans, they are characteristically large in comparison, and instead of the weight distribution being concentrated under the heel and ball as in the arched human foot, the weight distribution is more evenly distributed over the flat, yielding Bigfoot foot. Most often the prints have five toes, occasionally however the tracks are apparently three toed. The three toed tracks can be theorized several ways; that there is a unique variety of Bigfoot in existence, while resembling the five toed Bigfoot closely, it retains a few distinguishing characteristics; another theory is that some soil conditions can cause the toes of Bigfoot to 'clump' together. The proportion of three toed tracks in comparison to the five toed tracks seems to indicate that three toes is the exception to the norm, and that it is the result of some environmental peculiarity. The main physical characteristics attributed to Bigfoot, other than size and foot shape, are that it is bipedal and upright, has wide shoulders and a heavy brow ridge. Its eyes are sometimes said to appear to be red in color, but are mainly reported as yellow. Although no discernible language has ever been placed with Bigfoot creatures, they are very vocal. Witnesses have reported high pitched wails and low, growling roars, either before and/or after visually spotting a Sasquatch. On some occasions the sounds have been heard from two or more locations at the same time, apparently in communication with one another.
This provides powerful insight into the role Bigfoot like creatures played in Native American cultures. Some tribes were not afraid of the creatures, considering them kind and helpful, while peacefully coexisting with them. Other tribes found them to be more violent and dangerous creatures. The fact that these tribes called the animals Stick Indians or Brush Indians seems to suggest that the creatures were simply other tribes they did not get along with opposed to a village of mythical creatures. Some examples of Bigfoot like creatures in Native American tribes include the Chiye – Tanka, the Lofa, the Maxemista, and the popular Sasquatch. The Chiye – Tanka was the Bigfoot like creature of the Sioux Indians (“Native American,” n.d.). This animal
To escape the reality of this undeniably complicated world, would be something so distant to even consider, yet it would not be impossible to. The film “Where the Wild Things Are” unconsciously portrays an attempt at this escape through the leading role, Max and his fellow Wild Things. Max’s Journey could be considered a quest for sanity and morality in the sense that his everyday life initiated him to escape this reality and experience a much preferable life in which would be considered his safe space, where he was unknowingly faced with his own deepest aspects of himself through the personalities and conflicts of others leading him to further learn his place in the world.
“Film is more than the instrument of a representation; it is also the object of representation. It is not a reflection or a refraction of the ‘real’; instead, it is like a photograph of the mirrored reflection of a painted image.” (Kilpatrick) Although films have found a place in society for about a century, the labels they possess, such as stereotypes which Native Americans are recognized for, have their roots from many centuries ago (Kilpatrick). The Searchers, a movie directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, tells the story of a veteran of the American Civil War and how after his return home he would go after the maligned Indians who killed his family and kidnapped his younger niece.
Chimera Reemerge.” Pacific News Service. 6 December 1995. Newspaper online. Available at http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/columns/heresies/950612-animal.html. Internet. Accessed 10 December 2003.
it can change their beliefs and they could see things differently with other options given to them.
are often in favor of throwing logic out the window. In many ways, this question
Evolution is a theory that is refuted by the majority of creationists; creationists argue that evolution is simply a “theory” and is not supported by scientific evidence. This argument is clearly false. In order for a scientific theory to become widely accepted by the majority of the scientific world, it must be supported with facts and evidence. In a recent Gallup Poll, 55% of scientists, a majority, believed in evolution with no divine intervention. An additional 40% of scientists believed in evolution with divine intervention; only 5% of scientists believe that the earth was created by a divine power in the last 10,000 years. However, the public opinion is nearly the direct opposite. 46% of those polled believed the earth was created by a divine power in the last 10,000 years; furthermore, 40% of those polled believe in evolution with divine intervention. Only 9% of those polled believed in evolution with no divine aid. The disparity between scientists and the public is too great to be ignored; despite the overwhelmingly scientific evidence, many people still do not fully support, or believe in the theory of evolution. There is also a clear correlation between belief in evolution and belief in God. While the polls attempting to record the religious beliefs of scientists are not always reliable, it is true that the percent of scientists that believe in the divine is much lower than that of the general public. According to the Eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, these tensions between science and religion are only a Western issue, referring to the Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Many people, including scientists, believe that the relationship between science and religion should not...
With this knowledge, they have learned how to pass themselves off as trustworthy institutions worthy of being a cognitive authority. The most prominent examples of this behavior comes from the Christian right. Large Christian organizations have tried passing themselves off as legitimate sources of scholarly debate. They fund their own studies and their lackeys use these studies as definitive, authoritative sources to support their religious arguments. Some try not to hide their motives much such as the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences and Answers in Genesis. Other organizations are much more nefarious. Organizations such as the Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatricians create a facade of intellectualism with their own studies that provide legitimacy. When one digs below the surface, it becomes clear that these organizations simply abuse the trust people have in American scientific institutions in order to prop up their own biased opinions. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, these organizations are simply just religious, anti-gay, pseudo-scientific hate groups (Schlatter 2010). Just looking at their names, the common person would generally hold their opinion as having some sort of authority to it, but no credible source really takes them
The idea of human evolution puts strong Christians and firm atheists at opposite grounds. Christians believe that God is the reason for mankind’s creation of changes, while atheists believe in the theory of evolution and gene pools. However, science does prove that evolution and genetics is a reason behind the changes throughout history of mankind, but there still lies reason to believe that God is the source for miracles and unexplainable diseases. As Vaughn wrote, “moral disagreements between cultures can arise not just because their basic moral principles clash, but because they have differing non-moral beliefs that put those principles in very different lights,”
...would become irate if they knew that their child was aborted (killed) without their consent or knowing.