PeteByrdie
Privateer in the service of Princess Frideswide
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2014
- Messages
- 3,242
All good points. Similarly, explanations such as the creature being a combination of misidentifions and hoaxes are more simple than that there is a breeding population of large primates in North America that has gone unproven, but are no less satisfying. Part of the reason is that a case can be shown to be a hoax, but that still leaves a bunch of cases that can't be resolved. We're stuck between having lots of ways to dismiss a phenomenon in an unsatisfactory way, or piling on further, also unsatisfactory and unprovable conjectures involving spiritual beings or alternate worlds, or accepting there are large, terrestrial animals living alongside us that we just haven't the evidence or ability to find and prove. But we're forteans, and that's our wheelhouse as much as it can be anyone's.That's very true.
But at the same time lots of people do see something. (Like lots of people say they see ghosts or ABCs). So to say 'no poo = no bigfoot' is true, and very rational, but it's kind of dodging an explanation (unless the explanation is 'all the people are making it all up / are mistaken'). So the explanation isn't really any easier if there is no physical bigfoot. Because it needs an explanation that isn't about things that are easy to do experiments on (even if that's why people make it up / get mistaken). Don't you think?