Bigfoot
From RationalWiki
This topic is a pseudoscience, and is not accepted by the scientific community as a valid discipline.
Although it may use scientific terminology, it does not use scientific methodology.
Remember: just because it sounds right doesn't mean it's actually right.
Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch) is a mythical creature alleged by some to live in remote North American forests in the Pacific northwest and in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
As there is zero real evidence for the existence of Bigfoot the study of the "beast" is considered to be a pseudoscience.
Bigfoot is sometimes described as a large, bipedal hairy hominoid creature, and many believe that this animal, or its close relatives, may be found around the world under different regional names, such as the Yeti of Tibet and Nepal. Bigfoot is also one of the more famous examples of cryptozoology, a subject that has been dismissed as pseudoscience by mainstream researchers.
[edit] Bigfoot and science
Mainstream scientists and academics generally "discount the existence of Bigfoot because the evidence supporting belief in the survival of a prehistoric, bipedal, ape-like creature of such dimensions is scant" (from Skepdic). In addition to the lack of evidence, they cite the fact that while Bigfoot is alleged to live in regions that would be unusual for a large, non-human primate, i.e. temperate latitudes in the northern hemisphere, all other recognized non-human apes are found in the tropics, in Africa, continental Asia or nearby islands. The great apes have never been found in the fossil record in the Americas. No Bigfoot bones or bodies have been found.
The issue is so muddied with dubious claims and outright hoaxes that many scientists do not give the subject serious attention. Napier wrote that the mainstream scientific community's indifference stems primarily from "insufficient evidence ... it is hardly unsurprising that scientists prefer to investigate the probable rather than beat their heads against the wall of the faintly possible" (Napier, 15). Anthropologist David Daegling echoed this idea, citing a "remarkably limited amount of Sasquatch data that are amenable to scientific scrutiny" (Daegling, 61). He also suggests mainstream skeptics should take a proactive position "to offer an alternative explanation. We have to explain why we see Bigfoot when there is no such animal" (ibid 20). Most who have expressed an opinion consider the stories of Bigfoot to be a combination of unsubstantiated folklore and hoaxes.
Grover S. Krantz concedes that whilst "the Scientific Establishment generally resists new ideas ... there is a good reason for it ... Quite simply put, new and innovative ideas in science are almost always wrong" (Krantz, 236).
On May 24, 2006 Maria Goodavage wrote an article in USA Today entitled, "Bigfoot Merely Amuses Most Scientists". In it she quoted John Crane, a zoologist and biologist at Washington State, "There is no such thing as Bigfoot. No data other than material that's clearly been fabricated has ever been presented."
[edit] Other regions
There is a similar myth in the Himalayan region about a large, hairy creature they call "Yeti".
In the Appalachian region, we simply call them "Grandpa gone bad". In spite of their primitive appearance, they are usually fine hands with a homemade still.
[edit] Footnotes
- Daegling, David J, Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America's Enduring Legend, Altamira Press, 2004, ISBN 0-7591-0539-1
- Napier, John Russell Bigfoot: The Sasquatch and Yeti in Myth and Reality, 1973, E.P. Dutton, ISBN 0-525-06658-6
- Krantz, Grover S., Big Footprints: A Scientific Inquiry into the Reality of Sasquatch, Johnson Books, 1992, ISBN 1-55566-099-1
