
Why Bigfoot is unlikely only if you know what "unlikely" means - RougeFemme
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/but-not-simpler/2013/10/01/why-bigfoot-is-unlikely-only-if-you-know-what-unlikely-means/?WT_mc_id=SA_DD_20131001
======
jimmyhmiller
>A scientist generally starts with the conservative working assumption that
proposed new ideas are not true or that hypothetical new entities do not
exist, and then revises her probability estimate upwards only when the
evidence forces her to do so. A pseudoscientist typically starts with the
assumption that a novel proposal seems to be true, and then revises her
probability downward as the evidence leaves her no choice—if she is willing to
surrender the possibility to any degree at all.

That sounds more like a verificationist idea of science than a Popperian
falsification process. Is verificationism coming back in vogue in the
sciences? Wouldn't it be a much better criticism to say that the
cryptozoologists are not scientific because they do not make falsifiable
predictions?

~~~
api
Ahh philosophy...

But if cryptozoologists are unscientific by the Popperian criteria then so is
SETI.

~~~
lutusp
> But if cryptozoologists are unscientific by the Popperian criteria then so
> is SETI.

Not at all. Cryptozoologists assume their subject exists, SETI researchers
assume it doesn't. Surely you don't think SETI people assume _a priori_ that
they will hear a transmission from an intelligent alien species? Or that they
have heard such a thing?

There's a single report of an anomalous reception, now called the "Wow"
signal, that no serious SETI person thinks represents an alien broadcast. By
contrast, there are any number of books and articles by cryptozoologists that
analyze, but don't doubt, the many reports of Bigfoot, Yeti, Nessie, etc.
sightings.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal)

Quote: "Ehman has voiced doubts that the signal was of intelligent
extraterrestrial origin: 'We should have seen it again when we looked for it
50 times. Something suggests it was an Earth-sourced signal that simply got
reflected off a piece of space debris.'"

Spoken like a true scientist.

------
ChuckMcM
I like the similar argument for Alien visitors, we are approaching saturation
in terms of cameras that can take videos and a highly discoverable channel for
making such videos available (*tube) and so, like the neutrino detectors in
mine shafts, if there is an "event" we'll catch it on camera. That gives us
the ability to start computing the probabilities more accurately vis-a-vis
alien visitation.

~~~
wtvanhest
I was thinking the same thing while reading it. We do have a way to go before
consumer camera technology is good enough to capture moving spaceships (or
even jet liners at night).

Cameras are not very good at catching sharp movement of low lit objects. Just
to photograph sports clearly requires several thousand dollars in equipment
and you can be as close as 50 meters most of the game.

That will change a lot over the years as sensor technology continues to
improve and eventually your point will be important.

~~~
mathattack
I thought cameras would be the death of paranormal, but then we have photoshop
and facebook to convert a whole new wave of believers.

I do like the thought process though - if it's supposedly this common but
still unproven, it's less likely to be true. Do we put ghosts in the same
category?

~~~
dkersten
I always think about it the other way around: given we have photoshop and
similar tools, every bit of photographic and video _evidence_ is suspect. Just
look at a movie - if that's what we can do, how could anybody ever believe a
photo or video of, say, aliens unless they were there themselves.

~~~
jlgreco
If you see one video of aliens visiting Central Park^, then you can probably
be sure that it is fake. If twitter is suddenly flooded with reports about
aliens in Central Park^, and dozens to hundreds of people all upload different
cellphone videos of it, then something just might actually be happening.

There is still potential for mass-fraud, but repeated seemingly uncoordinated
reports improves credibility. Maybe they're all Photoshopping the same thing
from different angles, but that is less likely than a single person doing it.

 _^ I mean come on, if you were an alien, where would you go first? I 'd
totally go to New York. Here is another rule of thumb: if the aliens are doing
something boring, like stealing cows or fucking with corn fields, they
probably aren't real._

~~~
kanzure
> There is still potential for mass-fraud, but repeated seemingly
> uncoordinated reports improves credibility

Hmm. That would be an interesting piece of fraud (oops I mean public art) to
architect. Make a Blender scene of Central Park, populate the scene with
bystanders with phones (yes, this will take time to source realistic models
and skeletal animations). Each phone gets to be a camera in the scene. Not all
cameras start and stop at the same time, and a few of them will have to
capture video before and after the event without the actual event included.
Timestamp and tag the videos appropriately, including clock drift, then have
fun with avconv/ffmpeg converting the formats to different video formats based
on known phone sales and what default formats iOS/Android encodes to (ugh, I
actually had to do this once back when zencoder/pandavideo).

Create twitter accounts in advance, make them look real by copying other
twitter users, and the day of the event just start uploading the youtube
videos all at the same time and get your fake tweets flowing.

Now, what could this pipeline be useful for? Suppose you know that the videos
are fake, but also suppose you can be reasonably sure that others will accept
this data as real news. What could you do with that? First idea is some killer
marketing stunt..

~~~
jlgreco
Yeah, as I wrote that I actually began to think that it would be a pretty neat
idea.

I think maybe you could do it by _actually_ filming in Central Park with some
sort of structure with white balls on it, in a certain known arrangement, that
you could automate a lot of the video editing from various angles.. I'm not
sure about that but I suspect it is feasible. If you get everyone to film
different angles at the same basic time then the scene would be the same (just
from different angles) and you'd have everyone else filming in the background
that would lend credibility.

------
roc
The approach seems fine when considering sightings vs (lack of) data for a
specific potential-creature in a specific habitat.

But it seems rather flawed to group together all the various "large ape",
"ape/human hybrid" type legends under the single umbrella of "bigfoot", so as
to dismiss it as being "spotted too frequently to likely exist".

Why do this for "bigfoot" but not for giant squid? Surely the incredible
breadth of "sea monster" legends and stories and sightings dwarfs the limited
evidence that anyone had that a species of giant squids might exist.

~~~
lhc-
Sea Monsters (such as Nessie) are in the same category as Bigfoot. The Giant
Squid has been caught on camera, and bodies have washed up on shore, leaving
real evidence.

No bigfoot-like creature has ever been found, nor any evidence. Is there a
reason to differentiate between different varieties of them when none of those
varieties have any evidence?

~~~
roc
We did eventually get bodies, but only fairly recently. We had scraps before
that, but those were often dismissed and had their aberrant characteristics
ascribed to mutation or decomposition. In hindsight we have identified them as
being of colossal squid, but that was anything but accepted at the time. It
wasn't really until the 2000's and a live specimen was discovered that it was
generally accepted that these things were real.

And, again, my point isn't whether Bigfoot does or doesn't exist. But whether
the logical argument survives such abstraction. And I don't think it does.

The inexistence of bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest doesn't really speak to
the (un)likelihood of the Yeti in the Himalayas. Nor does the lack of evidence
for elves and goblins in Europe speak to the likelihood of an Orang Pendek.

~~~
jlgreco
I think the article addresses your point nicely. People reportedly see bigfoot
_everywhere_ , all the time. For so many citings, we really should have an
abundance of physical evidence, but we just don't.

Giant squid citings however are rare. The infrequent discovery of physical
evidence is therefore not particularly troubling. (And before we found any
credible physical evidence, the lack of physical evidence was still less
troubling than the lack of physical evidence for bigfoot).

(Also not covered by the article: Thanks to sperm whales, who eat the things
and sport scars from fights with them, we've actually had credible physical
evidence of giant squid for quite some time. As far as I can tell nobody was
mistaking these things for abnormally large regular squid since at least the
19th century, and people have been finding credible intact (although dead)
specimens of them since about that same time:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_giant_squid_specimens_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_giant_squid_specimens_and_sightings)

 _" Steenstrup wrote a number of papers on giant squid in the 1850s. He first
used the term "Architeuthus" (this was the spelling he chose) in a paper in
1857. A portion of a giant squid was secured by the French gunboat Alecton in
1861, leading to wider recognition of the genus in the scientific community.
From 1870 to 1880, many squid were stranded on the shores of Newfoundland. For
example, a specimen washed ashore in Thimble Tickle Bay, Newfoundland on 2
November 1878; its mantle was reported to be 6.1 m (20 ft) long, with one
tentacle 10.7 m (35 ft) long, and it was estimated as weighing 2.2
tonnes.[citation needed] In 1873, a squid "attacked" a minister and a young
boy in a dory in Bell Island, Newfoundland. Many strandings also occurred in
New Zealand during the late 19th century."_)

~~~
roc
> _" Giant squid citings however are rare."_

That's missing my question. Colossal squid sightings are rare, but "sea
monsters" are sighted everywhere, all the time. And if we're expected to roll
up the large bipeds (bigfoot, yeti, skunk ape, letiche, et al -- many of which
with very distinct reported features) shouldn't we have rolled up "sea
monsters" and dismissed the colossal squid until (almost literally) someone
dropped it onto our faces? Granted, that isn't far from what happened, but
shouldn't we have learned from that experience, rather than seek to codify the
logic?

> _" we've actually had credible physical evidence of giant squid for quite
> some time."_

Accounts, but a dearth of specimen. Should someone discover the Orang Pendak
tomorrow, surely hindsight will declare credible the records of the early 20th
century dutch colonists. But as of this moment, it's far from generally
accepted that these creatures exist, let alone that those accounts are
actually credible.

And the logic of this article is literally arguing that we ought to weigh the
likelihood of Orange Pendak, based on whether other creatures on other
continents, that just happen to be roughly the same shape, have any credible
evidence.

~~~
jlgreco
Sightings of other assorted sea monsters are common, but the frequency of sea
monster sightings is still not as concerning as the frequency of bigfoot
sightings because we typically expect evidence of shit in the sea to be less
forthcoming. This is the _key takeaway_ from the article: not all
improbabilities are made equal. _Failure to find evidence in one case is not
necessarily as damming as failure to find evidence in another case._

Rolling up all "sea monsters" and all "other great apes" only makes sense if
all of these "sea monsters" are said to be basically big tentacled squidy
things... The reason we roll all those "other great ape" claims together is
because, frankly, it is all the same shit. Hairy biped, grunts a lot, leaves
no trace like a model boyscout, etc. Same story, different continent.

> _Accounts, but a dearth of specimen._

No. We have had credible specimens of giant squid since the 1800s. This isn't
in hindsight, they were quickly accepted at the time by the scientific
community as credible.

------
api
More accurately: there is not enough good-quality evidence vs. the sample size
to tip the needle.

If we had very very few observations of Loch Ness -- like say if it was Lake
Vostok -- but we had a few Nessie sightings, that would be different. But we
have only a few Nessie sightings in a place that's constantly being observed
and photographed.

------
GhotiFish
I find the position that cryptozooligists never "abandon any discredited
evidence" to be unfair. They're talking about a whole demographic here. There
are likely to be more reasonable cryptozooloigists that disregard discredited
evidence, and would happily admit to hoaxes in this area.

I think the majority would hacker news would be with me if I said that, on the
whole, cryptozoologists are a little nutty. You don't need to resort to
political smear tactics to say it.

However. You do need to use smear tactics if you want to create outrage. If
that was the articles objective... then... good job I guess?

As a side note: squatchers is a great name.

~~~
lutusp
> I find the position that cryptozooligists never "abandon any discredited
> evidence" to be unfair.

Science isn't about what's fair, it's about what the evidence tells us. The
fact that, in spite of no evidence whatsoever, Bigfoot stories, books and TV
shows have escalated tremendously over the past 20 years, supports the claim
you're objecting to.

> There are likely to be more reasonable cryptozooloigists that disregard
> discredited evidence, and would happily admit to hoaxes in this area.

Those aren't cryptozoologists, at least not gainfully employed ones. It's sort
of like psychologists who know talk therapy is a waste of time -- they may
still be psychologists, but they're not making a living at psychology.

> You do need to use smear tactics if you want to create outrage.

The article didn't need to use smear tactics, and it didn't use smear tactics
-- it used evidence.

~~~
DanBC
> It's sort of like psychologists who know talk therapy is a waste of time --
> they may still be psychologists, but they're not making a living at
> psychology

I know you hold anti psychology views, but some forms of talking therapy are
evidence based and are as effective as medication for some mental illnesses.
They are quick and achieve good rates of recovery (both amount of recovery,
sometimes total, and length of recovery, sometimes many years.)

I'd agree if you'd used the terms "counselling" and "counsellors".

~~~
lutusp
> I know you hold anti psychology views, but some forms of talking therapy are
> evidence based ...

I said that talk therapy doesn't work. You say it's evidence-based. Both are
true -- the evidence shows that talk therapy doesn't work.

> ... and are as effective as medication for some mental illnesses.

Yes, that's also true. Talk therapy doesn't work, and it's as effective as the
available medications, which also don't work. Here's just one example:

"New Study: SSRI Antidepressants ‘Clinically Insignificant’ For Most People"
[http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/02/new-study-ssri-
antidepressa...](http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/02/new-study-ssri-
antidepressants-dont.php)

On that basis, I think we're in agreement. Talk therapy is evidence based, and
it is just as effective as many of the available medications.

> They are quick and achieve good rates of recovery ...

Yes, and in controlled studies, so does taking no action, sending the client
home untreated, or the application of placebos -- all equally effective.

> I'd agree if you'd used the terms "counselling" and "counsellors".

It's well-established that counsellors, fortunetellers, bartenders, and
psychologists have the same effectiveness rates in settings where one of the
choices isn't unfairly stigmatized.

~~~
vacri
That is momentously bad science: X doesn't work due to the evidence, and to
prove it, here's a paper on a different topic.

~~~
lutusp
If you think talk therapy works, the burden of evidence is yours, not mine.
The default scientific assumption under these circumstances is that there's no
effect, and as it happens, there's no evidence to contradict this assumption,
and plenty to support it.

I posted what I did because it's relatively new and unfamiliar to many of
psychology's advocates. As to talk therapy, these findings are in some cases
decades old, with no change in the outcome.

------
wmeredith
Hitting this link on a mobile device redirects you to the home page of their
mobile site, not the mobile version of this story. Ugh. When will web masters
stop doing this?

------
codezero
I think an interesting analogy here is the idea that there is (or was) life on
Mars.

Most assumptions are that there is life on Mars and time is simply whittling
away at the probability, rather than, as the article says, assumptions are
made that there is no life and probabilities are increased as evidence
suggests that there is.

~~~
lutusp
> Most assumptions are that there is life on Mars and time is simply whittling
> away at the probability ...

Certainly not, at least not among scientists. To a scientist, there's nothing
up there but sand and thin air, until evidence proves otherwise. Popular
reports naturally enough get this scientific, appropriately skeptical outlook
completely wrong.

------
everettForth
If I don't know what "unlikely" means, Bigfoot is not unlikely?

------
woodchuck64
Note that when you substitute "God" for "Bigfoot" the article works quite
well, suggesting that cryptozoology is more of a religion than a science.

~~~
JackFr
I think you're wrong in both premise and conclusion.

"Cryptozoological creatures like [God] are (supposedly) large animals living
in large areas, and both have decades of 'evidence' to suggest that we might
film one someday—as we did the giant squid."

Nope. Doesn't quite work.

Further, a religion is typically characterized as an organized system of
beliefs, rituals and rules used to worship a god or group of gods. Maintaining
one particular irrational belief does not a religion make.

(Although I'm sure "What Would Bigfoot Do?" bumper stickers would sell quite
well.)

~~~
woodchuck64
How about: "Cryptozoological creatures like [God] are (supposedly) [all
powerful entities] living [somewhere outside time], and both have decades of
'evidence' to suggest that we might [measure one's effect in some shape or
form]—as we did the giant squid."

> Maintaining one particular irrational belief does not a religion make.

According to the article, cryptozoologists have many irrational beliefs, one
for each creature.

~~~
jlgreco
You're stretching. Both can be irrational beliefs while not being particularly
similar to each other.

~~~
woodchuck64
On the contrary, most irrational beliefs are similar to each other because
they all stem from the same neurological modules crafted by evolution.
Fallacies that are easily exposed by formal logic often seem correct to people
not trained in science. For example, anecdotal evidence is given perverse
weight because most of the time, anecdotal evidence is pretty solid evidence
for a group of hunter gatherers.

~~~
JackFr
Careful, you're falling into a trap there...

By the same token, your skepticism and rationality are also only neurological
modules crafted evolutionary selection. It is not necessary (or even
proveable) that those beliefs actually correspond to the true nature of the
universe.

~~~
woodchuck64
No trap or problem here (except in the minds of confused religious
philosophers). "True nature" is impossible to know, agreed, but rationality is
aimed at a much more practical goal: accurately communicating the entirety of
shared sensory human experience and abstractions built thereon. Rationality at
root entails nothing more grand or mysterious than standing in a forest with
another person and agreeing that "this is a tree". Language is born of the
need to communicate with another being and logic is born of the need for
precision and efficiency in communication.

Natural selection can shape neurological modules for language in order to
propagate genes, but after that there is nothing that stops language-using
primates from improving and enhancing language, making it work better,
building higher and more strictly defined classes of abstractions that
eventually form math, logic and science.

As this relates to the original subject, the primary point was that people,
cryptozoologists or the religiously devout, were judging correctness by what
"seems" correct rather than by rigorous science. What seems correct is the
strong influence of certain default neurological modules, absent training.
Only with training do people appreciate how misguided one's instincts can be
and how much better science is in communicating accurate observations.

------
static_typed
It most comes down to the human condition, the need in our psyche for some
mystery, things to keep our eyes and mind active, even when occasionally the
rational part tends to point out the unlikeliness of the creature or event.

Some like Bigfoot, some Aliens, some Nessie - me personally, I am fond of the
tales I was told as a young child of a few remaining dinosaurs in the large
remaining land masses, such as Central Africa, and Brazil. Probably unlikely,
yet, nice to dream that perhaps, maybe, a few select dinosaurs are at this
moment hiding away.

