Does the formatting work for a blog post?
I'll follow this up with the response to what you asked
Void
I even have pictures. Nothing alive though. As if I could just sit on something that cool and not share it repeatedly.
I had many a conversation with my grandpas, uncles, and their hunting buddies who have been deep woods hunters. The classic 'gone for 3-5 months in the bush but can’t haul all the kills due to weight' and various woodsmen and Forest Wardens (Canada’s version of the Rangers). I was assured by all of them that they could prove the existence of the Sasquatch species in a court of law.
This brings up a particularly important point regarding the history of Sasquatch investigations that raises a few questions about the rules of evidence used to judge whether Sasquatch is natural or not. My people could justifiably make that claim, however, scientists routinely say there is not enough evidence to prove the existence of the species. Why is that? It got me thinking, which is never a good thing.
The problem has to do with the way the subject has been classified/defined or rather not clearly or correctly classified/defined. Most of the time Sasquatch have been studied as if they were a nonexistent species and the rules of evidence that apply to the physical sciences have been applied. Those rules are stringent as they involve evidence such as DNA, photographs, remains. When placed in this category the sasquatch fails to meet the criteria of scientific proof, for obvious reasons. The species is a rare one. Finding them during regular visiting hours at the zoo isn’t reliable so scientists cannot perform repeatable experiments to ascertain their nature. More so due to in part to a lack of funds, physical evidence to spur research, taboo, and more.
It really comes down to classification and that is why my fam and extensions can accurately make the claim that sufficient evidence does exist to prove it in a court of law. Physical scientists do not consider things like eyewitness reports and circumstantial or anecdotal evidence. A court of law does. There is no single set of standards that can be applied across the board to define what scientific evidence is. Physical scientists cannot deny the veracity of sociological or psychological theories simply because the evidence to support them is based upon a pedigree of precision.
There is an acknowledged division between the hard and soft sciences, for example, genealogy and sociology. You do not approach the two disciplines in the same way. Let us compare those sciences to gain some insight into why there is such a division of opinion about the Sasquatch. First, we must ask, would it be fair to let a genealogist evaluate the credibility of a sociological theory using the standards of evidence and protocols that he normally uses in his genealogy investigations? No, they do not compare. That is exactly what has happened in the history of Sasquatch research. Skeptical scientists have consistently claimed that their existence cannot be proven and by their standards, they have been right.
But those are the wrong standards to apply because Sasquatch are natural events or processes and the preponderance of evidence suggests this is the case. So, we have this historical split and ongoing ambivalence with highly credible witnesses reporting sightings and encounters with Sasquatch that are followed by routine dismissals from scientists that are reported in the media and in a variety of Sasquatch media articles. What is the general public’s reaction? The public is quite naturally torn, confused, and dismissive.
Most people do not want to think of hunters, hikers, and wilderness experts as well as various forestry personnel as being incapable of distinguishing between a Sasquatch and a bear or a Sasquatch or a human fucking around. These are well-seasoned outdoorsmen that we depend upon reliably for our safety through their vital information about predatory animals, difficult hiking terrain, dangers, etc. while out in the forest. Yet thousands upon thousands of reports by such folk have been rejected or downgraded because there is no scientific proof and therefore, they must be treated as nothing more than anecdotal reports.
As I pointed out, hard scientists do not have much use for anecdotal evidence and yet these are the kinds of factual observations made by credible witnesses that legal cases and sociology are built upon. People want to have confidence in science and as we have seen, scientists have not been wrong. But neither have they made it clear just what they mean by scientific proof in the context of Sasquatch and the media hasn’t noticed this smaller yet important detail.
Obviously there isn’t enough physical hard scientific evidence to prove the species is real in this context, save for a handful of skulls and partial skeletons recovered over the last 150 years. Yes, there is enough legal and soft science type evidence to prove the species is real in this context. How do we resolve the results and the uncertainty and accept the reality of the species? Put it in its proper classification and definition as an unnatural phenomenon under the purview of such disciplines as sociology, cultural anthropology, social psychology, etc.
While the skeptical scientists and debunkers have been correct, to a degree, their assertion that there is no hard evidence is incorrect. Hunters, aboriginals, hikers, forest rangers, search and rescue have observed them, photographs and video clips containing recorded sound have all been documented and they corroborate Sasquatch sightings. This is hard evidence that substantiates the reality of this species.
Why would this even matter? How we classify the phenomenon makes all the difference in the world. Accepting that it is an established scientifically proven reality under the more open rules of soft science would remove the stigma from witnesses. Removing the stigma is important because it is a taboo subject in academia. But more importantly classifying it correctly as a non-natural phenomenon allows investigators to start focusing on the right questions instead of looking for hard evidence among the ever-increasing amount of data that they have accumulated.
9/11 taught us a lesson about not connecting dots and not making the cogent. The data was there, and several analysts were correctly interpreting it. But the executive part of the FBI and CIA did not cooperate with the data collection and analysis part, which resulted in an intelligence breakdown.
There is no official investigation being conducted into the species at present, which could be the biggest insult to science so far.
Do we have anything to lose by accepting the premise that the evidence proving Sasquatch is real? I don’t think we have shit all to lose. What do we have to lose by accepting the idea that it is not real?
If we are smashing protons and electrons together at colliders around the world while seeing matter appear that were only spoken in conspiracy theories in dark classrooms, what do we have to lose in exploring Sasquatch using all of the relevant scientific methodologies?
It bothers me that we have been witnessing science on the whole not putting in the time to research and corroborate the unknown or taboo subjects. It does a disservice to the foundations of Science.
