Here is an edited excerpt of my counter statement to him.
“Subjective proof unfortunately is as invalid as is conjecture. So consequently subjective proof is in fact not proof, only evidence leading towards an assumption. How weak or strong that evidence is, is dependent on the source. Eyewitness testimony is not the best of sources and is limiting in many ways. The proof you are looking for, but calling subjective, is objective proof. This type of proof, much like a theory, must be observable and repeatable in an unbiased atmosphere and subject to peer review. Objective proof does not require you to take someone's word for something. It is verifiable no matter what your beliefs”.
Is another person claiming to have seen a Bigfoot, proof at least in a subjective sense that Bigfoot exists? To the person who saw it, it might be, but I am not a good judge of your perceptions, standards or what may be considered your limitations for concluding on what you really saw. So for the rest of the world it is only evidence towards an assumption based on how much you trust the testimony of this other person. So a sighting as intriguing as it may be, does not constitute proof of a Sasquatch, just proof (if they are being honest with us) that they saw something.
I thought today I would give all of those interested a little primer in logic 101 and then I remembered how many different types of fallacies there are. If I begin to list just the subsets of fallacies I will lose half my audience and it’s not fair to list those without listing the sets which number somewhere close to a hundred, so I will spare you and provide a link instead to a Wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
Epistemology was another favorite course in college, and that is the study of “What” can you know and “How” do you know that you know it? It turns out there are many things people claim to know, but in fact do not. That statement does not mean that something you claim to know is wrong, but means you can be wrong in how you came to that conclusion. Here is an example from a textbook. “If a person believes that a bridge is safe enough to support him, and attempts to cross it, but the bridge then collapses under his weight, it could be said that he “believed” that the bridge was safe but that his belief was mistaken. It would not be accurate to say that he “knew” that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported his weight, then he might say that he had believed that the bridge was safe, whereas now, after proving it to himself (by crossing it), he “knows” that it was safe”. How did you come to your conclusion the bridge (Bigfoot is real or not) is safe?
Most of us who believe, disbelieve or are on the fence come to those conclusions based on someone saying or showing us something they claim to be evidence, which means 99.9 of us should really (if we are being honest with ourselves) be fence sitters. Not many of us have firsthand encounters in which we can honestly move into that certainty zone. Taking someone’s word for something and believing them without question is never a wise idea. That is one of the worst ways to be determining the truth, because mainly, you do not know how that person came to their own conclusion. Were they using faulty logic? Did they take someone else’s word for it? Do they have an agenda that makes believing this thing as true in their best interest and are trying to influence you for that interests sake? Hearsay is not allowed in a court of law, because it is 2nd hand knowledge, so you would be wise to take it with a grain of salt as well.
The point of this article is not meant to dissuade the true believer or to cheer on the non- believer or to move you from one side of the fence to the other. The point is we should enjoy our hobby and relish in the possibilities while at the same time take a skeptical approach to what is being offered as evidence. It’s not all good folks and it’s not all bad, but we should take careful steps to ensure that we don’t swallow everything as gospel and leave it to our digestive tracks to work out the rubbish. We are born curious and we learn to ask questions and then to question that which is given to us as answers. That doesn’t mean that we can’t speculate at times and have fun with the unknown (that can be the most fun part), but we should not be a bandwagon rider just for the sake of catching a lift somewhere. I love the fringe, and the fringe topics strike at the very core of what it is to be alive and human. So let’s be alive and human and set our standards high enough not to be gullible and steady enough to be sure of what we claim to know. I believe the trip is much more enjoyable and the evidence that we lean towards as real much more profound, if we let ourselves filter out that which should be discarded... or if you like... Descartes.
Ready, set….Bigfoot!
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