Skeptify me

There's an article out today in the Toledo Blade talking about next weekend's Ohio Bigfoot Conference. It's the usual thing, all fluffy and pillow soft, giving scant attention to facts in support of bigfoot, and making blanket statements about what's real and not real in the world. Here's a 'graph that tells you where this writer is coming from:

For skeptics, they were stories to file right next to the ones about UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster, either outright hoaxes — people walking around in monkey suits or making fake footprints — or cases of people misidentifying something as normal as a mangy bear.

Did you catch that? Whatever UFOs are, or whatever the Loch Ness Monster is, is still undecided. There's enough evidence already, at least in the case of UFOs, to ensure a proper skeptic would say, "I don't know what is going on. I need more data." (If you don't think that's true, read Richard M. Dolan's UFOs and the National Security State, or anything by Jacques Vallee.) But this writer washes his hands of such things without a single thought. That's just plain lazy. But in any event, what do UFOs or the Loch Ness Monster have to do with evidence for the existence of bigfoot? These are three separate cases. But the writer doesn't question the skeptics assumptions, he just lets them ride. Because he agrees with them.

If my opinion of his dirty deed were somehow brought to his attention, he would no doubt say, "that's not what I think, that's what skeptics think." Right. But this article is presented from a skeptics point of view. The way things are worded tells you that. You only have to look at how he uses the word "believers" to describe bigfoot researchers. The word "believer" is wrapped up in religious overtones, and suggests, in our modern world, an uncritical, naive mindset.

You'll notice in the story that one researcher is quoted as saying, "I don't call myself a believer necessarily." It's no accident that the writer chose that quote, with the added "necessarily." There's just enough anxiety there to suit his purposes nicely

Now how does the writer treat the skeptic that he quotes? Are there any descriptors that undermine his credibility with the reader?

Joe Nickell, senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry in Amherst, N.Y., whose work includes the study of unknown animals, said it’s understandable that stories of Sasquatch would arise.

“I think that because our planet is shrinking we’re looking for new frontiers, and one new frontier is to find these remote areas, these last surviving creatures from earlier epochs,” he said.

However, that doesn’t make them real, just as he’s concluded with other man beast legends he’s investigated, including werewolves.

“It boggles the mind that [Bigfoot] would be so populous that it would be in ... every state of the union as well as Canada. ... There’s almost too many reports to be credible, given that we haven’t yet found a single carcass,” Mr. Nickell said. “All of the evidence so far is just the kind of evidence — just exactly the kind of evidence — that you could get if the creatures were mythical only.”

I didn't see any undermining there, did you? "Senior research fellow" sounds pretty impressive. I wonder why, since I know that reporters are schooled in "balance,"
that quote from a scientist wasn't balanced by a quote from a scientist who supports the idea that bigfoot exists, or might exist?

Well anyway, I didn't see where the "Senior researcher fellow" got any undermining. What I did see was Mr. Nickell making unsupported statements, the effect of which is simply to wave his hands and say, "Oh poo!" about the whole thing. Where do you suppose Mr. Nickell got the idea that "all the evidence so far" is what you would get if bigfoot was a made up phenomenon? I can't be sure, but by my reckoning, he pulled it out of his ass. You aren't going to find any scientific basis for that statement, or anything else he said either. He's just spouting off his opinion. Skeptics of his sort deny reflexively. They are not even marginally aware of what the evidence for bigfoot is. They have simply said, "Monsters? Too scary! They don't exist."

At one point in time such people said, "Rocks falling from the sky? Preposterous!" Or, "A round earth? Pull the other one!" Such people as these should catch a little of the ridicule so often lavished on bigfoot "believers."

Late update: Just ran across this little quote from Charles Fort -- seems to fit:

[Skepticism] is assuasive to all the irritations that occur to those cloistered minds that must repose in the concept of a snug, isolated, little world, free from contact with cosmic wickedness, safe from stellar guile, undisturbed by inter-planetary prowlings and invasions.

Of course, for inter-planetary, we'll take "huge hairy hominoid."

Or, one can always look to Shakespeare

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.