So this DVD came in from my Netflix queue and I was thinking "Jane Goodall's a reputable scientist so this should be good" but right away they went into the psychic abilities of companion animals. There were some credible and interesting stories of human and nonhuman relationships but for the most part it was alotta WTF?! Oh Jane...
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Oh no! That sucks.
Although she is a scientist I know she believes in a certain amount of woo. When asked about Bigfoot, for example, she says they almost certainly exist based on her many conversations with many native peoples all across the world. [Yeti, Sasquatch, etc] The lack of any physical evidence such as a carcass, bone, or credible photograph/film doesn't seem to sway her.
She's just one of the many people who foolishly make decisions of fact based on word of mouth, anecdotes, and "general consensus" of their peers. [like 51% of this group, as an example] Very sad.
"The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. " -source unknown to me
She seems to casually accept the plausibility of some woo-ish stuff but I've never heard her make any solid remarks in support.Originally Posted by Mahk
When asked about Bigfoot, for example, she says they almost certainly exist based on her many conversations with many native peoples all across the world.
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
I'm pretty sure my cats psychically influence me to feed them. Oh wait, that would be physically, with their claws of persuasion.
Heh.
Hey actually that would make a good band name.
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
I like that "citation please" highlighter feature. Is that new? Very nifty. It's...[wait for it]... dandy, Dandy.
I'll get my coat.
Anyway here,
Note: The infamous "Patterson film" ,shown in the background , is a modified/hodge podge of leftover Hollywood ape-monster costumes made by the same people who made them for a "Lost in Space" episode, a Star Trek episode "Galileo 7", and the movie "Planet of the Apes". At least so says the man who claims to have worn the suit, Bob Heironimus, but since the cameraman dude went to his grave steadfastly claiming it wasn't a hoax, die hard Bigfoot believers still aren't convinced it was fake.
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I wonder if Jane G believes in dragons too? At least with them besides anecdotal evidence in books we also have concrete fossil evidence to back it up.
Last edited by Mahk; 02-24-2011 at 03:24 AM.
Yup, new features being rolled out all the time now! Cool, eh? NEEDED.I like that "citation please" highlighter feature. Is that new? Very nifty. It's...[wait for it]... dandy, Dandy.
Thanks for the cite BTW. You'd think, as a scientist she would wanna find that bigfoot with all of her experience and all or at least campaign on the behalf of a population that is probably dwindling so low as to be nearly unperceivable.
No no, get it right, people saw dinosaurs and their accounts are now interprested as dragons!I wonder if Jane G believes in dragons too? At least with them besides anecdotal evidence in books we also have concrete fossil evidence to back it up.
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Although she and I differ on our views regarding Bigfoot, I have a lot of respect for her. She is probably the best know primatologist of all time, has been a vegetarian since the seventies, was a pioneer you blazed new trails going out on her own with very little support as a field researcher in a far away land, which as a woman scientist in the sixties was almost unheard of, and made ground breaking discoveries which not only influenced primatology but anthropology as well.
She shattered the long held belief that tool use is what sets humans apart from the other animals by showing how they not only use but also create and modify tools (ant hill fishing sticks). I believe it also was her who taught the world that chimps are not vegetarians at all and even hunt in coordinated groups (although it is thought to be a small percentage of their caloric intake).
You rock Jane!
She indeed does.
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Ive got a lot of respect for her but unfortunately she isnt always the most rational, at least to me. Im pretty sure she buys into most ape sign language, which at least in Kokos case was pretty sketchy on the evidence.
I heard that she made a more rational follow up reply about bigfoot, I'll see if I can track it down. I was under the impression her belief in bigfoot was overblown.
I don'tnow much about this. Please elaborate on what you mean by "sketchy". Is it now thought some of these were faked, or what?
not so much faked as wishfully misintrepreted, this was a hard one (ape sign language being not whats its claimed) for me to accept when I started getting into skeptisism. I really wanted to belvie that we can converse with an ape like that but the current experiments seem to have been way over hyped. I have hopes for the apes being taught using buttons w/ symbols but I still reamin wary (one burned, twice shy). Its hard to lump all the experiments in one though, they have to be examined individually.
here is some reading for you: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-10-31/#feature
also just readign the transcript of one of kokos "conversations" might make it clear http://www.koko.org/world/talk_aol.html
its a horiffically befuddled mess that reads more like misintrpreations of hand movements that conversing in sign languange
the website promotign Koko even went so far as to say thisthat kinda cinched it for me, thats just going above and beyond what even a very positive intrpretation of the evidence says gorillas would be capable of mentallyWhen Koko was later asked how she felt about the fact that gorillas are endangered, she signed: "People need (to) hurry!"
there is also a great thread on the JREF forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=65071
I haven't yet had the opportunity to examine your supplied links, but thanks, they look interesting. I will check them out when I have more time.
Welcome to the forum; you look like a welcome addition from my perspective. I (too?) am an evidence based science advocate and I shun belief systems in general, including the all too prevalent form of "veganism" I see run rampant on the web which is nothing more than a dogmatic belief system in itself which claims all things plant based are automatically good for health/environment/etc and all things animal are automatically bad, without an actual, unbiased examination of the facts. [Which you might have gathered from my signature already.]
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Some in our forum have become so disillusioned by what passes these days for "what a vegan is" that they now shun the very word. I'm not at that point however and proudly consider myself a vegan, BTW.
Soymilk Gun, I have now examined your links. Thank you for them.
I concede animal communication has been filled with hoaxes and flim flam over the years. True. I also think many of the researchers in this field aren't very smart in how they work. They also may be overly enthusiastic and interpret their results with bias, selectively cherry picking only the good data, and ignoring the million times Koko, et al, said gibberish. But I also think some of the animal communication deniers are setting the bar too high. A common complaint I saw in some of your links was, to paraphrase, "And here we see yet again an ape that can learn perhaps 125 words or so and combine them in simple two word 'sentences' yet unlike a human they hit a brick wall and can't progress past that." I don't think anyone has claimed apes can eventually be taught a full grasp of the English language. Also what constitutes communication as opposed to "language" is in my mind subjective. Even the common dog many of us live with can understand abstract thought. To me this constitutes language albeit in a very primitive way compared to us.
The humble honey bee, which some "vegans" see nothing wrong in exploiting, manipulating, and killing both purposefully and accidentally in our endeavor to steal her honey, has a communication that's so advanced us humans can't for the life of us decipher it. All we know is that through a combination of dance and possibly pheromone clues a scout bee can communicate the concept of," I have successfully found a very good flower field for pollen collection. It is distance X from our current location in the direction of Y. Let's roll."
That's language in my book, primitive and with a singular purpose, colony food acquisition, but nonetheless language.
Last edited by Mahk; 03-26-2011 at 09:30 PM.
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