Friday, February 02, 2007

Editorial: Misinformed Skeptics

It seems that we in the Sasquatch community do seem to deal with skepticism, and most of them seem to be pretty smart. Some of the more informed skeptics are Benjamin Radford, Scott Herriott, David Begun and David Daegling, despite his parsimonious statements. However, as displayed by the recent "Best Evidence: Bigfoot" show last night, there are quite a few misinformed skeptics, such as Dr. Nina Jablonski and Dr. John Turtle. Dr. Jablonski, an anthropologist, made a few errors last night, by asserting that no hair or scat of Sasquatch had been found, or that night-nests had not been found either. Obviously, she had not been keeping up with events in the Sasquatch field or she would not have said that. Another egregious example from last night was Dr. John Turtle, a psychology professor who said that sightings of Sasquatch could be explained away by people WANTING to see Sasquatch. He was quick to add that these people are not liars, just mistaken. They are bad examples of misinformed skeptics who don't bother to read up on it, or even get out in the field to actually do research. At least Radford, Begun, Herriott and Daegling do get out in the field on occasion. The armchair skeptics, such as Jablonski and Turtle, don't seem to know or understand the first thing about being good skeptics. Informed skepticism is fine; uninformed skepticism is not.

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