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This article calls for a bit of editiorializing.
The remarkable things to pay attention to in the linked article are:
1) The way the author apologizes to his skeptical brethren, more than once, for considering that there may actually be something to the many stories in Australia about the Yowie, stretching back for generations.
2) The classic arrogance of crypto-skeptics about eyewitness testimony.
As a group, skeptics are just beginning to come to grips with the unsettling notion that at least some of the eyewitnesses must be seeing something. That's a good guess ... considering how many sightings happen with multiple witnesses.
The absurdity in their usual logic begins with the unquestioned assumption no such animals exist, therefore all sightings and encounters must be the product of "hoaxes, misinterpretations, and folklore." Skeptics like this author point to the "notorious unreliability of witness testimony". This notion has been stretched greatly by skeptics.
The studies demonstrating the typical inaccuracies of witness testimony all use chaotic situations in their tests, where there is more than one thing to focus and recall. A bigfoot sighting or encounter, by contrast, is not a very chaotic situation. Credible witnesses can reliably view something like a bigfoot at relevatively close range, and describe it accurately enough to rule out misinterpretation.
If human visual perceptiveness was as faulty as the skeptics claim, then certain things simply would not work in society. The justice system (courts) would not work. Law enforcement would not work. It would also be very unsafe to drive on the highways, but it's not.. People do not hallucinate as much as skeptics would have you believe. |
