Friday 13 May 2016

The Sceptics Call Time on Nessie (again)


 An article appeared recently on the sceptical blogosphere by Sharon Hill. You can read it here, but suffice to say the summary of it was that the Loch Ness Monster mystery has been solved and why keep looking for a mythical monster when science and logic has laid this to rest? This was followed by the retort that people couldn't give up on monsters because:

"Several of those who have pursued these topics are so invested – monetarily and emotionally – that they can’t be objective and see the reality"

Is that true or is this another of those overstated articles by sceptics that I have read too often over the years? Well, let me first of all state that going by the response of various sceptics since this blog started in 2010, I would not agree that emotion is the monopoly of the "believers". In fact, if insults and pejoratives are the outward expression of an inward emotion, the sceptics take the gold medal every time. 

To put it mildly, the kind of scepticism one comes across is far removed from the Mr. Spock genre where the eyebrow is raised and the word "Fascinating" is uttered before we are told "Captain, the odds of the Loch Ness Monster existing is 132691.2 to 1 against.".

Of course, emotion plays it part and that is to be expected when it comes to people - on both sides of the debate. As to the accusation of being over-invested, perhaps Sharon ought to name names so we can put her assertion to a proper test?

Is the mystery solved? Is Sharon familiar with the critiques of her own and others' critiques? After all, when sceptics dictate suggest that two people who saw a 15 foot, two humped, grey creature from only 20 yards away that was "hideous" and "not a pleasant experience", only saw a common deer, you will forgive me for not taking them seriously.

Or when another sceptic decrees speculates that an experienced angler who claimed to have seen a thirty foot animal at a similar distance, only saw a cormorant; again if this is how sceptics go about "solving" the Loch Ness mystery, may I suggest they are the ones who are over invested in their theories so much they can't be objective!

There are, of course, other such cases I could call upon which leave sceptics floundering like a landed sturgeon or catfish. They could just say everyone is lying, but where is the fun in that? As for the other reasons Sharon gives for why no one could ever have possibly seen a large, unknown creature in Loch Ness:

"Sparse food supplies"? Yes, that has been covered (one sceptic rubbished this, but strangely never came back when I asked him to explain why). 

"Does not breathe air"? Just exactly why does it have to be an air breather, Sharon?

"Doesn't die"? Can you quote me on who exactly says this?

"Doesn't have babies"? I think Sharon is now letting emotion rather than logic drive the keyboard! Again, who is saying this?

"Avoid detection during thorough scans of the water body"? Excuse me while I take this one with a pinch of salt. They only recently found the similar sized Sherlock Holmes prop monster after 45 years. So tell me how these "thorough scans" managed to miss this? Even when interesting sonar scans are produced, the experts have no idea what they are looking at and one leading sceptic even declared that sonar is useless in establishing the presence of large animals in Loch Ness due to its ambiguities.

Which brings us to the main point of the article. Basically, we are being told that Nessie should have been found by now. We are told that science has probed the world of the subatomic and found planets beyond the Solar System. Surely establishing the presence of such an animal in Loch Ness is not rocket science?

Sadly, this is another non-sequitur. The particle smashing Large Hadron Collider project only cost $6.4 billion while the planet finding Kepler telescope was a snip at $600 million. Yes, Sharon, science works when enough money is thrown at it. Remind me how much has been spent on investigating the Loch Ness Monster with state of the art technology?

To assert that a Nessie should have been found by now is, of course, a subjective statement. How was this deduction arrived at? Because someone has found a quark or an exoplanet, they should have found Nessie?

As Mr. Spock would say, "That is illogical, Captain".
 

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com







38 comments:

  1. Quite frankly I think the rather dramatic sightings you name here are totally incompatible with the fact that no convincing footage exists. That's why it's time to give up on this. There's no correlation between what people report and what is available for us to examine either on emulsion film or in digital format. OK you may argue that a couple of the historical images have some merit, but one would have to accept that they do not convince many people at all that giant animals live in Loch Ness.

    At some point, the dream has to be abandoned when no clear evidence has come to light. For an increasing number of people that point has passed. For an ever decreasing minority the dream/desire will never disappear. Perhaps life is richer for that fact. Indeed, Loch Ness serves as a monument to the frailties of the human mind, and its unwillingness to alter firmly-held but empty beliefs.

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    1. I would agree it is a monument to the frailties of the human mind, but not in the way you suggest.

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    2. "Time to give up"; ". . . the dream has to be abandoned." Why? If people want to look, why would you want to stop them? Do they owe you money? Are they taking away your livelihood? What a ridiculous request. If it bothers you this much then you should quit reading blogs like this.

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    3. To Anonymous: since your conclusion totally refuses to follow from the premises, I see an opportunity here for you to show how the human mind should tackle its frailties. - Guam

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    4. Guam, do you believe in Nessie? If so, please explain why doing so doesn't exhibit your frailty. - Anonymous

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    5. To Anonymous: A red herring. Please consider your original argument, and explain how the conclusion ("it's time to give up on this") follows from the premise ("the rather dramatic sightings you name here are totally incompatible with the fact that no convincing footage exists"). If it doesn't (hint: it doesn't), then say so. End of the story. - Guam

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    6. Very simple Mr Guam. If the sighting reports accurately reflected what really happens at Loch Ness, by now we would have a veritable library of clear videos, films and photos to enjoy. The fact we don't even have one - not even one - image which convinces the majority of people who look at it, shows that there is nothing unusual in Loch Ness in physical terms. There's merely a great deal of misinterpretation and delusion going on.

      It's time to give up on this.

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  2. I normally avoid reading closed minded nonsense, as it is a waste of your time and mine. I love these folks who state their opinion as a matter of fact, with nothing to back it up but supposition. Doesn't make a great argument. And yes, I agree with yourself GB that the high outpourings of emotion seem to be the feature of a sceptic camp, as if they are annoyed that anyone should take a contrary view to theirs. I'm not sure any believer in this walks around Loch Ness, high as a kite on the belief that something unusual lives there. I'm sure sitting for hours watching is rather more mundane than that.....

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    1. Steve Feltham - living proof of how monster hunting at Loch Ness is a complete waste of time, unless your motives amount to more than just obtaining clear images of unknown animals. Cause you ain't gonna do that, no matter how many years you try. No, for it to be a worthwhile endeavour you need to have other reasons too. That's why it works for my good friend Steve Feltham.

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    2. I agree, the odds are against the individual. That does not mean there is nothing there, I prefer to use techniques that do not require my presence.

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    3. Your method is achieving precisely the same success rate as all previous attempts. And I bet you £1000 it will still be the case by June 2030 - nothing of real note.

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    4. Only £1000? That shows a lack of conviction.

      I did a recent article on probabilities. It is easy to see why sceptics come off sounding authoritative when the odds are heavily in their favour. A safe bet.

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  3. Might I add that the 'scientific' community does not want to know about this or cases like it. It's like having to solve a crime by yourself after the police tell you that they won't assist, with the removal of all said resources.

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  4. The Sherlock Ness model was in an unusual area on the bottom, that's why it wasn't picked up on scans. The fact it took a long time to be found doesn't explain why ness monsters aren't regular detected in the water column. Apparently they surface and apparently they swim midwater, so if they were real they would be detected on sonar every few days. Large sweeps should reveal multiple animals.

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    1. Who says they must be in the water column?

      Having seen the Kongsberg zoom in video, the location does not look unusual to me.


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  5. Just how "scientific" are these skeptics anyways ?
    They don't ever really know what they're talking about even using their "science." I once saw the Champlain Monster from about 8 feet away and clearly saw that it was a type of "Snake Necked" Turtle unknown to science. The Loch's sparse food supply would not be a problem for even a dozen Chelonians the size of what I saw, which was about 15 feet long. I asked the caretaker at the Bronx Zoo what he fed their massive 400 pound Alligator Snapper and he told me less than 9 pounds of fish a week, so food is not a problem to the efficient anatomy of turtles. Must breath underwater ? Once again, the assumption is that our scientists would notice them getting air. Snake necked Turts can breath by sticking just the tip of their nostrils out of the water to silently and stealthfully draw oxygen (they don't have a diaphram to make breathing noises}. And some lake turtles can stay submerged for a full day if need be. Open minded paleontologist Kenneth Wilson also proposes a live birthing, fully aquatic turtle for Ness, which is just a minor variation on how Mata Mata turtles give birth. The main emotion I had when I saw what I saw after the sheer excitement, was great disappointment in the scientific community in that they never did the research to see if there was a still existing animal that could do all the things claimed by Champ (and Nessy), other than the presumed to be extinct Plesiosaur. Another thing that Spock once said. When trying to explain how the Enterprise was being attacked by a Klingon Cruiser that couldn't be seen, because their cloaking device had to be turned off when firing photon torpedos, and it couldn't stay invisible, Spock's response was simply ... "This one can."

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    1. I don't believe you saw anything unusual in Lake Champlain. I feel sure you were mistaken.

      Sorry!

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    2. 15:42 your comment shows the lunacy of some skeptics.

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    3. Ok let's see the photo which supports Pogsquatch's report, then I'll agree that I'm a lunatic. In fact if you can show me just one good image to support any of the thousands of eyewitness reports of Champ and Nessie, I'll get myself checked into The Priory, and that's a promise.

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    4. "the thousands of eyewitness reports of Champ and Nessie" should carry some weight, due to their "thousands".

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    5. Not for me they don't. Mistaken and dishonest people could run into the millions globally at any one point in time, so what's a few thousand of them at Loch Ness and Lake Champlain over the years? No big deal. Move on folks, there's nothing to see here.....

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    6. All good images are fakes to sceptics.

      So called dishonest and mistaken people are so labelled because they could not have possibly seen what they described.

      Circular reasoning?


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    7. As clearly stated above - the weight of public opinion indicates that there are no good images. This isn't a skeptic's opinion, it's the opinion of the majority of the masses. If you had a dozen or so photos and films of any other large water animal you'd not get this widespread disbelief. It would be clear that a real animal was in at least some of the images. And yet Nessie manages to always be indistinct and completely different in appearance in all the photos and films she appears in? Does that seem likely to an intelligent man?

      There's no circular reasoning going on here, there just aren't any convincing images at all.

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    8. I've been thinking about the webcam at http://www.lochness.co.uk/livecam/

      On the skeptical side, how many people do we think watch it regularly? If a few thousand people watch for a minute a day, that ought to guarantee that any interesting frame has been seen. Anything as dramatic as the McNab picture would surely have been noticed and put on line. So the existence of that camera puts some sort of limit on the frequency with which large animals surface in Loch Ness.

      More constructively, could someone more computerate than me think how to capture every frame? By my reckoning that would be about 1GB of data per day, so a year's worth would fit on my hard drive with room to spare. Then volunteers could fast-forward through it looking for anomalies.

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    9. So, sceptics place weight on public opinion? Or only when it suits their argument? :)

      Regarding how many conclusive images "should have" been produced by now, it is no surprise the sceptical mindset lowballs this number as much as possible.

      The first thing to say is that most sightings are so far off as to lose hope of producing anything other than a blur or dot in the image. The object may be better discerned to the human eye, but cameras over the 83 years have generally not hacked it. So, the vast majority of such pictures never make it to print and end up in family albums.

      It is the number of sightings below 100m that offer the best hope for a good picture. We have pictures, but as usual they are dismissed as some vague or trivial reason is given as grounds for rejecting them. And believe me, sceptics ALWAYS find an excuse to reject any picture.

      The number of <100m sightings are small, cut out the people who had no cameras, were in no position to use one or were too preoccupied looking at this extraordinary sight, then I suggest what we have is well within statisical bounds.

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    10. I wholly disagree. You will find that the vast majority of skeptics who are interested in Loch Ness would welcome a convincing image with open arms. We don't actually WANT to disbelieve Nessie's existence, most of us have very reluctantly come to the conclusion there just isn't a monster to find.

      In terms of distant sightings, the position is clear in the majority of the skeptical community. If a person can see something clear enough with their eyes to be certain of a "monster" then they will also be able to capture the object on photo or video clearly enough to be enlarged and objectively and critically examined. The days of the fuzziness of the Smith film and the Dinsdale film are long gone. Cameras and phones are far, far more capable of rendering clear images. And in answer to that, Nessie follows the same paradox as other paranormal subjects do: namely, the clearer the images that technology of the day is able to capture, the fewer images are brought forth. It's easy to make an argument for a fuzzy old black and white blob being a monster, not so easy to make such a case when everything in the photo or video is sharp.

      It really is no more fruitful than chasing unicorns or hunting goblins. It's all a lot of fun, though nowhere near the fun it was between 1960 and 1975, when we really felt we were onto something. See if you can track down ex-members of the LNPIB who actually manned the loch observations and sat watching and waiting for hours on end. You'll not find one who will tell you there are monsters in Loch Ness.

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    11. Well, there is this video, or at least the portion of it that is public:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfzAGsVvyfE

      Why is it difficult to believe that there might exist an unknown large long-necked species of turtle?

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    12. Plenty of anonymous sceptics here (or are they all the same person?)

      Sorry, I don't believe you about being delighted if Nessie would be found. It would be a complete embarrasment to your and your ilk.

      You did not read my argument properly, I referred to the last 83 years, not the era of mobile phones. My experiments with such cameras shows they're not that good at capturing what the eye sees. Fuzziness and blobs are now replaced by pixel blocks.

      A mobile phone camera would fall short of what Dinsdale filmed at 1700 odd yards. After all, does not silver nitrate have a higher resolution than CMOS/CCD?

      As for tracking down ex-LNPIB members who manned cameras and still believe in Nessie, shall we start with Rip Hepple who I visited recently?

      http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/visiting-rip-hepple.html

      Sigh!




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    13. So where are these "pixel blocks" images then? I've not seen any.

      You'd have to start and end with Rip, there aren't any others. Rip invested too much into it to quit.

      I will repeat what I said before, and you can stamp your feet all you like: Skeptics would - pretty much without exception - be delighted if an unknown animal were to be discovered in Loch Ness, but we are pretty certain there's nothing waiting to be discovered. Just because we don't believe, doesn't mean we don't see how amazing such a discovery would be. However, with skeptics you'll find that the head rules the heart.

      As for how many skeptics are posting on this page, I've personally written most of the comments but there's at least one other contributing. Do you not welcome skeptical input on here?

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    14. "After all, does not silver nitrate have a higher resolution than CMOS/CCD?"

      Not any more, apparently (see below). The reason phones are inadequate for Nessie-hunting is not their sensors but their lack of a decent telephoto lens.

      http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/03/when-will-micro-43-equal-medium-format-film-we-have-the-definitive-answer.html

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    15. Pixel blocks of today equate to graininess in the old photos. Of course, these days, the old photos are now in digitised format, so you can have your graininess and pixellation at the same time.

      You stated there were no LNIB people who believed now. I produce one right away and he becomes the exception to your rule. Nice body swerve there. I can think of someone else with the initials HP who manned the cameras in the 70s who is a Nessie believer, though it is up to him to identify himself. Or is he another exception to your rule?

      You can say what you like about being delighted if something real turned up. It would be a devestating blow to the sceptical movement and its M.O.

      And, yes, sceptics can comment. It's a pity most don't have the balls to identify themselves.


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    1. Having googled you, Darryl, that doesn't surprise me.

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  7. Sebastian Chardry17 May 2016 at 11:18

    Lionel Timkins once described the over-zealous sceptic as "The man to whom all wonders have ceased". Rather an apt little phrase, I think many of us would agree.

    "To know not is simply to not know. To know, however, is to believe and know, whilst simultaneously bathing in the clear light of knowledge" - Pierre St Rancon 1756

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  8. Off topic here, but have just come across an interesting piece about an unproduced film called "Nessie" that was due to be made in the late seventies as a coproduction between Hammer films and Japanese company Toho, who produced "Godzilla". The latter actually made the Nessie prop and shot some test footage before the plug was pulled.

    If you Google "hammer nessie film" you will get info.

    Thought it might make an interesting future article!

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    1. Yes, the promo poster occassionally turns up on my ebay watches.

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  9. According to some sceptics us Nessie Hunters are all uneducated. Sigh.

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