Posted On: March 21, 2023

I am a fan of footprint evidence. I think it is some of the best evidence we have when analyzed by experts who see characteristics of the print which indicate it is a real animal. This has been done multiple times by Dr. Jeff Meldrum, for instance.

Below is a brief description of some statistics stuff that I think many may find interesting. It may be something you'd like to hear once in your life just to become more educated on an interesting topic. I hope you enjoy it!.

I see a flaw in one of Dr. Jeff Meldrum's claims, which is a claim I have heard others make as well. Perhaps more accurately, they make a claim that is true, but I think offers no useful information toward providing evidence for bigfoot.

The claim is that the sizes of the prints located form a normal distribution, which is what you'd expect when dealing with a real animal population. "Normal" refers to what many know as a "bell curve" or "Gaussian distribution".

We see these normal distributions when measuring Human IQ, animal heights, scores on tests, etc. It seems that nature or the universe really like normal distributions and that things that happen naturally follow this trend.

So you measure your first bigfoot footprint length and mark it on a graph. You do it with the second one, third one, etc until you've done it with all of them. The claim is that it forms a normal distribution because it reflects a real animal population with creatures of different size leaving different sized prints.

The claim is that hoaxers would have to coordinate to do this so that tracks in one area of the country were crafted to be the right size so that they appeared the correct number of times so as not to ruin this beautiful normal/Gaussian distribution. This is claimed to be unlikely, strengthening the evidence for bigfoot.

The problem?

The Central Limit Theorem (CLT).

The CLT states that when we generate a number by a combination of a bunch of random processes, the result will be normally distributed. You see, the normal distribution is not the only distribution. For example, if you roll a die you get a uniform distribution because each number is equally probable. There are an abundance of random distributions beyond the scope of this post.

The cool thing about the CLT is that if you combine the results from multiple different distributions, e.g. uniform, binomial, chi-square, etc, you get a normal distribution! So cool, right?

So if hoaxers, working independently, created fake tracks they would have certain constraints:.

How big do they think a squatch track is?

How much material do they have to work with to make a fake foot?

What size print can they transport in their bags/packs/car?

How much weight are they willing to carry into the woods?

How much money do they have to purchase material?

On and on and on.

I bet each of those bullets above has some random distribution, don't you?

I bet each, added together affects the total size of the print, don't you?

I think the CLT comes into play here and we're going to have normally distributed footprints across the country, without any need for coordination. I think a fun game would be take a group of 100 people, have them draw on the ground their best estimate of a squatch track, never letting them see the other submissions. I claim they will be normally distributed.

Summary:.

I'm not saying bigfoot exist or do not exist.

I'm not saying you didn't find a print yourself.

I think footprint casts are great evidence.

I claim that a normal distribution is not valid supporting evidence for track authenticity.

I hope you did not find this too boring.

I hope you learned something today that will be useful some day.

Central Limit Theorem (CLT) is awesome.

Edit: Fixed grammar to look more like English.

Post from user trickytrekkie at bigfoot at reddit..

Comments:

I agree.

The real problem with footprint evidence is we don't have a sample of proven type specimens and the ability to conduct morphometric analyses to reject the null.

Without knowing the natural variation in sasquatch foot morphology, we cant formally test whether or not a given footprint (assuming no obvious sign of hoaxing) belongs to the real or fake category. Thus, the science of sasquatch footprints is largely informal.

And given we know nothing about sasquatch sexual dimorphism, its possible the distribution might be bimodal - distinct male and female subpops. In this case, a normal distribution would tend to support hoaxing and not a zoological population.

Comment from user aether_drift at bigfoot at reddit..

Posted On: March 21, 2023

I am a fan of footprint evidence. I think it is some of the best evidence we have when analyzed by experts who see characteristics of the print which indicate it is a real animal. This has been done multiple times by Dr. Jeff Meldrum, for instance.

Below is a brief description of some statistics stuff that I think many may find interesting. It may be something you'd like to hear once in your life just to become more educated on an interesting topic. I hope you enjoy it!.

I see a flaw in one of Dr. Jeff Meldrum's claims, which is a claim I have heard others make as well. Perhaps more accurately, they make a claim that is true, but I think offers no useful information toward providing evidence for bigfoot.

The claim is that the sizes of the prints located form a normal distribution, which is what you'd expect when dealing with a real animal population. "Normal" refers to what many know as a "bell curve" or "Gaussian distribution".

We see these normal distributions when measuring Human IQ, animal heights, scores on tests, etc. It seems that nature or the universe really like normal distributions and that things that happen naturally follow this trend.

So you measure your first bigfoot footprint length and mark it on a graph. You do it with the second one, third one, etc until you've done it with all of them. The claim is that it forms a normal distribution because it reflects a real animal population with creatures of different size leaving different sized prints.

The claim is that hoaxers would have to coordinate to do this so that tracks in one area of the country were crafted to be the right size so that they appeared the correct number of times so as not to ruin this beautiful normal/Gaussian distribution. This is claimed to be unlikely, strengthening the evidence for bigfoot.

The problem?

The Central Limit Theorem (CLT).

The CLT states that when we generate a number by a combination of a bunch of random processes, the result will be normally distributed. You see, the normal distribution is not the only distribution. For example, if you roll a die you get a uniform distribution because each number is equally probable. There are an abundance of random distributions beyond the scope of this post.

The cool thing about the CLT is that if you combine the results from multiple different distributions, e.g. uniform, binomial, chi-square, etc, you get a normal distribution! So cool, right?

So if hoaxers, working independently, created fake tracks they would have certain constraints:.

How big do they think a squatch track is?

How much material do they have to work with to make a fake foot?

What size print can they transport in their bags/packs/car?

How much weight are they willing to carry into the woods?

How much money do they have to purchase material?

On and on and on.

I bet each of those bullets above has some random distribution, don't you?

I bet each, added together affects the total size of the print, don't you?

I think the CLT comes into play here and we're going to have normally distributed footprints across the country, without any need for coordination. I think a fun game would be take a group of 100 people, have them draw on the ground their best estimate of a squatch track, never letting them see the other submissions. I claim they will be normally distributed.

Summary:.

I'm not saying bigfoot exist or do not exist.

I'm not saying you didn't find a print yourself.

I think footprint casts are great evidence.

I claim that a normal distribution is not valid supporting evidence for track authenticity.

I hope you did not find this too boring.

I hope you learned something today that will be useful some day.

Central Limit Theorem (CLT) is awesome.

Edit: Fixed grammar to look more like English.

Post from user trickytrekkie at bigfoot at reddit..

Comments:

I agree.

The real problem with footprint evidence is we don't have a sample of proven type specimens and the ability to conduct morphometric analyses to reject the null.

Without knowing the natural variation in sasquatch foot morphology, we cant formally test whether or not a given footprint (assuming no obvious sign of hoaxing) belongs to the real or fake category. Thus, the science of sasquatch footprints is largely informal.

And given we know nothing about sasquatch sexual dimorphism, its possible the distribution might be bimodal - distinct male and female subpops. In this case, a normal distribution would tend to support hoaxing and not a zoological population.

Comment from user aether_drift at bigfoot at reddit..