As someone much more sympathetic to traditional skepticism than you it doesn't seem terribly unlikely that a wolf might have run or walked on two legs for a little bit, but also it doesn't seem that much rides on the question. Either a wolf behaved in a way that unusual but not inconceivable or you senses or memory misfired in a way that unusual but not inconceivable. Both are relatively mundane.
You do mention destigmatizing experiences like that, which I think would be great but you seem to be implicitly assuming that destigmatizing such experiences means validating them as veridical. IMO it could also take the form of publishing the fact that "seeing things that aren't there" isn't really the same as being crazy. Everybody sees things that aren't there, it’s only abnormal under extreme circumstances.
I see quite a bit of conflict between the destigmatization of non-normal experiences and your sympathy for the skeptic community, which never misses an opportunity to reify that stigma. Unless you're willing to quickly and adamantly diminish your own experiences as a hallucination or false memory, most skeptics (including leaders in the skeptic community that I know) will socially reinforce the default self-censorship. As you acknowledge, my naturalistic explanation is basically very mundane! The naturalistic explanation I offer could also account for many other sightings in Wisconsin and Michigan. But endorsing it as a real possibility is still somehow too much for the skeptic community, since it means there's more than a grain of truth to certain cryptid stories. I think I can appreciate how, from your perspective, not much rides on the question. But as someone who witnessed something very unusual and felt (justifiably) like I couldn't talk about it openly for many years, this all represents a more significant development for me.
I don’t know that I can speak about the skeptic “community”. I haven’t been actively involved in the online community since I stopped posting on the JREF forum perhaps 2 decades ago. And since I didn’t and largely still don’t hold any views that are heterodox within skepticism I can’t speak to what that’s like.
I have my issues with people like Dawkins and Dillahunty, concerning things like lack of nuance and being to abrasive. I suspect those would be the “leaders” you’re talking about. To the extension I follow online Skepticism I’m more inclined towards the types of Genetically Modified Skeptic and Paulogia, though I don’t consider either to be my leader. I would however probably agree with all 4 of them on most of the conclusions on core skeptical issues (religion, paranormal stuff, more fantastical cryptids, alien abductions etc.).
I’m sorry if people were unpleasant to you, but It does seem to me from following you that there’s a notable contrast between your desire to steelman theism and your refusal to in my view ever do the same for skepticism. It sometimes seem like you think Dilahunty speaks for all of us.
It seems to me that we know enough about the natural world that the discovery of a wolfman would be something that would contradict everything we know about it. Like finding out that magic is real. And like magic, the explanation here - at least the most charitable explanation - would be some sort of illusion. I remember diving on the Great Barrier Reef years ago, and suddenly freezing as a huge shark loomed out of the blue haze. I didn't know what to do. I was captivated. It was heading obliquely in my direction, getting closer and closer. And clearer. It was two divers, one just ahead and above the other.
What if I'd turned tail and swam away in a frantic dash before finding out the truth? I'd be dining out on my anecdote - relishing the frisson of danger and the 'cool factor' such an encounter with the denizens of the deep would bestow upon my otherwise normal life. And every now and then I might think to myself - did I really see a shark? And probably I'd conclude that I must have. Why would I tell everyone if it wasn't a shark. I must have been sure enough back then - over time my memory of the image I saw must be fading. Yeah, that's probably it. I'm not sure now, because I've forgotten all the details I must have seen then. The way its dorsal fin was ragged. Its cold black eyes staring blankly. The narrowly open mouth stuck as if sucking down the faint trail in the water that would inexorably lead the vast predator to its next victim.
Hi Emerson, I've just reread your article to try to get to the bottom of your critique. I can only assume that you think I'm being unfair in criticising your characterisation of your proposed naturalistic explanation as the most 'conservative' one.
Coincidentally, just two days ago I received some footage taken by my close friend of a Puffleg that should not have been where it was. The footage was brief and not of great quality, making a diagnostic assessment of the exact species problematic, given my lack of experience with Eriocnemis and Haplophaedia - but it was definitely a Puffleg.
I'm hoping your immediate reaction is 'what is this guy talking about. I hope this in order to support my assertion that you simply do not know enough about evolutionary biology, or the biology of wolves in particular.
I think your article is great, and I support its motivation. And i'm well aware of how I might be perceived. But I assure you I'm not being 'stubbornly skeptical' here. I just know more about biology than you. The 'unknown unknowns' to you, are not 'unknown' to me - at least fewer of them are.
Wolves are not facultive bipeds, they are obligate quadrupeds. You may have seen cats or dogs rearing up on their hindlegs. This is not locomotion. It's not walking, let alone running.
There is no Bell curve of bipedalism within quadrupeds. Evolution isn't an unlimited spectrum. It has limits. That's why it takes millions of years for quadruped primates to evolve into human beings.
So sorry - and I hope you don't mistake the frank tone of this comment for anything other than a friendly critique (I genuinely find you a very reasonable and thoughtful thinker) - but a running wolf is not the most conservative hypothesis. Not even close.
So when you say you are using "almost nothing" that isn't already part of the current scientific consensus, it's that 'tiny something' that sinks your argument. Wolves are fantastically well studied. There is no way the sort of behaviour you're describing wouldn't have been observed - even anecdotally - somewhere over our long history of interactions with wolves. You'd be more likely to find a wolf with feathers. Circus acts have even trained dogs to clumsily stutter along on their hind legs. Trust me - if it was possible to get a canine to run, someone, somewhere would have done it.
Facultive bipedalism is an adaptive trait. It must confer some advantage to an animal in order for it to persist. I get that you're not saying that it's anything more than a freak individual who might adopt this form of locomotion - but even then, there needs to be a reason. And sorry, but scaring some teenager shitless is not a valid evolutionary reason. There's a reason quadrupeds don't think of trying out bipedalism. Bipedalism is slower. There is no adequate reason for a predator to go slower. Bipedalism uses more energy (in quadrupeds, obligate or not). There is a reason why canines who hunt primarily by chasing prey attritionally need to conserve as much energy as possible.
I just don't think you've considered these limiting factors. They're as unknown to you as a Puffleg.
I have no idea what you actually experienced. I was inclined to think the least controversial hypothesis was that it was a bear. A skinny, mangy thing in bad light might look quite dog like through the trees. When they stand up, they can look very 'humanoid'. Even then, the idea that one could run bipedally for more than a few seconds is pretty hard to imagine - and when I say 'imagine', I mean hard to countenance given all biological physiological information we have about another very well studied species.
But please don't mistake my insistence that you didn't see a running wolf as skeptical dogmatism. And yes. I am smugly chuffed I got to use that pun.
A couple of things came to mind, assuming that there is a naturalistic explanation.
Running on 4 legs is much more efficient (and faster!) than 2, so there would have had to be a reason the creature stood up, maybe obstructions from vegetation that allowed it to see you better, or something else?
I think there would have to be major evolutionary changes to allow a canine to do this efficiently, including major shifts in hip/femur positions and rear leg length. If this creature exists it would have to be a new species (or a very long lived mutation).
On another note, I had a similar experience when I was much younger. I saw what I thought was a ghost during the day on a country road, while I was with my brother. We were sprinting down a track and I looked behind to see an old man sauntering behind us (at a spot we had just passed seconds before, alarmingly). When I turned to shout at my brother and turned back to see the man, he had disappeared.
Later, a local farmer visited our house to give us some free potatoes (I'm Irish lol). When I told him about the old man he chuckled and told us he used to know this man when he was a kid, and he used to walk up and down the path every day. He died 50 years ago but the farmer told us that even he still sees him walking occasionally. He told us this is a very straight faced and matter of fact manner.
Recently I asked my mum about this but she couldn't remember, neither could my brother. It was almost 40 years ago, so this is understandable, but it really does make me question my own memory and what I might have embellished over the years. Very frustrating!
With respect to those major evolutionary changes you mentioned, I only think they would be necessary if he were an ordinary biped, which is not what the naturalistic explanation supposes. A couple years ago, I came across a dog named Dexter who taught himself to walk on his back two legs after his front legs were injured by a car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry2QA4nu5a4
That ghost story is very interesting! It's too bad you didn't write it down or tell more people right after it happened.
Edit: On a YouTube community post, someone had a very interesting (and tragic) explanation of *why* the wolf might've been following us, standing up, running along with us parallel, etc. https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkxgcy_EVzJgPLXdHSYLeikvLcq19SU_jGj I mention it because you raised the issue of trying to explain the motive for its unusual behavior, given that bipedal motion is probably less comfortable and less efficient.
Brilliant article. Interesting read!
As someone much more sympathetic to traditional skepticism than you it doesn't seem terribly unlikely that a wolf might have run or walked on two legs for a little bit, but also it doesn't seem that much rides on the question. Either a wolf behaved in a way that unusual but not inconceivable or you senses or memory misfired in a way that unusual but not inconceivable. Both are relatively mundane.
You do mention destigmatizing experiences like that, which I think would be great but you seem to be implicitly assuming that destigmatizing such experiences means validating them as veridical. IMO it could also take the form of publishing the fact that "seeing things that aren't there" isn't really the same as being crazy. Everybody sees things that aren't there, it’s only abnormal under extreme circumstances.
I see quite a bit of conflict between the destigmatization of non-normal experiences and your sympathy for the skeptic community, which never misses an opportunity to reify that stigma. Unless you're willing to quickly and adamantly diminish your own experiences as a hallucination or false memory, most skeptics (including leaders in the skeptic community that I know) will socially reinforce the default self-censorship. As you acknowledge, my naturalistic explanation is basically very mundane! The naturalistic explanation I offer could also account for many other sightings in Wisconsin and Michigan. But endorsing it as a real possibility is still somehow too much for the skeptic community, since it means there's more than a grain of truth to certain cryptid stories. I think I can appreciate how, from your perspective, not much rides on the question. But as someone who witnessed something very unusual and felt (justifiably) like I couldn't talk about it openly for many years, this all represents a more significant development for me.
I don’t know that I can speak about the skeptic “community”. I haven’t been actively involved in the online community since I stopped posting on the JREF forum perhaps 2 decades ago. And since I didn’t and largely still don’t hold any views that are heterodox within skepticism I can’t speak to what that’s like.
I have my issues with people like Dawkins and Dillahunty, concerning things like lack of nuance and being to abrasive. I suspect those would be the “leaders” you’re talking about. To the extension I follow online Skepticism I’m more inclined towards the types of Genetically Modified Skeptic and Paulogia, though I don’t consider either to be my leader. I would however probably agree with all 4 of them on most of the conclusions on core skeptical issues (religion, paranormal stuff, more fantastical cryptids, alien abductions etc.).
I’m sorry if people were unpleasant to you, but It does seem to me from following you that there’s a notable contrast between your desire to steelman theism and your refusal to in my view ever do the same for skepticism. It sometimes seem like you think Dilahunty speaks for all of us.
It seems to me that we know enough about the natural world that the discovery of a wolfman would be something that would contradict everything we know about it. Like finding out that magic is real. And like magic, the explanation here - at least the most charitable explanation - would be some sort of illusion. I remember diving on the Great Barrier Reef years ago, and suddenly freezing as a huge shark loomed out of the blue haze. I didn't know what to do. I was captivated. It was heading obliquely in my direction, getting closer and closer. And clearer. It was two divers, one just ahead and above the other.
What if I'd turned tail and swam away in a frantic dash before finding out the truth? I'd be dining out on my anecdote - relishing the frisson of danger and the 'cool factor' such an encounter with the denizens of the deep would bestow upon my otherwise normal life. And every now and then I might think to myself - did I really see a shark? And probably I'd conclude that I must have. Why would I tell everyone if it wasn't a shark. I must have been sure enough back then - over time my memory of the image I saw must be fading. Yeah, that's probably it. I'm not sure now, because I've forgotten all the details I must have seen then. The way its dorsal fin was ragged. Its cold black eyes staring blankly. The narrowly open mouth stuck as if sucking down the faint trail in the water that would inexorably lead the vast predator to its next victim.
I'm questioning whether you actually read to the end of this post.
Hi Emerson, I've just reread your article to try to get to the bottom of your critique. I can only assume that you think I'm being unfair in criticising your characterisation of your proposed naturalistic explanation as the most 'conservative' one.
Coincidentally, just two days ago I received some footage taken by my close friend of a Puffleg that should not have been where it was. The footage was brief and not of great quality, making a diagnostic assessment of the exact species problematic, given my lack of experience with Eriocnemis and Haplophaedia - but it was definitely a Puffleg.
I'm hoping your immediate reaction is 'what is this guy talking about. I hope this in order to support my assertion that you simply do not know enough about evolutionary biology, or the biology of wolves in particular.
I think your article is great, and I support its motivation. And i'm well aware of how I might be perceived. But I assure you I'm not being 'stubbornly skeptical' here. I just know more about biology than you. The 'unknown unknowns' to you, are not 'unknown' to me - at least fewer of them are.
Wolves are not facultive bipeds, they are obligate quadrupeds. You may have seen cats or dogs rearing up on their hindlegs. This is not locomotion. It's not walking, let alone running.
There is no Bell curve of bipedalism within quadrupeds. Evolution isn't an unlimited spectrum. It has limits. That's why it takes millions of years for quadruped primates to evolve into human beings.
So sorry - and I hope you don't mistake the frank tone of this comment for anything other than a friendly critique (I genuinely find you a very reasonable and thoughtful thinker) - but a running wolf is not the most conservative hypothesis. Not even close.
So when you say you are using "almost nothing" that isn't already part of the current scientific consensus, it's that 'tiny something' that sinks your argument. Wolves are fantastically well studied. There is no way the sort of behaviour you're describing wouldn't have been observed - even anecdotally - somewhere over our long history of interactions with wolves. You'd be more likely to find a wolf with feathers. Circus acts have even trained dogs to clumsily stutter along on their hind legs. Trust me - if it was possible to get a canine to run, someone, somewhere would have done it.
Facultive bipedalism is an adaptive trait. It must confer some advantage to an animal in order for it to persist. I get that you're not saying that it's anything more than a freak individual who might adopt this form of locomotion - but even then, there needs to be a reason. And sorry, but scaring some teenager shitless is not a valid evolutionary reason. There's a reason quadrupeds don't think of trying out bipedalism. Bipedalism is slower. There is no adequate reason for a predator to go slower. Bipedalism uses more energy (in quadrupeds, obligate or not). There is a reason why canines who hunt primarily by chasing prey attritionally need to conserve as much energy as possible.
I just don't think you've considered these limiting factors. They're as unknown to you as a Puffleg.
I have no idea what you actually experienced. I was inclined to think the least controversial hypothesis was that it was a bear. A skinny, mangy thing in bad light might look quite dog like through the trees. When they stand up, they can look very 'humanoid'. Even then, the idea that one could run bipedally for more than a few seconds is pretty hard to imagine - and when I say 'imagine', I mean hard to countenance given all biological physiological information we have about another very well studied species.
But please don't mistake my insistence that you didn't see a running wolf as skeptical dogmatism. And yes. I am smugly chuffed I got to use that pun.
sorry for not replying sooner - I'm not a regular user and have only just become aware of your reply.
It's been a while, but i'm pretty sure I read the whole thing. What do you think I missed?
I enjoyed that!
A couple of things came to mind, assuming that there is a naturalistic explanation.
Running on 4 legs is much more efficient (and faster!) than 2, so there would have had to be a reason the creature stood up, maybe obstructions from vegetation that allowed it to see you better, or something else?
I think there would have to be major evolutionary changes to allow a canine to do this efficiently, including major shifts in hip/femur positions and rear leg length. If this creature exists it would have to be a new species (or a very long lived mutation).
On another note, I had a similar experience when I was much younger. I saw what I thought was a ghost during the day on a country road, while I was with my brother. We were sprinting down a track and I looked behind to see an old man sauntering behind us (at a spot we had just passed seconds before, alarmingly). When I turned to shout at my brother and turned back to see the man, he had disappeared.
Later, a local farmer visited our house to give us some free potatoes (I'm Irish lol). When I told him about the old man he chuckled and told us he used to know this man when he was a kid, and he used to walk up and down the path every day. He died 50 years ago but the farmer told us that even he still sees him walking occasionally. He told us this is a very straight faced and matter of fact manner.
Recently I asked my mum about this but she couldn't remember, neither could my brother. It was almost 40 years ago, so this is understandable, but it really does make me question my own memory and what I might have embellished over the years. Very frustrating!
Thanks!
With respect to those major evolutionary changes you mentioned, I only think they would be necessary if he were an ordinary biped, which is not what the naturalistic explanation supposes. A couple years ago, I came across a dog named Dexter who taught himself to walk on his back two legs after his front legs were injured by a car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry2QA4nu5a4
That ghost story is very interesting! It's too bad you didn't write it down or tell more people right after it happened.
Edit: On a YouTube community post, someone had a very interesting (and tragic) explanation of *why* the wolf might've been following us, standing up, running along with us parallel, etc. https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkxgcy_EVzJgPLXdHSYLeikvLcq19SU_jGj I mention it because you raised the issue of trying to explain the motive for its unusual behavior, given that bipedal motion is probably less comfortable and less efficient.