I confess to some scepticism. The lady concerned seems to be a dedicated big cat believer, with seven sightings already[0]. If other witnesses had been present, I would be more accepting of the claim.
Isn't that a little like saying archaeologists seem to find a suspiciously large number of historical objects, or tornado hunters seem to have a suspiciously large number of tornado sightings?
Non-archaeologists find historical objects, and as a former midwesterner, I can assure you that you need no particular background to be able to see tornadoes. It would, indeed, be very suspicious if _only_ those interested in archaeology or tornadoes claimed to observe these.
I think the problem os being only a single witness claiming to have sighted them? The Loch Ness monster has more reported sightings, so a single witness, imo, is not enough to say with a large degree of certainty that there is a big cat roaming around.
I’m not saying I believe there is a big cat roaming but it’s still unfair to say there’s only been one witness when this is something frequently reported on by multiple unrelated individuals.
Indeed — but with the caveat of assuming accurate journalism and that this really is a good DNA test and result and no caveats were removed in the reporting.
Newspapers are like LLMs: when I'm not already a domain expert I have no way to determine their accuracy, but when I am they're often at least a bit wrong in some important way. This is also known as the Gell-Mann amnesia effect.
Agree, it reminds me a bit of the guy who was really obsessed by the mh370 mystery and happens to have found more pieces of the plane than anyone else. It’s certainly possible, but I remain skeptical
I mean, several of those parts has matching serial numbers with the corresponding parts installed on MH-370. I'm not sure how one could fake that without a lot of nonpublic information.
And didn't the dude in question walk along the entire coastline of Madagascar looking for washed up debris? That's certainly a plausible reason to find them.
Very skeptical. I would also like more detail in the article, what was the DNA collected from? Hair? Saliva? How was it stored, collected and tested? Who sent it in? This website has a bit of detail around what can be tested: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/lifesci/research/archaeobotany...
Comments
I confess to some scepticism. The lady concerned seems to be a dedicated big cat believer, with seven sightings already[0]. If other witnesses had been present, I would be more accepting of the claim.
[0] https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/19808796.cumbrias-sharon-...
Isn't that a little like saying archaeologists seem to find a suspiciously large number of historical objects, or tornado hunters seem to have a suspiciously large number of tornado sightings?
Both of those cases tend to have significant evidence and is generally verifiable by others. Although there have be archeological frauds too.
Non-archaeologists find historical objects, and as a former midwesterner, I can assure you that you need no particular background to be able to see tornadoes. It would, indeed, be very suspicious if _only_ those interested in archaeology or tornadoes claimed to observe these.
I think the problem os being only a single witness claiming to have sighted them? The Loch Ness monster has more reported sightings, so a single witness, imo, is not enough to say with a large degree of certainty that there is a big cat roaming around.
I’m not saying I believe there is a big cat roaming but it’s still unfair to say there’s only been one witness when this is something frequently reported on by multiple unrelated individuals.
Indeed — but with the caveat of assuming accurate journalism and that this really is a good DNA test and result and no caveats were removed in the reporting.
Newspapers are like LLMs: when I'm not already a domain expert I have no way to determine their accuracy, but when I am they're often at least a bit wrong in some important way. This is also known as the Gell-Mann amnesia effect.
Agree, it reminds me a bit of the guy who was really obsessed by the mh370 mystery and happens to have found more pieces of the plane than anyone else. It’s certainly possible, but I remain skeptical
I mean, several of those parts has matching serial numbers with the corresponding parts installed on MH-370. I'm not sure how one could fake that without a lot of nonpublic information.
And didn't the dude in question walk along the entire coastline of Madagascar looking for washed up debris? That's certainly a plausible reason to find them.
Very skeptical. I would also like more detail in the article, what was the DNA collected from? Hair? Saliva? How was it stored, collected and tested? Who sent it in? This website has a bit of detail around what can be tested: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/lifesci/research/archaeobotany...
My partner has seen them twice from close up (<10m), in the Cambridgeshire area. But this was in the late 90’s.