WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.760 --> 00:00:03.680 You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. 2 00:00:04.559 --> 00:00:08.039 On Occomber twenty third, twenty sixteen, we attempted our first 3 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:12.119 ever live Monster Talk event. We were joined by Eugenie Scott, 4 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:16.760 Brian Regal, Daniel Loxon, myself, Blake Smith, and Karen Stolesnow 5 00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:20.559 for a discussion of the Yetti. We use Google's YouTube 6 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:23.719 Live software. This free software is undergoing a lot of 7 00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:26.879 changes and sometimes has problems. In this case, the live 8 00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:30.399 stream started late and was, according to viewers, quite shoppy. 9 00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:34.000 The recording itself, the audio sounds fine, but it had 10 00:00:34.039 --> 00:00:37.320 this curious technical shortcoming of having the first six minute 11 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:40.920 start early and then cut off six minutes early. So 12 00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:43.960 what follows is the audio of that live recording that 13 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:46.719 I was able to extract from the video. I'll be 14 00:00:46.799 --> 00:00:49.039 working to try to sync up the audio and video 15 00:00:49.119 --> 00:00:52.119 and make what actually came out available on YouTube in 16 00:00:52.119 --> 00:00:55.399 the near future. I hope you enjoyed this discussion. It 17 00:00:55.399 --> 00:00:56.840 was a lot of fun to record, and we plan 18 00:00:56.960 --> 00:00:59.039 to try this again in the future, hopefully with fewer 19 00:00:59.039 --> 00:01:02.359 technical difficulties. So welcome to Monster Talk, the science show 20 00:01:02.399 --> 00:01:07.040 about monsters and what Brian Regal refers to as Yetti Palooza. 21 00:01:08.920 --> 00:01:11.599 It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before. 22 00:01:13.760 --> 00:01:15.280 A giant, hairy creature. 23 00:01:15.560 --> 00:01:20.200 Part eight party masts in Luckness, a twenty four mile 24 00:01:20.319 --> 00:01:23.200 long bottomless lake in the Highlands of Scotland. It's a 25 00:01:23.239 --> 00:01:51.280 creature known as the Luckness Monster. Monstertal is it starting? 26 00:01:51.959 --> 00:01:52.079 This? 27 00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:58.920 Says we're live, so congratulations, welcome boom. All right, so 28 00:01:59.159 --> 00:02:03.640 we're here for the first Monster Talk Live podcast video 29 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:07.799 cast vodcast. I don't know. I'm delighted to say. We've 30 00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:10.919 got Brian Regal with us from the University. Hi, Brian, 31 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:18.280 Daniel Loxton from Skeptic magazine and hopefully Daniel's sound will 32 00:02:18.280 --> 00:02:22.879 be working soon. Let's see. I'm not sure we heard you, Daniel. 33 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:26.759 And then we've got Eugenie Scott formerly of in CSC 34 00:02:26.919 --> 00:02:32.000 Is that right, that's correct and I can hear you now, Daniel. 35 00:02:32.080 --> 00:02:39.240 I believe that's perfect. And then from Monster Talk and 36 00:02:39.280 --> 00:02:42.000 we've got me Blake Smith and special guest is Brian 37 00:02:42.039 --> 00:02:45.719 Gregory who is from the Virtual Skeptics and he's going 38 00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:48.000 to be helping us with the audio. So, Daniel, just 39 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:50.680 because we're getting some background noise, I would ask when 40 00:02:50.680 --> 00:02:53.840 you're not talking, would you mind muting your mic. Okay, 41 00:02:54.120 --> 00:02:57.599 that's awesome, Thank you so much, beautiful, this is gonna 42 00:02:57.639 --> 00:03:00.879 be great. Okay, So for this very first episode, we're 43 00:03:00.879 --> 00:03:02.719 going to talk about a creature that we've only talked 44 00:03:02.759 --> 00:03:06.039 about sort of tangentially and hopefully I said that right 45 00:03:06.319 --> 00:03:09.759 up until now. We're gonna be talking about the Yeti. 46 00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:13.400 And the reason I've got these particular folk on is 47 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:17.080 because we've got this book from Brian Regal called Searching 48 00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:19.439 for Sasquatch, which I'm holding up since this will also 49 00:03:19.479 --> 00:03:23.000 be a bit a podcast. At some point, I'll just 50 00:03:23.039 --> 00:03:24.919 tell you what I'm doing with my hands here. I've 51 00:03:24.919 --> 00:03:28.080 got Abominable Science, which was written with Daniel Lockson and 52 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:32.039 Don Prothero. I've got Eugenie Scott's book, which is Evolution 53 00:03:32.240 --> 00:03:37.240 Versus Creationism. Her work with the NCSSE has been tremendous 54 00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:41.439 and dealing with trying to keep science as the core 55 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:44.840 of our curriculum in schools. And the novel Hits and 56 00:03:44.919 --> 00:03:46.800 Misses from Karen Stolesnow. 57 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:51.919 Which is all about Yeah, it's completely completely love story. 58 00:03:52.120 --> 00:03:57.159 So let's just sort of get started. I know that 59 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:00.599 from from my experience, it seems like the Yeti really 60 00:04:00.639 --> 00:04:04.879 sort of became a topic of the I guess cultural 61 00:04:04.879 --> 00:04:09.800 immediacy in the nineteen fifties. Brian Regal, your book on 62 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:12.120 Searching for Sasquatch talks a lot about the origins of 63 00:04:12.159 --> 00:04:14.479 crypto zoology. Can you give us kind of a little 64 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:19.160 historical overview of how this creature, the Yeti, became so 65 00:04:19.279 --> 00:04:21.920 famous in America in Europe? 66 00:04:22.439 --> 00:04:27.720 Yeah, well, the legend in Nepalese and Tibetan history supposedly 67 00:04:27.720 --> 00:04:31.800 goes back quite a ways. There's a medieval manuscript from 68 00:04:31.959 --> 00:04:35.480 like the fourteen or the thirteen hundreds with a drawing 69 00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:42.079 of a supposed man creature, but in the West doesn't really. 70 00:04:43.560 --> 00:04:44.399 Get exposed to this. 71 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:48.519 Around nineteen twenty, a British mountain climber called C. K. 72 00:04:48.639 --> 00:04:55.480 Howard Berry is on an expedition climbing mountains in Tibet 73 00:04:56.040 --> 00:04:59.560 and he sees what he thinks is some strange creature 74 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:03.639 of from the distance, and he asked the sharp of guides, 75 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:06.360 you know what is that thing? And they give him 76 00:05:06.360 --> 00:05:10.480 a couple of different local dialect names, which he immediately 77 00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:15.399 mangles when he tries to say them again. And he's 78 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:19.560 so impressed by this that he sends a telegraph to 79 00:05:19.639 --> 00:05:23.439 the Calcutta Statesman to say, I saw this creature and 80 00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:26.720 it's called whatever you know. He tries to recreate the 81 00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:29.959 name of it, and the guys at the Calcutta Statesmen 82 00:05:30.160 --> 00:05:34.680 they don't pronounce it correctly either, and they try to 83 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:38.800 translate into English and it eventually comes out abominable snowman. 84 00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:41.160 Ah. 85 00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:44.079 And so that's how it kind of hits the scene. 86 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:49.120 There had been a few scattered Western, mostly British reports 87 00:05:49.959 --> 00:05:54.480 from mountain climbers back back into the early nineteenth century, 88 00:05:54.560 --> 00:05:57.319 but it was this this message about an abominable snowman 89 00:05:57.560 --> 00:06:00.040 that really kind of gets things going. And it's a 90 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:06.680 few years later that the uh, the Luckness monster begins 91 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:09.879 to become well known. And I think what really kind 92 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:15.399 of kicks the the abominable snowman into the Western public 93 00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:18.959 eye are the are the Eric Shipton photographs, the famous 94 00:06:19.040 --> 00:06:20.759 Eric Shipton photographs. 95 00:06:20.920 --> 00:06:24.079 And those about to say those are actually a footprints 96 00:06:24.319 --> 00:06:25.800 next to an ice axe, right. 97 00:06:26.120 --> 00:06:27.120 Yes, and there was there were. 98 00:06:27.160 --> 00:06:29.439 So that's the most famous one is the is the 99 00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:31.439 single print with the ice ACKs next to it, But 100 00:06:31.480 --> 00:06:35.439 there's a couple of others. Uh. Probably the next best 101 00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:38.759 known one was he took a picture of sort of 102 00:06:38.759 --> 00:06:41.959 a long row of these footprints. 103 00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:46.920 Heading off into the distance. So those prints don't look 104 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:49.560 as much like the sort of classic big foot prints 105 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:53.160 that become so popular, and they're very different. Yeah, so 106 00:06:54.959 --> 00:06:57.399 what do you think, uh, Daniel, in your book you 107 00:06:57.439 --> 00:07:01.079 talked a lot about that sort of early history as well. Uh, 108 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:06.639 anything else you want to add to what Brian said. 109 00:07:06.759 --> 00:07:15.680 Excuse me, well, regarding the very famous print that that 110 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:21.120 story is quite confused. There's you know, there's a number 111 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:25.319 of conflicting accounts of how many photographs were taken, whether 112 00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:28.439 there was two trackways, whether the photographs were seeing all 113 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:29.879 the reflect the same trackway. 114 00:07:31.240 --> 00:07:32.720 It's it's quite confusing. 115 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:36.079 And there there is some suggestion as well that the 116 00:07:36.319 --> 00:07:40.959 very famous print that we see against the ice accent 117 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:45.439 against a boot could have been modified by Shipton himself. 118 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:50.279 Actually, you know, there there there was some discussion about that. 119 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:58.040 The idea that you don't need to again, sorry about that, Uh, 120 00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:03.600 the perfect I would say, the idea that there was 121 00:08:03.639 --> 00:08:07.399 so much press related to this, and that the funding 122 00:08:07.439 --> 00:08:12.240 for these these mountain climbs seemed to become somewhat dependent 123 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:16.319 on the revenue being generated by the stories for the 124 00:08:16.360 --> 00:08:17.160 search for the Yetti. 125 00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:17.800 Uh. 126 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:22.600 Is that an accurate statement that that that there was 127 00:08:22.680 --> 00:08:25.240 sort of financial pressure that can keep these stories coming 128 00:08:25.279 --> 00:08:26.199 in once they started. 129 00:08:27.439 --> 00:08:32.240 It is accurate, and there there are some accounts of 130 00:08:32.879 --> 00:08:38.399 important figures in the Yetti history mountaineers saying on the 131 00:08:38.759 --> 00:08:40.799 you know, on the down load. Uh, you know, don't 132 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:43.919 make too much noise about this. This is you know, 133 00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:47.000 it's important for us to get our get our funding 134 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:48.440 together and get our expeditions together. 135 00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:54.519 When I was when I was doing research for my 136 00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:58.919 book in London, I came across this was at the 137 00:08:58.919 --> 00:09:01.200 the archives at the universe See College of London. I 138 00:09:01.240 --> 00:09:05.200 came across this little obscure article in a kind of 139 00:09:05.559 --> 00:09:11.279 society page where John Napier, the man who writes probably 140 00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:18.039 the first scholarly book on on anomalous primates. 141 00:09:17.919 --> 00:09:18.679 At a party. 142 00:09:19.320 --> 00:09:24.080 They're talking because he knew Eric Shipton, and Napier's wife 143 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:27.759 says to the effect, well, we know all no, that's fake. 144 00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:34.240 Shipton fakes everything. Yeah, he apparently right from the start 145 00:09:34.279 --> 00:09:37.120 there where there were suggestions that this was you know 146 00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:37.759 put on. 147 00:09:38.679 --> 00:09:39.879 Are you saying it's bullshipting? 148 00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:46.360 I think it is yes, there are some kind of 149 00:09:46.399 --> 00:09:53.440 hearsay accounts of that Shipton may have may have improved 150 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:58.279 the print, and may have admitted that Earns Schaefer the 151 00:09:58.559 --> 00:10:04.039 SS the German SaaS Mountaineer, alleged that Shipton had said, 152 00:10:04.159 --> 00:10:07.759 you know, I had had asked him personally not to 153 00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:14.919 cast too much doubt on on the brend there. It 154 00:10:14.960 --> 00:10:17.600 seems that Shipton also had something of a reputation as 155 00:10:17.639 --> 00:10:21.600 a as a jokester meant hillary position in that in 156 00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:25.440 those kinds of terms, as some of the pays or tolltails. 157 00:10:27.720 --> 00:10:29.840 So let's just get to a more basic question that 158 00:10:29.879 --> 00:10:33.039 I'll put to everyone. What's the yetty supposed to be? 159 00:10:38.279 --> 00:10:47.559 You mean, you mean to the believers or as a 160 00:10:47.799 --> 00:10:52.840 creature as what How do we describe the Yetti? I 161 00:10:52.840 --> 00:10:56.639 guess is it a relative to or would believers think 162 00:10:56.679 --> 00:11:00.799 that the the is a relative to this sasquatch and 163 00:11:01.080 --> 00:11:04.240 the Yawi and other similar cryptids. 164 00:11:04.360 --> 00:11:11.960 Yeah, there are problem The descriptions vary so much, just 165 00:11:12.039 --> 00:11:13.799 like with all of the wild men of the woods. 166 00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:20.000 Is it's ten feet tall, it's got gray fur or 167 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:23.960 silver or white fur? No, it's got brown fur, or 168 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:28.080 it's really only five feet tall most of them. Most 169 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:30.120 of the accounts like to have it. You know, bigger 170 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:33.600 is always better when you're dealing with cryptos zoology, But 171 00:11:34.919 --> 00:11:37.919 how big it is, how much it weighs, what color 172 00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:40.799 it is, all of those things seem to be fairly 173 00:11:40.840 --> 00:11:46.840 flexible depending on who you're talking to and what they 174 00:11:46.919 --> 00:11:49.639 consider to be the evidence. So that's one of the 175 00:11:49.679 --> 00:11:55.360 problems with the bigfoot sasquatch, Shawe, et cetera. Is pinning 176 00:11:55.399 --> 00:12:00.639 down what exactly are we looking for? Whatever looking for? 177 00:12:01.519 --> 00:12:03.519 This is going to sort of spoil the punchline for 178 00:12:03.559 --> 00:12:07.600 everybody watching this, but they haven't actually found it yet. 179 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:08.399 Sorry. 180 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:12.840 Well, you know, Ivan Sanderson I thought had the best 181 00:12:14.200 --> 00:12:18.600 approach because he was completely imperturbable. He said, you know 182 00:12:18.639 --> 00:12:25.360 that you get all these different citing classifications and descriptions. 183 00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:30.600 That just proves that there's great biological diversity amongst anomalist primates. 184 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:33.960 It's not just one, it's a it's a whole genus 185 00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:36.279 of different related species. 186 00:12:37.799 --> 00:12:39.879 Sure, in all of those places everywhere in the world 187 00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:43.279 where they've seen one or more of these large primates 188 00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:46.519 that are as yet underscribed, you don't have to look 189 00:12:46.639 --> 00:12:50.919 very far and you'll find people who also see ghosts 190 00:12:50.919 --> 00:12:52.960 and see other things. I mean, you know, the whole 191 00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:58.559 idea that just because just because an idea is widespread 192 00:12:59.039 --> 00:13:03.519 that therefore me it's true doesn't hold up very well. 193 00:13:03.559 --> 00:13:07.519 I mean, that's the lovely thing about looking at these 194 00:13:07.840 --> 00:13:11.639 phenomena from the standpoint of folklore. Because the folkloreists will 195 00:13:11.639 --> 00:13:18.279 tell you about widespread stories, some of them, like flood myths, 196 00:13:18.639 --> 00:13:23.320 could have an origin that's actually true most early civilizations, 197 00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:26.440 most early cities, human beings need water, So you settle 198 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:29.960 someplace where there's water. If it's a river, probably at 199 00:13:29.960 --> 00:13:32.120 some time in the history of the community it's going 200 00:13:32.200 --> 00:13:35.480 to flood. So a lot of people independently have flood stories. 201 00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:39.159 And then there's also the phenomenon of diffusion, where a 202 00:13:39.200 --> 00:13:41.840 flood story will start in one place and diffuse to 203 00:13:41.919 --> 00:13:45.519 another neighboring or more distant culture, and so the same 204 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:50.159 stories get swapped around. That doesn't mean that the same 205 00:13:50.240 --> 00:13:54.399 phenomena is actually being described everywhere. Folklorists also will tell 206 00:13:54.440 --> 00:13:59.200 you that the versions of the Cinderella story are almost 207 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:02.000 as widespread as the flood. Does that actually mean there 208 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:05.639 was a real Centerella who married the prince? Probably not, 209 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:08.600 but it's a very popular motif, and the motif of 210 00:14:08.639 --> 00:14:11.440 the wild man of the woods is also something that 211 00:14:11.519 --> 00:14:14.679 shows up very widely in many cultures around the world. 212 00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:17.840 That doesn't necessarily mean that there are wild men of 213 00:14:17.840 --> 00:14:20.559 the woods running all over the place, or that they're 214 00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:24.399 certainly not that they're all a related form of undescribed primates. 215 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:27.600 Why do you think that is that these stories seem 216 00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:33.519 to show up all around the world, similar stories you 217 00:14:33.559 --> 00:14:37.799 mean about well about about yes and squad Yeah, I. 218 00:14:37.720 --> 00:14:41.440 Mean, you know, there's the idea, the idea that that 219 00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:44.559 that that the woods are scary places, that remote areas 220 00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:47.279 are kind of frightening places. You could get hurt there. 221 00:14:47.320 --> 00:14:52.039 There's danger there. That's very common and not not exactly 222 00:14:53.080 --> 00:14:56.039 you know, even paranoids have enemies. I mean, bad things 223 00:14:56.039 --> 00:14:58.399 can happen to you in the wild, so that's not 224 00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:06.159 an unreasonable to believe. And it's also not unusual for 225 00:15:06.399 --> 00:15:10.279 there to be hermits and other people out living in 226 00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:14.759 the woods all by themselves. And not in every woods obviously, 227 00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:19.399 but you know, homeless people today is what we'd call them. 228 00:15:19.399 --> 00:15:24.159 But back in the medieval Europe or other parts of 229 00:15:24.200 --> 00:15:27.120 the world as well, there are some people who wander 230 00:15:27.159 --> 00:15:30.279 off into the woods and maybe they're not mentally stable, 231 00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:33.000 but certainly you could run into some of these people 232 00:15:33.039 --> 00:15:37.639 and they act bizarrely, and so stories arise. It's quite 233 00:15:37.679 --> 00:15:42.240 possible that stories about folklore, stories about wild men of 234 00:15:42.279 --> 00:15:48.840 the woods could be widespread for very understandable reasons. 235 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:50.080 You know. 236 00:15:51.159 --> 00:15:54.399 One of the handicaps that we have in the skeptics 237 00:15:54.399 --> 00:15:58.559 movement is we look at things scientifically, and that means 238 00:15:58.799 --> 00:16:04.480 that we actually look for the simplest explanation, the simplest 239 00:16:04.559 --> 00:16:09.000 explanation for all of these stories of Yetti's and Yellowie's 240 00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:15.879 and sasquatches and ETCeteras. The simplest explanation is not that 241 00:16:16.759 --> 00:16:23.960 a huge Miocene primates Gigantopithecus left relic populations around the 242 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:30.840 planet which are all somehow related to one another and 243 00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:39.000 have yet to be properly discovered and properly described. That's 244 00:16:39.039 --> 00:16:44.159 a whole lot more ifs and possibilities and low priorities 245 00:16:44.200 --> 00:16:46.799 than just folkloric explanations. 246 00:16:47.279 --> 00:16:50.320 So, you know, that's always been a curiosity to me. 247 00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:54.480 The amount of bone material we actually have from Giganopithecus. 248 00:16:55.399 --> 00:16:58.639 Last time I read up on it was some teeth 249 00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:04.160 and part of the models for them that we see. 250 00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:08.720 I mean, I've seen full blown gigantic, you know, sized 251 00:17:08.920 --> 00:17:13.799 models for what people think they look like. And some people. 252 00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:17.319 Have that modern day forms are most closely related to 253 00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:20.160 fossil forms from the same area. It would be very 254 00:17:20.200 --> 00:17:24.640 unusual if giganopithicas look more like African apes. But it doesn't. 255 00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:27.640 It looks like Asian apes. So that's where the link 256 00:17:27.720 --> 00:17:33.839 to orangutans come from. That said, the idea that orangutans 257 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:37.640 are a really good model for what gigantopithicas look like 258 00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:43.799 is not a very good one because Gigantopithecus was probably 259 00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:47.759 pretty big, you know, judging from the jaws and teeth. 260 00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:52.880 You know, there are elementric relationships that you can use 261 00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:57.440 to estimate how big it would be. I think I 262 00:17:58.920 --> 00:18:01.359 have no very good reason for saying this other than 263 00:18:01.400 --> 00:18:06.000 that I've spent some of my early academic life as 264 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:10.480 a dental anthropologist, but I never studied the Gigantopithecus materials. 265 00:18:10.480 --> 00:18:12.880 But I think a lot of the estimates of ten 266 00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:16.400 and twelve feet tall are probably bigger than it really is. 267 00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:19.400 But you know, I can't defend that in any way. 268 00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:21.200 That's just a gut feeling from having looked at a 269 00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:25.519 lot of teeth in my life, teeth size varies a 270 00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:28.759 lot and is not a direct one to one kind 271 00:18:28.759 --> 00:18:32.079 of relationship with body size. But setting that aside, it 272 00:18:32.200 --> 00:18:39.359 was probably a pretty darn good sized ape, which you know, 273 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:42.720 brings up a whole lot of other questions about the 274 00:18:43.119 --> 00:18:49.039 adaptation and the way of life that that creature had, 275 00:18:49.079 --> 00:18:54.400 that not only Gigantopithecus had, but any modern relic giant 276 00:18:54.400 --> 00:18:58.440 ape would have had, which you know, my colleagues here 277 00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:03.559 concertainly deal with as well ecological factors. I know that 278 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:07.640 Dan has written about this, and the rest of you 279 00:19:07.759 --> 00:19:09.920 have too, so hold forth. 280 00:19:11.799 --> 00:19:11.960 Well. 281 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:15.440 You know, when when Grover Krantz did a reconstruction of 282 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:22.319 the Jacob skull, he made it basically an oversized gorilla skull, 283 00:19:23.519 --> 00:19:27.359 and he did uh. He was very interested in the 284 00:19:27.680 --> 00:19:32.480 in the biometric approach to trying to reconstruct Bigfoot, and 285 00:19:32.559 --> 00:19:36.599 in his papers I went through all the stuff down 286 00:19:36.839 --> 00:19:42.880 at the Smithsonian, just reams and reams of mathematical calculations 287 00:19:42.920 --> 00:19:45.640 he did to try to figure out the bulk of 288 00:19:45.680 --> 00:19:48.799 one of these and these wonderful little drawings sketches he made, 289 00:19:48.839 --> 00:19:52.119 these little sort of mannequin drawings with you know how 290 00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:54.880 long the limb proportions were going to be, and you know, 291 00:19:54.920 --> 00:19:56.759 he put a lot of effort into it, and he 292 00:19:56.960 --> 00:20:02.799 just assumed that Gigantopithecas was a very big gorilla like biped. 293 00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:08.400 Well, actually, that's that's probably not you know, too crazy, 294 00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:14.480 because you know, the teeth are really big. Those are 295 00:20:14.599 --> 00:20:18.640 humongous big molars, and generally speaking in primates where we 296 00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:23.559 find that kind of dentition, big molars, especially relative to 297 00:20:23.599 --> 00:20:27.039 the anterior dentation. This is an This is a creature 298 00:20:27.119 --> 00:20:34.680 that I ate a lot of fullivorous kinds of food, 299 00:20:35.519 --> 00:20:39.680 hard objects, or a lot of vegetarian kinds of These 300 00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:42.000 are not the teeth of a of a carnivores, shall 301 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.839 we say, maybe an omnivore, but an animal for whom 302 00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:50.799 vegeta vegetables, vegetation, I should say, not vegetables. 303 00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:51.440 That's different. 304 00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:54.640 Vegetation was a very big part of the of the diet. 305 00:20:55.160 --> 00:20:58.279 That makes sense if it's a very large body primate. 306 00:20:58.759 --> 00:21:00.839 You know, look at gorillas there the biggest primate on 307 00:21:00.920 --> 00:21:07.559 the planet today, and their diet is almost entirely low calorie, 308 00:21:07.640 --> 00:21:11.319 high bulk kinds of foods, which is why when you 309 00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:13.880 go to the zoo, and especially if it's a zoo 310 00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:19.079 that's overfeeding its grelus, you tend to find big guts 311 00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:24.920 because most of the viscera is involved in digesting this 312 00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:30.839 high cellulos diet. You know, you just don't find giant 313 00:21:31.279 --> 00:21:36.480 primate dietary support in places like the Himalayas or the 314 00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:41.680 northwest coast of North America. You just don't find that 315 00:21:41.799 --> 00:21:43.640 kind of dietary possibilities. 316 00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:47.880 Yeah, that's it almost ends up being the same sort 317 00:21:47.880 --> 00:21:51.319 of argument you have about NeSSI, where there's just not 318 00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:55.480 the caloric availability to support the size of the animal, 319 00:21:55.559 --> 00:21:59.559 that seems to be a good argument against. I guess 320 00:22:00.039 --> 00:22:02.599 went back to the question about what is it supposed 321 00:22:02.599 --> 00:22:05.680 to be? Though we've got some people report something that 322 00:22:05.720 --> 00:22:08.880 sounds like a bear, some people report something that sounds 323 00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:14.440 like a primate. But am I right in thinking that 324 00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:14.799 there is? 325 00:22:14.839 --> 00:22:14.920 Like? 326 00:22:15.359 --> 00:22:17.160 Well, I guess maybe a better question with this, maybe 327 00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:21.359 a folklore question, is what did the people of Nepal 328 00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:24.079 think it is? I mean, what are the people who 329 00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:26.960 live in that area? I think is because it seems 330 00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:31.920 like in their folklore in mythology, that the creature is 331 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:35.759 more supernatural than necessarily biological. 332 00:22:36.960 --> 00:22:41.960 It's it's a really complicated, complicated question that actually makes 333 00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:47.240 me feel quite uneasy. Of all the major cryptods, I 334 00:22:47.240 --> 00:22:49.279 think the Yetti is the one that makes me feel 335 00:22:49.319 --> 00:22:54.200 the most kind of unsure because it's it is the 336 00:22:54.240 --> 00:22:58.960 most international of the mysteries. You know, we're we're talking 337 00:22:58.960 --> 00:23:04.960 about creature that spans several countries, a vast part of 338 00:23:05.119 --> 00:23:09.240 the world, a number of different languages. We've got dozens 339 00:23:09.240 --> 00:23:12.960 of names for this thing. Through through that, we've got 340 00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:18.160 some implication of bears, some implication of supernatural creatures. But 341 00:23:18.279 --> 00:23:23.000 teasing these things apart is really difficult, particularly for Western skeptics, 342 00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:27.319 you know, sitting at a desk somewhere as I am. 343 00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:33.160 We're very dependent on, you know, people who have spent 344 00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:36.640 a lot of time looking at you know, meeting local 345 00:23:36.680 --> 00:23:41.839 people talking about the beliefs, talking about mountaineers and expeditions 346 00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:43.680 that have gone in search of the Yeddie. And then 347 00:23:43.799 --> 00:23:48.119 those are also international. You know, we've got to Germans 348 00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:51.960 and Swiss and British and Americans, with large expeditions by 349 00:23:51.960 --> 00:23:55.319 the Russians, by the Chinese, and trying to put together 350 00:23:55.359 --> 00:23:58.119 all those pieces to answer the deeper question what is 351 00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:05.599 the eddie. It's extraordinarily daunting in my opinion. You know, 352 00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:09.759 the more kind of popular culture question, what is the eddy? 353 00:24:09.960 --> 00:24:14.839 Is itself sort of complicated. You know, with cryptids, we 354 00:24:14.920 --> 00:24:17.680 have our lumpers and our splitters for our kind of 355 00:24:18.279 --> 00:24:22.799 cryptozoological taxonomy. There are people who believe, for example, that 356 00:24:22.920 --> 00:24:26.960 every major like monster belongs to the same species across 357 00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:30.039 the entire planet, or that every kind of phenomenal as 358 00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:32.839 he belongs to the same species across the entire planet. 359 00:24:33.279 --> 00:24:36.119 But as Genie pointed out earlier, you know, that's not 360 00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:39.599 what we see in the eyewitness record. We see tremendous diversity. 361 00:24:39.680 --> 00:24:41.799 So how are you going to deal with that? Do 362 00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:46.240 you conclude that eyewitnesses are not terribly reliable, as skeptics 363 00:24:46.240 --> 00:24:48.319 tend to conclude, or do you conclude that there are 364 00:24:48.359 --> 00:24:52.240 dozens of species of big feet stomping about the planet, 365 00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:56.039 all of them equally undiscovered, practically invisible. 366 00:24:57.799 --> 00:25:00.400 Do you think that people in countries like the poll 367 00:25:00.519 --> 00:25:03.039 and to Base I really believe in the YETI today 368 00:25:03.119 --> 00:25:04.599 or do you think it's more of a tongue in 369 00:25:04.680 --> 00:25:06.400 cheek thing or tourism draw. 370 00:25:09.799 --> 00:25:13.519 I think it really depends, you know what country you're 371 00:25:13.559 --> 00:25:16.880 in what sense you mean to believe, whether you're in 372 00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:21.319 the countryside of the city. It's a kind of a 373 00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:32.000 complex folklore ecology of ideas. 374 00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:32.000 So kind of going back to the Yeah, thanks Dane, 375 00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:34.799 it's kind of going back to the historical side of things. 376 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:39.720 The the two most famous aside from the photographic evidence 377 00:25:39.720 --> 00:25:42.680 that the two most famous sort of yetty things the 378 00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:47.799 evidence for them are a mummified hand and a mummified scalp. 379 00:25:48.279 --> 00:25:55.519 And there's this amazing story about how some of that 380 00:25:55.559 --> 00:25:58.440 material came out for US Western scientists to have a 381 00:25:58.480 --> 00:26:02.759 look at. Can we talk about that a little bit? Yeah. 382 00:26:02.799 --> 00:26:03.079 Sure. 383 00:26:03.759 --> 00:26:09.119 There is a monastery in Tibet called pangbo Chet and 384 00:26:09.720 --> 00:26:16.160 they supposedly have this story about a Yetti helping them 385 00:26:16.200 --> 00:26:21.119 build the monastery or protect the monastery, and they claim 386 00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:25.400 they had a hand Yeti's hand and a Yeti scalp 387 00:26:25.839 --> 00:26:31.400 that they kept as sort of religious artifacts. And in 388 00:26:31.480 --> 00:26:38.759 the nineteen fifties, one of the legendary anomalous primate hunters, 389 00:26:38.839 --> 00:26:42.640 David Byrne, winds up going there and he sees this 390 00:26:42.720 --> 00:26:49.079 thing and he tries to steal it. He managed to 391 00:26:49.079 --> 00:26:53.039 somehow sweet talk his way in to be able to 392 00:26:53.079 --> 00:26:56.880 get his hands on this hand, and apparently he stole 393 00:26:56.920 --> 00:26:59.680 a couple of fingers. He tore off a couple of 394 00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:06.200 fingers and replaced it with modern human finger bones, but 395 00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:10.559 then didn't exactly tell anybody when he got back to 396 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:13.640 Europe that he had done this. And then one of 397 00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:19.279 the last expeditions to go there, the one that involved Edmund, 398 00:27:19.319 --> 00:27:25.720 Hillary and and the guy from Mutual of Omaha's Wild 399 00:27:25.799 --> 00:27:31.920 Kingdom Perkins, the Hillary Perkins Expedition, Marlon Perkins, thank you. 400 00:27:32.759 --> 00:27:34.599 They go out there and they say, okay, we want 401 00:27:34.599 --> 00:27:39.640