But I think that what you are saying is precisely the reason that some-other-word-for-”skeptic” threads happen here. You’re right. At its core, cryptozoology IS skeptical; it asks questions and searches. It doesn’t sit on its tuchus and toss around theories without bothering to get off said tuchus and come up with evidence.

I hate to have an approach that is at the very core of this topic hijacked by inadequately schooled spokeswags for the hoi polloi. But - as this blog illustrates all too well there, Ben - that is precisely what has happened.

The one point I am going to make (and I will assume that most of you are done with this post, so assume I am going to bring it up again elsewhere:) is thus:

I have heard a ton of talk here about cryptozoology and skeptics and the differeneces between those two camps, etc., etc.

IT is high time that cryptozoologists (and that includes all of us here) quit making that differentiation. The people I read here, including Loren, Craig, Rick and John are skeptics. Cryptozoology is, always has been and is skeptical by its very nature. We look into sightings, evidence, and stories and then sift through all of those things to see if there is any truth left over.

What differentiates cryptozoologists and the debunkers/scoftics is NOT the word skepticism, but the idea that cryptos are open to the possibility that there as yet undiscovered critters roaming the earth, and big ones.

We, as cryptos need to embrace that word skepticism as part of our own vocabulary and start using it in a positive way, instead of as a name for the debunkers. The debunkers are not skeptics, but rather people who naysay using fancy words like skepticisism and scientific process to hide behind and try to use to make themselves look more credible.

Cryptozoologists are skeptical. It is our nature BECAUSE we have to sift through so many hoaxes and misinterpretations of data. If we weren’t skeptical, we would not spend all of this time on the net debating this stuff.

So, from one skeptical cryptozoologist to the rest of you, let’s go find us some more evidence to support our favorite cryptids…

DARHOP, you are right about what you said about scientists coming to different conclusions even when using the same evidence or data. I actually wrote at length about that very thing somewhere up there towards the middle of the thread.

I agree with all three of you. I have no comment on Dubya, though. That’s political opinion country, and I prefer to stay out of that.

Thank you for the “fool” quote, Mr. Radford.

Didn’t answer my question about the microscopic elephants but I like the quote. I guess it was aimed at me or DWA. Does not surprise me—avoid the question by taking a sliver out of the main argument and go from there. And insult the asker of the question.

I agree, MYSTERY_MAN. This thread has gone way out on left field. Let’s give it a merciful death.

I was simply responding to Mr. Radford’s “strict” interpretation of a word on a dictionary.

Good info btw, DWA.

Like Radford said, I’m outta here.

But anyway, here’s my larger point: Ben tugs at dog-ends, gets roughed up even there, and can’t touch the meat of the argument. He knows where he’s not qualified to tread. If he didn’t before, he does now. And I’m sure he’s off trying to figure out how he can debunk cryptids without leaning almost totally on the negative-proof gig. Note how this entire blog comes down to: Poe’s dead? Not debunking any yetis that way, are we?

And m_m: don’t you follow him! I would hope there is no one out there who thinks microscopic elephants or monkeys in apartments demand proof. I’m content to wallow in my ignorance of them, and unicorns, until…well, until they have the level of compelling evidence we have for sasquatch and yeti.

(If there are microscopic elephants, cream and sugar seem to make them taste better.)

Just drink your coffee.
And just because I can’t resist?

How does Ben even know THAT Poe is dead? Did he ever meet him? Was he at his funeral? Nope, he read about it.

Which is visual evidence.

Which, according to Ben himself, just cannot be relied upon.

One thing that needs to be remembered I think is the existence of a paradigm, or a generally accepted set of laws and theories pertaining to how things work, that science works under and which keeps scientists on track. This paradigm can sort of be considered a collection of knowledge that is held to be true to the greatest certainty possible given our knowledge, evidence, observations, and equipment available. This knowledge has been collected, researched, and rigorously tested, in essence fairly safe understanding or guideline of what is going on. This is not to say that the paradigm is the final truth or completely unsusceptible change, indeed history shows many examples of the paradigm being shifted one way or the other to better encompass new knowledge brought to bear. However, it does give us a generally good idea of what to expect.

The paradigm is an important point of reference and eliminates the need for scientists to research and test every single little thing completely from scratch. I think you can imagine the advance of knowledge would be very slow if that were the case.

Now I said the paradigm can indeed be changed or modified, it is not necessarily an end all, be all final answer. But in order to do that, you must present evidence to that effect. Unless you do this, basically one can continue to operate under the relatively safe assumption that our current knowledge is sound in whatever area is under analysis. In essence, as I said before, if you present a claim that falls outside what is generally known, you must provide evidence to that effect or we will continue to value what has been shown to be correct to the best of our current knowledge.

A simple example from my own point of view. My own personal observations and knowledge of my house has shown there to be no monkeys on the premises. This is a fact to the best of my understanding, a paradigm of sorts, if you will. If one were to claim that a monkey lived in my house, I would ask them to prove it in some fashion. Any failure to do so would result in me continuing to operate under the current knowledge that there is no monkey here until compelling proof to the contrary was shown to me. Failure to produce a positive allows me to presume that my current knowledge is true (a negative). Same goes for elephants in my coffee.
Now, if I suddenly started to find little monkey footprints around the house or guests reported that they had seen one, I might start to question what I thought I knew and look deeper into the matter (hopefully you are seeing the relevance to cryptids here). I would also look into the possibility that the prints were chocolate stains on the rug or that guests were fooling with me, and we would see where the evidence led. Until I am more sure, I will state with reasonable certainty that there is no monkey here as there is absolutely no evidence to show there is.

I cannot say that every house in the world has no monkey, but through the lack of any positive evidence to suggest there is one here in my house I can hold to my paradigm and I suppose basically prove a negative of sorts in the case of my own house through lack of anything to show me otherwise. And I guess the longer I go without finding one, perhaps the more sure I will be of that assumption. Perhaps this is what Ben’s opinion is when he says that every day that the likelihood of sasquatch gets lower with each passing day? In his opinion, nothing compelling enough to challenge the paradigm (that there is no such animal in North America) has come to light. It seems as though he thinks maybe it IS out there (am I right here Ben?), but he has seen nothing adequate enough to presume as much.

In my opinion, there is enough to want me to dig deeper into the phenomena and the circumstantial evidence has increased enough throughout the years to inspire curiosity. In the end though, really no one can prove that sasquatch isn’t out there at all and I don’t think skeptics should be asked to do so. These cryptids will not be accepted as real until the ones who claim they are show evidence enough to more or less overturn what we generally accept to be true.

I think to find that sort of thing out, to reach any decent level of truth, we have to LOOK, delve deeper, follow up leads, and keep an open mind towards what is found.

What is the point, here? We cannot prove there ISN’T a sasquatch? That isn’t a scientific way to approach it in the first place. Regardless of the possibility of microscopic elephants (and I have to agree I’m fairly certain there is not one in my coffee as I write this. We cannot presume them to exist, can we?), if you make an extraordinary claim (or really any new claim), the onus is on you to prove it not others to disprove it. If you were to make the claim that Edgar Allen Poe is president, then prove it. If you claim there is a large, hairy hominid in North America, then you have to do the legwork. We cannot ASSUME things exist or work a certain way in science unless they have rigorously been proven to the best of our ability to be so. You study and you build up the evidence to prove your hypothesis. If not, you open up a whole can of worms and must believe a whole plethora of things that have no known basis in fact.

As to elephants? I’ll say this about it. Right now, all studies done and evidence collected by diligent scientific people show elephants to be quite large. Are we to go about drinking our coffee with the idea that a microscopic elephant MIGHT be in there? If you can somehow study them and produce evidence for such a creature, then fine, but until then leave my coffee alone. You need to prove that there IS one, not the other way around.

Please, please no more about elephants and Edgar Allen Poe. This conversation is going off into outer space.