Despite my complaints that I mentioned above, I think there are a lot of informed, intelligent, and level headed people involved in crytpozoology. There are certainly scientists who are sympathetic to the field if not actively involved in it. Not all Bigfoot organizations are rag tag groups of weekend warriors out monster hunting either. For example, I know there are some groups out there looking for sasquatch that are taking a decidedly scientific approach to the search and I hope that becomes the standard for all field research done. Underfunded and stretched for resources as they may be, they are still out there and it seems they are applying sound methods, which to me can only be a positive thing. It is in these types of operations that I see hope for cryptozoology gaining momentum as a recognized science. If Bigfoot is indeed out there, any evidence found to that effect will only cause this field to pick up speed to the point that it will become very difficult to ignore sasquatch. Mainstream science for whatever reasons may not be taking much interest in creatures such as the sasquatch at this time, but I think more scientists will step forward and become more involved as the case for sasquatch becomes undeniable. This will also embolden those scientists that are sympathetic to cryptozoology, but are unwilling or unable to become fully involved with it.

Loren said a nice quote on another post and it really rang true for me, as many things on this site do. He was basically saying that this is not the age of Ptolemy, we need a few Copernicuses. That was really quite right. Nothing new is ever discovered, especially nothing radically new, without someone taking the initiative to look or take the search for the truth down sometimes little trodden paths. While I personally think there is nothing irrefutable available with regards to sasquatch and am more or less an open minded skeptic, there is no reason why we can’t delve a little deeper and I’m all for leaving open these avenues of research. Whether sasquatch exist or not, I am happy that so many are enthusiastic enough to pursue this mystery and follow up on the leads we have, as scant as those may be sometimes. Science does have its rigors and strict processes, but it is true that there is nothing unscientific about trying to follow a theory to see where it leads. There is a bit of unscientific thinking displayed by some in this field at times, as I mentioned, but this is not the norm. The fact that so many in this community ARE doing things in a scientific manner and doggedly pursuing the evidence gives me hope that, if it is indeed there, it won’t be long before the concrete evidence required to appease mainstream science will be found.

So I am optimistic. I hope nobody thought I was just crypto bashing in my earlier posts. I was just letting off steam with some of my frustrations. Like I said, i just have high hopes for cryptozoology and want it to be as good as it can be.

Professional Cryptozoology

Cryptozoology should be a sub-branch of the scientific discipline of zoology. As such, we would expect zoologists to study, research, and field investigate suspected cryptids (suspected because of tracks found, other possible tangible evidences, and well attested sightings). Such studies should be presented in typical scientific fashion, open to criticism and peer review. This implies a two way street: cases for alleged cryptids should be put forth tentatively and not dogmatically by advocates, and the scientific “establishment” should be open to critiquing said cases and not simply ignore them.

Professional cryptozoologists would hold relevant degrees in the life sciences, as well as in psychology and folk lore (given the cultural aspect of some well publicized, alleged cryptids).While some practicing scientists consider themselves cryptozoologists, or are sympathetic to the aims of cryptozoologists, I do not know if cryptozoology is on the threshold of scientific accreditation as a sub-branch of zoology.

Amateur Cryptozoology

Those who criticize cryptozoology on the grounds that there are few, if any, new types of animals to be found today, are clearly wrong. The recent finds in Vietnam prove the contrary. Amateur cryptozoogists are valuable to the field because they are the extra eyes and hands needed to advance various cases, since the scientific establishment often moves slowly with research and grant money (especially concerning non-essential topics such as cryptids.)

Such amateurs I would hope to be well grounded in the relevant sciences, fair and open minded, and concerned most with an objective understanding of the phenomena under question.Amateurs in astronomy and amateur paleontologists have often made discoveries benefiting their more formal scientific brothers and sisters; there is no reason why amateur cryptozoolgists could not be similarly beneficial.

Enchanted Cryptozoology

Here is where cryptozoology runs into opposition and formal rejection. This view does not simply propose the possibility of rare unknown animals, but rather champions doubtlessly a whole world of unknown creatures. And these creatures are not of the mundane variety, a new deer in southeast Asia or a new species of finch in Central America, but rather are highly romantic and extravagant creatures, giant ape-men in the forests of America, prehistoric whales surviving in lakes in Scotland.

In this view, sightings may stand alone as sure “evidence” (as long as the sightings conform to the preconceived; for instance, the Spicer sighting endures while the Chruickshank sighting is forgotten). Enchanted cryptozoology sometimes comes perilously close to a quasi-mysticism, where accepting the Patterson film, for instance, can help you “grow” as a person (or better yet, don’t do any “thinking” at all about the film, just let the image wash over you and awe you in it’s enchantment).

Enchanted cryptozoology has its “monsters” to find, and its bogeymen to fend off. Its bogeymen are threefold: mainstream science, skeptics, and mainstream media. While the enchanted cryptozoologists decry the alleged “close-mindedness” of others who do not share their enthusiasms, they state without a modest doubt that there is “no way” the Patterson film could be faked or that it is ridiculous to suggest Ness may not hold a giant unknown creature.

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/anthropology/Faculty/Begun/begunSciAm.pdf

Closed-mindedness at work within. Read, and be enlightened.

(Enlightenment available upon request.)

Sounds like this guy read “springheeledjack’s Guide To Sounding Open on a Topic When You Are As Closed As The Edsel Plant.”

If someone else can find an online copy, that would be cool.

[sigh] please don’t make me do a painful, point-by-point recapitulation. Trust me: the intent of the sidebar is obvious. The title? “Bigfoot Ballyhoo.”

THAT’S open-minded.

Passionate; you eschew my measured conservatism. But correct.

See an interesting sidebar in a 2006 issue of “Scientific American” for a scientist going off half-cocked on the sasquatch. (It was the special edition, “Becoming Human: Evolution and the Rise of Intelligence.”) The article in which the sidebar appears, “Planet of the Apes,” is about the Miocene radiation of apes through the Old World. What this sidebar is doing in here, unless it’s a silly broadside, escapes me.

However, there are many things science cannot solve…as was said earlier up there somewhere, science does not have all the answers…and personally I do not expect such out of science…the problem is when skeptics and scoftics try to improperly use scientific processes (or twist some portion of scientific thought) to explain away something that cannot legitimately be done.

Case in point is eye witness testimony for BF (personally I prefer swimming critters, but I am all for giving BF equal time in my postings). Scoftics/skeptics say that eye witness testimony is not proof that a BF is out and running around. Well maybe, maybe not…however, the fact is that something is being seen out in the wilds that is not bears, hoaxers and odd shadows…and so far science cannot come up with any explanation that covers it…there are theories, but some of the theories are more laughable than a BF actually existing.

It is those who dig in their heels and dismiss everything that cause the rest of us who do have common sense to stand up and question the scientific community when it holds its breath because it cannot come up with an answer, but dismisses the possibility of an actual critter so far unknown to science just because it is as big as us and, heaven forbid, may have intelligence and savvy like us.

I’ve said it before and I will keep saying it: if the skeptics truly have an open mind (which in fact what science is all about), then I have no problem with them saying, “At present I do not believe BF exists because for me there is not enough empirical evidence, but it is still a possibility.”

It’s just the jokers who say things like “I would love for there to be a BF, but there just is no evidence” who I roll my eyes at, because they are not truly in the scientific process at all, but just using portions of scientific ideas to try to dissuade everyone else that there is nothing to look for.

Go ahead and tell me eye witness accounts do not make enough evidence for you personally, but don’t tell me that there is no basis at all for creatures because all eye witness testimony is false, hallucinations or misidentifications…that is the popular version of cutting off your empirical nose to spite your pseudo-scientific face…

Cryptozoology is a science of looking for what others do not, or dismiss…it is about looking beyond the boundaries of known ideas…and sure you are going to have extremists on both sides, but that does not make it any less legitimate…only those who wish to minimize the study want to make cryptozoology behave and act in particular ways as a community. Individually, I applaud those who walk out on a limb to take a stance…even when they fall–it doesn’t mean everything related to an idea is false either…even when a hoax shows up and some people fall for it, IT DOES NOT negate the rest of the sightings and evidence at hand.

I see hoaxes as a benchmark for cryptozoologists to look harder and more carefully at evidence, not a negation of the creature in question…which is a mistake that skeptics and so called scientists try to use over and over.

And as far as the science as religion thing: science and religion are related when science dismisses hypothesis (things such as bigfoot, loch ness, etc.) for simplistic reasons or outlandish reasons, just because science cannot even accept the possibility that other large creatures exist out there. Science and religion are often being related to one another lately because science in certain circles is so close minded and so rigid in its interpretation of what science really is, that it mimics fundamentalist religious thought that is close minded and intolerant of other ideas.

That is where the real correlation comes from…and I am with a growing number of people…science is becoming narrow minded and working with blinders on so that it immediately discards information that does not fall into some “normal” set of parameters. The more rigid science becomes, the more people will questions the validity and the sound thinking behind science when it comes up against things like cryptozoology.

And when skeptics who spout the scientific process, and hide behind it without reallllllllllly knowing what they are talking about just in an effort to discredit cryptozoology, they actually end up hurting their own claims as well as the scientific process. People who read about science are no more knowledgeable about Bigfoot than people who read about bigfoot. They like to pretend that they do, and they like to let everyone else know what credentials they have, but they are no more of an authority on whether a big primate is roaming the woods or whether a large sea critter is wandering the waters than a cryptozoology amateur.

End of story.

“Science is not the same thing as a legal trial; the rigorous standards of science are far different from the standards in a court of law. It’s as simple as that. To expect one to operate under the same standards as the other is a fallacy.”

Absolutely correct. We’ve talked about that here before, many times. And totally beside the point I’m trying to make.

“It isn’t, therefore, that scientists want to ignore eyewitnesses/anecdotal material; it’s simply that, given the rigors that science MUST operate under, they’re forced to lend only a certain amount of weight to these kinds of sightings and anecdotal stories.”

Absolutely correct. But that “certain amount” should be expected to vary, depending on whether one person saw a ghost, or thousands of people, across the continent, who are almost certainly not comparing notes, are describing the same animal. R! S! R!

“The last question is a good one though: so what do we do with sightings? And of course the answer is that in bulk they must count for something. Count for what? That science cannot say, because it would be drawing a conclusion. And the problem with anecdotal “evidence” is…. there’s no way to go back and examine it.”

Science can say what anecdotes count for, and has, many times. The gorilla, the okapi, and the saola were found by people who said: the anecdotal evidence counts for a followup look. It’s a common skeptical red herring to say that anecdotal evidence can’t be gone back over. That’s not what you do with it. You FOLLOW IT UP. You go where a lot of sightings seem to be, and look. Worked for Roger Patterson. The “facts and material that can be empirically examined and tested” do not happen unless the initial, non-conclusive hints are followed up. Which is, incidentally, just the way it works in criminal justice: hearsay is hearsay…until the investigation turns up the solid evidence.

I just need to ask here: if science is scared stiff to act on anything non-conclusive, because that would be drawing a conclusion, um, how do scientists discover stuff? Honest question; I’d really want to know the answer.

“I don’t know of any scientists who go “half-cocked” on opposing cryptids.”

Sure you do. If you have ever heard a scientist use the words “unlikely” or “probably not” - as I have, more than once - in describing his assessment of the sasquatch, you’ve heard half-cocked. The very rigor you defend as essential to proper science demands this: if you say the animal’s existence is not likely, you must establish a percentage probability, and back it up with evidence. Or else you’re just taking a holiday blathering. There is - as I have said many times - only one rational scientific take on the sasquatch: I haven’t seen proof yet, and await it. Period. And I have never - and I have said this many times - heard a scientist with a significant level of understanding of the evidence say anything less than this: the animal’s existence is a legitimate subject of scientific investigation. Don’t bother to look for an exception: you will not find one.

“I think, to be frank, that you’re making a rather prodigious mountain out of what is less than an anthill.”

Nah, not really, unless you’re talking about the evidence, which is, well, quite a hill. In fact, I’d be willing to wager money that no animal has ever left more evidence than the sasquatch without either being discovered, or science conducting a significant inquiry into its existence.

“It can have a wonderful melodramatic force to it, to cry foul at imagined scientists barring the way to True Knowledge.”

Nah, not really, it’s just true, when you have scientists saying that the sasquatch “probably” doesn’t exist, and providing no backup for their claims other than the same old urban ignoramus no-one’s-found-a-body-yet. (Really? How does he know?) Scientists saying “probably not” based on no evidence are abusing science.

“And the great majority of them would be thrilled to be the one that discovers a true unknown–certainly they would not be opposed to a search for it.”

REALLY. Then, would it hurt so much for them to simply come out, as a body, and say that? Why are they afraid of being fired for saying that? Why do scientists in fields having nothing to do with the sasquatch flatly call for Jeff Meldrum’s tenure? Don’t you think that if scientists really believed that, and publicly expressed it, an expedition would have been in the Northern California woods by 1968 to confirm Patterson’s film?

Just doing a purity check.

The frustration some feel with respect to this, I think, lies in the fact that the body of anecdotal evidence does not even cause a most scientists to go so far as to consider that such a great body of anecdotal evidence, with consistent descriptions and details occuring over a span of well over a century (much longer if one accepts traditional native tales as anecdotal evidence), might point to the possibility of the presence of a phenomenon that is outside the current span of scientific knowledge. As you so rightly say, the scientific paradigm can only do so much with it. (Let us not, however, overlook the fact that the social sciences are disciplines in which anecdotal evidence does carry a bit more weight, vis a vis the physical sciences.) Add to that the instances where physical evidence and work done on it — “the Meldrum fiasco” as mystery_man termed it — has been dismissed, and the frustration that many feel is quite understandable. Admittedly much of the physical evidence that has been gathered with respect to sasquatch, at least, has not been great; but it is not useless and does not merit immediate dismissal, as too often SEEMS to be the case.

Finally, I have to thank you for causing me to break into a long, warm, grin:

But every scientist I’ve ever known—and I’ve known plenty–are honest and faithful about their belief in the scientific method, and that an open mind is always the firm basis of this.

This, indeed, is a very interesting choice of words.

(And since it’s the 40th anniversary of the Patterson-Gimlin film…)

Cheers.

“I’d also level skepticism at the claim that anecdotal evidence is of no use. Our criminal justice system wouldn’t exist without it.”

Science is not the same thing as a legal trial; the rigorous standards of science are far different from the standards in a court of law. It’s as simple as that. To expect one to operate under the same standards as the other is a fallacy.

“I have to look skeptically at anyone who thinks that sightings can simply be tossed. If the counter is, no, I’m not saying toss them, then what, specifically, is to be done with them?”

Good question, but let’s take the first sentence in the above quote to start off with: it is not that scientists “think” that eyewitness sightings can simply be tossed; rather, it’s a simple fact that eyewitness sightings, in a scientific sense are the very least reliable forms of evidence there is, for any given phenomena. There are a number of reasons for this: human beings are prone to error; they easily make mistakes judging size, distance and identity of things they see. Human beings are emotional, and are capable of convincing themselves that they’ve seen something dramatic, when in fact they’ve seen something of a mundane nature that, for whatever reason, looked odd or out of place—but was not, in fact, anything unknown or earth-shaking. Human beings are also capable of lying, of making up stories–for any number of reasons.

It isn’t, therefore, that scientists want to ignore eyewitnesses/anecdotal material; it’s simply that, given the rigors that science MUST operate under, they’re forced to lend only a certain amount of weight to these kinds of sightings and anecdotal stories.

The last question is a good one though: so what do we do with sightings? And of course the answer is that in bulk they must count for something. Count for what? That science cannot say, because it would be drawing a conclusion. And the problem with anecdotal “evidence” is…. there’s no way to go back and examine it. All you have is… a person’s words. “I saw this…” followed by a description. It allows for very little examination. It becomes mainly a game of speculation. This is a brick wall for science. It doesn’t allow for much speculation; it demands facts and material that can be empirically examined and tested.

I think a lot of people mistake this impasse as an unwillingness on the part of scientists to listen to or consider the eyewitness and the material he/she brings to the table. But it isn’t that at all. Rather, it’s simply that there’s only so much you can do with it.

Again, science is not a court of law. The court can lend a great deal of credence to an eyewitness; oftentimes it must. The court deals in probabilities, in a sense. Science does not, at least not in the same sense.

I don’t know of any scientists who go “half-cocked” on opposing cryptids. Scientists do occasionally, behave badly–they’re human. They sometimes forget themselves. But every scientist I’ve ever known—and I’ve known plenty–are honest and faithful about their belief in the scientific method, and that an open mind is always the firm basis of this. I think, to be frank, that you’re making a rather prodigious mountain out of what is less than an anthill. It can have a wonderful melodramatic force to it, to cry foul at imagined scientists barring the way to True Knowledge; but such things don’t actually mirror reality–this fear, this melodrama, belongs in novels and films. In real life, scientists are just people trying to do their job–and most of them believe in it, believe in what they do, and believe in the rigor under which they are compelled to operate. And the great majority of them would be thrilled to be the one that discovers a true unknown–certainly they would not be opposed to a search for it.