“Well, I don’t know if I can agree with the statement that an animal being known to exist is irrelevant. ”

Oh, I didn’t say it was irrelevant. I said that it’s a logical fallacy to consider stuff like, say, guys in suits to be evidence against an animal, because if the animal’s real, then the guys in suits ARE irrelevant. (And most of the sightings – all of them, in fact, of the orang pendek – don’t have anything to do with fakery, and they don’t appear to reflect lying either.)

If my statement that I haven’t seen a mink doesn’t serve as evidence that the mink isn’t real, people not having seen an orang pendek can’t count as evidence against it, either, because if it’s real, then the lack of sightings obviously happened for other reasons.

My point comes down to this. The evidence for the existence of an animal can only be countered by debunking, i.e., showing that that evidence is in fact evidence of something else. If the evidence for is unchallenged, then it stands. Not as proof, but as a hint that maybe we haven’t looked enough yet.

I’m not laughing at those who search for the Orang Pendek. In fact, I commend them. If they turn up something solid, it will be a great help to zoology.

Until we can be sure, though, I just don’t think that the mink is a good analogy here. I hope you realize that I am certainly not jumping down your throat. I may have even misunderstood your angle there. I was just trying to explain my thoughts on that statement.

Or maybe I just need a decaf.

This is a bit more difficult with something like the Orang Pendek. Whereas with a mink, you can sit down and show someone indisputable proof that it does indeed exist despite the lack of seeing one, whereas with cryptids all you can do is show the evidence up to now and then they are in the same position as us, trying to make sense of it. They may deny what you show them, but we are in no position to say that they are definitely wrong. We can do that with the mink. This is why I think it is perfectly reasonable to say “but we know the mink exists.” It’s existence is not in dispute. The Orang Pendek’s is.

Of course if the Orang Pendek exists, then they do so without needing scientific confirmation. But if that is your stance, then you have to say the same thing applies to fairies, ghosts, and interdimensional orbs (things that many people believe to be real). But consider how do we know what is real and what is not? The key word here is if they exist. Until we can be sure, then I for one am not going to assume the Orang Pendek must be real and we just haven’t found it yet. I will look at the evidence, but it is an unknown at this point, at least from the view of mainstream science. Until it goes from if it exists, to it does exist, we just don’t know and as such can not make too many assumptions. All we can do is take a look at what evidence turns up. We can’t compare that to an animal that we know is real and is well documented (like the mink).

Science doesn’t make something real just by confirming it, but does help to parse out what is real from what is not.

Many cryptids might exist, and in many cases seem like they likely do, but we have to be sure. Science does not go around assuming something is real until is is shown not to be. We need to find out what is really going on through careful means, to go from if to is beyond a reasonable doubt. That is what Davies is out there trying to do.

The mink has passed this threshhold, the Orang Pendek has not. If it had, it would no longer be a cryptid. That doesn’t mean I think it doesn’t exist, in fact I think it is quite plausible, but we don’t know yet. Well, at least I don’t. I am not completely convinced at this point.

As far as “local skeptics” go, I’ll use an example from another animal. I’m not trying to get off topic, bear with me. In Japan we have a very rare wildcat known as the Iriomote cat, from the tiny island of Iriomote. It is documented to exist, this is not in dispute at all. Yet many locals who have lived on the island have never seen one, and among these, many actually deny that it is a real animal, or that it is merely stray cats.

The thing is, like with the mink, we can sit them down and show them that it does indeed exist and that they just haven’t seen one. With the Orang Pendek, that might be the reason locals haven’t seen one, or it might mean there is nothing there to see. We just don’t know.

That being said, the Iriomote cat wasn’t documented until the 60s, and was well known to some locals before that. So of course we should seriously consider what the locals say about the Orang Pendek. But until we know for sure, it is no mink or Iriomote cat just yet. We cannot be assured of its reality.

I think cryptozoology is trying to find out about these things to the best of our knowledge, and it is not helpful to treat these cryptids as givens that exist “whether we want them to or not.” Time and evidence will be the judge of that.

Maybe I’ve misunderstood what you were saying, but I don’t think we can compare unknowns to knowns and treat them as the same thing.

The logic of disproving all and what you cannot might be valid, has its problems. Not only because Sherlock Holmes said it first, in his own way. It could be thus said Sasquatch cannot be disproved so it is true. I think it is, but I dont think the logic makes sense.

Sorry, the first quote regarding the whereabouts of a worms mouth was my grandaughters. The second, concerning large footprints are found (only) because we call Sasquatch Bigfoot was the eminent scientist and I do not think it does him any credit!

And as to “no testable hypothesis should be rejected without evidence,” it is my opinion – and the opinion of a number of notable scientists – that the evidence for hairy hominoids, at least for several postulated ones, presents a testable hypothesis. That should be tested, not rejected outright, because enough evidence is there to test.

(I’m reading Meldrum’s book now, and finding out that the general public – to say nothing of the scientific mainstream – has no idea how good the evidence for the sasquatch indeed is.)

Now I do think the amount of evidence needed to be persuasive depends on the claim. I was really reluctant to believe in cold fusion because the energy scale of electrochemistry is so different from nuclear energy scales; in this case I was right. On the other hand, I wasn’t persuaded by the initial proposal of dark energy — there are too many things that could go wrong. Now that several different groups have come up with several different observations, it looks like they’re onto something — however strange the idea may be to us. Being cautious is a good idea; it’s not the same thing a scoffing.

As to this statement: “I quote Todd Distotell who says his job is to disprove, not prove anything, thats not what scientists do!” Wow. I hope you’re misquoting him. Scientists – if they are doing anything worthwhile to me – should be rolling back the frontiers of knowledge, not serving as The Flat Earth Society in our stead.

Of course they have to debunk (most crypto-debunking, indeed all of it, really, is done by proponents). But they should be open to evidence, and immune to the urge to scoff. SCIENCE SHOULD NEVER SCOFF! I could not sum up my core purpose in contributing to this site any better. Determining that no, we don’t have a cryptid here is part of what science does…AFTER examining the evidence carefully. Knee-jerk debunking of the kind you can get from drunk insurance salesmen at a party is unbecoming science, and should stop.

I find it interesting that one of the “wow, this is intriguing, I’m interested, let the search continue” responses to this latest episode came from mystery_man, one of this site’s skeptics, and a scientist in a field directly relevant to the discussion.

THAT is a scientific attitude.

Show me, sure. But I’m going to back your right to search without getting laughed at. We’ll deal with the evidence when you present it. Oh, and thanks. Someone needs to be looking, and I’m glad you are. Whoever you are, and whatever you are looking for.

(BTW, statement 1 is the scientist. Has to be. Your granddaughter will go far.)

When you haven’t seen a distinctive bird with a three-foot wingspan, right up there, in te sky, with clearly-delineated habitat requirements that almost don’t exist anymore, for decades, there may, um, be fewer of them. (In truth, I think the ivory-bill searchers should harbor less hope than bigfooters.) When you have previous existence as your benchmark, your negative argument is stronger, because fewer people will doubt you when you see one, and, well, no one is seeing any.

When no one believes you, or ever has, is when I start to have issues with “negative evidence.” That was the case for a long time with the eastern puma; it’s only somewhat lessened in recent years, with many sightings still being labeled escapes, period. But previous existence – and the coast-to-coast run of the coyote in the absence of the gray wolf, which provides a template – has worked in the cat’s favor over time, and wildlife agencies are loosening their stance gradually. The sasquatch and the yeti and the o.p. haven’t caught that break. Too few people in positions of influence will respond positively to a report. I’m not totally sure that many skeptics haven’t seen one, and are keeping a lid on it. And that’s the thing: how could you find that out?

(The mink is native to small fragments of Florida. It looks goofy on the map; part of the Panhandle and the extreme north…and the extreme southern tip. That’s at least from one book I have. But most of FL, nope, none. That we know of.)

“Due to correlation, the number of INDEPENDENT observations may be much smaller than the number of observations. In the current context, a shared culture may predispose people to interpret ambiguous events in a given way…”

Can’t argue there. But it sounds to me that in the context of Westerners working the o.p. beat, that’s research that’s already been done. The local opinion seems to be: it’s an animal, bipedal like a man, but no, not a man. It doesn’t seem so much a legend to them as an aspect of local fauna that they take for granted…except for the village headman who’s laid pit traps all over the place, because he’s incensed by Westerners patronizing the locals and wants to show them. (Nope, no o.p. in the traps yet, that I’ve heard.) I don’t get the feeling that Westerners who think this is real are trying to cut through local b.s., or sort out woo-woo sounding legends, but to confirm something locals are telling them is flesh and blood, and out there.

“Also, I’ve talked about the problems with the “they all recognized a picture someone else drew” analysis.”

As I understand it, no one in the WWF sessions looked at a sketch; they provided a description to an artist, who drew what they described. He kept drawing the same thing. There is, yes, an obvious pitfall here: you tell me the brow looks like this and I will draw you what that says to ME. But of course the witnesses are going to look at the sketch and say, yes, that’s it. And sure, they could be agreeing just to agree, or leading the artist intentionally or not, and any of a number of other things. But that I am aware they are not looking at what anyone else has provided.

But I guess this is where I come down on the role cryptozoology should play in science. That is the role that works like this: the evidence looks intriguing. Let’s look. As George Schaller says: “But negative evidence does not disprove the yeti’s existence.” It’s the same for any cryptid. If the positive evidence looks the way we’d expect it to look for a species, in my mind, the case has been made to look. At the very least, not to scoff and toss brickbats at the ones looking, but to let the evidence come in and see where it goes.

The problem with discussing things in a scientific way is it all tends to get a bit negative. I quote Todd Distotell who says his job is to disprove, not prove anything, thats not what scientists do!

Then as with a books or films coming out on some topic. This gives rise to at least two outcomes, folks will step up describing similar or parallel experiences either before the book or film came out or after. Some of these will be fantasy some real, but in both cases individuals will feel enabled, authorised or interested enough to come out. There will be many who will still keep their experiences or fancy to themselves. We tend to hear only one side of this situation, from the sceptics, which seems to go unchallenged.

Similar situation applies to, is it a bear or is it sasquatch? How many sasquatchs are mistaken for bears, rather than bears for sasquatch.
In addition the book or film may help somebody recognise what they have seen-could have been the case with the recent out of place coati-if the lady, who wanted the strange beats exterminated, had first seen the book !

A couple of quotes, one from a top international scientist and one from my little grandaughter. You have to guess which is the joke and which is the serious observation and… which is the most sensible.
1 How do you identify one end of a worm from the other? Answer, you tickle the middle and the end which laughs is the mouth end!

2 People find bigfootprints because bigfoot is called bigfoot and little footprints because littlefoot is called littlefoot.

In my opinion this illustrates the problem with evidence for cryptids, it is hard to get and even harder for scientists to accept it, partly because of the cultural matrix they exist in. Mustn’t forget though science is not scientists who are also a socialogical phenomenom, thank goodness!

I’m from Florida, and yes, it is evidence against the mink being indigenous to Florida. Not “proof”, if you like, but “suggestive” evidence. Like the evidence from a blurry photo.

Another example: No one has been able to positively identify a live ivory-billed woodpecker for decades. (There were some ambiguous sightings, but nothing conclusive.) That doesn’t PROVE that the species has gone extinct (I hope it hasn’t), but it does strongly suggest that if it’s not extinct now, it is teetering on the edge of extinction. The failure to see a once-common bird really is evidence.

Yes, the “frequency and coherence” of data is important — but there is another quality that is important: correlation. Due to correlation, the number of INDEPENDENT observations may be much smaller than the number of observations. In the current context, a shared culture may predispose people to interpret ambiguous events in a given way: for instance, as a leprechaun or as a trickster fox. This problem can be greatly increased if a popular book or movie has just come out on the topic, since it will give people a much clearer idea of what they “should have seen”. I’m sure there are ways of dealing with this problem in the various social sciences, but that’s not really my area — but the first step is at least to know that the problem exists.

Also, I’ve talked about the problems with the “they all recognized a picture someone else drew” analysis. There are at least 2 problems: (1) the fact that they may already have expectations for what they “should be seeing” (like the traditional description of a leprechaun), and (2) the fact that in any of these cases they’re basically saying, “Yeah, that’s close enough.” But how close is “close enough”, and is “close enough” good enough?