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Cryptozoology

TMiguel said:
Cryptozoology is not just a “wishy washy” subject, of course “wishy washers” got a grip on this one to (like any other field of knowledge has it’s own crackpots).
Animals like the giant squid where actually found and documented, but I personally never knew about a “mythic” animal (who’s implications for his existence are just nonsense) ever to be found.
Beings like the lockness monster or the bigfoot (or whatever version of the bigfoot) are not remotely possible to exist due to environment studies of the location where people claim to have spot them, one of which is the biomass (which quantifies how big is the amount of animals and plants required to sustain a form of life in order to keep it’s population steady and reproducible). Most of the areas claimed for spotting are not even capable of sustaining a single individual, much less be big enough to keep the animals (which I mind remind you that they are not small animals either) unseen on a quick search.
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I love it when people say this.

There isnt enough food resources for bigfoot. RIGHT

Im not completely sold on bigfoot BUT you cant tell me that in areas all over the US where bigfoot has been reported that there is not enough food and or land to support them. These areas have elk,moose, bear etc. And easily so.

There are huge tracts of land out there that have probably not seen a human foot print in decades if ever.

If a state like Alabama where I live can support black bear and wild hogs and a population of whitetail deer in the million plus range I dont think a few 500 pound hominid is going to have a hard time finding food or a place to lay down. Right next to me is several thousand acres of timber lands. My nearest neighbor is 4 miles. And Im not even in the most remote areas of my state
 
JAStewart said:
I would imagine not because most of the cryptozoolgical animals have some supernatural/unreal feature.
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Not to take away from Winston County Wildman's giant font thunder, but I'm going to basically reiterate what has been said by others previously, especially Starthinker's quotes from cryptozoology.com.

I'm not sure if you followed the link from the Mongolian Death Worm back to the Wikipedia page on Crypids, but they have an awesome listing and categorize them basically as fantasy, probably extinct or possible.

Bigfoot is entirely possible since we have evidence of tall upright hominids on this planet (us), but the evidence is, thus far utterly unconvincing and the only plausible naturalistic explanation (Gigantopithecus migrating to the Americas) is utterly unevidenced. Mothman, etc. is simply fantasy and Thylacine sightings in Australia are possible though unlikely to the point of wishful thinking.

The remnants of an extinct species was addressed by Starthinker's quote about the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. We're not talking about fantastical animals or bizarre living fossils like Mokele M'membe, we're talking about known species that are though to have gone extinct in the last 100 years or so.

Cryptozoology is, like UFOlogy and PSI where there could be something to it as long as we find a naturalistic explanation. It's not something I dismiss willy nilly, it's something I ask where is the beef, or brontosaurus or plesiosaur meat. Until we have something more than stories and wild goose chases, I will remain unconvinced that any of these animals exist other than in the mind of the claimants and believers.
 
WinstonCountyWildman said:
I love it when people say this.

There isnt enough food resources for bigfoot. RIGHT

Im not completely sold on bigfoot BUT you cant tell me that in areas all over the US where bigfoot has been reported that there is not enough food and or land to support them. These areas have elk,moose, bear etc. And easily so.

There are huge tracts of land out there that have probably not seen a human foot print in decades if ever.

If a state like Alabama where I live can support black bear and wild hogs and a population of whitetail deer in the million plus range I dont think a few 500 pound hominid is going to have a hard time finding food or a place to lay down. Right next to me is several thousand acres of timber lands. My nearest neighbor is 4 miles. And Im not even in the most remote areas of my state
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I said "MOST", and not "ALL". Neither to the particular case of the bigfoot.
 
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Dragoonster said:
Anyway the point is, if "zoologists" had done the above and discovered a new species or subspecies of rhino, why wouldn't that be a "victory" for cryptozoology? Or put another way...does cryptozoology have no wins because as soon as a species is verified or discovered (even after only local anecdotes as evidence), it becomes a zoology issue, and zoology win?
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I think the problem is really that there is no real definition of what "cryptozoology" actually is. Most people, if they've heard of the term at all, tend to associate it with searching for mythical creatures like bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and so on. There will (almost certainly) never be a victory for cryptozoology under this definition, because the things it looks for don't actually exist.

If you simply define cryptozoology as the search for animals we haven't seen yet then of course there will be thousands of successes. But that's not what it normally means, that's just perfectly normal zoology. It doesn't just become normal zoology after the discovery, the search for new kinds of animal has always been part of zoology. If this is how you mean cryptozoology, then the term is utterly pointless. It's only if you use it to mean something different from zoology that there's any reason to have a different term, and since the search for real animals is already covered, it has to mean something else.
 
People have searched for mythical creates and have found them, in one way or another.

The unicorn (with hardcore evidence: the horn!) turned out to be the narwhal. The coelacanth suddenly popped up, even though that clearly belonged to another era altogether. The okapi was discovered a mere 100 years ago.

If you say "X doesn't exist, period", you are probably wrong.

What is it that makes some skeptics jump so eagerly from the provisional nature of scientific evidence to the dogmatic declaration of The Truth?

Is it because they want - or need - to be right? Just as believers want - or need - to be right?

Hmmm....
 
The problem lies within cryptzoology's methodology:

1. Use data mostly cherry-picked from myths and sighting reports to "build" a creature. Add wild speculations based on selectec tidbits of (quite often misterpreted) good science.
2. Say the creature is real and use (1) to back the claim
3. Complain against close-minded-mainstream-scientists and skeptics for not buying this stuff.
 
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CFLarsen said:
People have searched for mythical creates and have found them, in one way or another.
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If you can name just one example, I will very surprised.

The unicorn (with hardcore evidence: the horn!) turned out to be the narwhal.
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No it didn't. A cetacean with a long tooth is not even vaguely comparable to a horse with pointy bits.

The coelacanth suddenly popped up, even though that clearly belonged to another era altogether.
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And? There were no myths about it.

The okapi was discovered a mere 100 years ago.
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So?

If you say "X doesn't exist, period", you are probably wrong.
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There is no invisible pink unicorn in my garden, no invisible dragon in my garage and no chocolate teapot orbiting Pluto. You think I'm wrong? Really?

What is it that makes some skeptics jump so eagerly from the provisional nature of scientific evidence to the dogmatic declaration of The Truth?
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The great thing about science is that while it can't prove theories correct, it can prove them wrong. It is in no way dogmatic to point out that there is no evidence some things exist, but plenty of evidence to say that it is not possible for them to exist.

Is it because they want - or need - to be right? Just as believers want - or need - to be right?
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No, it's simply that sometimes they are right.

Incidentally, this coming from Claus is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Air marshalls on planes? Drumsticks? Snakes' eyelids? And you're complaining about other people being dogmatic and refusing to accept the possibility of being wrong? Absolutely hilarious.
 
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The point is that a myth turned out to be something else. We discovered that the unicorn, this mythical creature of a horsey nature, so elusive, was really something else.

An even earlier myth was the "hairy women" that Hanno saw on his journey to the lands of hell. Yes, "gorilla" means "hairy women". Something else.

A myth can be true - at least parts of it, where we have misinterpreted the rest. We have done it before, e.g. with the atomic model. We've come a long way from the Greeks, to Dalton, to Bohr. Anyone thinks it stops at Bohr is doomed to be wrong.

Sagan's Dragon in the Garage is first and foremost an example of how woos move the goalposts. It is not an example of why things exist - or not exist. The Invisible Pink Unicorn and Russell's Teapot orbiting the sun are examples of why it is not up to skeptics to disprove an unfalsifiable claim.
 
CFLarsen said:
The point is that a myth turned out to be something else. We discovered that the unicorn, this mythical creature of a horsey nature, so elusive, was really something else.
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Nope.

An even earlier myth was the "hairy women" that Hanno saw on his journey to the lands of hell. Yes, "gorilla" means "hairy women". Something else.
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Nope.

A myth can be true - at least parts of it, where we have misinterpreted the rest. We have done it before, e.g. with the atomic model. We've come a long way from the Greeks, to Dalton, to Bohr. Anyone thinks it stops at Bohr is doomed to be wrong.
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Wow, you mean anyone who thinks an old, disproved model is entirely accurate is wrong? Amazing. In other news, anyone who thinks the Earth is flat is wrong as well. I have no idea what that is supposed to prove, but maybe if I throw out enough nonsense, no-one will notice. Oh, wait, there's already one person doing that in this thread, no need for me to join in as well.

Sagan's Dragon in the Garage is first and foremost an example of how woos move the goalposts. It is not an example of why things exist - or not exist. The Invisible Pink Unicorn and Russell's Teapot orbiting the sun are examples of why it is not up to skeptics to disprove an unfalsifiable claim.
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What do Sagan and Russell have to do with anything? I'm talking about my dragon, my unicorn and my teapot. You claimed that anyone saying that something definitely doesn't exist is probably wrong. I claim that my dragon, unicorn and teapot all definitely don't exist. Are you still going to claim that I'm wrong?
 
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All rational discourse require that the arguments are actually read and understood.
 
CFLarsen said:
The point is that a myth turned out to be something else. We discovered that the unicorn, this mythical creature of a horsey nature, so elusive, was really something else.
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Unless I misunderstood, you were positing that the unicorn turned out to be based on the narwhal. I disagree with that. Narwhal tusks seem to begin appearing in mediaeval and renaissance cabinets of curiosities brought south by Viking and other Northern traders and sold as unicorn horns.

Early Greek writers refer unicorns as natural rather than mythical creatures and located them in India. The earliest description is from Ctesias who described them as wild asses, fleet of foot, having a horn a cubit and a half in length and colored white, red and black.

Where can I read factual information directly correlating the source of unicorn mythology with the narwhal?
 
kitakaze said:
. Narwhal tusks seem to begin appearing in mediaeval and renaissance cabinets of curiosities brought south by Viking and other Northern traders and sold as unicorn horns.
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Isn't it funny that these tusks were sold as something they were not by people who were out to make a buck?

Sounds just like the shenanigans of the leaders of crypto organisations today.
 
The unicorn myth comes from a lot of sources, but all where there were horses. It isn't that much of a stretch to think of similar animals (deer, antelopes etc) and then jump to the conclusion that some horses also had horns. Hey, if the rhino can have one horn, why not a special kind of horse? Unicorns didn't necessarily had to have had magical powers, but since they were not that easy to find, why not? In fact, since we can't find them, they must be magical. But, for a price, I can get you a horn from a unicorn (who would ever want the tail?). The myth is therefore strengthened: Not only do we now have evidence, it is also magical!

It isn't as if it was easy for the buyers and believers to check if the horn was real or not: Travel was hard, expensive and dangerous. And at any rate, the creature was elusive (hence the high price, mate!), so even in the areas where it was supposed to live, locals could still believe unicorns were real. For those who didn't - well, why ruin a damned good source of income?
 
I think that might be Claus admitting he was wrong when he said "The unicorn (with hardcore evidence: the horn!) turned out to be the narwhal".
 
There's a lady down the road who's convinced there's some kind of large cat/beastie that's been killing local cats. There's no shortage of rabbits for the beastie to eat (I once saw a fox look confused over where to begin). It's just the space issue. Where does the BRitish Big Cat stand in the ranks of cryptozoology?
 
The unicorn was described as an actual creature in the old texts. The people who created the beautiful bestiaries from the Middle Ages mixed real animals (the camelopardalis, the rhino) with fictional ones (the unicorn, the dragon) - only they didn't know at the time. If they heard reports from travellers, sailors and visitors from strange and faraway lands, they just took those reports for granted: Why wouldn't they? If there is such an animal as the giraffe, or the rhino, or the hairy women from Africa, why wouldn't there be animals like unicorns and dragons?

We can see the difference, because we know that there haven't been found any unicorns or dragons - but they didn't. They had no reason to doubt any of these reports that we see as myths today.

When the craving for real evidence kicked in (if nothing else, as a prized possession that others can envy), what to do? Hey, here's a narwhal tooth unicorn horn. That fits the story. Bingo.

Rrrrrright up until the moment when the world got smaller, and people could travel from the Arctics to the lands where the unicorn was believed to be real. Bloody whistle blowers.

Of course, this didn't kill the myth entirely. Even when faced with real evidence of the real thing, some people would still believe that unicorns existed.
 
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