WikiPortallus: Cryptozoologist.html

Cryptozoology (from Greek κρυπτός, kruptos, "hidden" + zoology; literally, "study of hidden animals") is the study of and search for animals which fall outside of contemporary zoological catalogs. It consists of two primary fields of research:

A subset of the first field is the search for Out of Place animals, such as Phantom cats.

Those involved in cryptozoological study are known as "cryptozoologists"; the animals they study are often referred to as "cryptids", a term coined by John Wall in 1983.²

Because cryptozoologists do not universally follow the scientific method³⁴ and devote a substantial portion of their efforts to investigations of cryptids that most scientists believe are unlikely to exist,⁵ cryptozoology has received little attention from the scientific community. In 2004, however, paleoanthropologist Henry Gee⁶, a senior editor of the leading journal Nature argued that cryptozoology was of legitimate scientific value and could "come in from the cold."

Overview

Invention of the term "cryptozoology" is often attributed to zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans, although Heuvelmans attributes coinage of the term to the late Scottish explorer and adventurer Ivan T. Sanderson.⁷ Heuvelmans' 1955 book, On the Track of Unknown Animals, traces the scholarly origins of the discipline to Anthonie Cornelis Oudemans⁸ and his 1892 study, The Great Sea Serpent. Heuvelmans argued that cryptozoology should be undertaken with scientific rigor, but with an open-minded, interdisciplinary approach. He also stressed that attention should be given to local, urban and folkloric sources regarding such creatures, arguing that while often layered in unlikely and fantastic elements, folktales can have small grains of truth and important information regarding these organisms. Loren Coleman, a modern popularizer of cryptozoology, has chronicled the history and personalities of cryptozoology in his books.⁹

Another notable book on the subject is Willy Ley's Exotic Zoology (1959). Ley was best known for his writings on rocketry and related topics, but he was trained in paleontology, and wrote a number of books about animals. Ley's collection Exotic Zoology is of some interest to cryptozoology, as he discusses the Yeti and sea serpents, as well as relict dinosaurs. The book's first section ("Myth?") entertains the possibility that some legendary creatures (like the sirrush, the unicorn or the cyclops) might be based on actual animals, through misinterpretation of the animals and/or their remains. Perhaps the most rigorously scientific analyses of cryptids can be found in the works of British zoologist and cryptozoologist Dr. Karl Shuker, who has published 12 books and countless articles on numerous cryptozoological subjects since the mid-1980s.

Relationship with mainstream science

Discoveries of previously unknown animals are often subject to great attention, but cryptozoology per se has seen relatively little interest from mainstream scientists. As historian Mike Dash⁵ notes, few scientists doubt there are thousands of unknown animals, particularly invertebrates, awaiting discovery. However, as Dash notes, cryptozoologists are largely uninterested in researching and cataloguing newly-discovered species of ants or beetles, instead focusing their efforts towards "more elusive" creatures that have often defied decades of work aimed at confirming their existence.

The majority of mainstream criticism of cryptozoology is directed towards the search for megafauna cryptids such as Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster which appear often in popular culture, but for which there is little or no scientific support. Scientists argue that mega-fauna cryptids are unlikely to exist undetected in great enough numbers to maintain a breeding population,¹⁰ and are unlikely to be able to survive in their reported habitats due to issues of climate and food supply.¹¹

As such, cryptozoology has never been embraced by the scientific community. Most experts on the matter consider the Bigfoot legend to be a combination of folklore and hoaxes,¹² and cryptozoology is considered to be a pseudoscience by mainstream zoologists and biologists.¹³¹⁴ Noted objections to cryptozoology include unreliable eyewitness accounts, lack of scientific and physical evidence, and over-reliance on confirmation (confirmation bias) rather than refutation.¹²

Defenders

Supporters often argue² that cryptozoological evidence is evaluated not on its merits or failings, but rather based on opinions of researchers, or on prevailing paradigms or world views. For example, biological anthropologists Grover Krantz and Jeff Meldrum have cited what they perceive to be ample physical evidence in support of the existence of Bigfoot, suggesting a surviving population of gigantopithecines. However, their arguments regarding Bigfoot have largely been dismissed by other scientists. Another supposedly well-attested cryptid that was largely ignored by scientists was the Minnesota Iceman of the 1960s,¹⁵ purportedly an unidentified hominid corpse inspected by two cryptozoologists, Ivan T. Sanderson and Bernard Heuvelmans.

Supporters claim that as in legitimate scientific fields, cryptozoologists are often responsible for disproving their own objects of study. For example, some cryptozoologists have collected evidence that disputes the validity of some facets of the Bigfoot phenomenon.¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸

Cryptozoology supporters have claimed that in the early days of Western exploration of the world, many native tales of local animals initially dismissed as superstition by Western scientists were later proven to have a basis in biological fact,² and that many unfamiliar animals, when initially reported, were considered hoaxes, delusions or misidentifications.²

There are several species cited as examples for continuing cryptozoological efforts:

Cryptozoologist.html

Contents

Overview

Relationship with mainstream science

Defenders

See also

Notes and references

Further reading

External links