I had a monster plesiosaur whale of a time last night chairing a meeting at the Zoological Society of London on cryptozoology, and thought I ought to scribble a few words about the proceedings before I am submerged by other duties.
The meeting asked the question – is cryptozoology a science or a pseudoscience? I suspect that most people would veer to the latter view. After all, cryptozoology tends to group with aliens as subjects likely to attract muesli. There is, however, a movement of scientific sympathy towards the study of unknown animals, given that it should be the business of scientists to study unknown things – a tendency with which I have much sympathy, which presumably explains why I was asked to chair the proceedings.
A scientist who creates an hypothesis (which is, let’s face it, any and all scientists) is engaging in an act of willful world-creation, speculating ahead of the evidence – necessarily so – about what might be Out There. If cryptozoology is a science, then, it should be possible to create hypotheses about the kinds of unknown creatures that might lurk somewhere in the world, and the chances of finding such things. This was the concern of the first speaker, Michael Woodley. Woodley is an ‘independent scholar’ – a term that usually makes the blood of editors run cold – but then even those card-carrying scientists that are interested in cryptozoology tend to pursue this activity outside working hours, the availability of grants for hunting for monstrous marginalia being somewhat sparse. However, he’s teamed up with Darren Naish from the University of Portsmouth – the third speaker in the session, bone bona fide palaeontologist and blogger – to assess various cryptozoological problems (you can find a relevant example here: warning – contains citations to real papers in the peer-reviewed literature.)
Woodley has been working out the likelihood of discovering various sorts of unknown creature by plotting the rate of discovery of new species in the group in question – in this case, which I’ll come to in a minute – pinnipeds, that is, seals and sealions. Discoveries tend to follow a sigmoid pattern, being slow to begin with, then picking up rapidly as more scientists devote more effort to collecting and classifying, and then tapering off. The curve for pinnipeds, as it happens, has not quite plateau’d out: there could be anything between zero and around twenty new species of pinniped remaining to be discovered, but the likelihood is that the number is definitely more than zero. In which case, it could be that some reports of long-necked creatures in the sea could be reports of long-necked pinnipeds.
But what about those reports? How reliable are they? This was the question posed by the second speaker, Dr Charles Paxton of the University of St Andrews. In his day job, Dr Paxton wonders how various surveys of difficult-to-find sea creatures, such as whales, can tell one anything useful about ecology and population biology, so it’s not too much of a stretch for him to apply his statistical knowledge to analyzing reports of sightings of ‘sea monsters’. The plural of ‘anecdote’, he contends, might be ‘data’: by collating reports of sea-monster sightings, Paxton can say quite a bit about the inherent biases of observers, a factor that might be of more general use. For example, he’s discovered that people, in general, underestimate distances – sea monsters in one’s recollection appear much closer than they are. He’s even tested this idea experimentally, creating a body of data, underpinned by controlled study, that exposes systematic bias in reports of strange creatures, at least at sea.
Et finalement, Dr Darren Naish, who elegantly debunked the view that unknown sea monsters might be relic populations of plesiosaur, because plesiosaur necks did not, actually, move in the sinuous, swan-like way described in sea-monster sightings – such images owe their inspiration to older, outdated views of plesiosaur palaeobiology. Adherents of the relic-plesiosaur view sometimes say that if living fossils such as the coelacanth exist, then why shouldn’t plesiosaurs have likewise been absent from the fossil record, surviving until modern times? It’s a fair question – but one that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Plesiosaur fossils are not uncommon throughout the Mesozoic, before their extinction 65 million years ago last Wednesday. Their bones are large, heavy and diagnostic. It is therefore unlikely that plesiosaurs swam through the oceans for the entire 65-million-year span of subsequent history without leaving any fossils at all. Coelacanths, in contrast, were always rare, and now have a Cenozoic record, so the comparison between coelacanths and plesiosaurs is inappropriate.
And then there’s parsimony. When deciding how to classify a sea monster, it’s always better to veer towards more credible solutions (whales, seals) than less credible ones (plesiosaurs and so on). It’s almost always the case that a sea monster turns out to be something already known, or, if not, then something related to something already known. A plesiosaur described as having fur and whiskers is more likely to be a seal than a plesiosaur that has spent 65 million years evolving such structures de novo. Naish looked at the particular case of Cadborosaurus, a long, sinuous sea-serpent from British Columbia (seemingly a haunt of many strange and exotic beings), sighted many times and supposedly authenticated by a carcass photographed in 1937 which has since been lost – ruling out the possibility of examination to see if it might be something more likely, such as a heavily rotted basking shark. Reports of a ‘baby’ Cadborosaurus are more plausibly interpreted as a misidentified species of pipefish.
So, yes, it’s possible to apply critical thinking to cryptozoology, and so make some headway. But there’s a problem – as soon as a former cryptozoological being emerges into evidential reality, it is removed from the purview of cryptozoology and becomes the subject of a mainstream science, namely zoology. It seems hard to believe that the okapis and gorillas that attract visitors to London Zoo were, once upon a time, barely-believed subjects of travelers’ tales. This distinction seems rather unfair, as it condemns cryptozoology to be forever on the fringes. The proceedings yesterday at the ZSL, based in all cases on previous publications in respectable per-reviewed journals, suggest to me that it’s time, I think, to admit cryptozoology to the table of zoology.
UPDATE: Darren Naish has posted an account of the meeting here.
Thought you should know: http://overcompensating.com/posts/20110608.html
Congratulations! This does sound like an important and significant meeting. All kinds of things I presume happen on my birthday, but to see you had THIS gathering was very encouraging to forwarding the discussion of cryptozoology as a science. Of course, Bernard Heuvelmans declared it as such decades ago, and he is turning in his grave at the notion of a question mark being attached to such comments.
In defence of one of my colleagues, I should note that Michael shouldn’t really have described himself as an ‘independent researcher’: most/all of the research he reported at the meeting was carried out while he was a doctoral researcher at Royal Holloway. He received his PhD a few weeks ago, and hence (right now) is ‘between’ institutions (I understand that he has set up, or is in the process of setting up, a post-doc). Anyway, nice write-up and thanks again for performing so ably as chair.
Thanks for that, Darren – my apologies to all concerned.
Damn, that sounds like it was fun. Did Woodley discuss the effects of sampling effort on his curves?
Yes, but I can’t remember the details. Paxton certainly incorporated it into the models he created of the optimum distance monsters are expected to be seen from boats – the further from the boat, the more sea you take in, but visibility falls off.
Actually, coming to think of i, I don’t think Woodley talked about sampling effort. He was plotting dates of discovery of members of specific groups e.g. pinnipeds and watching as the discoveries tail off. Sampling effort would be very hard to quantify, I guess, as one is essentially talking about chance findings of rare things.
That creates an obvious problem. I would guess that the amount of sea traffic, or the number of aquatic zoologists in a region could be used as proxies. Not easy, though.
I’m sure these issues were discussed with Paxton at the ISEC meeting in 2008. I remember his talk there – he had the additional problem that some “discoveries” were the result of the activities of systematist splitters.
Do any of these conferences have papers on the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and the like? Or are they too fringe for even these fringies?
I don’t know – this was the first meeting on cryptozoology I’ve attended, and this one was all about marine creatures (and a little bit of Nessie. Sort of). I have to say that there was a lot of time for discussion afterwards, which I conducted a a panel discussion between the audience and the speakers. The questions were very intelligent and reasoned, as were the answers. It was pretty sane and sober.
Charles Paxton was interviewed by Quentin Cooper concerning the ZSL meeting on this week’s Material World on Radio 4. You can hear it here (starts about 20 minutes in.)
Concerning Bob O’H's question on whether or not I covered sampling effort in my talk – I discussed it in the context of the limitations associated with curve fitting/cumulative discovery/description modelling. Thus far, all of the (somewhat limited) literature on this topic has assumed equal sampling effort, however this is obviously an oversimplification. Current research by Paxton et al. into improving these models is focussing on the development of indices to account for differences in effort, which will hopefully make future predictions more robust.
I would also like to thank Darren for clarifying my standing – I choose to describe myself as an ‘independent researcher’ as I am currently between affiliations so to speak and could not think of a more appropriate term.
Thanks for that, Michael!
A bit late, but thanks for this clarification. I’d be interested to see what cokes out of using those indices – it’s related to some work I’d doing on species distributions.
Current monstrous efforts are
1. Monique Mackenzie and I have a paper in prep where we introduce a dodgy surrogate for sampling effort in discovery curves and partially deal with detectability. Splitting of species by molecular wotnots rather mucks everything up though. We also breakdown discoveries by broad taxon and region.
2. Carl Donovan and I have another in prep doing a multivariate analysis of sea monster sightings compared to reports of real animals. This is the biggy and we should be finished by the end of summer.
3. *Initial* (as opposed to *nearest*) report distance in freshwater and marine accounts (the stuff I talked about at ZSL)
4. And then another paper looking at repeatability in monster accounts (i.e. how consistent are reports by different witnesses and by the same witness at different times).
5. Way into the future would be multivariate analysis of freshwater reports too
The trouble is time!! I forgot to ask if there were any reclusive millionaires in the ZSL audience prepared to fund my research. That is what happens on TV. Nor have I been approached by secret government departments.
I have a friend who wants to contact you offline. He tried to land his black helicopter on a beach in Wales but was chased off by this stroppy Welsh woman with a bazooka.
I remember a discussion about species splitting at ISEC in St. Andrews. How are you dealing with that?
Aagh! I’m now thinking about how to model the activities of molecular wotnot splitters.
Sounds like cryptozoology and astrobiology are bedfellows.
In the discussion, one member of the audience did point out that the people who yearn for cryptids are sometimes the same that long for aliens to be discovered. The difference is that astrobiology is respectable enough to command $$$ in grants, whereas cryptozoology remains a fortean indulgence. Why should this be? I suggest that it’s for the same reason that evolutionary biology is seen as a rather poor relation of molecular and cell biology. The latter need huge expensive machines that go ‘ping’, and is therefore seen as more relevant and cutting-edge, whereas evolutionary biology only needs a butterfly net and a pair of wellies. Scientists and their funders are like anyone else – easily impressed by displays of conspicuous wealth.
I lean heavily to considering cryptozoology a pseudoscience. Once an organism is shown to actually exist, it automatically becomes regular zoology, and even an hypothesis positing the existence of a fabled organism requires some evidence. The continual failure to find evidence, and even clear fraudulent evidence for some of these creatures does not seem to matter for the cryptozoological enthusiasts. And it should be pointed out that there is not comparable field of cryptobotany, yet botanists just found the Wollemia pine. The asymmetry alone tells you a lot; cryptozoology is the stuff of legends dressed up in a prom dress. A colleague once hosted, unbeknownst to the rest of us, a meeting of cryptozoology here in North America, and after looking at all the crazy alien/area 51 displays and the like, I headed home, but ran into a fellow with CRYPTO emblazoned on his cap. “I’m lost”, says he. “How appropriate”, says I.
actually, there are some pretty surrealistic botanic cryptids. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptobotany
whereas some cryptids do actually have some plausability and a smaller still group has evidence that (may) hint to their existence but does not outright prove it. It is always good to be sceptical of evidence but in primatology alone most new discoveries are based upon localized, anecdotal reports. The same is true of artiodactyls. The flashy, giant-killer-pterodactyl cryptids and anatomically ridiculous animals like the Yowie are almost certainly fiction, but simply because some reports of new animals are bizarre does not mean the entire field should be stigmatized as a pseudoscience.
Teh Grauniad covered it here.
My correspondent, Professor Trellis of North Wales, who alerted me to this piece (I rarely read the Grauniad, you see) was most amused by this line:
How typical of teh Grauniad to be inaccurate. My T-shirt most definitely was not scruffy. It was clean on that morning.
But srsly, one might legitimately ask what the ‘official’ Nature view might be were we to receive a paper reporting the discovery of a cryptid. In short, evidence. For Bigfoot, there is none, and given that people have been looking for it for a long time, I suspect that it doesn’t exist. The same for Yetis, Sasquatch and so on. One should, however, keep an open mind – evidence might be presented, one day, that is verifiable and can be made available to anyone who wants it (a standard condition of acceptance of any paper in Nature). We published the paper on the saola based on skulls, horns and skins. These days I suspect molecular evidence would come to the fore, as in the identification of the recently extinct hominin ‘Denisovans‘. Time was when, if asked for our standard of evidence, I might have responded (in jest of course) ‘Bring Me The Head of
Richard P GrantOrang Pendek’ but these days you can go a long way with molecules without decapitating anything.News just in: Darren Naish has posted an account of the meeting here:
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