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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Monday, May 10, 2010

LINDSAY SELBY: Some good articles on science and cryptozoology

This article tries to predict scientifically how many sea monsters may be around. It's worth a read.

Extract: Speculation as to the nature of large unknown aquatic animals has generally occurred in the absence of quantitative data and relied almost solely on eyewitness testimonial. This need not be the case. I (Paxton 1998, abstract here) estimated the number of unknown large open water marine animals awaiting discovery by science based on an assumption that the scientific description rate for unknown large aquatic animals from 1830 could be extrapolated into the future. If this is true then the cumulative species description rate can be modelled as a rectangular hyperbola (Figure Two) and an estimate of the number of large unknown open water marine animals could be made.

...read the rest here :http://freespace.virgin.net/charles.paxton/Prediction.html


A great article on scientific method and cryptozoology:


Extract: The cryptozoological method


For some of our opponents, cryptozoology, just as astrology, ufology, graphology, parapsychology and tutti quanti; is not a science, but only a kind of wild goose hunt, or to say all in one word, a pseudo-science (Radner and Radner 1982). Curiously enough, there is no satisfying definition of what a science is (Bauer 1987). It is thus more simple to define what a pseudo-science is (and therefore, a contrario, what a true science is not): the "theory" of a pseudo-science is subjective, with concepts only accessible to "initiates"; its formalism is poor, involving few or no mathematics and logical reasoning (deduction, induction, etc.); it claims hypothesis impossible to be checked, or even proved to be wrong; it does not use the data from other disciplines; its doctrine is always the same, sometimes for centuries (whereas science is always changing, enriching itself, and sometimes questioning completely what was hitherto considered as sure); last but not least, its conception of the world is in contradiction with the law generally admitted of physics, if not with common sense (Alcock 1981).What about cryptozoology from this point of view ? It appears that it has nothing in common with pseudo-sciences (Raynal 1989):


Read the rest here: http://pagesperso-orange.fr/cryptozoo/welcome.htm


EDITOR'S NOTE: Both Michel and Charles are CFZ members, and it is a pleasure to spotlighht their work in any way that we can..

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Charles Paxton and I have gotten into some firece and horrible arguments over his article. I had made several statements which he took exception to, in particular drawing attention to the fact that both Heuvelmans and Sanderson reported the species of vertebrates were increasing all the time as new species were being discovered and that making estimates on how many species remained to be discovered (or at such a rate they could be predicted to continue to be discovered) is not a new thing but goes back to the origin of Cryptozoology. I also stated strong reservations over the ttempt owing to the fact that there is no good agreement on how many species there actually are living now, and estimates vary by orders of magnitude. Hence an estimation that three new species of seals could be expected to be discovered skis up to thirty species, going on the differences between splitters' and lumpers' estimated numbers of living species in total. It can be that much of a difference.