WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

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, June 11, 2012

CREATIONISM A "CULTURAL SIGNIFIER"

The following article is one of the most significant things I havce read in a long time. Why? Because it expresses succinctly what I have often vaguely thought. That belief in Evolution, Creationism, or even Cryptozoology is often not a belief at all, but a Cultural Signifier. I had never heard that term before, but it is a good one. I have often thought that when someone says to me that "I believe in the Loch Ness Monster", they don't mean that at all. They mean "I am not narrow minded" or "my mind is open to a host of different possibilities", or sometimes "look how unconventional I am" or even "I take drugs, me". Very seldom do they mean that they have studied the problem in depth, read all the available literature, and them made a conscious decidsion based on a deep stufy of all the empirical evidence.

I have said this on a number of occasions and pissed off quite a few people in doing so. But I never considered that a professed belief in Creationism is equally a cultural signifier. Read this article carefully; it opens a whole slew of cans of worms. And by the way, yes I do believe in God, and no I am not a Creationist.

...THE fact is that belief in evolution has virtually no real-life impact on anything. That's why 46% of the country can safely choose not to believe it: their lack of belief has precisely zero effect on their lives. Sure, it's a handy way of saying that they're God-fearing Christians — a "cultural signifier," as Andrew puts it — but our lives are jam-packed with cultural signifiers. This is just one of thousands, one whose importance probably barely cracks America's top 100 list.

Read on...

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