Abominable Science
Page 1
ABOMINABLE SCIENCE!
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2013 Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero
All rights reserved
E-ISBN: 978-0-231-52681-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Loxton, Daniel, 1975–
Abominable science! : origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and other famous cryptids/Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-15320-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-231-52681-4 (e-book)
1. Cryptozoology. 2. Animals, Mythical. 3. Pseudoscience. I. Prothero, Donald R. II. Title.
QL88.3.L69 2013
001.944—dc23
2013008424
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-ebook@columbia.edu.
COVER DESIGN: PHILIP PASCUZZO (PEPCOSTUDIO.COM)
COVER IMAGE: DANIEL LOXTON
BOOK DESIGN: VIN DANG
The foreword appeared in a modified form in Scientific American, and other material appeared in a modified form in Skeptic magazine and on Skepticblog.org.
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the authors nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO
Ronald Binns, David Daegling, Benjamin Radford, Joe Nickell, Blake Smith, Karen Stollznow, Darren Naish, Sharon Hill, Matt Crowley, and all the brave skeptics who have blazed the trail of scientific inquiry in cryptozoology despite the tremendous cultural pressures to follow the crowd and give in to easy answers
CONTENTS
Foreword by Michael Shermer
Preface
Acknowledgments
CRYPTOZOOLOGY
REAL SCIENCE OR PSEUDOSCIENCE?
BIGFOOT
THE SASQUATCH
THE YETI
THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN
NESSIE
THE LOCH NESS MONSTER
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SEA SERPENT
FROM HIPPOCAMP TO CADBOROSAURUS
MOKELE MBEMBE
THE CONGO DINOSAUR
WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE IN MONSTERS?
THE COMPLEXITY OF CRYPTOZOOLOGY
Notes
Index
FOREWORD
SHOW ME THE BODY
IN JANUARY 2003, the world lost the creators of two of its most celebrated bio-hoaxes in modern times: Douglas Herrick, father of the risibly ridiculous jackalope (half jack rabbit, half antelope), and Raymond L. Wallace, godfather of the less absurd and more widely believed Bigfoot. The jackalope enjoins laughter in response to such peripheral hokum as hunting licenses sold only to those whose IQs range between 50 and 72, bottles of the rare but rich jackalope milk, and additional evolutionary hybrids like the jackapanda. Bigfoot, though, while occasionally eliciting an acerbic snicker, enjoys greater plausibility for a simple evolutionary reason: large, hirsute apes presently roam the forests of Africa, and at least one species of a giant ape—Gigantopithecus—flourished several hundred thousand years ago alongside our early human ancestors. Footprints in the mud really did mean that another bipedal primate was lurking about.
Is it possible that a real Bigfoot lives despite the confession by Wallace’s family, after his death, that the tracks found by one of his employees were just a practical joke by a fun-loving prankster—a guy in an ape suit? Certainly. After all, although proponents of Bigfoot do not dispute the evidence that Wallace tromped around in strap-on Shaq-o-size wooden feet, they correctly note that tales of the giant Yeti living in the Himalayas and Native American lore about Sasquatch wandering around the Pacific Northwest emerged long before Wallace pulled his prank in 1958.
Throughout much of the twentieth century, it was entirely reasonable to speculate about and search for Bigfoot, as it was to look for the monsters of Loch Ness and other lakes and to investigate the visits to Earth by extraterrestrials. Science traffics in the soluble, so while jackalopes do not warrant our limited exploratory resources, for a time these other creatures did.
The study of animals whose existence has yet to be proved is known as “cryptozoology,” a term coined in the late 1950s by the Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans. Cryptids, or hidden animals, begin life as muddy footprints, blurry photographs, grainy videos, and anecdotes about strange things that go bump in the night. Cryptids come in many forms, including the aforementioned giant pongid and lake monsters, as well as sea serpents, giant octopi, snakes, birds, and even living dinosaurs (the most famous being Mokele Mbembe, purportedly slogging through the rivers and lakes of the Congo Basin in Central and West Africa).
The reason that cryptids merit our attention is that there have been enough discoveries of previously unknown animals by scientists based on local anecdotes and folklore that we cannot dismiss all claims a priori. The most famous examples include the gorilla in 1847 (and the mountain gorilla in 1902), the giant panda in 1869, the okapi (a short-necked relative of the giraffe) in 1901, the Komodo dragon in 1912, the bonobo (or pygmy chimpanzee) in 1929, the megamouth shark in 1976, the giant gecko in 1984, the beaked whale in 1991, and the spindlehorn ox from Vietnam in 1992. Cryptozoologists are especially proud of the catch in 1938 of a coelacanth, an archaic-looking fish believed by zoologists to have gone extinct in the Cretaceous period, as if to say “See, Bigfoot really is out there, and we just have to keep looking.”
Although discoveries of new species of bugs and bacteria are routinely published in the annals of biology, the gorilla, beaked whale, and other examples are startling because of their recentness, size, and commonality to the famous Bigfoot, Nessie, Mokele Mbembe, and other cryptids. But all of them have one thing in common—a body! In order to name a new species, taxonomists must have a type specimen—a holotype—from which a detailed description can be made, photographs taken, models cast, and a professional scientific analysis published.
Anecdotes are a good place to begin an investigation, but anecdotes by themselves do not constitute a new species. In fact, in the words of the social scientist Frank J. Sulloway—words that should be elevated to a maxim: “Anecdotes do not make a science. Ten anecdotes are no better than one, and a hundred anecdotes are no better than ten.”
I employ Sulloway’s maxim every time I encounter Bigfoot hunters, Loch Ness seekers, or alien abductees. Their anecdotal tales make for gripping narratives, but they do not make for sound science. After a century of searching for these chimerical creatures, until a body is produced skepticism is the appropriate response. So whenever someone regales you with such stories, I recommend the following rejoinder: “That’s nice. Show me the body.”
In Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids, two of today’s leading skeptical thinkers have teamed up to produce a marvelous history and science of all matters cryptozoological. Daniel Loxton—editor, writer, and illustrator of Junior Skeptic; regular contributor of investigative pieces to Skeptic and other skeptical publications; and author of books and articles on many of the elusive creatures that fascinated our ancestors and compel our attention—offers new insights that I have not encountered before in the skeptical literature. Donald Prothero—trained in paleontology, biology, and geology, and writer of crystal-clear scientific prose readable by anyone with just a modicum of curiosity—brings to the field fresh ideas on how to think about these storied creatures, which may or may not exist, and illuminat
es how scientists think about such matters.
Together, Loxton and Prothero have written what may well be the most important work to date on cryptozoology, taking its rightful place in the annals of skeptical literature in particular and scientific literature in general. Abominable Science! is the defining work on cryptozoology of our generation.
MICHAEL SHERMER
PREFACE
THIS BOOK EMERGED from our very different but complementary experiences and backgrounds in cryptozoology. For that reason, we chose to write each chapter separately and maintain our individual voices, describing our personal experiences in our respective chapters.
Daniel Loxton (chapters 2, 4, 5, and 7) brings with him a lifelong love of monster mysteries and a sense of fellowship with all those who seek to solve them. He spent his childhood obsessed with cryptids—engrossed in the school library, planning his future monster-hunting expeditions, or passionately arguing with the other kids on the playground about the Sasquatch or the Loch Ness monster. When he discovered the skeptical literature while in high school and university, Loxton learned about the other, lesser-known half of the cryptozoological story, but never lost the sense of curiosity and adventure that brought him to the topic in the first place. Today, he writes as a “professional skeptic” with a special interest in cryptozoology. In that role, he secretly hopes (or at least wishes) that some of those he critiques may turn out to be right after all.
Donald Prothero (chapters 1, 3, 6, and 7 [all with contributions by Loxton]) approached this topic in a different way. He was one of those kids who got hooked on dinosaurs at age four, but never wavered in his determination to become a paleontologist. During his thirty years as a professional paleontologist and geologist, Prothero had to meet the hard-nosed requirements of the scientific community, according to which every statement has to meet the most rigorous standards of scientific scrutiny. In particular, the problems with creationism and its effects on science and education have been a major concern during his career. In his undergraduate education, Prothero learned the methods of field biology and ecology, so he is acquainted with the more rigorous approaches to understanding animals in their environment and the techniques and assumptions that modern field zoologists employ. Prothero’s background as a geologist and paleontologist in particular gives him a broader understanding of what the fossil record says and does not say, as well as how it counters the arguments of cryptozoology.
We did not attempt to make the book an encyclopedia of every known cryptid, since that would make its length prohibitive. Instead, we focused on a handful of the best-known and most-familiar examples because they require the most detailed treatment in understanding their history and debunking their myths. Most of the caveats and issues that apply to these creatures also apply to all cryptids, so discussing them all would be largely redundant.
Thus our approaches to the topic are very different, but both of us are guided by the rules of naturalistic scientific inquiry and a commitment to critical thinking and skepticism. As we point out again and again, such an approach is sorely lacking in most cryptozoological research, yet it must be applied to cryptids, as it is to the rest of science, if cryptozoologists wish to be taken seriously as scientists.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK the entire team at Columbia University Press who partnered with us on Abominable Science!: Patrick Fitzgerald, science publisher; Irene Pavitt, senior manuscript editor; Bridget Flannery-McCoy, associate editor; Jennifer Jerome, director of production and design; Vin Dang, designer; Derek Warker, publicist; and Brad Hebel, director of sales and marketing. Our deep appreciation goes to all these professionals for helping us realize our dreams for this book.
We thank Benjamin Radford, Blake Smith, Adrienne Mayor, Darren Naish, Karen Stollznow, and Sharon Hill for their reviews of the manuscript and their many helpful corrections and suggestions. Ben Radford’s help in securing some of the images is much appreciated.
We thank our wives, Cheryl Hebert and Teresa LeVelle Prothero, for their love and unwavering support during the long writing process. And we thank our children (including Erik, Zachary, and Gabriel Prothero). We hope that they will inherit a world somewhat less ignorant and anti-scientific than the one in which we grew up.
Also deserving of special mention are Michael Shermer and Pat Linse of the educational, nonprofit Skeptics Society. We thank them for their guidance, encouragement, and open-minded devotion to the spirit of scientific inquiry. A tip of the hat as well to Skeptic’s creative team, including Webmaster William Bull and illustrator Jim W. W. Smith. (Some of Jim’s work appears in this book, to its very great benefit.)
Daniel Loxton wishes as well to thank his cryptozoological counterparts John Kirk, Loren Coleman, Paul LeBlond, and Ed Bousfield for their collegiality and for their generosity in sharing sources and information.
Many people provided eyestrain and patience in hunting down key sources for this research. Special mention must be made of James Loxton’s many days of scrolling through microfilm, as well as Jason Loxton, Patrick Fisher, Stefan Bourrier, Jennifer Griffith, Greg Carr, and Colin Walsh for contributions to our research. Hans-Dieter Sues, Doug Henning, Kristjan Wager, and Matthew Kowalyk are warmly thanked for important translations. Barbara Drescher is thanked for her expert assistance on the topic of the psychology of paranormal belief. Our thanks as well to Tony Harmsworth, Charles Paxton, Peter Gillman, Michael Fredericks, Donald Glut, David Goldman, Janet Bord, Max Crowther, Stephen Cosgrove, and many others for providing or helping us to secure important images and resources for our research or for reproduction or both.
Thanks are due to Lesley Kennes and Gavin Hanke at the Royal British Columbia Museum (and Jim Cosgrove, now retired) for fielding questions and providing valuable access. The RBCM has stood in the middle of cryptid central for decades and has weathered it with good humor and just the right attitude of accessibility, outreach, and public service. Similarly, we thank Edwina Burridge, Norman Newton, and Susan Skelton of the Inverness Reference Library; Caroline Cameron, Catriona Parsons, and the Gaelic Council of Nova Scotia; and Leslie K. Overstreet and Kirsten van der Veen at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
Thank you, everyone.
EVER SINCE WE WERE YOUNGSTERS, we have been enthralled with ideas about monsters and magnificent creatures with mythic and ancient roots. Indeed, we have never really gotten over being smitten with magical beasts. That is why one of us became a writer and an illustrator of books for young readers about creatures great and small, and the other became a paleontologist who studies the history of life on Earth as revealed through fossils.
To understand the field of cryptozoology, it is necessary to appreciate the core concepts and procedures of science. We begin our investigation with a story about the sighting of one of the most famous cryptids: Bigfoot.
THE GEORGIA “BIGFOOT”
On July 9, 2008, among the usual stories of political news and celebrity scandals, the Internet and televised media were buzzing with a report of two men who supposedly had found a body of Bigfoot in the woods of northern Georgia. In this age of electronic media, the discoverers’ account was posted on YouTube before it was even covered by the conventional televised news or newspapers. The images were blurry and difficult to decipher, but the insatiable twenty-four-hour news and Internet cycle demands filler with some sort of content, no matter how suspicious. Major mainstream media—including the BBC, CNN, ABC News, and Fox News—gave the story considerable coverage.1 Even if some news announcers read this, like other Bigfoot stories, with a tone of incredulity or mocking sarcasm, the media nonetheless reported the Georgia Bigfoot story—and provided many of the Bigfoot “experts” with an opportunity to claim their Warholian “fifteen minutes of fame” by testifying to the existence of the creature.
The two discoverers of the Georgia Bigfoot, Rick Dyer and Matthew Whitton, were soon celebrities, interviewed repeatedly on television and for stories posted on the Internet.2 Searching for Bi
gfoot, Inc., a cryptozoological organization dedicated to proving that Bigfoot is real, paid them $50,000 for their evidence. The head of the organization, Tom Biscardi, a long-controversial Bigfoot “hunter,”3 examined their find and endorsed it.4 Biscardi has his own radio show, which promotes paranormal ideas, and he interviewed Dyer and Whitton on the show. Finally, on August 15, Biscardi, Dyer, and Whitton held a press conference5 and displayed the body of Bigfoot for examination, frozen on blocks of ice.6 When the specimen was thawed, it turned out that the corpse was not real, but a rubber Sasquatch Halloween costume with fake hair, padded and propped up to look like a Bigfoot. Dyer and Whitton soon admitted that their discovery had been a hoax all along, telling Atlanta’s WSB-TV that they had “bought a costume off the Internet and filled it with possum roadkill and slaughterhouse leftovers.”7
Once the deception was revealed, the story died in the mainstream media, but members of the community of Bigfoot “researchers” were at one another’s throats over the debacle. Loren Coleman, a leading cryptozoologist, argued that Biscardi had been either in on the hoax or so anxious to find proof of his beliefs that he ignored the obvious evidence even when it was in front of him. “He’s a huckster, a circus ringmaster,” Coleman said.8 “It’s all about money with him. It probably didn’t matter to him whether it was real or not.” Why would Dyer, a former security guard, and Whitton, a Clayton County police officer, pull the stunt in the first place? “They probably started out small, as a way to promote their Bigfoot tracking business, and got in way over their heads,” Coleman said. “These are not very intelligent individuals.” Of Biscardi and the “discoverers,” Coleman commented, “In a way, both sides may have been trying to out-con each other.” The Bigfoot Field Research Organization called for the arrest of the three principals in the fiasco. Whitton was fired from the police force for his part in the stunt.9