Belief And Science

I was thinking of my own role in the Shunka Warak'in cryptid (mystery animal) saga. Read more about that animal and the latest developments in my Paranormal Montana blog and at Loren Coleman's Cryptomundo.I was a cryptozoology nerd kid in the late 60s and through the 70s (I was 10 in 1970), looking for Bigfoot stuff, the Loch Ness monster, reading about the Hills' UFO experiences, ghosts, druids, witches, and magic and anything woowoo I could find. But Spock was also a hero in no small part due to his logic, and Bones the skeptic was cool much of the time too. I haven't changed that much. Still into things woowoo but my logical and skeptical side tempers my enthusiasm. Around true believers I am a hardboiled egg; around skeptics I like to be goofy and let my trickster out. I like to have fun, and BOTH rationality and irrationality are part of the human condition, like it or not. We have to be prepared for cryptozoology, for ghosts, for anything considered to be paranormal, to be multiexplanational (is that a word? LOL) That is, just as the UFO phenomenon is a mixture of folklore, misidentified planets/stars/airplanes etc., misperceptions, hallucinations, hoaxes, etc., with what is left over simply unexplained..or apparently Fortean in some way...so cryptozoology isn't an "all or nothing" endeavor. The choices are not just "I believe" or "it's all BS." There's a lot more to consider.I have enjoyed many of the posts on perception, psychology, illusions, suggestibility, the reliability of witnesses, equipment issues etc. on the British ASSAP site, which mostly deals with phantoms and apparitions, but also includes UFOs and Forteana. My own approach to investigating such things is probably closer to ASSAP's than anything else I have come across so far. I am no scoftic nor am I a woowoo, that is the abuse of skepticism (scoftics) and the abuse of belief (woowoo) (check out Cryptomundo for a rip-roarin' discussion).Whatever one thinks of cryptozoology, there have been enough cryptids which have been proven to exist by science (coelacanth, okapi, mountain gorilla, and the many smaller species found in the last few years too) that cryptozoology existing as a true branch of natural history is no longer in doubt.However, IF cryptozoology is proposed to be amenable to scientific inquiry, then skepticism is an inevitable part of it. Is cryptozoology a matter of science (inquiry, the scientific method, skepticism, replicability of results, materialism, empiricism, etc.) or is it a matter of belief and religion (scripture, the prophets, revelation, immaterialism, faith)? Or is it, really some of both? Does it vary by adherent/inquirer?We know that cryptozoology EXISTS as an area of interest to many. But what is it? What is it to you?

Source: we-are-believe.blogspot.com