Once upon a time, man was sure, to the point of killing people for saying otherwise, that the world was flat. Louis Pasteur* was ridiculed by "experts" for warning of invisible threats; they laughed about "demons" and the folly of washing hands and surgical implements - before germs were positively identified. Every moment of history has had the same mindset: "These are the most modern times ever, we know more than ever before, and there isn't much left to learn." It's oblivious, obvious idiocy, incessantly stunting the growth of knowledge.
The number of animals found alive (or very recently so) that were previously thought to be extinct or fictitious keeps growing. Coelacanth, man-eating catfish, freshwater (and river) dolphins, South American Leopards (first thought to be "ghosts" that simply took people, completely disbelieved by outsiders until found), North American Jaguars (as far north as Iceland, even), Sumatran Forest Elephants, Bili Apes (whether or not they're chimps, they are much larger, have different behaviors and build nests on the ground), the range of the North American Mountain Lion (SURPRISE!), sharks in rivers... there are too many to list, I'll put links at the end for a few (especially see the one on the Orang Pendek).
People fail to recognize the significance that in Sumatra, 400 forest elephants (ELEPHANTS!) were able to avoid human knowledge of their herds for generations (minimally). They lived, a hidden unknown, around human habitations until a cryptozoologist found them while searching for Orang Pendek (yet another Yeti/Bigfoot/Sasquatch type primate). Local villagers, who knew the forest better than anyone else could, were unaware of their presence, it took motion-capture cameras to find them. Try to tell yourself that smaller groups of more human-like apes wouldn't be better at hiding their existence from smelly, scary, noisy creatures like humans.
Many ask "If they're out there, why haven't people seen them?" in response to witness accounts. Seriously...
The two biggest hurdles to cryptozoology are people believing one or the other extreme ("Must have been a dragon!" or "Must have been a deer/hoax.") and people "knowing" more than they actually know. Either a witness sees something more unusual, the mind filling in fuzzy spots with fantasy, or someone presumes that what they've seen must have been something more common. One extreme says that just because one sighting of a particular cryptid was a hoax, all must be, the other wants too desperately to believe there is more out there, becoming too easily taken in by fakes.
Scientists often ASSume that they know the result before the research, they're trying to prove something instead of answering "what would happen if..." Even when they are good about that, there is always a hypothesis to justify an experiment. Yet, they dismiss scientists who explore the unknown, citing that they're looking for evidence to support their opinions and hold them responsible as fraudulent (or at least disproved) for each piece that is found not to be what they thought. Inconclusive evidence is treated as non-existent because there is nothing to compare it to - an unidentified species must be a problem with the test or evidence, not that the species hasn't been identified yet. Unless they capture one alive, kill and autopsy it in full view of skeptic scientists (who wouldn't be caught dead in such positions) there will be no acknowledgement of findings.
Why would one even bother putting on a labcoat if they already knew all there is to know?
Now, if you were out there searching, and discovered that there was this other species, which expends effort to hide its peaceful existence from a species of hunters and destroyers (our first act as a species was to wipe out our closest competitors, and we haven't gotten nicer), would you expose them and thus destroy their lives? So, therefore, who knows how many people may have had direct contact with other evolutionary offshoots of humanity. As K said in "Men in Black," "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
*Whether or not Pasteur was a plagiarist or any other allegations, he popularized the theory, which is all that matters to this.
LINKS!
I highly recommend "River Monsters" on Animal Planet, Jeremy Wade is great.
The Coelacanth - http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/coelacanth/
For "man-eating catfish" look up the "Paraiba," "Goonch" and "Wels Catfish" and look for yourself. http://conservationreport.com/2008/10/13/reel-big-fish-giant-catfish-in-india-turn-to-preying-on-humans/ Plenty of people staunchly insist that catfish, no matter how big, do not eat people. However, "noodling" wouldn't work if that was the case, that's a catfish WAY too small to eat a person trying to anyway, because a limb is there. Yes, places like Snopes have debunked a particular pic, which is actually of a whale shark, but that doesn't mean that people haven't been eaten by catfish, particularly in India's Kali River (with that name, why be surprised that things in it will eat you?). "River Monsters" is one of few shows on the subject that I find believable and unlikely to be fake.
http://animal.discovery.co
Freshwater Dolphins: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=requiem-for-a-freshwater-dolphin
River Dolphins: http://lilt.ilstu.edu/psanders/litsearch/riverdolphins.htm
Shockingly, we allegedly also have White Sperm Whales here in Lake Michigan! http://www.lakemichiganwhales.com/
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/series/beast-hunter/5106/Overview202#tab-facts - This is the show & episode that incidentally discovered the 400 forest elephants, although that isn't even mentioned... This page is strictly evidence regarding the Orang Pendek.
So, how sure can anyone be about what we don't know yet?
The number of animals found alive (or very recently so) that were previously thought to be extinct or fictitious keeps growing. Coelacanth, man-eating catfish, freshwater (and river) dolphins, South American Leopards (first thought to be "ghosts" that simply took people, completely disbelieved by outsiders until found), North American Jaguars (as far north as Iceland, even), Sumatran Forest Elephants, Bili Apes (whether or not they're chimps, they are much larger, have different behaviors and build nests on the ground), the range of the North American Mountain Lion (SURPRISE!), sharks in rivers... there are too many to list, I'll put links at the end for a few (especially see the one on the Orang Pendek).
People fail to recognize the significance that in Sumatra, 400 forest elephants (ELEPHANTS!) were able to avoid human knowledge of their herds for generations (minimally). They lived, a hidden unknown, around human habitations until a cryptozoologist found them while searching for Orang Pendek (yet another Yeti/Bigfoot/Sasquatch type primate). Local villagers, who knew the forest better than anyone else could, were unaware of their presence, it took motion-capture cameras to find them. Try to tell yourself that smaller groups of more human-like apes wouldn't be better at hiding their existence from smelly, scary, noisy creatures like humans.
Many ask "If they're out there, why haven't people seen them?" in response to witness accounts. Seriously...
The two biggest hurdles to cryptozoology are people believing one or the other extreme ("Must have been a dragon!" or "Must have been a deer/hoax.") and people "knowing" more than they actually know. Either a witness sees something more unusual, the mind filling in fuzzy spots with fantasy, or someone presumes that what they've seen must have been something more common. One extreme says that just because one sighting of a particular cryptid was a hoax, all must be, the other wants too desperately to believe there is more out there, becoming too easily taken in by fakes.
Scientists often ASSume that they know the result before the research, they're trying to prove something instead of answering "what would happen if..." Even when they are good about that, there is always a hypothesis to justify an experiment. Yet, they dismiss scientists who explore the unknown, citing that they're looking for evidence to support their opinions and hold them responsible as fraudulent (or at least disproved) for each piece that is found not to be what they thought. Inconclusive evidence is treated as non-existent because there is nothing to compare it to - an unidentified species must be a problem with the test or evidence, not that the species hasn't been identified yet. Unless they capture one alive, kill and autopsy it in full view of skeptic scientists (who wouldn't be caught dead in such positions) there will be no acknowledgement of findings.
Why would one even bother putting on a labcoat if they already knew all there is to know?
Now, if you were out there searching, and discovered that there was this other species, which expends effort to hide its peaceful existence from a species of hunters and destroyers (our first act as a species was to wipe out our closest competitors, and we haven't gotten nicer), would you expose them and thus destroy their lives? So, therefore, who knows how many people may have had direct contact with other evolutionary offshoots of humanity. As K said in "Men in Black," "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
*Whether or not Pasteur was a plagiarist or any other allegations, he popularized the theory, which is all that matters to this.
LINKS!
I highly recommend "River Monsters" on Animal Planet, Jeremy Wade is great.
The Coelacanth - http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/coelacanth/
For "man-eating catfish" look up the "Paraiba," "Goonch" and "Wels Catfish" and look for yourself. http://conservationreport.com/2008/10/13/reel-big-fish-giant-catfish-in-india-turn-to-preying-on-humans/ Plenty of people staunchly insist that catfish, no matter how big, do not eat people. However, "noodling" wouldn't work if that was the case, that's a catfish WAY too small to eat a person trying to anyway, because a limb is there. Yes, places like Snopes have debunked a particular pic, which is actually of a whale shark, but that doesn't mean that people haven't been eaten by catfish, particularly in India's Kali River (with that name, why be surprised that things in it will eat you?). "River Monsters" is one of few shows on the subject that I find believable and unlikely to be fake.
http://animal.discovery.co
Freshwater Dolphins: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=requiem-for-a-freshwater-dolphin
River Dolphins: http://lilt.ilstu.edu/psanders/litsearch/riverdolphins.htm
Shockingly, we allegedly also have White Sperm Whales here in Lake Michigan! http://www.lakemichiganwhales.com/
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/series/beast-hunter/5106/Overview202#tab-facts - This is the show & episode that incidentally discovered the 400 forest elephants, although that isn't even mentioned... This page is strictly evidence regarding the Orang Pendek.
So, how sure can anyone be about what we don't know yet?
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