Who said anything about building a career out of it? From what I understand, cryptozoology isn’t a full time occupation, but a sideline. A zoologist might list “cryptozoology” as ONE of the fields he studies in addition to his other duties. Nobody does it full time.
My point is that by this token it can’t be considered to be a legitimate “field” of study. There are few if any legitimate zoologists (that is, trained academics with advanced degrees, who have jobs as professional zoologists in academia or in well-recognized research organizations, and who regularly publish in the peer-reviewed literature) who would ever think of listing “cryptozoology” among their fields of study. It is not an academically recognized field.
Damn, whooshed by a Simpsons reference. I must be gettin’ old.
And it was so casually thrown in there too.
Nor is it likely to be when academia is as rigidly departmentalized as it is. It’s a bit of fun to work on when you are on vacation, especially if you can get somebody else to pay for your search for a mokele-mbembe. And face it, these guys aren’t stealing your funding because whoever finances a search for the Nessie isn’t likely to care about Panamanian hummingbirds. 
But sometimes somebody might get lucky.
Crypto-zoologists sure have used the hell out of that Vietnamese ox to validate their field. The thing is though, that I never heard any of these types promoting this ox before it was discovered. I all ever hear about is plesiosaurs in Scotland, ten-foot ape men in California and the like. Was this ox at the top of the fantastical beasts list that crypto-zoologists aggressively promoted, but the cold, closed-minded world wouldn’t listen to? Or is it something that was discovered by real zoologists and then the faithful latched onto the discovery as some kind of proof that the fantastical creatures they claim exist must also be real?
Same deal with the coelacanth.
I think this is very true. Cryptozoologists expand the definition of cryptozoology to include the discovery of species such as the sao la, coelacanth, or some new kind of parrot specifically in order to legitimize their own investigations of yetis and lake monsters. An important difference is that the real animals were usually not suspected of existing at all before their discovery, whereas the more fantastical ones have been investigated a great deal without any positive proof of their actual existence being established.
Really? Amateurs can do real science? Maybe a century ago, but in this day and age I wouldn’t think that someone without formal credentials would be taken seriously, at least not for important things. I mean I know that most comets are discovered by amateurs, but that’s mainly because real astronomers don’t bother looking for them. What sorts of things could an amateur do to make a useful contribution?
Anyhow, is it safe to say the general consensus of cryptozoology is “crackpots riding the coattails of real scientists to give themselves an air of legitimacy”?
Yes. Anyone who puts “cryptozoologist” on their CV is a crackpot. Not that the concept of looking for new species is crackpottery, just that no real scientist would think to call themselves that. Only crackpots do that, it’s a self-administered crackpot badge. If it weren’t a term used exclusively by crackpots then perhaps legitimate researchers might have taken it up (although almost certainly not), but any legitimate researcher who’s work borders on cryptozoology would be extremely careful not to associate themselves with the “I bore Bigfoot’s love child!” crowd.
As for amateurs doing real work, this is extremely common in paleontology. Amateurs work as preparators, they hunt fossils, they know the species that are common in their area, and when they find something unusual they know enough to bring in the PhDs.
Sure, why not? - I’m not a certified mechanic but I can change my spark plugs, LOL :p. Science is just a process of investigation and reporting, not a licensed privilege. And most of science is boring, mundane, geeky, unimportant stuff anyways.
But the key is getting someone to listen to your report. I don’t think anyone would unless you had some credentials to back it up. If I made a real breakthrough in theoretical physics, nobody would read my work because of my lack of education. Reviewers would probably think “What does someone with only a BS in engineering know about superstring theory?” and file it in the circular cabinet.
I know you’re being at least partially tongue in cheek here, but all the same, real research science is almost exclusively the purview of academics and professional researchers. The amount of fundamental knowledge one needs to know to even speak competently, much less make significant contributions, in any given field is simply to extensive for the hobbyist or dabbler to cover. Science is much more than just “investigation and reporting”, and in fact, while these are important aspects, the most crucial thing a scientist must to is be critical, of both his own work and that of others, hence the focus on peer review and journal research. Even the dilettante-scientists of previous days like Darwin devoted decades e primarily to the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
A semi-educated self-proclaimed cryptologist running around claiming that anything that looks vaguely like a foot imprint, on the other hand, isn’t doing any kind of legitimate, self-critical science.
Stranger
Look, you’re not going to make a breakthrough in physics if you’re some guy working in his garage. Not gonna happen. If you’re smart enough to make a breakthrough in physics, getting a PhD or two is going to be an afterthought to you. You’ll have gone into a PhD program as a matter of course.
A guy working on physics in his garage doesn’t even know what problems might be interesting. These guys typically want to disprove Einstein or Quantum Mechanics or some such, but unless you freaking UNDERSTAND Einstein in the first place you’re not going to have much luck disproving relativity.
But Paleontology is different. You go out to a likely site, wander around in an organized manner, dig up some interesting speciments, take them back to the lab, clean them up, and look them over. Anyone can do this, and amateurs unearth new species all the time, or find really important speciments. All the time. PhD professional paleontologists just don’t have the time to spend months wandering around kicking over rocks.
But this isn’t to say that if you’re an amateur who’s made an interesting discovery that you’ll send it in to the journals by yourself. Rather, you’ll have a partner who IS a PhD union card carrying paleontologist. They’ll act as your editor and partner, or maybe you’ll do most of the lab work and they’ll write it up in scientificese. You might not be listed as the primary author, but what do you want? To discover a new species, show a new range of a species, find an incredible display specimen…or is hogging all the credit for yourself more important?
It seems like this would be very easy to answer. Which accredited universities offer a degree in cryptozoology?
Googling for “degree in cryptozoology” provides a bunch of links from people lamenting that it can’t be done, and one person who claims to have a degree in cryptozoology from a correspondence course.
Well, yes,you are correct in that the name “cryptozoology” is not generally considered legit. But the field is. Witness scientists who hunt for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker and the thylacine.
Actually, since it’s considered poor form for someone who describes a species to name it after him, the amateur who discovers a new species has a much better change to have it named after him if he is not one of the authors at all.
Plenty of amateurs make contributions in ornithology as well. In fact, I have collaborated regularly with a couple of MDs who formerly lived here in Panama who were very keen birdwatchers and kept meticulous notes on their observations. I’ve included them as coauthors on a couple of recent publications.
One of the most famous neotropical ornithologists, the late Ted Parker, never got an advanced degree but identified many new species simply by recognizing that their calls were different. He wrote some of these up himself, but many others were described by academic collaborators.
As has repeatedly been said, there is no “field” of cryptozoology, and in any case by the dictionary definition searches for known animals don’t really qualify.
Paleontology is far more than “wander[ing] around in an organized manned, dig[ging] up some interesting specimens…and look[ing] them over.” That’s grunt work for beginning graduate students and amateur enthusiasts. The science of paleontology involves an extensive knowledge of geography, geophysics, biology, and biomechanics, as well as steady exposure to regular discoveries and proposed hypotheses in the field and adjoining fields, something an amateur is unlikely to have either the time nor consistent inclination to learn and keep up on. As with your physicist example, if you’ve got the ability to do all this and make novel, substantial contributions to the field then you can pick up a Ph.D. with little extra effort, and grant money to boot that would not be available to an unlettered enthusiast. Being a lab technician or research assistant is not the same as being a primary investigator-type scientist.
“Writ[ing] it up in scientificese” (i.e. using the jargon for the field, making references to the relevent texts and papers, connecting the discovery to previous information and formulating a hypothesis) is what distinguishes the enthusiastic layman from the professional scientist. Having a Ph.D. isn’t a requirement for publication in any journal of which I’m aware; while having a doctorate prominently listed among the authors certainly garners a certain gravatis or respect, it’s most often done because it’s the Ph.D. who pulls in grant money from which most research is funded. Plenty of good work is done by graduate-level scientists-in-training, and on occasion a doctorial thesis ends up being one of those ground-breaking discoveries. But for someone to come completely out of obscurity, having done no prior published or peer-reviewed work in the field and claim to have a novel concept would require extraordinary evidence to overcome the lack of credibility.
And in science, yes, credit is all-important; in fact, it’s often the only reward a scientist will have; it speaks to one’s credibilty, or lack thereof, to be honest and forthright about whose idea it was and where it came from. Sharing the credit with someone to which it is not due is just as disingenous as trying to steal it from someone else.
So, you’re going to redefine cryptozoology to mean what you want it to mean and claim success? The methods of self-identified “cryptozoologists” are not the critical analysis of genuine scientists. Trying to broaden the label to cover both groups doesn’t make the argument any more valid. Try calling up any dozen random zoologists and ask them if they do work in, or even recognize the field of, cryptozoology. Be prepared for laughter and/or having the phone slammed down in disgust.
Stranger
Minor correction: amateur astronomers are real astronomers. I think that the phrase you were looking for is “professional astronomers.”
Of course! But that grunt work is incredibly important, and what I was trying to convey is that in paleontology a LOT of the important gruntwork is done by amateurs.
A professional paleontologist can be easily helped by amateurs, as long as he doesn’t have to pay them or fund them. Even kids can provide useful help.
Compare that to physics. If a guy showed up at the physics lab tomorrow and offered to help out any way he could for no pay, I can’t even imagine what a theoretical or experimental physicist could use him for. Getting coffee and making xeroxes? Seriously, I have no idea, even a really smart and motivated amateur would just get in the way. But if that same guy showed up at a paleontology dig he’d find himself put to work in 5 minutes. Paleontology DEPENDS on these people. And not just digs, volunteer work on collections is incredibly important too…there are generally boxes and boxes of material that has never been cataloged, there are thousands of specimens that could be prepared, and so on. You could find yourself put to work at the museum 60 hours a week if you were interested. Sure, it’s not glamorous, as you said it’s grunt work, but that grunt work has to be done. And there’s always the chance, even for an amateur, that one day you’ll open up a drawer or turn over a rock and say, “Hmmmm…that’s odd.”