Over 15 years of ocean science and conservation online
Below are all the other blogs that have joined in on our week long adventure into an Ocean of Pseudoscience. Ya Like Dags? – There’s an Ocean of Pseudoscience Out There Arthropoda – Ocean of Pseudoscience Week Cephalove – News flash: Octopuses are actually psychic Observations of a Nerd – Ocean of Pseudoscience: Sharks DO … Read More “An Ocean of Pseudoscience Linkfest” »
One of the most famous “sea monsters” of all time – so famous that her outline graces the Ocean of Pseudoscience Week logo – actually lives in a lake. I’m talking, of course, about “Nessie”, the Loch Ness monster.
Local reports of a bizarre creature inhabiting the Scottish lake go back over a thousand years, but the story became popularized in the 1930’s when Dr. Robert Kenneth Wilson took a now-famous photograph.
Legend goes that just as the sun sets below the horizon, a flash of green light appears to kiss the day goodbye. Sailors say that when the flash appears, it means a soul has crossed over. Jules Verne wrote that those who witnessed it could no longer be deceived because he could read the thoughts of others. Admiral Byrd supposedly saw one that lasted 35 minutes. For a full record of sightings, see here. But is this really stuff of legend or a real phenomenon in the sky?
In 1971, a group of people known as the Tasaday were discovered on a remote island of the Phillipines known as Mindanao. They wore leafy loincloths and subsisted off what the forest could provide, possessing no knowledge of tobacco, corn, rice, or domesticated animals. They spoke a new dialect of Malay-Philipino language that included no word for outsiders, war, weapon, or enemy, giving them the title ‘The Gentle Tasaday’. The family unit was nuclear and the community has no formal organization or government outside of some loose food-sharing networks.
Today, Tasaday life is way different and matches more modern tribal life in the Phillipines, as documented on their website. The question is, however, whether this modernization was normal development post-contact or whether there was a hoax involved.
Georg Wilhelm Steller was a highly influential 18th century German naturalist who explored the coasts of Russia and Alaska. During his career, he described many species, including the northern fur seal, sea otter, Steller’s sea lion, Steller’s eider, spectacled cormorant, and the now extinct giant Steller’s sea cow. In addition to his many observed findings, he also described a fat, hairy creature with a dog-like head that he termed Simia marina, the sea ape.
Read More “Our favorite sea monsters – Steller’s Sea Ape (#7)” »
Charlie dons his beret and Julbo mountain goggles as he gets ready to bust some ocean myths
Chapter 6 of the classic Moby Dick by Herman Melville, summarized in verse. Read along with us and discuss this chapter or the book as a whole in the comments. The Street Walking the streets of New Bedford, Ishmael stumbles among the vast sea of seamen, harpooners traveling across the world to hunt the giant, … Read More “Finding Melville’s Whale: Chapter 6 – The Street” »
Pseudoscience. The world is full of it. From acupuncture to cryptozoology to ghosts and homeopathy, sometimes it’s harmless and sometimes it’s not. The major trend that runs through all pseudoscience is that the anecdote trumps data. So what if the data indicate that Bigfoot ain’t real, I saw one! It must be true! The ocean … Read More “It’s an Ocean of Pseudoscience Week!” »
Chapter 5 of the classic Moby Dick by Herman Melville, summarized in verse. Read along with us and discuss this chapter or the book as a whole in the comments. Breakfast In good spirits Ishmael seeks his breakfast. The bar room filled with whalers, tired from their night ashore, cheerful and bountiful. Shore-leave echoes in … Read More “Finding Melville’s Whale: Chapter 5 – Breakfast” »
Hmm, I wonder why Charlie is reading that book…