I was wondering...

[sthomson]

The problem seems to centre on the fact that the scientists involved knew it was flawed and cherry-picked results to suit their hypothesis anyway.

I think the scientists involved would strenuously disagree with that. Like I said, there are certainly problems with the evidence they're presenting, but the researchers can probably present rational, ethical reasons for raising Koko and the other gorillas the way they do. Also, I really must point out that the main researcher involved with The Gorilla Foundation, Penny Patterson, is a Developmental Psychologist, not a linguist, biologist, or zoologist. I don't want to start a debate about the "soft sciences," but in general psychological research studies are subject to similar biases that we see in Koko's case. If you'd like to call the entire field a fraud, then that's certainly your prerogative.

 

[The Atheist]

Also, I really must point out that the main researcher involved with The Gorilla Foundation, Penny Patterson, is a Developmental Psychologist, not a linguist, biologist, or zoologist. I don't want to start a debate about the "soft sciences," but in general psychological research studies are subject to similar biases that we see in Koko's case. If you'd like to call the entire field a fraud, then that's certainly your prerogative.

Quite how we get to dismissing all of psychology from failing to accept that a psychologist has meaningful input into gorilla behaviour studies by using human standards applied to the gorillas, is a very long bow indeed.

Let's just stick at Koko being phony, whether contrived to appear otherwise or not.

 

[Correa Neto]

Regarding the kraken, wikipedia is known for being sometimes not very reliable. But every now and then we can find old illustrations and tales of animals that resemble the early kraken renderings as described by wikipedia. Its a reminder to take myths as backing for cryptos with a good ammount of care.

An extra point that must be made is that the "classic" kraken illustrations seemed to show octopus instead of squids. Well, if the matching criteria is "has tentacles" then the interpretation is OK, but I feel it is a very loose one.

As for the reports, here we have a mjor problem, since its very hard to separate nowadays what was sheer invention to spice newspapers or books from some story with a grain of reality at its core. The tale's "plausibility" sounds OK, but only at a first approach. Another possibility would be to check with what we know about the creature's habits. Under this light, a squid eating a mast may be hard to swallow. But still, we have problems. Where to draw the line between a plausible and an implausible report? How to avoid the biased cherry-picking of details within reports? I consider these to be possibly unsolvable problems when it comes to using myths, old tales and sighting reports as backing for cryptozoological claims.

At last but not least, there are many many renderings of sea monsters. Some are just overblown fishes with some "add ons". Being octopus such a different type of creatures, I don't think its far-fetched to suppose this "weirdness factor" helped creating giant squid/octopus myths even where no real giant squid were around.

ETA: "Spicing up" or making up an account for a newspaper or book would certainly count IMHO as a hoax. It was not uncommon back then (only back then?) to "enhance" a weak news day...

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

Regarding the kraken, wikipedia is known for being sometimes not very reliable. But every now and then we can find old illustrations and tales of animals that resemble the early kraken renderings as described by wikipedia.

Excellent point; I can't believe I forgot about looking at old artwork!

An extra point that must be made is that the "classic" kraken illustrations seemed to show octopus instead of squids. Well, if the matching criteria is "has tentacles" then the interpretation is OK, but I feel it is a very loose one.

True, just as anything that's "hairy and walks on two feet" gets twisted into a Bigfoot story by some proponents.

As for the reports, here we have a mjor problem, since its very hard to separate nowadays what was sheer invention to spice newspapers or books from some story with a grain of reality at its core.

Another excellent point. Now that I think about it, if we can't confirm some stories involving giant squids as being hoaxes then they can't be used to find the "confirmed hoaxes" criteria that I gave. So that takes giant squids out of the running as an answer to my question.

 

[manofthesea]

So that takes giant squids out of the running as an answer to my question.

Now you just have to tackle these (for starters)

White whale = found in Australia, popularized by novel

White buffalo = found in NA, perpetrated by indians

Unicorn = just a myth perpetrated on Euros, based on narwhal 'tusks'

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

Now you just have to tackle these (for starters)

White whale = found in Australia, popularized by novel

That doesn't count since "Moby Dick" was a work of fiction (albeit loosely based on the true story of a whale destroying a whaling ship). There'd have to have been a bunch of confirmed fake sightings that were passed off as being real, people painting whale corpses white, etc.

White buffalo = found in NA, perpetrated by indians

You seem to have misunderstood my question. What/where are the confirmed hoaxes and misidentifications of white buffalo? I should also note that they were confirmed to Western science pretty early on.

Unicorn = just a myth perpetrated on Euros, based on narwhal 'tusks'

That's not a valid example since unicorns were never confirmed as existing.

 

[Correa Neto]

White whales... OK, ever heard of belugas? And what's the big deal with albino specimens? No cryptozoology here...

White Buffalos... So what's the big deal with albino specimens, again? No cryptozoology here again...

Unicorns/narwhals... Wait, narwhals are whales! Next time try the unicorn=rhinos line. Since the three contenders are "a bit" different from each other, once again, no cryptocritters here, sorry...

Backing for a cryptocritter will only come in form of a real animal that really matches the legends and/or sighting reports used to "build" it. None of the former fullfils such criteria.