

Where Be Monsters? The Daedalus Sea Serpent and the War for Credibility - drjohnson
http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/4/where-be-monsters-daedalus-sea-serpent-and-war-for-credibility

======
tzs
> Whatever the reality, the number of reported sea serpent sightings declined
> rapidly after the nineteenth century. Writing in 1925, Austin Clark of the
> Smithsonian Institution offered a typical explanation for the decline. “In
> the last 20 years,” Clark noted, the size of ships rapidly increased and
> steam ships replaced sailing vessels. These maritime advances mean that the
> “vantage point” for observing the sea serpent moved “from the low and
> insecure wave-washed deck of a small sailing boat to the high, comfortable,
> secure, and relatively dry deck of a much larger steamer.” This shift in
> perspective “removed the element of fear and hence dulled the imagination so
> that sailors are now able to study calmly and report correctly what they
> see.”

Or perhaps the sea serpents were predators, and they depended on one of the
species that our bigger and more powerful ships allowed us to hunt more
efficiently, and we destroyed enough of their food source that they went
extinct.

Much of these stories remind me of the stories of giant waves that come out of
nowhere and destroy ships. Sailors told stories of these waves for centuries,
and their stories were dismissed as exaggerations from drinking or their
judgement being thrown off by rough seas (e.g., you think the wave was 75 feet
because it was taller than your 75 foot mast...but because of the rough seas
you didn't realize the mast was actually pointing at a steep angle at the time
so the top was only 40 feet above the water).

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scientists thoroughly understood
ocean waves, and stated that it was impossible to have waves higher than 50ft
in open ocean. No matter how many sailors saw such waves, they were told that
they MUST be wrong because science had proved such waves cannot exist.

Then sensors on an unmanned platform in the North Sea reported an 84 ft wave
during a storm. The operators assumed that this meant that the sensors were
malfunctioning, and sent a repair crew. The crew found that the sensors were
fine, and there were clear signs of wave damage showing that the wave really
was that big.

Now that scientists finally had evidence that they could not dismiss as
drunken sailors, they went looking for more evidence and quickly found many
instances of rogue waves. They found enough to see a pattern, and were able to
figure out some of the conditions that would cause them, and find areas that
would have a lot of them. And guess what, those were the areas where sailors
had long been reporting ships wiped out by those "impossible" waves.

Science is great. It's the best thing we've got for finding out the truth
about nature. But sometimes science gets arrogant and ignores anecdotal
evidence even when it is so widespread that some of it almost certainly is
from reliable observers. That's what happened with rogue waves, and I would
not be at all surprised if that happened with at least some of the "mythical"
large sea creatures.

~~~
reitanqild
You explained it better than me: "Science is great. It's the best thing we've
got for finding out the truth about nature. But sometimes science gets
arrogant and ignores anecdotal evidence even when it is so widespread that
some of it almost certainly is from reliable observers."

------
brc
You've got to remember that the first anatomical specimen of a platypus sent
from Australia to London was considered to be a hoax. That was the scientific
establishment rejecting an actual specimen.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus)

It's hardly surprising that mere sightings of a creature were treated with the
same incredulity, particularly if it had originated as the stuff of sailors
legends. Most people would associate it with Yeti sightings or similar.

But as a lost airliner proves, people are too willing to think that
searchability and knowledge about continents extends equally to the deep
ocean. When the truth is that we probably know a lot more about what's in the
solar system than what is in the deep oceans.

~~~
gwern
'They laughed at Galileo. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.'

The platypus is remembered _because_ it was one of the many hoaxes which
turned out to be real; the OP even lists a whole bunch of hoaxes and fakes!

Similarly for the comment about rogue waves: are giant waves really that
improbable? Now, how about giant ship-sized sea snakes? (What do they eat? Why
haven't we gotten any real samples of their bodies, when they aren't even
abyssal creatures? Why has the rate of discovery of sea-going reptiles been
zero for decades when human populations, scientific research, travel, and
sensor technology have all been increasing exponentially?)

The OP links a short statistical analysis of discovery rates:
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/2008-woodley.p...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/182368464/2008-woodley.pdf)
What struck me was not that the most reasonable analysis, the logistic
regression, estimates zero species remaining to be found, but the authors'
list of lame discoveries in 'cryptozoology': stuff like moths, peccaries, and
whatnot. Really? Really? That's your defense for the plausibility of giant sea
snakes - moths and small land mammals in extremely remote locations?

------
reitanqild
Not my post but I'll add a little meta observation anyway: I can't see why
this isn't taking off at HN.

I've personally found the recent discovery of the giant octopus interesting.
It has been reported by sailors for numerous times as far as I know, yet
science has shown little intereset until a specimen was found.

In the same vein the fact that wolves have attacked humans in the last 5 years
is very interesting. When I grew up we were taught that wolves were afraid of
humans and none of the old stories were true. (I have come to the conclusion
top trust naval officers and grandparents more than scientists in such cases.)

~~~
dragonwriter
> I've personally found the recent discovery of the giant octopus interesting.

By "giant octopus" (creatures that have been known for a very long time) do
you mean "colossal squid" (which has been known, and of interest to science,
from body parts since the early 20th Century, but of which a live specimen was
never discovered until the 2000s)?

Because your statement doesn't make much sense for the former, and is still
wrong for the latter (science showed plenty of interest before the recent
live-specimen discovery, though the _popular media_ , at least briefly, became
more interested when a live specimen was found.)

> In the same vein the fact that wolves have attacked humans in the last 5
> years is very interesting. When I grew up we were taught that wolves were
> afraid of humans and none of the old stories were true.

When and where were you taught that? While I certainly remember being taught
as a child that -- like many animals -- wolves were shy of humans, I certainly
was _also_ taught that they were dangerous, extremely territorial, aggressive
pack animals and that they might attack humans in any of wide range of
circumstances.

~~~
reitanqild
>Because your statement doesn't make much sense for the former, and is still
wrong for the latter (science showed plenty of interest before the recent
live-specimen discovery, though the popular media, at least briefly, became
more interested when a live specimen was found.)

Thanks for correcting me.

Now tzs also has a much better example than me :-)

>When and where were you taught that?

Primary school I think.

------
te_platt
There are a lot of interesting subjects this article covers. One that stood
out to me was how new evidence seeming in favor of something can be turned
against it. E.T. Jaynes describes it with what he calls the "deception
hypothesis". A nice article touching on that can be found here:

[http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/12/e-t-jaynes-
explai...](http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/12/e-t-jaynes-explains-why-
people-aren%E2%80%99t-convinced-by-climate-change-evidence/)

~~~
ggchappell
Interesting article. If I might "think out loud", and summarize:

Suppose I have decided that claim X is false. Now someone says, "Here is
evidence for X." Then I am likely to think that there is deception involved:
someone made something up, or misinterpreted something. Now suppose someone
comes up with _very strong_ evidence for X. I think: _of course_ there is
deception involved.

Thus, what is presumably strong evidence for X becomes, in my hands, strong
evidence that either flawed reasoning or fraud is happening.

------
lilsunnybee
Experts in a field can also be quick to dismiss new ideas and accounts
presented by people not in their field, or without years of experience and a
strong reputation. To me it seems similar to how programmers can be quick to
dismiss unlikely-sounding user bug reports, until they can see the bug with
their own eyes.

------
codezero
preface: this was a great and interesting article, forgive my grumbles below
:)

People are rarely reliable witnesses when they are trying to tell a story.
Being an officer of anything doesn't really lend anyone extra credibility
either, everyone has their own biases and fantasies. Astronauts have claimed
to see aliens and this doesn't make them more credible than a guy on his farm
who claims the same thing.

I do think that it's always worth keeping an open mind about the existence of
undiscovered creatures, but I don't think it's necessary to latch on to
transient sightings to decide that those are the creatures we should look for.

Every time a decaying dead whale washes up on shore, even smart people think
it might be something new or undiscovered, because that sounds less banal than
the reality, this causes news media to stir up because life is generally
boring, and people eat it up for the same reason.

I'll leave the science to the scientists and wait patiently for their new
discoveries :)

~~~
gknoy
I think it does make them more credible. Our early astronauts came from the
test pilot programs, mostly, where careful observation of things (expected or
not) out of the ordinary was a critical life skill, not to mention part of
their job.

If Bob says he saw a UFO, I am likely to believe that he might have been
drunk, or mistaken, or tricked by the light. If a test pilot (who is more
familiar with light effects and weather balloons, etc) or astronaut tells me
they saw something out of the ordinary, I lend that more credence.

Of course it's possible that they're mistaken in their testimony, but I think
it's more likely for the astronaut to have noticed and correctly reported
something than for the average Joe.

~~~
Someone
Whatever your experience, there always is something that is so rare that you
won't have seen it. Bob's will have that with an event of which the test pilot
thinks "I have seen that countless times", that test pilot will have it with
an event that is way rarer, but that still may have some quite ordinary
explanation. Program is, we don't have an super test pilot who can say "I have
seen that countless times".

And yes that will be something out of the ordinary. But the test pilot claims
as to what it is, I wouldn't trust more than Bob's claims as to the nature of
the things he finds extraordinary.

