When you were young and your heart was an open book
You used to say live and let live
~ Live and Let Die, Paul and Linda McCartney
Sometimes the old becomes new, or the old is merely renewed. With Sir David Attenborough, that seems to be happening in 2013, all over again.
In 2009, the media shared that Yeti evidence had convinced wildlife expert Sir David Attenborough to be open-minded about the possibility of the unknown primate.
Sir David Attenborough was reported to have found evidence that Abominable Snowmen might exist to be “very convincing.”
Speaking in 2009, on “Friday Night With Jonathan Ross,” the revered wildlife expert said: ”I’m baffled by the Abominable Snowman – very convincing footprints have been found at 19,000ft. No-one does that for a joke. I think it’s unanswered.”
Now, fast forward to this week in 2013, and David Attenborough is giving similar quotes all around.
“I believe the Abominable Snowman may be real. I think there may be something in that,” said Attenborough, speaking September 13, at a showcase of upcoming programmes on UKTV.
“There are footprints that stretch for hundreds of miles and we know that in the 1930’s a German fossil was found with these huge molars that were four or five times the size of human molars.
“They had to be the molars of a large ape, one that was huge, about 10 or 12 feet tall. It was immense. And it is not impossible that it might exist. If you have walked the Himalayas there are these immense rhododrendron forests that go on for hundreds of square miles which could hold the Yeti.”
Pretty mind-boggling.
Read those quotes. It’s elementary scientific head-scratching and reservation of judgment based on some pretty obviously anomalous stuff.
Why does one not see this sort of thing more often? Isn’t the function of science to follow evidence, and to head-scratch and reserve judgment where the evidence clearly says to do that? Does the society really benefit when scientists choose to “play expert” and deny possibility?
Maybe this deserves its own thread. But it may be time for science to start re-defining what makes a scientist.
It’s all well and good to do quadratic equations and calculus and chi-square and cosine sine cosine regression analysis ad infinitum ad nauseam. But the open mind seems to be an unnecessarily rare commodity in the scientific mainstream. And I’m wondering whether all that math and chemistry is why.
I got through school without taking a chem class. I only took business calculus, and battled to ace my lone physics class (high school). And yet it’s pretty obvious to me that the scientific mainstream is all wet on hairy hominoids…and I’m using science to come to that conclusion.
Maybe we need scientific philosophers – who do the heavy lifting of theorizing and courting possibility – and technicians, who run the numbers.
Because sometimes to me it seems that the fun gets crushed out of science in the grind for the degree.
And with the fun goes the wonder, the possibility…and the reason science happened to our species in the first place.
Shame, that. Onward, Sir.
Loren I’m intrigued by the hiatus between his first 2009 statement and this current one.
It suggests as he’s gotten older [and the death of his 60s white slacks wearing nephew David Hemmings may've contributed to such a state of mind] he’s been dwelling as much on the anomalous data he’s come across as the more explicable stuff him and his BBC teams’ve uncovered over the years.
After the 2009 statement he seemed to try’n’ backpeddle a bit in the British press almost to the point of repudiating himself yet 5 years or so later he’s back anomalising so to speak.
I’m pretty sure in 2009 he got a lot of “I say ol’ chap don’t y’think this sort of thing’s playin’ into the enemy’s hands somewhat?” or anyway words to that effect which may’ve been why he went back under the radar on this issue.
It’ll be int’resting to see if he holds his ground this time or succumbs to exhortations of “Dash it old man going out on a limb like this simply isn’t cricket you know! Remember you’re part of a team and this sort of thing’s simply letting the side down!”
Which’s worse though Mr Attenborough letting down the side or letting down the truth?