Skeptics Support Meldrum

Daniel Loxton behind the scenes of a complex Junior Skeptic illustration, with his hand-made and painted Yeti head.

The following is a guest editorial blog from Daniel Loxton. Daniel Loxton is Editor of Junior Skeptic magazine. He writes and illustrates most of the Junior Skeptic issues. He has also authored a number of articles and reviews for Skeptic magazine. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

When this news story about Dr. Meldrum’s tenure appeared, the Skeptics Society soon got an email about it from a noted skeptic from another organization. He wanted to bring the story to our attention, saying, "I’d love to see a word of support for this guy from a prominent skeptic. There shouldn’t be controversial areas of science — just controversial ways of doing science. If the guy is doing good research on a lost cause on someone else’s dime, then all the power to him."

His note got passed to me, as most crypto-stuff sent to Skeptic magazine does. I replied that I haven’t yet looked at Meldrum’s work closely enough to have any particular opinion about its quality. (I have a basic acquaintance with some of the details, of course.) Nor do I have any idea what may be involved with his tenure or any institutional disputes he might be involved in, so I can’t comment on that matter either. (Thankfully, according to Loren, there is no actual problem there.)

But my friend was entirely correct that skeptics should support and encourage responsible research on any and all topics. I sketched out a few informal thoughts about this, and thought I might pass them on here.

Bottom line: no responsible, honest researcher should ever be run out of town merely for looking into weird stuff (and "stuff" comes a lot weirder than Bigfoot, I gotta say). I can think of several reasons why skeptics should support the research of guys like Dr. Meldrum in principle (or at least the freedom to pursue such research), even as we strenuously critique it in particulars:

1) There’s the off chance they could be right. After all, you don’t have to alter physics in order for the Bigfoot hypothesis to be true — you just have to find Bigfoot. It’s plausible on the face of it, though in my view exceedingly unlikely. (I’d be delighted to be wrong about that last. As I’ve promised John Kirk, the day a Sasquatch shows up, I’ll buy the champagne. My passion for cryptozoology was my entrance point into the skeptics literature in the first place, and my heart is frankly still with it.)

(Incidentally, this "they could be right" point is just as important in regards to the kind of paranormal stuff that makes many cryptozoologists roll their eyes and groan and edge away from awkward conversations. If it surprisingly happened to be the case that aliens were invading, or that people could get reliable information about the future just by thinking, or that nice folks sometimes burst into flames for no reason, any of those things would be items of uncommon importance of which to become aware.)

2) Research into popular topics such as Bigfoot satisfies a public good: the desire to have topics of wide interest and curiosity probed and examined. In regards to Bigfoot, the crypto people are part of the equation, and skeptics are the essential other half. Looked at this way, we’re all just colleagues serving the public interest by probing issues otherwise likely to be ignored. We may play roles as adversarial advocates, but we’re all officers of the court, so to speak.

Now, skeptics hear a lot of legitimately crazy-sounding stuff (and also some stuff that’s truly, visciously criminal, I kid you not), so it’s hard sometimes for us not to lapse into testiness. Yet, we should always strive to be collegial, cooperative, and friendly toward any researcher who proceeds in good faith. (Of course.)

On the other hand, I’d add that crypto people are also sometimes less than conciliatory towards skeptics, which is really too bad all round. Ad hominem arguments are not unheard of on either side of the fence; skeptics are sometimes treated poorly for offering their own good-faith conclusions to the public record. And yet, after all, attracting a thorough, strenuously critical look at our data should be the cherished goal of anyone making a scientific claim of any stripe, including cryptozoological claims. That’s at least one very important sense in which skeptics are friends to the crypto project, and to unconventional claimants in general: we’re committed to at least look at the data no one else in academia seems all that interested in examining. (Heck, I’ve said before that cryptozoologists should themselves contribute to the skeptical press, especially when they wish to argue for the removal of a bad apple from their own data set.)

3) Research into unconventional topics such as Bigfoot provides a valuable barometer of the health of academic freedom. As long as the quality and integrity of their work is strong, we’re all better served when scientists and other academics have the freedom to re-examine existing consensus views, dig deeper into unresolved mysteries, pursue long-shots, or even waste their time flailing around on the fringes of science. (I leave it to your judgment which popular topics go under each heading.)

So, there you go. Even if there’s no real threat to his tenure, and consequently no need for anyone to rush to his defense, allow me to take this opportunity to extend my very best wishes to Dr. Meldrum — and all his colleagues — for great success in their research.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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