'QuatchWatch » psychology http://quatchwatch.com Listen Real Close to the Audio Tapes Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:24:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Is Cryptozoology a Defense Mechanism? http://quatchwatch.com/2008/08/is-cryptozoology-a-defense-mechanism/ http://quatchwatch.com/2008/08/is-cryptozoology-a-defense-mechanism/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:58:07 +0000 Skookum http://quatchwatch.com/?p=207 There’s an interesting opinion piece over on the London Times’ website entitled “Creatures that inhabit our guilty conscience” which examines the growth of cryptozoology as a response to species extinction and the shrinkage of spaces on the map marked by the words “here be dragons:”

Cryptozoology – the study of species sighted by explorers or recorded in folklore but unverified by formal science – is booming. In recent years there has been a flood of books, encyclopaedias and guides to cryptids, creatures both fantastical and possible that survive somewhere on the wild, uncharted borders between science and fantasy.

In a thoroughly explored world, when Google Earth can whisk us to the most remote corner of the planet via a computer screen, cryptozoology still offers mystery, discovery and the unknown. If the internet promises the whole of knowledge, our fascination with unknown beasts provides a strange counterbalance: the human need to know that we do not know everything.

Creatures that inhabit our guilty conscience – Times Online

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