Fool Me At All, Shame On You Always: How Not To Do April Fools' Day

April Fools' Day is tomorrow, and I am waiting with mild trepedation over what faux science gags I am going to see on the Internet. What I was not prepared for was to have someone actively try to recruit me to deceive the public in a pretty rotten way.

Let's be clear right from the start, Dear Reader: I love a good prank. I've been on the receiving end of many a gag courtesy of my colleagues. The most recent prank was having my office filled with toy spiders - we refer to it as The Spidering...this happened over a year ago, and I'm still finding spiders. We have a rather cute, so obviously over the top so as not to be taken seriously video that we're going to post tomorrow that is 100% fun, and in no way would ever be confused with real science. What we do not do, nay, what we REFUSE to do is to actively deceive the public with regards to fossil discoveries, fossil heritage appreciation, and fossil conservation.

Enter my phone conversation from Tuesday afternoon.

I'm out of town, picking up some supplies for the up-coming field season. My cellphone interrupts my browsing. It's a phone number from British Columbia. NOTE: As technologically slow as I am, I am pretty good at Googling phone numbers - I know exactly which organization made this call.

I will refer to the person on the other end as Skippy. Skippy was all excited to tell me of their great idea. There is a project that is going ahead somewhere in British Columbia (not in my neck of the woods), and those involved thought that a great way to get publicity would be to announce a fake dinosaur skeleton discovery as a result of said project. This plan was considered a good idea because, well, April Fools' Day. Skippy continued: they even wanted to get the public involved in submitting names for their new fake dinosaur find. Skippy was wondering if they could use our institution's name to lend their April Fools' prank credibility.

Dear Readers, guess how I responded. I think I was quite polite under the circumstances.

The first words out of my mouth were "Absolutely not!" I went on to say a version of this:

There is already a culture of mistrust in the general public towards science and scientists. The public is also deeply interested in fossil discoveries and news, and trusts that when such news is announced, it's for real. Faking a fossil discovery in British Columbia, using the name of a well-respected institution such as ours, would only serve to fuel such public distrust of scientists. There is no way that we could in good conscience take part in such a scheme.

I ended the conversation with Skippy by saying "And I had better not see our names anywhere near anything that you publicize." Skippy's response was "You won't be included," wording that makes me think that they are actually still planning to go ahead with this Scicomm Wrong.

Half-assed publicity stunts such as these give me nothing but anger and frustration. This is nothing more than manipulating people's natural curiosity about dinosaurs and fossils for a project that will do absolutely nothing to further their appreciation of their province's fossil heritage. There is no way that this can be spun as a scicomm opportunity: had our name been associated with this scheme, we would have lied to the public - April Fools' Day or no - and given them a reason to get excited about dinosaurs in British Columbia. People trust us, whether they consciously recognize that trust or no, to give them trustworthy and factual information about the fossil heritage in British Columbia.

I will not apologize for this: I respect and greatly appreciate the public's natural interest in their fossil heritage. For as long we are at the helm of our institution, we will never abuse that interest for the sake of tacky publicity.

British Columbia is only just starting to develop a cultural appreciation and respect for the province's fossil heritage. The idea that the public has a sense of ownership and pride over their province's heritage is not yet at the levels we see in Alberta, where fossils have been part of the cultural identity for decades. Being an institution operating in British Columbia and actively promoting a culture of pride and responsibility for fossil heritage resources is a serious business for us. We also rely on the goodwill of the public to be supportive of fossil heritage protection and conservation. We will not lightly throw that hard-earned trust away for the sake of a "joke".

Unfortunately for many of us scientists engaging in science communication about our respective fields, we are bombarded with examples of credible-looking fake-umentaries presented by organizations that are trusted by the public as providers of accurate information, all for the sake of publicity. Pick your favorite cryptozoology hunter show - my favorite examples are anything involving Bigfoot, which I have written about previously. Newsweek recently put out a special issue on Bigfoot. National Geographic has also jumped into the realm of presenting Bigfoot "research". Discovery Channel's Megalodon fakery. Discovery Channel's Mermaids fakery. These are all communication brands that have the trust of the public, and that trust is manipulated each and every time a fake-umentary or sensationalized show is presented as fact.

Public Service Science Announcement (PSScA): there is indeed such as thing as bad publicity, especially when it deliberately exploits people's science curiosity for the sake of clicks or views.

So, Dear Readers, I will be online this April Fools' Day, making sure that I keep track of this newest plan to exploit the public's love of fossils. I hope the group involved has had a sober second thought and will abandon this plan. Stay tuned.

Bear-ly Bigfoot

My brain and I have a deal: I keep it occupied, and it does its best not to get me into trouble. However, my brain has its own ideas of what it considers proper entertainment. One would think museum work would be enough to keep that cerebral scamp from causing mischief, but this is not always the case. Here’s an example. I am in the midst of taking photographs of Late Cretaceous theropod teeth for an upcoming paper. I get to look in great detail at teeth of some of the coolest dinosaurs known. Is my brain content? Parts of it are, but I have a section of my brain whose attention span is akin to that of a hyperactive 6 year old after gorging on Halloween candy. It can’t focus on one task for long durations…unless I trick it. One of two tactics seems to work in my Battle of the Brain. I can play a TV program or movie in the background, distracting Hyper Brain with the flashy lights and colours. I can also play audiobooks, and Hyper Brain responds by settling down under its mental blankie for story time.

Right now I’m listening to Orson Scott Card’s “Ender” series. I enjoy that all the students in “Ender’s Game” have portable computer desks through which they have instant access to educational material. Were the story written today, I’m sure these desks would be called laptops. So far, his characters use their instantaneous connection with their version of the Internet for useful, productive, or at least purpose-driven tasks. I do not think that O. S. Card had memes in mind when creating this system. My point is that we have a seemingly vast pool of potentially accurate and useful information on which to draw. Unfortunately, for every accurate website there are countless that contain the intellectual equivalent to the insides of a sorely used hanky. This is coupled the apparent lack of fact-checking this digital drivel. For fun, check out the website for the Pacific Tree Octopus, and then check out University of Connecticut’s research on Internet literacy in society.

Our culture (in general) has very few skills in distinguishing between fact-supported interpretations and anecdotal opinion. The Internet is used for disseminating information. Period. Not high quality information, not accurate information, just information. It is up to the distributor to impose whatever quality control they feel is necessary, and up to the receiver to separate the wheat from the chaff. When I was teaching undergraduate labs, I refused to accept websites as part of citations - “.edu”, “.gov”, and open access journals were the exceptions - but any other web citations were verboten. Why? I told my students that any person with a computer and an Ethernet cable can post a seemingly reputable looking website that states Bigfoot is alive and well in the woods around Campus, complete with seemingly credible data, and that there is no group that checks the accuracy of such claims before they are made available. In short, there is no pre-publication peer-review system for websites. Why am I seemingly picking on Bigfoot and its followers? A couple of days ago, this news article came across my screen about a researcher wanting $300,000.00+ for a blimp and thermal camera to search for Bigfoot. Bigfoot also made an appearance in Nunavut as recently as October.

As no one has ever caught a Bigfoot in the act of making a big footprint, there are four explanations for the source of these vaguely humanoid-looking tracks: a) there actually is a stable population of large, North American primate with no documented fossil record or physical evidence in North America, b) there are a lot of people roaming around the wilderness interpreting everything they see through their Bigfoot-Decoder glasses, c) there are guys wearing ape-feet and gorilla suits that happen to have a buddy with a camera and a penchant for seeking attention, or d) a combination of b and c.

I do love cryptozoologic lore, but not because I view it as a reliable source of scientific data. I love it for the cultural perspective, and to witness how people incorporated their lore into their interpretations of the surrounding world, and also how people attempted to explain events that, at the time and given their information pool, defied explanation.

I find the legend of Sasquatch/Bigfoot particularly fascinating for two reasons: a) I grew up in Bigfoot country and spent most of my pre-18 years crawling over the woods of northern Washington and southern BC (I was the odd geeky girl. A social life was not open to me, so I retreated to the woods), and b) most of the North American Bigfoot “evidence” is footprint-based. There are even repositories of supposed Bigfoot track replicas and associated data.

I can give you this ichnologist’s perspective on the ichnological data attributed to Bigfoot. One issue I have is there are only certain surfaces on which an animal can walk which will accurately record the shape of the animal’s foot. The consistency of the surface (substrate) plays just as important a role in recording foot shape as the shape of the foot itself. Think about the differences in footprint shape when you walk on dry sand, firm wet sand, and mud. Your foot is not going to change shape. Your footwear may change, unless you do this kind of experiment in bare feet for fun (yes, I do this for fun). The differences in footprint shape are completely substrate dependent, from the way the substrate settles after you withdraw your foot, to the way you alter your step length and foot placement. Paleoichnologists see this phenomenon in dinosaur footprints all the time.

In checking out a few Bigfoot and cryptozoology websites (if you're brave, I dare you to Google "Bigfoot inbreeding"), I noticed that most insist that Bigfoot prints are NOT the prints of a bear. This needs to be stated because of the similarity in both size and shape of many purported Bigfoot prints to both grizzly and black bear footprints. One identifier for bear tracks is the presence of claw marks, as bears do not retract their claws. Bigfoot prints are supposed to consistently lack claw marks. However, what if the claw marks are not preserved on the substrate? What if the bear’s hindpaw (or pes for my fellow ichno-geeks) steps on the print left by the forepaw (manus)? What about track surface degradation, or a myriad of other factors that can alter the shape of a footprint between the time it is made to the time of discovery? To an eye unfamiliar with surface-based ambiguities, and to an eye looking at a print through Bigfoot-coloured glasses, the discovered print might appear suspiciously humanoid.

The biologist in me also knows that, for the number of sightings that have occurred (this map only shows the USA, but Canada is not immune from Bigfoot Fever) there would need to be fairly healthy population numbers of Bigfoot. I should have to take Bigfoot bangers into the woods instead of bear bangers. There are two animals in these regions that have healthy population numbers: humans and bears. Lozier et al. (2009) (follow the link to their paper) found a very strong correlation between the supposed ecological niche of Bigfoot and the presence of black bears (Ursus americanus). Also, just two species of bear can make several different looking prints. Check out these images of bear tracks made in a variety of substrates:

http://www.nps.gov/gaar/planyourvisit/images/bigbeartracks2.jpg

http://files.myopera.com/SittingFox/albums/302399/Bear%20track.jpg

http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/

http://icestories.exploratorium.edu This is the most primate-looking one, but it's in the worst substrate to preserve details like claws, front and back prints, etc.

I chose these images of bear tracks because they show a variety of preservation types. Some look unmistakeably bear. Others resemble the Bigfoot-style tracks. Bears have five oval-shaped toe pads, and the toes are arranged in a pattern similar to that of humans. As you can see, sometimes claw marks are imprinted, while in other prints claw marks are either missing or not obvious.

http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/files/norock/research/NDGBPbeartrackscombo.jpg

The second issue I have with the available pool of Bigfoot track data is that there is an apparent preponderance of single, isolated footprints. This is a problem if you want to thoroughly document a track phenomenon. Finding (or only collecting) one footprint is the ichnology equivalent of only collecting one bone from a skeleton. The information needed to interpret the hip height, stance, and gait of the track-maker is recorded in a series of footprints. Photographs of Bigfoot prints seem to only reveal one isolated footprint. Perhaps the Bigfoot researchers are keeping all their long trackways hush-hush for a big reveal. Is there a trackway that goes with that one print? What to the rest of the prints within that trackway look like? If the footprint is not shown within the context of a trackway, I (or anyone else) cannot rule out the possibility that the photographer is just showing me the most humanoid looking print out of a series of rather typical bear prints in order to gain support for their belief.

http://www.trailventuresbc.com/scm/pic/grizz-track-chilc.jpg

http://www.bearnovascotia.ca

Belief is the correct term, and critical thinking tends to fall by the wayside on the path of belief. Once belief takes hold, it is difficult to not interpret information through the filter of said belief. It becomes easy, even desirable, to ignore contradictory data. Cherry-picking information that only supports a certain belief is the bread-and-butter of pseudoscience. People go out into the woods with the idea of Bigfoot (or any other creature from lore), and they present information that supports a Bigfoot-only interpretation without supplying alternate explanations, reinforcing their preconceived goal of proving the existence of Bigfoot. It is circular reasoning at best, deception at worst, and the people conducting research on Bigfoot are presenting their information to a public with atrophied critical thinking processes. It’s the Pacific Tree Octopus on global scale. If the evidence is so strong for the existence of Bigfoot, show me the peer-reviewed publications. No, a newsletter from “Bigfoot Quarterly” is not a peer-reviewed publication. A book published commercially by a Bigfoot scientist is not a peer-reviewed publication. A book with a high sales volume means it’s a good story, not an accurate story. If high readership were the only criterion needed for accuracy of an idea, sparkly, annoyingly morose vampires would run amok in society.

“But Strange Woman”, you may ask, “you are presenting your views through an anti-Bigfoot filter. How is that any better than the pro-Bigfoot view?” Good question. Here is my answer. Critical does not mean anti-anything. When you deal in any data-based discipline, you have to be very, very careful to separate what you know (speculation) from what you can support. Speculation is a healthy, active mind at work. It’s useful to let your brain travel down all of the “What if…” paths. However, much like our canine friends, that brain needs to be kept on a leash or it will make a mess of your neighbour’s lawn. I might believe, deep down in my core, that a certain small theropod tooth was produced by a certain species of theropod. I cannot just publish that belief without supporting data. I must also provide all of the alternate explanations possible, along with the data that supports those explanations. Even that is not sufficient. I must then send that idea out to my peers so THEY can provide all of their alternate explanations, as well as tell me what data they would like to see in order to be convinced of my idea. That’s the peer-review process. It can be slow, it can be frustrating at times, but it is ABSOLUTELY necessary to retain the objectivity required for interpreting data-based ideas.

What does all this have to do with Bigfoot? There are still too many alternate explanations for the phenomenon of humanoid-looking footprints and sightings of large dark hairy things in the woods that do not require the presence of a never-before documented North American primate. In the Nunavut Sasquatch sighting article, one of the researchers comments on the disparity between the reported sighting of the creature and the reported length of the footprint. The creature seemed too large to make a footprint of a certain size. Their comment was “...but that happens, people exaggerate.” Anecdotal sightings of wildlife phenomena are too subjective and too fluid to be considered concrete data. They are stories that get better with the telling. This is not the fault of the people reporting these encounters (these people did see something that surprised and perhaps scared them): it’s the inherent flaw of the information, and our brains naturally like to be entertained.

Speaking of which, I think there are some humorous cat-themed memes I need to surf.

Strange Woman out.

Update 10/05/2013: FINALLY fixed the formatting issue for this post.
Update 17/12/2014: Another format fix. I prefer this layout