Skeptic Check: Cryptids

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.6 • 986 Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bigfoot could get official status if proposed legislation passes making it the state cryptid of California. If nothing else, the effort shows that fascination with cryptids has an outsized footprint on our culture. We look at why mythical creatures continue to capture imaginations - as well as passions - of die-hard believers, despite no evidence for their existence. An author uncovers the origin of a beloved hoax in the American West and its unexpected ties to a real animal and historical medical breakthrough. But are we looking for creature delights in all the wrong places? A tally of Earth’s species reveals that far more remain unidentified than are currently known. Newly discovered critters such as the Yeti crab and an organism dubbed the Flying Spaghetti Monster are so strange, it challenges us to separate fauna fact from folktale. Guests: Chris Rogers – Assemblymember, California’s 2nd Assembly District Benjamin Radford – Deputy Editor of Skeptical Inquirer Science Magazine, author, and co-host of Squaring the Strange podcast Michael Branch – Writer, humorist, and author of On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World’s Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer Boris Worm – Marine ecologist, Professor of Biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
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0:34.1	The creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the Minute Earth podcast.
0:40.3	Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had, but once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know.
0:47.3	Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to?
0:55.5	Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time.
0:58.0	Our team of scientists digs into the research
1:00.0	and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation,
1:02.9	jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns.
1:05.7	Subscribe to Minute Earth wherever you like to listen.
1:07.9	Music wherever you like to listen.
1:24.0	A few years ago, Seth and I attended one of the strangest events we've covered for an episode of Big Picture Science.
1:29.0	A press conference in Palo Alto, California, announced there was evidence for the existence of Bigfoot. Welcome and thank each and every one of you people for being here today.
1:35.4	It's an honor to have you's all. Okay, claims of Bigfoot sightings aren't unusual, but this was
1:41.7	different. Two men said they had found a dead Sasquatch in the woods in Georgia
1:46.2	and had preserved the body in a cooler. The corpse of the elusive half-man, half-ape, would be revealed at the press conference.
1:54.3	And this angle was catnip for even jaded reporters. In front of us was the owner of Searching for Bigfoot.com, Tom Biscardi,
2:02.7	who claimed that over the 30 years that he had been tracking Bigfoot, he had spotted him a half
2:07.1	dozen times. He was also an entrepreneur selling an array of Bigfoot swag on his website.
	...

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