Archive Gallery: PopSci Hunts For Mythical Beasts

Love the Wizard of Oz reference. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

An interesting conjunction, this issue has a half joking reference to past articles on cryptozoology, "the study of animals that have not yet been proved to exist", and an article about a 10-year-old girl who "discovered" tetranitratoxycarbon. Popular Science condemns cryptozoology by pointedly describing material on the subject as "'real' science, filled with 'facts' and 'research'". But, then, it describes tetranitratoxycarbon as having been "discovered" even though it exists only as a ball on stick model assembled at random! No one has seen the moceule, the article acknowledges that, and it hasn't even been determined to be actually viable, but it's been "discovered" simply because some balls and sticks were put together! People have posited more or less reasonable forms for creatures from Bigfoot to the Loch Ness Monster, but, for them, "science" requires actual obtaining of a sample; with tetranitratocycarbon, all you need is to draw a picture! "Science" is hypocritical in the extreme.

julian, it's not as though a person could arrange the molecule in any given manner they wanted and it would constitute a discovery. Sure, the girl likely created it purely out of chance, but the model itself still apparently adheres to all physical requirements.

By way of explanation, if you took the model and modified it in some slight way, it likely would no longer be a viable molecule. For example, tetranitratoxycarbon may be viable, but pentanitratoxycarbon may not be.

What's your thought process behind thinking the molecule hasn't been determined to be viable? The article being published is specifically going to address that issue: not only is it viable, but here are its chemical properties.

Fact is, if anything, it's a testament to science that a girl can arrange a model that happens to meet all the physical requirements for a real molecule to exist, and based on that model we can extrapolate that a real molecule can exist and what properties it would specifically exhibit.

That's a pretty bloody good example of the predictive power of science, once the molecule is actually created and shown to have the same, predicted properties.

In comparison, the vast majority of evidence for Bigfoot, et al, is anecdotal, heresay and personal accounts, but completely riddled with hoaxes and blatant lies (even if you accept that some accounts are truth, there's a lot out there that's intentionally deceptive -- and it's difficult to discriminate between them, assuming any accounts are real at all).

Yes, there are some castings made of apparent footprints or clumps of hair, etc., but even these have been verified to be false -- either through DNA reconstruction or by proving the cast was a hoax (for example, many castings are flat-footed, rather than a varied depression like a real footprint).

So it's not quite enough to say all you need is to draw a picture of the molecule; you need a picture and a thorough knowledge of how molecules are put together and what physical laws they must adhere to.

But yes, to verify Bigfoot exists you're going to need to actually find one. How else do you plan to prove its existence with enough certainty that you can actually request serious conservation efforts to be put in place -- costing significant sums of money -- to ensure the nearly-extinct species isn't eradicated entirely?

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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

There is a difference between physical proof, the molecule model, and someone saying that they saw a 75 foot long eel, but i cant find it again. tetranitratocycarbon can be created and the kid had accidental proof. ALl the people who claim they saw nessie jave bed time stories and easily re-created, blurry photographs.Science is not hypocritical, your just stupid, or ignorant.

Canadian Skeptic calls it a "testament to science" that Clara Lazen supposedly could put the model of tetranitratoxycarbon together.  There was no significant act involved here. All she did was connect rods to balls representing different atoms, with holes in them corresponding to the covalence of each atom. You just put atoms and rods together until there aren't any unconnected rods and, not a major point but considerable, so rods are not bent too much. And the fact is that nothing was discovered. A model was put together, much as many have put together theories of what Nessie and Bigfoot look like. And there are records of people saying they saw each of them, but, so far, not one molecule of this substance has been produced to actually declare it "discovered". Consider, too, the name applied to it violates normal nomenclature for covalent molecules. Among other things, the carbon should be before at least the oxygen and there should be an -ide suffix. The story is suspicious in the extreme.

Not so much that Clara put the model together, but the extrapolation of its existence and its properties. That's what's significant.

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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

Canadian_Skeptic tries to claim their remarks were meant not so much to applaud Clara Lazen's supposedly accidentally "discovering" tetranitratoxycarbon, but to extol the "extrapolation of its existence and its properties". But, until it has actually been created, its existence hasn't been extrapolated nor its properties, since, in "science's" method, it's not until actual molecules are tested that you can actually say the properties you suggest are true! And, when you get down to it, since it was Clara Lazen who put the model together, it was she who came the closest to "extrapolating its existence", so it is she that Canadian_Skeptic was lauding. In any event, the way Canadian_Skeptic phrased it, it came across as giving Miss Lazen accolades.

You know, the "Free 'Dragon' Egg" ad (Slide 9) refers to the South American lizard of the genus Basiliscus, commonly known as basilisks. In popular fiction, a basilisk is often treated as a species of dragon. This one actually makes sense if you think it through.