Don't you ifnd peculiar that in Monster Quest (History Channel), they never seem to find a single specimen (dead or alive) of any of the beasts the look for? You name it: the Chupacabras, the Mokele Mbembe, Bigfoot, the Yeti, the Monster birds, the Skunk Ape, or any other. The reason is ismple: they don't exist.
That reminds me of a title of a book that I read back in college which examined the "evidence" (over a century of it and still nothing remotely concrete) for psychical research. The conclusion, of course, is that there is no good evidence, so hence the title: The Elusive Quarry: A Scientific Appraisal of Psychical Research.
The Elusive Quarry. That stuck with me in reference to such matters. As a general principle it is fairly simple: If there is no evidence (or at least no conclusive evidence) for such extraordinary phenomena, creatures, etc....then it is safe to (tentatively at least) conclude it's because it/they don't exist.
Now of course "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", but, the thing is, if a phenomena/creature exists we usually find it and accumulate irrefutable evidence of it's existence/reality. We don't have "evidence" ranging from flimsy at best to out right hoaxes and lies at worst for things that truly exist (like the heliocentric theory). Things that actually exist are not so elusive as to escape documentation.
So unless and until we do acquire such concrete evidence for such extraordinary phenomena/claims/entities/creatures/etc. (remembering that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" not just "regular" evidence but even stronger evidence), we should trust that it does not exist. No, we should NOT conclude that it absolutely does not exist or can not exist (although, with some things, like ESP, for them to exist would mean that everything we know about physics, including all the mountains of data accumulated that verify our theories and laws beyond any reasonable doubt, would have to be either wrong somehow or severely lacking...this is possible, but not likely, and as the "evidence" for ESP is virtually non-existent; well, a wise man would hardly conclude that ESP is true and all the well established data that says it can't exist is not or flawed somehow), but lacking any good reason to believe it does we would be fools to think it does based on such shoddy evidence.
Btw, yea, those pseudoscience shows are just for ratings. They are strawmen; they may have a token skeptic but don't tell you the real story, because the real story is explained by prosaic means and that doesn't sell well.
http://www.skepdic.com/chupa.html
Off soapbox. Sorry, been a skeptic since college and it's a fun hobby/passion of mine. (I like to critically examine the evidence--such as it is--for all sorts of pseudoscientific claims...it's fascinating imo).
It does have a resemblance to Dr.Evil's hairless cat.
