Sasquatch Seeker's Field Manual by David George Gordon

Author:David George Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594859427
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Published: 2015-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

SCIENTIFIC ADVICE

Another person to consider adding to your team is a person who can serve as the team’s scientific advisor. At minimum, this person should be knowledgeable about the principles of general biology. She or he should also understand the basic “rules of the road” for gathering credible evidence, evaluating it, and presenting conclusions, for discussion and, ideally, acceptance, to others whose opinions count.

Recruiting such a person may be more difficult than it might seem. In general, established scientists and academicians may be wary of allying themselves with people who their peers have deemed unprofessional or eccentric. And believe me, within existing Sasquatch-seeking circles there are plenty of people who are unprofessional or eccentric, or both. Scientists may be fearful of jeopardizing their hard-earned reputations, while academics might fret about being denied tenured teaching positions because of their unorthodox beliefs. In either instance, gaining their trust may be an uphill battle at best.

It’s also important to recognize that most scientists and scholars are extremely busy. Like babysitters, the best ones are often unavailable—if they’re sitting around waiting for the phone to ring, how good can they really be? Plus their schedules may revolve around unyielding grant-funded research deadlines. Such commitments are often etched in stone years in advance, so getting one of these time-crunched individuals to respond to your emails or telephone messages can be nigh on impossible.

Thankfully, this is not always the case. While conducting research for this book, I spoke with several professors at major academic institutions who rose to the occasion and freely shared their expertise with me. Once you’ve gotten a foot in the door, so to speak, you may succeed in convincing such a person to help with your citizen science project. After you have gained their trust, this helpful soul may agree initially to serve as an informal advisor, reviewing your expedition’s data-gathering plan. Later, once you have demonstrated your team’s ability to collect new information that can withstand scientific review, your advisor may offer to help write, edit, and submit your findings to a scientific journal. He or she might eventually share laboratory equipment or even agree to participate as a team member on an upcoming trip.

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