With the launch of a new peer-reviewed journal, can cryptozoology emerge from the shadows to be taken seriously by the mainstream scientific community?
Since the demise of the journal Cryptozoology in 1996, there has been no peer-reviewed English-language periodical for the controversial field, which studies animals known from anecdote, folklore, or fragmentary physical evidence, but not yet authenticated with actual specimens. So when the U.K.–based Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) approached popular cryptozoology writer Karl Shuker about launching a new journal, he was happy to oblige.
“I felt it imperative that a journal of this nature should exist again as a platform for formal scientific cryptozoological research and reviews of past cases that mainstream journals may not be willing to consider,” says Shuker, who has a PhD in zoology and comparative physiology from the University of Birmingham, U.K. Having assembled a panel of reviewers who then pored over the first batch of submissions, the CFZ and Shuker published the first issue of The Journal of Cryptozoology in October 2012. Editor-in-chief Shuker insists that all articles are subjected to the “same level of rigorous peer-review evaluations as [in] any mainstream journal.”
Shuker hopes that by providing an outlet for cryptozoological research with a genuinely scientific approach, the new journal will ensure that serious contributions get the attention they deserve. Much depends on the quality of the material and rigor of the review process, of course, but he also hopes that The Journal of Cryptozoology will raise the reputation of this much-maligned field in the eyes of the scientific community.
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