Confirmation Bias and Modern Pterosaurs

scales of justice illustrating confirmation bias

By Jonathan Whitcomb

As an adult, you have preexisting assumptions on various matters. We all do. When we encounter a new idea seemingly related to something we already have an opinion on, we might fall into a confirmation bias.  What’s that? It’s a tendency to process and analyze information in a way that confirms our previous ideas or convictions.

It is well known in psychology: Confirmation bias seems to be practically universal with adult humans, but that does not mean we must always fall prey to it. After we learn about it and then look into our own thoughts and motivations, we may avoid at least some of the pitfalls.

scales of justice illustrating confirmation bias

Confirmation bias can be relevant to many of the remarks from critics of reports of apparent modern pterosaurs. Since I am probably the most outspoken researcher in this field of cryptozoology, I’ll use criticisms my own writings and Youtube videos as an example.

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Living Pterodactyls and Biblical Creationism

To begin, over the past 19 years of my investigation of reports of apparent modern pterosaurs, it seems that the religious beliefs of most of the eyewitnesses appear to have no relevance to what they report. In other words, people with various religious beliefs and origin philosophies describe similar details for the flying creatures they report to me.

Keep this in mind: Over the past 19 years, I have received direct eyewitness accounts from hundreds of persons, and they live or have lived on six continents: almost every major area of the planet except Antarctica. This is a very diverse group of eyewitnesses, and only a small minority have shown any sign that they are Biblical young-earth creationists: probably less than 3%. On the other hand, some of them have made statements that suggest that they are definitely not YEC.

Below, see what one critic has declared in relation to one or more investigations into reports of apparent living pterosaurs:

“This comes from a creationist blog (though they hide it quite well) so we need to take everything on it with a truck load of salt. Creaionists will fabricate all kinds of rubbish to back up their fairy tales.”

I cannot read another person’s mind and I do not have a time machine to go back to the time when that critic made that statement, but it looks very likely that he fell into a confirmation bias or something like it. This is well understood by psychologists but is only one of a great number of cognitive biases.

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Featherless flying reptiles

If it has a long tail, it is called “ropen”, but in some areas of Africa this reptile-creature is known as “kongamato”. In old times, even centuries ago, it was called “dragon”, and in fact some eyewitnesses still use that word, even in the United States.

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Pterodactyl in an old photo

Supporting the authenticity of the Ptp image as evidence for a modern living pterosaur in the 19th century

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Modern Pterosaurs and Confirmation Bias

If I had been subject, at that time, to belief perseverance, I could have resisted the words of that canoe expert and held onto my previous opinion that the photograph was a hoax. Instead, I looked more closely at the image and soon phoned my friend and associate . . .

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Living Pterosaurs

Much of the research done from about 1994 till 2005 involved the ropen of Papua New Guinea: At least six Americans participated, beginning in the 1990’s with Carl Baugh of Texas, followed by Paul Nation (also of Texas) and, in 2004, by Jonathan Whitcomb, Garth Guessman, and David Woetzel. James Blume . . .

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Confirmation bias and pterodactyl sightings

Why do we not hear more about sightings of pterodactyls? Much of the reason is cognitive biases such as confirmation bias.

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Pterosaur sightings and religious bias

. . . I suggest looking a little deeper, especially deeper than dismissive critics have done.

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Encounters with non-extinct pterodactyls

Jonathan Whitcomb interviewed three eyewitnesses of the ropen on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, in October of 2004: Gideon Koro, Mesa Augustin, and Wesley Koro.

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Eyewitnesses of flying reptiles

The creatures have many names: seklo-bali, duwas, wawanar, indava, kor, kundua. In Papua New Guinea, natives in isolated communities speak in village languages numbering in the hundreds, yet many natives carry a common fear in the dark: a huge glowing creature flying in the night.

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