by Bragatyr » Sun Apr 6, '14, 8:30 pm
It would be kind of funny if it did turn out to be some previously unknown mammal or something, as unlikely as that seems; there are plenty of precedents in history and science, since science generally tends to use previously observed data to predict future events, and the idea of a black swan was once a laughable one until they actually became confirmed and known in the Western world (since you can't know what you don't know, until you know it).
So yeah. I'm always skeptical, but I'm also skeptical of the ability even of well-meaning science to predict every future event (since it just can't really be done based on previous evidence, black swan theory and everything).