Unlearning Lizards

It is hard to imagine that people could miss a giant 5-foot pink lizard for 200 years, but that is exactly what happened according to this article . It is interesting to note that park rangers rather than making note of the large pink lizard instead dismissed it as an oddity. This is an all-too-common outcome in the scientific world. Instead of exploring further those things that don't fit with one's prescribed view of the world, people instead dismiss the oddity — or, worse, explain away the anomaly — so that their "view" isn't disrupted.