WHAT DOES FORTEAN MEAN?
Charles Fort was an American philosopher who died in the 1930s. To quote directly from the Fortean Times website: “Throughout his life, Fort was sceptical about scientific explanations, observing how scientists argued according to their own beliefs rather than the rules of evidence and that inconvenient data was ignored, suppressed, discredited or explained away (which is quite different from explaining a thing).” Unfortunately, in recent years forteana has become synonymous in many people’s minds with the word gullible, which is completely alien to what Fort (to whom, by the way, the term fortean would have been anathema) would have intended. Many fortean concepts have been adopted by political or religious pressure groups with their own agendas. • The search for surviving prehistoric creatures has been co-opted in many cases by Biblical creationists who wish to prove that their own brand of religious fundamentalism is correct. • The Extra Terrestrial Hypothesis has been adopted by va
