fuctifano said:
If someone asked you to prove that giraffes actually exist, how would you go about doing it?
i'd use the words we use to describe things [and their qualities].
of course, much as with any 'proveness', it's all subjective; even Science is, for the most part, only what somebody else says was seen (hearsay) and even where independently verified, that's just more of the same. so, 'proof' to one boils down to what to what the one has seen.
why would i then use words as proof? because, whether it's flesh or fantasy, words describe both and do so as if they exist or have been seen.
'giraffe', for most people, is going to be akin to any of the mythical or scientific creatures as most are not seen to be; we're merely told they be. but, taking just the word, giraffe, we have a story of a creature which goes back hundreds or thousands of years and ties in with other stories of our past. and given that a giraffe is something which most people, even nowadays, have never seen, it's also worth noting the other ways giraffes have been described:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=giraffe
while history and language, and all the people therein, attest to such a creature in a far-off land, far-off lands are no different to far-off seas and times, of which we see only shapes in the distance (eg. dinosaurs and krakens); and certainly, no different from the mysterious and unseen 'god particle'.
so, while we take a pinch of salt with many tales, the skepticism goes hand-in-hand with awe and wonder. and that reminds me of my growing-up, in the seventies and eighties, when, owing to the legacy of WW2, most of our books on history and nature were either directly from, or developed from, books and information from the days of empire (victorian, edwardian eras) and had illustrations rather than photos. i guess it wasn't so different in the US, but with the vastness and isolation, rather than poverty, imbuing an ignorance-cum-innocence which, on either side of the pond, allowed the fantasies of the first half of the twentieth century to continue upto quite recently in the shape of films/series like Johnny Wiessmuller's Tarzan and Buster Crabbe's Flash Gordon.
as a bit of a hilldweller, i'm still in awe of the sea and it's vastness and sometime flatness (i'm the same with the flatlands of the south) when i get to see it. would i believe it had i not seen? :chin: well, there are plenty of people who've never seen the sea, even today and even on our little island where nowhere is further than seventy-something miles from it.
it was a shocking revelation to the middle-classes of sometime ago, but also that many working-class children in major cities had never seen the countryside nor breathed fresh air and likely never would. that revelation was part and parcel of the spawning of the social revolution in Britain, to give children and their parents holidays. similarly, today, there are many inner-city children who're unaware of anything beyond their immediate habitat. in such a bleak state and with such a bleak outlook, anything beyond can often be met not with a question, but the statement of 'who cares!'
be it a camelopard, ship of the desert, terrible lizard or a massive puddle, words should be enough to toss the coin of belief.