I'm not rejecting science. I'm rejecting the reductionist paradigm that currently dominates science and reduces it to an industrial process in a tedious competition for economic advantage, even though the elevation of other paradigms will inevitably be accompanied by a rise of pseudoscience and hucksterism.
Reductionism makes people miserable because it reduces them to mere components in an economic machine. I'm not arguing for abandoning science and technology, but I invite you to consider alternative approaches to it. Consider that recent research on how magic mushrooms and similar psychedelics show great promise in the treatment of depression...and the scientific community's response to this is to talk about the potential for manufacturing it in pill form and allowing people to experience it under professional supervision, as opposed to telling people how to identify psychedelic mushrooms and learn to enjoy them in relative safety. Science has a strong ideological component and I'm attempting to shake you into greater awareness of that.
Also, at least you know that those super-cool animals exist. Remember that these maps were a exclusive of the enlightened classes. Peasants in feudal Portugal weren't exactly making excursions to the nearest museum. All they had, at most, were fanciful stories - if they even had that.