>>56940454Is it really a contradiction to say 'weird monsters starting popping out recently', then through research come to a conclusion that the 'newfound' (aka initially rare to find/encounter) monsters share ancestor(s) with more commonly known animal(s)?
The IRL equivalent to that would be to find a new species of, say, a tortoise, and via DNA or whatever other test concluding which other species it shares a common ancestor with, then arrive to a hypothesis about when the branching off likely happened.
Before researching, Oak used to be a trainer himself when he was young, so even in RG(B) context, the player would be *at least* the 3rd generation to tame and train the creatures. It could be that while Oak is *the* professor now, research could've been done before him, too.
After all, when a (relatively) big number of kinds of creatures suddenly starts popping up en masse all over the region (if not the whole world), and they have strength that can defy any and all logic, people can either fear the unknown, or try their best to understand what they're dealing with.
'Recent' is a relative term. Soviet Russia can be considered recent history, so can WW2.
An event being recent could refer to one, that happened within the last year, or it could be within the time your grandparent can still tell you about it, depending on how revolutionary/groundbreaking/impactful/new the thing is.
