Comment on Can any scientists confirm this important fact?
InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
I have doubts that any credible and serious scientific discovery would involve this degree of anthropomorphism when it comes to assigning motivation to an animal’s behavior.
But let’s say I ended up with a hecking case of brain worms who devoured the vast majority of my critical thinking skills and was able to completely ignore that first point, this still doesn’t quite compute. If you’ve ever had cats and/or dogs in your life, then you are probably also aware that each one has its own unique personality and behaviors. Even if we assume that they have human-like rationalizations and emotional capacity, does it even make sense to believe that they all uniformly perceive people in the same uniform manner?
I have doubts that any credible and serious scientific discovery would involve this degree of anthropomorphism when it comes to assigning motivation to an animal’s behavior.
But let’s say I ended up with a hecking case of brain worms who devoured the vast majority of my critical thinking skills and was able to completely ignore that first point, this still doesn’t quite compute.
This part was very obnoxious and not needed fyi.
I mean, he’s walking through his very solid reasoning for why the headline fails the sniff test, despite being a factoid that is frequently repeated through many channels by many people.
People talk all the time about how we need to strengthen critical thinking skills in the general public. Outside of formal training, this is what that looks like: a culture of publicly explaining the thought process that leads you to question something that many others have accepted without question. The knee jerk reaction of criticizing such statements as rude or overly negative is a big part of why these skills have such a hard time spreading, since people who have the skills feel it’s not socially acceptable to share their conclusions.
On scientific level, dogs is a herd animal, which need a leader, cats don’t know leaders, they a single hunters, they can create asociations with other cats if it have advantages to obtain food, leader or boss are not in their vocabulary. Human can be a good friend but not more, if not, he’s only the tin opener. As said, cats are almost the exact opposite of dogs, even in their body lenguage.
catsonbroadwayhospital.com/life-feral-cat-colony/….
Wild cats sometimes form colonies. Those structures do have matriarchs. There is dominance in the groups.
Yes, but these are not hirarchical Groups like in Dogs or Wulfs, these are more interests groups to follow the smartest, which in felines are the females, most the oldest and experienced. But there are not organized structures. “You know where the food is, I’ll follow you”. Lions are the only cats with structured groups and a leader.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 week ago
It’s based on way too many reinterpretations of descriptions of studies into how cats communicate. Basically cats without human interaction will only meow as kittens communicating to their mom and their mother might meow back, and as they grow older they will learn to communicate with each other purely by body language and pheramones. Cats who interact with humans have learned that meowing at us like kittens gets our attention and is effective at communicating with us.
Some have interpreted that to mean cats see us as really strange kittens, which of course gets miscommunicated by well meaning people repeating something they half-remember. It seems the reality is just cats have learned to adjust their behavior to better coexist with humans.
Impressively, cats and their humans also will develop complex enough communication that humans can interpret the need of the cat purely from their meow
At least this is my memory of research I half-remember reading about
sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
I love research telephone :D
AppleTea@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
I have come to accept the research telephone. Yeah, my understanding of the actual research is filtered through countless interlocking individuals and who knows how many narrative frameworks. The best I can do, without just getting a degree in the field, is to try to sample as many of these narrative interpretations as possible.
When I see the point made that we believe science like a new religion, I cannot help but see the glimmer of truth in that interpretation. Ok, sure, fine by me. I trust the mechanism of passive-aggressive peer review more than any holy text or hierarchy of clergy.
melisdrawing@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Well said.
Canconda@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Not just the meowing. Bringing dead animals is also thought to be related to maternal instinct or some other social behaviour.
I do agree though that people are running with this stuff further than the science has verified.