like i’m watching blue planet and i’m yelling at the tv!

there’s all these yimmer yammer hand-wavey scientific rigor lines where it’s like ‘we may believe that these animals do on occasion have a base brain-related impulse that allows them to experience feelings somewhat like to those of friendship’ or whatever in the script on top of footage that they then describe as ‘it seems as though these two groups [of fish, different species] are old friends…’ in an almost whimsical manner.

can’t they give them some credit! they have eyes and a face, why is it so insane to think they can’t experience friendship or love or joy just like us? ‘buhhu uhhh its only accurate science if we only observe observable behavior’ why?? you’re neglecting a whole part of any living thing’s experience! inner life can’t be hand waved away! even for a mollusk!

and people loved doing this on reddit as well – oh actually your cat doesn’t understand love or joy or humor, it is simply reacting to the physical warmth of your lap, they don’t actually care for you. don’t worry, depth and emotion does not exist!

  • Sentrovasi@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I think you’re free to believe what makes you happy :)

    But making assumptions can be dangerous in science, and misconceptions, especially in the information age, can be very hard to disabuse. I’m happy for shows to not jump to conclusions just so twenty years later we’re not stuck with myths that may actually be harmful to how we understand the animals we all love.