Dumbing down

General discussion on entomology
Post Reply
User avatar
adamcotton
Global Moderators
Global Moderators
Reactions:
Posts: 743
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2022 12:24 pm
Location: Thailand
Thailand

Dumbing down

Post by adamcotton »

I was watching the news on the BBC just now when the reader said:

"It seems there won't be so many butterflies around this year because the drought in the UK last year has affected the plants that YOUNG BUTTERFLIES rely on".

Oh dear, obviously whoever wrote that either doesn't realise that "young butterflies" are caterpillars (in lay terms) or they were afraid people wouldn't understand that caterpillars turn into butterflies (or moths).

I found it distinctly embarrassing.

Adam.
User avatar
daveuk
Premium Member - 2024
Premium Member - 2024
Reactions:
Posts: 887
Joined: Mon May 23, 2022 8:08 pm
Wales

Re: Dumbing down

Post by daveuk »

adamcotton wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 5:08 pm I was watching the news on the BBC just now when the reader said:

"It seems there won't be so many butterflies around this year because the drought in the UK last year has affected the plants that YOUNG BUTTERFLIES rely on".

Oh dear, obviously whoever wrote that either doesn't realise that "young butterflies" are caterpillars (in lay terms) or they were afraid people wouldn't understand that caterpillars turn into butterflies (or moths).

I found it distinctly embarrassing.

Adam.
There was a survey done a few years back here in the U.K. on children's basic Natural History knowledge .I did not actually see the results myself but heard from a friend they were woeful.
Consider myself very lucky I come from a generation (probably the last) where knowledge of natural history was passed down from previous generations. It was from both sets of Grandparents in my case. They gave me interests in which I can still always find solace & have lasted me an entire lifetime.
I genuinely feel extremely sorry for youngsters now left to entertain themselves with computer games & suchlike.
I fear very much for the natural world. A lack of interest & care on the part of the younger generation does not bode well for the planet in general.
User avatar
58chevy
Meek
Meek
Reactions:
Posts: 376
Joined: Mon May 23, 2022 5:58 pm
Location: Houston, TX USA
United States of America

Re: Dumbing down

Post by 58chevy »

Reminds me of this cartoon:
Attachments
Cartoons_Image_01.jpg
Cartoons_Image_01.jpg (174.3 KiB) Viewed 891 times
User avatar
livingplanet3
Premium Member - 2024
Premium Member - 2024
Reactions:
Posts: 584
Joined: Tue May 24, 2022 4:55 pm
United States of America

Re: Dumbing down

Post by livingplanet3 »

Image
User avatar
kevinkk
Premium Member - 2024
Premium Member - 2024
Reactions:
Posts: 313
Joined: Mon May 23, 2022 5:06 pm
Location: Oregon
United States of America

Re: Dumbing down

Post by kevinkk »

Arguably, there are "young" butterflies, at least the author didn't call them 'baby butterflies' .
User avatar
joachim
Junior Member
Junior Member
Reactions:
Posts: 88
Joined: Tue May 24, 2022 1:38 pm
Location: Göttingen Germany
Germany

Re: Dumbing down

Post by joachim »

Hello, and here was a ( very well-meaning ) article about Lycaenidae, whose caterpillars live in ant burrows. It exists here where I live (but I only saw the moths years ago). In any case, it was said that the caterpillars lay eggs, and the pictures probably showed the droppings.
I will see if I can find such burrows here, who knows, a new way of reproduction.
The knowledge about holometabolic and hemimetabolic development is probably low among many people.

Joachim

P.S. An essay by a boy, I know him personally. I hope you enjoay it. Translated wi deepl.com

how my sister came into the world:


My sister, like all people, came into the world the same way I did. But since I can't remember, I was particularly aware of this event and was able to help.
I was able to observe all stages, from egg laying to larvae, pupation and hatching. It was simply interesting, exciting and instructive.

My parents had thought long and hard about laying another egg and raising it. That alone is not enough, the work only begins with the child. So of course the mother must lay the egg.
The father then has to take the sperm from the sperm valve and lay it in the furrow provided on the egg, but that's not very time-consuming.
He just has to catch the right moment, otherwise the egg dries out because it doesn't develop.
I then also learned that the mother has to somehow get the egg to mature and come out. To do that, you need a special food.
This makes biological sense: if the food is rich and the mother is well nourished, an egg will ripen. That's why my mother had always dieted or said,
"No, if I eat this much now, I'll lay another egg. Now I realised the connection.

So we bought lots of delicious things, cooked according to cookbooks, and lo and behold, one day my mother said she felt an egg coming.
At one point she disappeared while watching TV and shouted, "Come on, the egg is here!" She had caught it in the egg-catching bowl that father had bought extra days before.


Now it was time to get the incubator ready. Put in the egg with the shell and set it to automatic. That was it.
In the evening we sat together and talked about how our ancestors must have done it. They didn't eat much, and when they had a successful hunt, the women of the horde got eggs right away. In caves that were wet or in huts, the egg had to be guarded, warmed, moistened and dried.
Today we have sensor-controlled incubators with warning messages, and our neighbour even received a text message because the egg had changed colour (it was no big deal, but it could have been).

Well, we don't have such an expensive one, but one is reassured, nevertheless, one constantly checks whether the egg is ok.
When I woke up in the morning, I asked my father when he was going to put the seed packet in the furrow. He laughed and said that the incubator had sounded the alarm in the evening because the furrow was open and he quickly packed the seed half asleep. The furrow then closes immediately. Nature does the rest.

Days went by, as I said, we kept looking at the egg in the beginning, but nothing happened for a long time. Some people say you should sing to the egg, but my father said that was nonsense, because there are no nerves yet, let alone a brain. Also the colour of the environment has no influence.


After a few weeks we became restless, and lo and behold, it changed colour. I thought I could see a larva under the eggshell and wondered if it was a boy or a girl, But the larvae look more like a sausage than a human being, although strictly speaking they already are one.

Then it was time, this time my father woke me up, we opened the incubator and turned off the automatic system. We looked at it for hours until something stirred.
The shell burst and a small larva crawled out. Relatively quickly, looked around and then began to consume the eggshell.
Useful that it is, we quickly took photos and removed a small piece, which serves as a souvenir and also for medical examination.
The work began. Fortunately, there is ready-made larvae food, mother had bought enough. Also cleaning agents and things for disinfection.
It was clear to me that the quiet times were over for the time being.
But a larva is nothing bad. It's thick, white, has a few eyes in the front and a mouthpiece that takes in porridge, and it comes out the back.
Father explained to me that in the past, parents or members of hordes used to chew food and give it to the larvae. In the Middle Ages, there were even families that made a living out of it,
from feeding larvae.
They came for money, brought food with them and fed the larvae of the rich people and the nobility. It is even said that larvae were exchanged.
Maybe that's why some princes don't look at all like their parents in old paintings.


But be that as it may, one soon got into a routine and everything went on as it should.
Until one day I was out with my mother and my father called me on his mobile phone to say that the larva was sick, discoloured, not eating and veins were visible. Should he call an ambulance?

But no, the pupation was imminent. When we arrived home, the larva had shrunk a bit, but still weighed almost 3 kg.
(My parents had bought a total of 60 kg of ready-made food, which was almost used up) It lay there, we looked, veins were visible and poof, the skin ripped open in one place. I was scared, but my parents were happy. Help me, carefully, the larval skin has to come off because of the breathing.

And lo and behold, the skin tore, dried (the incubator was now set to "automatic pupation, skin thickness "normal" and moisture content "medium to low").
and we were able to remove the remains. Of course, one piece will be sent for examination, the rest we put into an extra box, where my larvae skin was also.
(and grandpa's, the others are at my aunt's, but she accidentally dropped them once and now doesn't touch the box any more, otherwise we would have them in our collection).

The incubator was now set to "doll skin drying". In former times, i.e. in the Stone Age, this probably happened mainly in summer, because in winter the pupae skin
so well and has to be warmed up. In later times, people had a lot of trouble drying the doll in winter (only the outer shell dries).
Rich people sent the dolls by ship or carriage to warm regions because it was more comfortable there. But woe betide if the ship was late!

My mother was happy because now came weeks of rest. No feeding, just watching.
My father installed a new surveillance camera in the incubator, which took time-lapse pictures but also has sensors for all kinds of disturbances. If the chrysalis is too dry
it's automatically sprinkled or warmed or whatever.
I remembered the school trip where we had visited the doll storage room in an old castle. They had plants there that kept the humidity,
other plants kept pests away and guards sat there round the clock with fly swatters and tweezers to make sure no mosquito or spider got at the doll.
I don't know if that was dangerous or not. Maybe they were also afraid that the dolls could be stolen. It is said that a prince's child was hatched on a ship because the doll had been stolen. According to legend, it grew up on the ship, discovered its true origins and exchanged the son's doll for the king's doll, so that his son again ascended the throne. But these are probably legends.

Nevertheless, it was probably much more dangerous in the past.

After a few days, you can bring the doll in for an examination and possibly see whether it will be a boy or a girl. But my parents wanted to be surprised.
Anyway, everything was ok and we were able to go on holiday for a few days, the doll stayed in the doll clinic under strict supervision until then. It is important that the parents recover a little after the feeding stress before the real stress starts.



And then it got exciting: the doll changed colour, eyes, hair could be seen, something like a snub nose, I thought.
Father reinstalled the camera, with a motion detector. We waited, and then, suddenly, the doll's skin ripped open and my sister came out.
Well, not that she crawled out of there, with her little legs and little hands she instinctively pushed the doll's skin away.
Well, there she was. The camera system sounded the alarm, the doctor examined her and after a few hours we could take her home.
The doll's skin was hung up in the cellar next to mine. She was a little smaller than mine, but my father told me not to get carried away,
Girls grow up fast.

Sometimes I think that children could also grow up in their mother's or father's womb, where they would be warm, somehow nourished and safe.
But nature has decided otherwise!
Chuck
Premium Member - 2024
Premium Member - 2024
Reactions:
Posts: 885
Joined: Mon May 23, 2022 2:30 pm
Solomon Islands

Re: Dumbing down

Post by Chuck »

There are a number of factors to "dumbing down", one of which is the lack of age-old knowledge because it's not needed. This includes things such as knowing what a baby butterfly is, to how to pluck a chicken. I read just last week a study that said in a generation we'll have nobody who can do anything mechanical because all the youth are being trained on software-based capabilities: interfaces, apps, etc.

Too, there's been a lowering of the bar for journalism. Not just grammar and reviewing, but basic common sense and any real ability to do investigative journalism, instead relying on self-proclaimed experts.

Case in point, a few years ago on the archived forum I flagged a NatGeo article about the crash in insect populations. Not to argue that point, but to demonstrate their point, they pictured two jars of insects sampled at a light some years apart. The more recent jar was only 1/4 full while the one from years before was 3/4 full. Proof! Yet, apparently the collector, the photographer, the writer, and the editors somehow failed (or worse, refused) to see that the full jar was monotypical- all hornets.

Now we're told AI (ChatGTP) is the end-all know-all. It's not. Garbage in, garbage out. But, like Wikipedia, people believe what they read.

If you want to see dumbing down, I think this unbelievable video of an ELECTED representative from USA going on about concern for the volcanic island Guam simply tipping over.

User avatar
kevinkk
Premium Member - 2024
Premium Member - 2024
Reactions:
Posts: 313
Joined: Mon May 23, 2022 5:06 pm
Location: Oregon
United States of America

Re: Dumbing down

Post by kevinkk »

Chuck, I saw that one on the news. Absolutely incredible this person can survive without 24 hour care. There are some other examples nearly as good,
but the tipping island is just mind numbing.

As far as "dumbing down"- to me it's using a smaller word for the benefit of someone who I might think needs the help, It doesn't happen often,
you either make it, or you're out of your element, teaching grammar and vocabulary isn't my job.
Chuck
Premium Member - 2024
Premium Member - 2024
Reactions:
Posts: 885
Joined: Mon May 23, 2022 2:30 pm
Solomon Islands

Re: Dumbing down

Post by Chuck »

Perhaps "dumbing down" has been a long time in coming. The Brits use FOUR times the vocabulary as do Americans.

I love reading American books written in the 1940s. The wealth of the vocabulary enables writers to leverage the most applicable, and most descriptive, word. Today's books are a shadow of the writings from the 1940s.

My written vocabulary is pathetic. It's worse than in high school, a result of decades of working in Engineering where prose is unimportant. A decade ago I had to re-learn to write well, but that need then passed, and I've slipped yet again.

It's said- and I concur- that newspapers are written to be read by those with an 8th grade education level. OK, I can understand that. But when I read the rubbish published in National Geographic and Smithsonian, I shake my head; there's no excuse for such sloppiness in investigative journalism and writing.
User avatar
joachim
Junior Member
Junior Member
Reactions:
Posts: 88
Joined: Tue May 24, 2022 1:38 pm
Location: Göttingen Germany
Germany

Re: Dumbing down

Post by joachim »

And when the moon is full, there is a terrible scramble among the inhabitants. And the more people live, the heavier the earth, that will affect the orbit.
Post Reply

Create an account or sign in to join the discussion

You need to be a member in order to post a reply

Create an account

Not a member? register to join our community
Members can start their own topics & subscribe to topics
It’s free and only takes a minute

Register

Sign in