Re: For Mr. Retes, about the photo.....

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Posted by FR on September 22, 2002 at 11:40:39:

In Reply to: For Mr. Retes, about the photo..... posted by Blackwater on September 22, 2002 at 07:27:09:

The pic was a good pic and it showed exactly what I wanted it to show. People were suppose to guess, have some fun, then I would show more, maybe guess again. Finally showing the whole animal. Dang how hard is it to identify a stinking blacktail, there guys here act like experts.

Let me tell you a little story. Once Dave Barker gave a talk at our local herp club. I have been to many many of his talks, but, this one was very special. He started by showing close ups of snakes scales, lots of these pics then enlarged the area to show groups of scales, then sections of snakes. He did not explain every pic, just showed them. His intention(pers com.) was to show the beauty of the reptiles, for those who didn't like snakes, show colors and textures. By showing closeups, the people never knew it was a snake. He finished the slide show by showing the whole animals. But, that is not what I got out of it. I clearly saw that colors, textures, scale shapes, scale arrangements, were very different even amoung different boid species. I reminded me to "look" at reptiles in this way, not merely as a whole unit. LOOK DEEPER

Many of the people on this forum, act as though they are experienced, so I approached them as if they were, lets look at parts and see what you know.(it was a game to play) Heck, anybody with a field guide can identify a whole snake. I am wierd, but, that sounds fun to me.

Several things happened that seemed odd to me. First, they got mad, What is up with that? They get upset because they do not know what the pic was?? Or were they mad because they were afraid of a new person coming in and spoiling the party. Second, they fall back of scientitic arguements, Actually that is fairly funny in so many ways. The one that sticks out the most is, they are totally non-scientific. A small lesson, science is about observation, not conclusions. Its about gathering observations(data), not judging them. About gathering lots of observations, without influencing the data, with your thoughts. Then after lots and lots of that, you search the data for trends. After lots of trends, you make tendencies, etc. Some here, make conclusions over a observation. That is not science. Most here, tried to make a conclusion over one questionable pic, that is not science. You really should ask more questions, that is science, the art of asking questions. I think school teaches that the answer is important, its really not. Whats important is asking the proper question. What experience gives you, is the ability to ask a better question. Sorry for the rant, but they totally deserve it. F

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