The Start of Misinformation, Misunderstandings, and Acknowledging Lack of Knowledge

[livinlifeinBKK]

Interesting that so many people are making claims not supported by empirical evidence based on a person’s age. Many of these same people fail to acknowledge that the only way to improve the plight of the minority or disadvantaged is to make a lot of noise and inconvenience those that truly hold power. An example would be the relatively recent onslaught of videos surfacing demonstrating unthinkable violence by police officers in the USA (I’m not claiming all officers are guilty). Do you honestly believe this wasn’t happening prior to the advent of the cell phone camera? Of course it was happening before that. So making an argument that black people in the US were thin skinned whiners about the police by the “thick-skinned” older majority is at a minimum complicity to the violence and more likely supportive of it. I use this simply as a well documented example where the experience of a person may not reflect the reality of the circumstances.

All generations have their challenges, different, but minimizing the challenges of younger generations simply demonstrates a lack of awareness and inability for compassion (there are lots of studies where you can research the challenges of each generation if you care to look).

The Dunning-Krueger Effect and confirmation bias are two concepts that if taught throughout the educational process would help people become more self aware and less susceptible to false information and conspiracy theories. I am not an expert in these fields by any means, but understanding these concepts has helped me be more critical of my beliefs and more open to alternative information.

Thank you for returning us to the relevant subject with your last paragraph!

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I read the original post as well as others. IMO this is a generational issue, not so much a reefing issue. As older generations were taught not to believe everything they read on the net. Perhaps putting "IMO" on post replies will solve the misunderstandings.

You still don't get it. I'd assume it was poorly written but you seem simply to be one of very few outliers who doesn't understand. If you would like to understand how it's a reefing issue just PM me and I'll explain it in simpler terms
And like I said, don't be ashamed you don't understand something.

 

[fish farmer]

The purpose of this lengthy post is to #1 make new members aware they should be trusting research backed by evidence and make them aware there are many opinions shared in this hobby that are simply opinions and not fact and #2 to encourage people to be a little more conscious about claims they make and if they're opinions to state that or imply it in some way.

It's midday here but know it's the middle of the night for most people and do feel there is importance in trying to avoid the spread of misinformation so I may bump the thread a little later.

R2R is a great resource we have. Let's keep it that way and even improve by letting people know the level of reliability of information being spread on the site.

What about with generalized info like the best way to lower phosphate? On a given day 9 out of 10 reefers will type lc or gfo on their phones, but one will say chaeto. A week later it is a completely different percentage. Is a short and sweet answer not acceptable because it may look like a parroted response since it isn't wordy?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

One of the things that sometimes gets lost in posts is the difference between an actual experience, which always has learning value even if it was due to reasons the author didn’t appreciate, and something they read somewhere, which may be incompletely recounted, or just wrong, and may be worse than nothing in terms of useful information.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

One of the things that sometimes gets lost in posts is the difference between an actual experience, which always has learning value even if it was due to reasons the author didn’t appreciate, and something they read somewhere, which may be incompletely recounted, or just wrong, and may be worse than nothing in terms of useful information.

I actually have specific examples in mind but feel if those posters read it , they'll take personal offense even though I wouldn't identify them

 

[ReefGeezer]

I actually have specific examples in mind but feel if those posters read it , they'll take personal offense even though I wouldn't identify them

If I'm on your list go ahead and post it. We'll discuss the info and then I'll shout you down!

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

If I'm on your list go ahead and post it. We'll discuss the info and then I'll shout you down!

No, no, haha...I knew for example right off when I heard a couple blanket statements that they were just blanket statements, it's others who may not have. And besides if we're trying to help each other as much as possible, couldn't providing that tiny bit of extra information possibly help guide them if and when they start doing other research?

 

[gbru316]

Given the relatively young age of this hobby, we're all guilty of misinformation, lack of knowledge, and misunderstandings at one point or another. Much of what we do is based on either anecdotal evidence or science that only partially explains a given method.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Given the relatively young age of this hobby, we're all guilty of misinformation, lack of knowledge, and misunderstandings at one point or another. Much of what we do is based on either anecdotal evidence or science that only partially explains a given method.

I agree but I've seen plenty of instances where it is not conveyed as such.

 

[Paul B]

This hobby started in the US in 1971. It started a little earlier in Germany.

 

[kevgib67]

LOL, you have to get old to understand the concept. Older than PC which just became a thing a very few years ago. Being old, and being I was brought up when Eisenhower was President we didn't have anything PC. Most of that thinking was of course wrong as we were brought up with a lot of prejudices. It's just the way it was and it got that way by the way this country (USA) was populated.

People from different cultures using different languages came here from Europe and didn't trust each other. Here where I live in New York we had an Irish section, Chinese section, German section, black sections and Italian section. We couldn't communicate with each other which caused mistrust.

I, like most of us got over all of that and I don't see any difference in any culture but many from my generation still hold grudges even if they are unfounded.

But the difference between us older people and millenniums is that most of our parents fought in a war and when we turned 18 (the males) we were drafted and the service removed all of that silly inconsequential thinking that causes many arguments today. If we served in a war zone it totally removed all of that thinking and gave us very thick skin that you can't get by using Coppertone.

You can't believe something just because it is in print. I published quite a few articles in paper magazines before computers and virtually anything I wrote was published as fact. I could have wrote that feeding grasshoppers to groupers would cause them to spawn twice a day for 6 months then they would turn into copper band butterflies and it would have been published.

I also wrote a book but there also were no fact checkers so much of the information I could have made up in a drunken, LSD laden rant. Just saying.

You are also correct old people have wrinkly skin and even older people have lousy memories. My memory is no where near what it was even 20 years ago. But the things I do remember came about by trial and error, not from a scientist who may not even have a gold fish tank in his old Grand Mothers house.

Why do us genXers always get ignored and left out of these generational debates? Is anyone aware we exist?

 

[kronos571]

The tough part, and I’m guilty of it myself sometimes, is that it’s easy to write about what you *think* but not be clear to others that you are guessing. It’s helpful, in a large forum, to make your assumptions very clear so that people can understand what you’re taking into account (or what you aren’t) when you’re making conclusions.

I try my best to stick with stating what I’ve observed myself and be clear about it. “In my two tanks, [x] happened.” Most people know not to put as much trust into that observation as they might put into an observation like, “I’ve worked in a large, non-profit aquarium and managed dozens of tanks for 25 years, and I’ve never seen [Y] happen in this situation.”

Where trouble (99% of the time just misunderstanding) happens is when I say “I do [X] and it works every time” or “Don’t do [Y], that’s wrong” when you don’t clarify where you’re coming from or how you got there so people can take your advice in context.

 

[snorklr]

whats a genXer?....thats a joke, calm down

 

[Kraig]

It would be a great thing for people to "qualify" their advice or information given. A lot of people do already, some will never. I'm not sure how much we can change that. I think to the point of livinlifeinBKK, hopefully having this conversation at least helps raise awareness.

Flipping to the side of receiving advice instead of giving it, this hobby isn't easy. It doesn't have to be super hard, but you aren't going to learn and understand what you are doing just by acting on advice/information given as a response in a thread. Sometimes the reasoning is given or expanded upon in that thread, and that's good, but sometimes it is not.

Even if it's very sound advice, I think it is always a good idea to take that advice and do some additional research. Why was the advice given? Do other successful reef keepers do the same thing? Can I figure out any specifics on why this advice might or might not work? Those are just a few of the questions I think about and try to research when I ask for advice and it is given to me.

 

[CrunchyBananas]

Why do us genXers always get ignored and left out of these generational debates? Is anyone aware we exist?

No, now stay out this debate that somehow turned political/generational on a fish forum.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I actually have specific examples in mind but feel if those posters read it , they'll take personal offense even though I wouldn't identify them

I do write a lot of random stuff without evidence that most disagree, feel free to use it as a example.

The reason I don’t provide links for the stuff I write it’s mainly because it’s a waste of time if we are all being honest.
for a start not many people read the evidence article or study wend presented with one, second I’ve come to a conclusion that folks that ask for evidence supported by a article, often don’t read the information that you provide, they just want to say that something is wrong for no known reason, often they don’t know if is right or wrong themselves. I often ask folks to just prove me wrong as this will imply for the party involved to do some research and actually read the articles instead of jumping to the summary.
The danger of asking for articles is that we can get them to support almost anything this days, the reason being that no article or study will end with a confirmation.
Just look at the fish quarantine Vs no quarantine it’s fairly easy to find studies supporting both sides of the debate. What side is right both sides of the discussion got plenty of data available.

 

[gbru316]

This hobby started in the US in 1971. It started a little earlier in Germany.

Which is still young when compared to other hobbies existing around animals.

People have been keeping dogs/cats/birds/horses for hundreds of years. There's a much larger knowledge base there than exists for reefkeeping so much of the "basics" have already been solidified.


One of the basics of reefkeeping -- water quality -- is still evolving. 20 years ago, 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate was the goal. We now know better. Or, at least, understand what factors contribute to a successful ULNS system.

 

[KrisReef]

First of all in this day and age I first have to state this is aimed to offend nobody and is not intended to offend in any way. This is something I do, however , feel is important for someone to say and since nobody else has said it yet I will. I THINK a lot of misinformation gets started on internet forums and this one is no exception. The way it starts (I think) is from people unintentionally making claims from anecdotal evidence which sound like and are presented as if they are facts supported by empirical data. Another primary source is from people making blanket statements regarding various organisms which are not supported by the currently accepted scientific research (maybe in the same genus for example) which actually have significant variations in the real world. This is something I've encountered multiple times here and although taxonomy does group organisms together based on traits, it does so based upon VERY specific similarities and not by making blanket statements formed over the course of 5 minutes. Because people commonly fail to mention that their statements are opinions or gathered from personal experience and not scientific research or empirical data there are almost certainly people who see the statement and take it as a fact and later repeat what they heard in the same way and spread it further.
Also sometimes we just don't know the answer to a question we've been asked. It DOESN'T MAKE YOU dumb because you don't know the answer. It's perfectly fine and honest to say "I don't know" or something similar. I've seen countless times people provide answers that simply aren't true because they just don't want to admit to not knowing. Another thing I see people do sometimes is add a lot of qualifiers in their answer to try to make it sound like their previously untrue statement is true at times no matter how rare it may be. There's nothing wrong in simply admitting you don't know or acknowledging something you previously said is incorrect instead of trying to justify it.

NOTE: I explicitly said that this is what I think happens implying it's my opinion. Also, I'm only human too and sure I've made careless statements but am trying my best to do better.

The purpose of this lengthy post is to #1 make new members aware they should be trusting research backed by evidence and make them aware there are many opinions shared in this hobby that are simply opinions and not fact and #2 to encourage people to be a little more conscious about claims they make and if they're opinions to state that or imply it in some way.

It's midday here but know it's the middle of the night for most people and do feel there is importance in trying to avoid the spread of misinformation so I may bump the thread a little later.

R2R is a great resource we have. Let's keep it that way and even improve by letting people know the level of reliability of information being spread on the site.

In my opinion this was a long post.
I have a lot to say about the subject but I’m against long posts.
IME longer posts get a lot of attention but they are often over rated, imo.
I like GIFs, I am a visual person.

maybe just envy?

 

[foxt]

Advice on reefing from a forum? Consider the source, and then decide what is right for you. And enjoy the company, and learn to ignore some of it. Just like real life.

Not to single them out, but for example, I have come to trust and enjoy anything these two guys (among many others) say.

One of the things that sometimes gets lost in posts is the difference between an actual experience, which always has learning value even if it was due to reasons the author didn’t appreciate, and something they read somewhere, which may be incompletely recounted, or just wrong, and may be worse than nothing in terms of useful information.

You can't believe something just because it is in print. I published quite a few articles in paper magazines before computers and virtually anything I wrote was published as fact. I could have wrote that feeding grasshoppers to groupers would cause them to spawn twice a day for 6 months then they would turn into copper band butterflies and it would have been published.

They share what they know, based on their experience and knowledge, and they've earned my trust. It helps that they have been here for years and have thousands of threads / posts, and that one of them is endorsed by supermodels.

 

[gbru316]

I agree but I've seen plenty of instances where it is not conveyed as such.

With much of this hobby, we're operating on information as we understand it today. It's entirely plausible that some of it is wrong and in time will be revealed as such. We may learn that success can be found in spite of a given method or process, not because of.

Does that make it misinformation, conjecture, or indicate a lack of knowledge among its advocates?