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.
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.
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