(Disclaimer: this has long been a pet peeve of mine, too, as my wife could testify!)
I found the article aesthetically as well as scientifically persuasive.
a dead butterfly is more aesthetically pleasing than a living one due to the outstretched wings
No it isn't; you're just used to seeing them that way. There's an excellent scientific reason for it, since it facilitates species identification, but I'd rather see butterflies portrayed alive than dead unless that's semantically appropriate (eg for a gothic aesthetic). I have a garden and we let it run fairly wild to attract bird and insect life, so I have lots of real butterflies, bees etc to look at.
Being used to things looking certain way is always factor in what people find aesthetically pleasing. It goes for color preferences, shapes and pretty much anything else too.
I did find this really interesting though. Sort of a window into a world i'd never otherwise think about.
I'm sorry, do you have evidence for this assertion? The author specifically addresses this, saying the position is atypical even during flight.
It just seems rude to me to dismiss the author's argument so flippantly with what seems to be an unfounded supposition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7a7ZAqWBIs&t=79 shows a butterfly manoeuvring in flight such that it stretches its wings forward. My statement was simply that if a butterfly is ever going to have its wings forward, it will be while it is in flight. Stop looking for drama where there isn't any.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Ha...
For all we know, a butterfly could find such pictures attractive.
Half-baked analogy. A person in split-leg position is not natural. We rarely see people in such position. But to say that [1] is a picture of a dead person would be clearly nonsense.
[1] https://images.clipartof.com/small/28591-Clipart-Illustratio...
This is hacker news and we have something special here. One-liners like that are deserving of your response.
That was the feeling evoked by the comment. I was taking a break from work and didn't spend time explaining.
There are so many reasons I find that comment bothersome. But mostly it's probably my upbringing in the deep south where any intellectual pursuit would put you into the category of "odd nut" whose time spent on a subject was worthy of dismissal because of "common sense" is more important.