Badger or Bulbasaur – have children lost touch with nature? | Hacker News Reader

Badger or Bulbasaur – have children lost touch with nature?

theguardian.com

28 pointsjansho50 comments

I live in Australia. My kids are well-versed in British and American animals like squirrels, badgers, hares, raccoons, moose, bears and deer from childrens books and songs.

However, we don't have any of them here in Australia.

Knowledge of animals and experience in nature are frequently unrelated. My kids spend plenty of time outside but how often do they see animals (other than the occasional bird)? They're asleep when possums and fruit bats are around. They occasionally see kangaroos on their grandparents farm. In general though, they see cats, dogs and other pets: the animals we deliberately introduce to kids.

This is very interesting. Do you know if they have any interesting misconceptions about those animals they know about but have never seen (assuming you yourself know enough about rabbits, badgers, hares and such to know that they are misconceptions)?

It's interesting when many people know about a certain phenomenon through media or things like cartoons, which obviously distort reality beyond any possibility of recognition.

The most amazing example I've ever seen is the one about bullfights. Apparently, many Americans know about bullfights from a single Bugs Bunny sketch, in which he is dressed as a Matador and kinda "dances" with the bull in the arena. This apparently made many people think that that's basically what happens in a bullfight. Then you get some nasty culture shock when people watch the real thing, as in this reddit thread (WARNING: video with blood and violence against animals, first in CGI then in real life): https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/68i332/to_those_who...

The comments were really surprising to me. I would expect most people from outside of Spain, Latin America and Portugal not to know about bullfights, but I definitely didn't expect people to know about it from a cartoon and harbor so many misconceptions about what it really is!

Spoiler: in a bullfight, the matador does nasty things to the bull (like sticking short spears with hooks so that they don't come out when the bull moves), dodges the bull's charge while distracting it with a cape, and in the end he kills it with a sword through the back. If the killing blow fails to kill the bull, they kill the animal with a knife just below the brain. Also, Matador literally means killer in Spanish, because he kills the bull.

> Do you know if they have any interesting misconceptions about those animals they know about but have never seen

Another misconception kids seem to have is about the hippopotamus, which is always depicted as a cute animal, but which in fact is one of the most dangerous animals around.

Baby hippos are really cute. In most people’s minds they simply grow into a bigger version of that. Not the eventual psychopaths they are in reality.

To say nothing of spiders:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/sep/05/peppa-p...

I think your example is analogous to what the article is referring to; children are excellent at learning the names of what they are exposed to.

"In Britain, the “roaming range” (the area within which children are permitted to play unsupervised) has shrunk by more than 90% in 40 years."

What does "..plenty of time outside.." mean here? Playing in the garden? I've no real exposure to what Australian wildlife is like, but it cant all be nocturnal.

The anxiety that (we) parents have of our children's welfare is the culture shift that is the root of these changes. Its far easier for me to keep an eye on my kids while they play in the garden, or reading about the outside whilst sitting at my feet.

> What does "..plenty of time outside.." mean here? Playing in the garden? I've no real exposure to what Australian wildlife is like, but it cant all be nocturnal.

It can be quite dangerous, which is why we're taught about it as children. I'm not really sure where GP is living, but it doesn't strike me as anything like where I grew up.

Occasional bird? In Sydney you get cockatoos, galahs, magpies, rainbow lorikeets, ibis, crested pigeons, kookaburras, noisy miners among other stuff that I can't name.

Flying foxes are out during dusk, so kids are surely awake.

Yeah, I'm also confused. I grew up in very urban areas in Sydney and I was very familiar with all sorts of flora and fauna (we were taught about them in primary school, and you would see them around the playground). Not to mention spiders in the garden, blue bottles and jellyfish on the beach, all manner of bugs and bats late at night, etc.

I also played Pokemon as a kid, and I don't recall ever thinking that animals were uninteresting.

Exactly. I spent a ton of my childhood outside but the animals I actually saw out there were pigeons and stray cats.

Connection with nature in my opinion does not equal knowing the names of all of the life found in nature. Connecting with nature means dropping your misguided identification as being somehow separate from nature. Experiencing the unmistakable unity of humans being a part of this earth just as any other life is what I call being connected. Putting a label on a bird is not an experience of anything but a symbol.

The problem is that if you can't tell two similar-looking birds apart then you won't notice (or care) when one disappears. Names are important for this reason, they force you to identify the differences between animals, to tell one apart from another, and thereby appreciate the diversity of life around you - a diversity that is rapidly vanishing.

An excellent point! Since the Big Bang, our universe has been getting more and more complex, from particles, to atoms, to molecules, to the incredible diversity of life we see today, which yes is under great threat today. Putting a name on that diversity simply shows us our place in this complex universe.

As an aside, I think that animal and plant names are the least transferable knowledge between languages. Quite regularly when i happen to need to use a name of some animal I know it in my mother tongue or in English but not in French or some combination of those. To me this shows that even though having a passable knowledge of living things (i used to consider plant and mushroom encyclopaedias as “fun reading” when I was little) I never had any motivation to re-learn it

Richard Feynman had a very good quote on this topic. Effectively, knowing the name of an animal is the least useful knowledge about that animal.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ga_7j72CVlc

If I understand correctly, Feynman implies there exist other defining properties, better than names, that are preferable when thinking about animals (or objects in general)... unless one is communicating with other people, in which case a name will do.

But it's names all the way down! These substitute properties are also only names. Using articulate attention (science), we divide the world into abstract categories, giving names to classes of "things" that are in fact unique, even if the classes are fuzzy around the edges and just leaky abstractions of reality.

Is thinking in terms of the swirling, teeming, interconnected mass of "stuff" that's truly at the core of Nature a useful tool for getting ahead and making progress? It seems it's just too much to grasp, with everything unique and indivisible, no categories, no repeats. Even leaky abstractions (thrush! tiger! rock! water! human!) do better.

To question the utility of names is to question the utility of the power of articulate discrimination, one of evolution's critical inventions. Not sure what lies that way except inarticulate madness.

I do not think that he (or us here) questions the utility of names. Rather, the utility of knowing only a name and not much else. Knowing the names of a hundred mushrooms is less useful than knowing which of them you can eat.

    What's in a name? that which we call a rose
    By any other name would smell as sweet;

From "Romeo and Juliet."

Well that the one place where I disagreed with Feynman after reading all of his books.

The name of an animal connects you to a body of knowledge about that animal, both in books and in you elders.

Also let's not get hung up on 'name' as it is in english, simply a label long disconnected from it roots.

On the west coast of Canada the costal land is a very thin soil atop a layer of bedrock. Despite that some of the largest and oldest trees grew here.

Do you know what the name of a tree is in the Nuu-chah-nulth language: 'land holder'.

The name doesn't just label the thing, it tells you what it does, the roots hold the soil together.

Cut too many of them down and the soil washes away, leaving you only with bare rock.

If enough white men had known the 'true name' of west coast trees, maybe clearcutting would have never been practised.

I agree that the etymology of words is interesting and useful, but Feynmann's point (at least the way I saw it) wasn't that names are useless. It's that knowing just the name of something doesn't tell you much about the thing. It's far more useful to know properties of said thing.

You've given an example of an indigenous language being very descriptive. But there are equally many examples of them not being descriptive or being confusing. The same applies for all languages in fact (even German I would argue).

Words in English have a long etymology too (and since it is far more widely spoken than most other languages, it has a far more complicated etymological history). Not to mention that all words are effectively by function labels, even in the language you mention. Just because the label has some logic behind it doesn't make it not a label.

Also, is there a reason that you feel the need to deride "white men" or English? Seems quite out-of-place to me. Most invaders don't listen to the advice of indigenous inhabitants after invading a country, regardless of their skin colour.

I'm not deriding white men or english either, just pointing out the participants in the situation I was talking about.

Isn't this a case with any niche terms? For instance I've had the same issue with names of various kitchen tools and utensils - you know their name in your mother tongue, and when you need it you usually get away with: "give me, err, that thing", so you never pick up the proper name in English...

Fish in particular. I remember going into a restaurant in Portugal, looking forward to trying some wonderful local fresh fish, and having no idea what anything was.

Same again on Crete, but at least that time, the fish were heaped in iceboxes, so i could point at what i wanted.

Children are a product of their environment. If adults don't care about nature anymore, why should they?

It's basically trips to the zoo and CGI characters to them.

I guess this knowledge followed the path of the knowledge of star constellations.

Why are constellations not something you'd normally know nowadays? Because most people don't get to see them due to increasing light pollution and urbanization.

I for one had a proper look at the Milky Way for the first time when I was ten years old.

There's simply currently less nature to behold in peoples' lives.

I don't know constellations because I don't depend on them for navigation. I'm not sure why else I should even care that a bunch of ancients thought this bunch of stars looked like this animal or that one. It's not like I can even see half of them in the sky where I live, regardless of whether the stars are otherwise visible. And even if I could see them, all anyone ever seems to talk about is this small canon of Western names.

And if I ever needed to know for some reason, if it could ever in anyone's life possibly matter in the slightest whether this clump was called Cassiopeia by a bunch of people a thousand years ago, I'm about 10 seconds away from downloading an app that will superimpose constellations on my current sky. I can spend an hour reading about constellations and know more about them and their travels than many ancient astronomers could have observed in their lifetimes. And it doesn't mean a thing to me, because we know more about the universe than a handful of clumps that are occasionally visible to the naked eye.

I can appreciate the spectacle of a constellation, but everything about them that could possibly matter to my daily experience has been documented and indexed to the point that I never need to know it. I'm not trying to sail back to Ithaca. It has nothing really to do with urbanization and light pollution. Maybe I have fewer opportunities to see them, but if they blazed overhead every night, I probably wouldn't care one lick more about them.

> I don't know constellations because I don't depend on them for navigation. I'm not sure why else I should even care that a bunch of ancients thought this bunch of stars looked like this animal or that one.

One of the weirdest things I found while doing Astrophysics research is that people still use constellation names for most references. There are more thorough catalogue references to stars, but most papers reference "π Sco" (where Sco is short for Scorpius). It was quite bizarre, but it makes sense for a field that is that old. On the downside it meant that whenever a supervisor used relational terms to a constellation I would have to look at a star map (since I have no idea about constellations either).

Never have I ever found somebody who had opinions on constellations so strong that they would write three paragraphs about it.

Anyway my (currently) fiance used to use them as a pickup line(not on me though). She said it was pretty effective so there's that.

It's less an opinion about constellations than constellations as an example of knowledge people shouldn't worry about "losing" or being "disconnected" from. I imagine most people have a cognitive burden that's heavy enough with things they genuinely need to know without being expected to manage constellations, TV schedules, discrepancies in the Synoptic Gospels, the lyrics to "Time After Time," or how to fry a turkey. You can look all of it up when it matters, and your experience will not be much diminished.

Regarding the study they mention(the one that shows that children recognize Pokemon better than real animals and plants).

There is an important aspect of this finding that the article doesn't discuss. They don't link to the study, so I can't check for myself.

All the Pokemon names they mention are first generation. There are only 150 first generation Pokemon. It's a relatively small closed corpus. They also have bright colors and are very easy to distinguish. How many species of animals or plants does England have? Way more than 150, of course. How large was the sample from which the ones used in the study were chosen? It wouldn't surprise me if there were more than 150 relevant species that are needed to be knowledgeable in "nature stuff" in England.

Of course kids in urban environments don't know much about naming animal or plant species, that's just common sense. My beef with the study is that it doesn't seem to go beyond the common-sense notion because of the problems above... Knowing a small limited corpus of highly distinct entities will always be easier than knowing the very large (although still finite) corpus of animal and plant species that might be quite similar on the surface (e.g. cork oak vs holm oak, bee vs wasp, cat vs lynx, etc)

If you only wanted "highlight" animals and plants, you could probably get away with a list of 150 (or less - I'm struggling to think of 150 off the top of my head) but they definitely wouldn't be as easily distinguished as the Pokemon.

Found the study - they used 100 common species.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.477...

Cool, thanks. That definitely answers my questions. They really should link the study!

The part about distinguishing the animals from one another is still a problem, but I think that if Pokemon were actually real animals kids would distinguish them just fine anyway.

I'd also venture that Pokemon are almost certainly deliberately designed and focus tested to be recognisable and distinguishable because, well, that's how you market stuff and that makes this a bit of a dumb study.

Mother Nature, alas, does not have this luxury.

> that makes this a bit of a dumb study

Only if you assume no intent on the part of the study's authors. For example, I wonder if they would have had quite a different result if they'd used, say, 14 year olds. Or a mix of ages.

I wasn't overly encouraged that two of their citations were for the Biophilia Hypothesis. An interesting book, for sure, but not exactly rigorous science.

I was left with the definite impression that this study was as much about politics as science. To that end, maybe not dumb just not particularly impartial.

> I was left with the definite impression that this study was as much about politics as science.

I suppose if they were trying to force a conversation about (say) getting children to zoos, it wasn't dumb.

But in the sense of extending the human race's knowledge, it was dumb.

That's a great point. Pokemon were designed to be distinguishable from one another, that's good game design. However many birds and plants look similar with minute differences to distinguish them.

Also, Pokémon tend to have their species' name written somewhere on them. If instead you see a cool plant or animal outside, then good luck trying to look that up.

Childhood is training for adulthood. It is almost certain that software and

Back when children were made to read en mass there were panics about them spending too much time in doors and not playing outside. When TV came along, too much time watching TV not reading nooks. Now Ipads.

I agree - there needs to be a balance. humans are designed to be roaming outdoors. but 10,000 years ago ones life and prosperity depended on correctly identifying edible vs poisonous plants. Today a kids life / prosperity depends on much more complex social and technological skills - and playing Pokémon with other kids will help improve both social and technological skills.

Don't leave them to be pulled about by evil corporations in mindless adverts, but do encourage modern play as well as other things.

PS Tooling in this case matters. I can easily find OSS tools to run a firewall, less to audit web usage (netflow etc) but I want to be able to audit how much TV was watched (where is the API output from Netflix let alone from a damn TV aerial). How do I get a report off my iphone saying how many minutes (hours) I was looking at facebook? HN?

In order to make good choices we need good tools - and those tools are anti the interests of the peddlars - so I really want OSS to step up and take its place. but I am not sure how tractable the problem is.

A point I haven't seen here is where the children learnt the Pokémon names from. Was it TV? Games?

I'm asking this mostly because I'm old enough to just have missed the Pokémon hype, but I did play Magic the Gathering. And it was absolutely no problem to "kind of" know 100s of cards and remember all the properties (incl a name) when just given the illustration or a name. And I still do remember some of this, 20 years later - because it was useful applied knowledge.

On the other hand, although having grown up in the city and not having a close connection to nature... I did learn some bird and animal species out of interest. And nothing ever stuck. I'm especially bad with birds and mix up everything. I guess I can really identify 10-20 species, everything else I just declared unlearnable and I think I'll never try again. Of course I know an owl.. But the different species? Nope.

This is the original study from 2002 - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.477...

Here's my attempt to correct this depressing state of affairs \s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzagBTcYsYQ

Should have went with "Beaver or Bidoof" for the title.

I thought going to the zoo was a thing for kids?

Not only the children- most of the city-living adults too in my opinion. What is declared nature and what perverted- often reveals a totally warped perception.

When a re-introduced wulf hunts a sheep in a fence enclosed field, and eats it alive - that is considered acceptable nature. If a hunter would shoot said sheep outside the enclosure- that would be considered unnecessary brutal murder. Its like we humans, ironically the more dependent and closer to nature - the more, stopped being part of nature in these peoples eyes.

I also find it really interesting to what lengths some people go to fight for nature- as in venturing out in the woods, to saw through a perch post- which is totally unnecessary violence, as simply pissing near the feeding spot would make the hunt there nonviable for about a week.

And the animals out in the forest are totally idealized Disney versions for most people. The more stylish a animal looks, the more noble it is. Complete disregard for the "characters" out there- for example old boars, giving the "its-safe"-squeak to use young pigs as line of sight guinea-pigs for safety.

There are no deers, knowing that they are protected by hunting laws, parking there "Bambis" below the perch to protect them from foxes.

There are no animals, who loose the fear from man - or never had it. Badgers, Bears, Wulfes - all those why should they fear us, if they cant understand what we are and what tools are?

There is not contemplation for the strangeness of some of the creatures we routinely antromorphosize. There are horse-riders who do not get, the strict hierarchy that is a herd, and the spots and jobs within. They do not understand the concept of grooming friendships (which puts you on the exact same rank, if you get groomed back, below if only you groom, above if only you get groomed). Your horse does not know what hands are!

There are no over-testicled beasts in this world, that defend there territory against anything path-persisting.

There are no jock-groups among young animals pranking other animals.

There are no ravens "hunting" rabbits into car-traffic.

There is also no understanding on the terra-forming some animals attempt. Bucky the beaver wants your little settlement gone and flooded. He does not need protection after two generations- your house does.

But worst of all - there is no grasping of ones own footprint. To long for a second car- and then yell at the farmer/oil-driller who allows for it to drive, that is deeply intellectually dishonest and social schizophrenia at its worst. Your Greenpeace donation does not give you absolution in anyone's eyes. Quite contrary, it marks you as a continuous sinner, with a washing machine reflex.

What i observed, that helps nature along the most - is disorder and sloppiness. Just forget about those ten meters near the field-borders. Just leave that part of Forrest fallen into disrepair. Just dont harvest the fish from that pond this year. Just leave your wife bitching about how bad everything looks behind the house.

You will be surprised, how fast, how much will have a comeback. My dad used to be sloppy with our fish-pond- and one summer day i suddenly saw a Common kingfisher nesting there. If you want to do nature a favor, pick a spot to be protected from obsessive human compulsions on what nature has too look like.

Sorry, this turned out to be such a long post.

And yet this screed is just as one-sided. As an example -

>> Bucky the beaver wants your little settlement gone and flooded. He does not need protection after two generations- your house does.

Beavers are being reintroduced into the UK precisely because of the massive impact they have on local ecology. Bucky the beaver doesn't give two hoots about your house - but the earthworks Bucky and his family will undertake shape the local ecosystem and help keep everything alive.

What about the people that live where he is re-introduced? Is silently disowning someone by pushing a ecology that will make it vanish acceptable?

Most likely not silently, but in many cases yes. In the UK we have exterminated many of our large mammals over the years, to the detriment of many species and habitats.

Is there a single article on that site that's not an extreme exaggeration of non-issues, including this one? Obviously I am exaggerating now, but, seems to be the spirit.

People learn about what matters to them. Random animals not native to your life do not matter to you. It's really no big deal, we love to learn and our brains massively reward us for doing so especially when we actually believe it will matter. That is why it takes little effort to bring someone up to speed on flora and fauna that matters, when it really does.

Leave the rest of the concern to the biologists.

This strikes me as short-sighted and I think you're missing the point. The concern is that children don't care about nature in the first place.

You have to consider both causal directions: children don't know anything about nature because they don't care, or children don't care about nature because they don't know. This process is self-reinforcing.

The article gives no evedence that children are worse now than before. And to me it seems like absolute rubbish. The younger generation seem to care more about the environment than previous generations if anything.

The author seems to just not like the fact children like Pokemon and they don't.

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