Want a reliable way to tell the two cryptic giant hummingbird species apart while birding in the Andes? Use your ear! 🎶 In a new @fieldornith.bsky.social J. Field Ornithology paper, we show how their vocalizations differ clearly—making sound a slam dunk for identifying them in the field.
i was getting there:
bsky.app/profile/jfmc...
...because it doesn't come across as "you fucking gullible rube" and instead "you got lied to and should be angry about that"
not saying i handled it with perfect grace- i was quite frustrated!- but being able to frame it as that meant she was able to realize she'd been lied to, look up the real info, and change her mind.
i think having some empathy means it actually works *better* to point out disinfo...
it also doesn't mean we can't say "i get why you're scared, but the reason you are is a lie."
my mom and i had a fight a while back because she repeated the "covid death numbers were fake because doctors got paid more for them". i told her she'd been given bad info.
i get why that feels bad. we're being told *all the time* that we need to "have empathy" when the person saying that actually means "not be judged or face any consequences for their actions". you can have empathy in terms of "i understand how you got to where you are" and still think they're a POS
and if we care about actually changing minds- because people who made bad choices won't disappear if we refuse to try and change their minds because they are Bad- we should be using all the tools we can, including, y'know, empathy.
the fault is not in believing the grifter- part of what makes grifters bad is that they weaponize parts of ourselves that are often good, like "i want what's best for my kid", for their own gain. the fault comes in what you do *after* finding out you were duped- do you change course or dig in?
as a big podcast fan i frequently have the revelation that "hey i bet i'd like nonfiction audiobooks" but then completely forget it because i am apparently a goldfish
...have, often, in entirely good-faith, believed what someone presenting themselves as an "expert" told them, not realizing they were actually a grifter who cynically sold them a bill of goods.
but back to the original post, when "where they stand" is "a rancid cesspool of propaganda being purposefully pumped out to make them afraid", if you want to counter that *effectively*, you do need to reckon with the fact the people you're trying to communicate with...
and to make that connection effectively, one does, in fact, need empathy, in terms of being able to see where the person you're talking to stands so you can tailor your message to them.
that doesn't mean *agreeing* with where they stand! which is another dynamic weaponized by shitty people.
i face the same dilemma as someone talking about the actual science of sex (i.e., it's complicated AF). many transphobes do not care about the science, but will use that language to sow doubt in people who don't have an opinion.
the job is to reach that mass in the middle before bad-faith actors do
anyways need to preorder this bc it sounds like a great place to get back into it!
for awhile scicomm was very much all "if we just give people better facts they will make better choices", often to a fault, but i feel like now we're swinging back too far in the other direction sometimes.
some people will make terrible decisions regardless of info. but many *will* be reachable!
this is really making me reflect on my own reading habits. i do love nonfiction, but during grad school i pivoted away from it because it no longer felt like leisure but instead more work, even for topics nowhere near my own. i think i need to make more of an effort to get back into it though!
same! i have a whole shelf of DnD books and love a lego set, but it's the same here- after lots of thinking and consideration, i'm just no longer interested in always hearing the same stories or having "things i buy" be my identity, y'know?
Definitely not picking on this specific person so BE NICE but I’ve seen enough replies like this that I have to remind people that non-fiction is a big category that includes books about atoms, books about cats, books about cool trips people took, and lots of other FUN things
we're on "counting the hours till spring break mode". the agenda:
- paper edits!!!! finally time to do more than chip away at it!!!
- repaint the downstairs bathroom
- grade all the things
- IACUC protocol
A brown penguin chick of some kind. It looks very much like a man in a suit. It is bedraggled and miserable
Made it to Friday but at what cost
Honestly this one MILLION percent
I think just about everything I loved about Firefly could be done better by someone else now, not least because, as I saw someone else say, the good stuff Firefly was doing is no longer so unusual
i mean, not wrong sadly 🙃 when i was active in 00s-10s nerd culture, buying merch for your fandom was usually buying from some other 20-something on etsy who was crocheting the hat from firefly, and that market got eaten alive when corps realized there was money in that when we got jobs and shit.
A portrait of a short eared owl face
All of our wildlife patients this year so far have been owls, but this is our first short-eared.
You can help prevent car strikes like this by obeying rural speed limits and not throwing any litter out of cars. Even organics like apple cores attract rodents to roads, which attracts their hunters. 🪶
The bitterest pill about AI cheating for me is that AI'ed assignments take much longer to grade than honest assignments because they turn grading into an investigation.
So when the student spends less time, I spend more. Fun!
Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
One day...
Closest guess so far!
No but now I have another project idea to pursue
Alas no, it will not have any particular animal theme itself but it will be part of a heron/egret theme more broadly
Not a wreath, but the wreath form was a handy starting point
