We’ve got a bunch of new people now so let’s bring back a classic post. What low stakes conspiracy theory do you believe that you cannot prove but feels right to you?
I’ll start: I believe that dating apps have made a concerted effort to smear in person meeting people and tie it to being “creepy” through social media so you are forced to meet people online(which was the creepy option just 15 years ago)
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okay here’s one i’m actually serious about that’s kind of controversial: Koko the gorilla did not know sign language. in fact she did not know any language. she was very intelligent and emotionally deep, but she did not do what humans do when we communicate with each other through spoken or signed words. at most she repeated some actions that got her some reward, but she did not associate the actions with any meaning beyond the reward. her trainer did not know ASL and did not bother properly codifying the reduced version she supposedly taught Koko. instead she convinced herself of her conclusion, and having done so, worked to imbue any pseudo-signing behaviors by Koko with linguistic meanings whether they made sense or not.
I believe pretty much the same thing about everyone on youtube and tiktok who made those button boards that their dog or cat presses to “talk.” i think these cases and claims are worth investigating scientifically, but so far no one has definitively demonstrated what would be a very surprising conclusion i especially find it suspect when they say things like “so far Grover has learned over 80 words!” and what they mean is their golden retriever has pressed over 80 buttons that said a word that the owner could come up with some explanation for.
The claim she ‘knew language’ or could ‘speak sentences’ is obvious nonsense. But there’s no doubt that animals like dogs can indeed learn hundreds of words and associate them with real-world concepts. I’ve seen videos where someone has a hundred different stuffed toys in another room, and they can tell the dog to get a specific item with complete reliability. So I’ve no doubt a dog could convey a desire for a specific object, for example. Conveying any abstract concepts, or stringing any sentences beyond a single word, I certainly haven’t seen done with any objectively measurable success.
Yeah I suppose that’s true, I was too extreme in saying animals can’t learn any language when I meant they can’t compose sentences like a lot of these people claim they do.
I remember seeing someone deboonk it once, but I won’t say I think animals can’t learn language-based communication. Like dogs can learn commands, they can learn that a sound conveys a meaning. Surely animals can then also learn that a motion conveys meaning.
