Don’t Be A Parrot
by Tom Furman
There is controversy about whether parrots are capable of using language, or merely mimic what they hear. However, some scientific studies — for example those conducted over a 30-year period by Irene Pepperberg with a grey parrot named Alex and other parrots, covered in stories on network television on numerous occasions — have suggested that these parrots are capable of using words meaningfully in linguistic tasks. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_bird
Humans are not parrots, but they act like they are. There is a fine line between mimicking and being capable of thought and that line is blurry on a good day.
“Parrot”
verb [ T ]
disapprovingUK /ˈpær.ət/ US /ˈper.ət/
to repeat exactly what someone else says, without understanding it or thinking about its meaning:
She doesn’t have an original thought in her head — she just parrots anything that Sara says.
While this definition is precise, it doesn’t even go far enough. People are not just repeating data from a known entity, they repeat data from unknown entities. (Hopefully not Alien Invaders or Ouija Boards). Let me tell you a story —
“When I was very young I was visiting my Grandma in Portage, PA. I was given fifteen cents to go buy a comic book on the corner. I remember looking through the racks of Classic, DC and Marvel. I think I bought a Batman comic book. When I came back to her place, I got on the carpeted floor and read it. Between the pages of the story was a Public Safety Page. It was about health and safety. It showed a young boy who had stepped on a nail. Someone with zero science background, not even grade school level, announced, “Don’t worry, it was a new nail, not a rusty one. Only rusty nails are dangerous!” At this point a Doctor appeared and said that bacteria could be present on any nail and that the, “rusty nail myth” was incorrect. The year I saw this was roughly 1963. Now flash forward to 1983. An acquaintance, during a construction project, stepped on a nail. He was in his late teens and still living at home. When he came in limping after a quick trip to the emergency room, he was questioned as to the nature of his injury. Several adults stated, “Well you were lucky it was a new nail. The rusty ones are the dangerous ones.”
So in the span of 20 years, a myth continued to perpetuate. I’d imagine the technology was available in the Civil War era, but I could be way off on that. However the fact remains that the most basic health and safety issues like bacteria and infection didn’t penetrate into the knowledge base of these adults in all that time. They simply repeated what they heard from a source and notably that source was long forgotten.
Hear me now and believe me later. ~ Hans and Franz
When the average person quotes what they believe is evidence, it is usually prefaced or suffixed with a few choice words. They can make their source vague or attribute authority to this. The latter is referred to as, “An Appeal To Authority.” They can also not take responsibility for it. They want to get their comment out there, but pretend that is just slipped in. Here are some examples.
“Just saying,…” This takes away responsibility for anything they just said.
“The Doctor said,…” There is validity here, but this is an Appeal To Authority by referencing a higher power, (the Doc), therefore your statement seems endorsed.
“I feel/I believe,…” This means their emotions or imagination somehow gives the stamp of credibility to the statement.
“Mom/Grandma did it this way,…” Same appeal to authority. I mean who challenges Granny?
“Everyone knows,…” This is known as the, “Alleged Certainty Fallacy”.
“I saw it on TV/I read it somewhere/I THINK I read it somewhere,…” Pick one. Please.
“You can’t tell me,…” The person who wants to vent an opinion without discussion or being challenged. They must not have been allowed to speak around the dinner table as a child.
“All I know is,…” This is kind of sad actually.
Much of our information is not from peer reviewed journals, but television and social media. This doesn’t mean we should demonize them, but perhaps understand their agenda. Persuasive news briefs cultivate viewership of the news. The news is paid for by advertising and those who control media companies answer to their stockholders. It’s business. Nothing wrong with making money, but understanding how they package it is important.
For example, I live in Florida. Hurricanes are part of life. If there is a tropical disturbance ANYWHERE in the Atlantic, it is part of the news. The Anchor people cut in with this statement, “Hurricane in the Atlantic! Will it hit us? News at 11!” So we wait until 11 pm forgoing sleep to hear Meteorologist tell us it’s going to pass by Bermuda and not come anywhere near Florida. This new event is repeated over and over and over.
Now other than the quick announcement creating FEAR, the rest of the broadcast is relatively solid. Daily events, stock market, sports, local items, some talk about the entertainment business perhaps and some silly banter with the Meteorologist. Not exactly the enemy you want, but perhaps the enemy you get. Media claims it doesn’t create the news, but simply reports it. However the need to have their stock grow motivates them to warp the message.
People need an enemy. The idea that there could be multiple causes to anything is too complex to grasp. Better to point to singular sources to create a consensus of blame. Here is a list. I’m not suggesting there isn’t a good dose of evil in any of these, however it makes things simple and humans like simple. They need that enemy.
The School System
The Military Industrial Complex
Insurance Companies
The Government
Big Pharma
Part of, or perhaps adjacent to, the idea of parroting is use of the word, “should have”. I remember this well in my youth, as do many of the people I grew up with. “Should have” assumes you can go back in time and alter decisions. This only works out in Hot Tub Time Machine. It seems to be an exercise by others in scrutinizing behavior and replacing it with their better judgement. It relates to parroting since the so called evidence presented are just wild statements that sound good. “You should’ve used Route 19 instead of Route 8!”. Really? There was no GPS or Google Earth in 1975. Did someone tell them one highway was better than the other based evidence or a parroted statement?
In my particular world of health & fitness, the parroting of statements is consistent for decades. Maybe less so among enthusiasts but massively by the general public. Things that were well known decades ago, haven’t leaked through the general public. When they are stated plainly, the data is quickly forgotten and the myth repeated. Here is an example -
Reply: “Too much protein is bad for the kidneys. I read that somewhere I think.”
Answer: “No it isn’t.”
Statement: “Progressive resistance training is an appropriate means to minimize, reduce or stop the loss of muscle with aging. This loss is called age related sarcopenia.
Reply: “I don’t want to look like those people in the magazines. A friend told me you get muscle bound.”
Answer: “To look like the individual you are referring to would require three things you currently don’t have. One, the drive to push your body that hard. Two, the genetics, determined by your parents and unchangeable. And three, the use of performance enhancing drugs.”
To summarize, “Parroting” is often used when the discussion of actual research or evidence is unknown, ignored or misunderstood. As the Amazing Randi said years ago, “There is a lot of evidence for Santa Claus, but it is rather poor evidence.” (Don’t tell your kids.) People use the term, “Believe” in Astrology for example. They don’t discuss peer review or mathematical probabilities. That’s because it is pseudo science.
I don’t believe this phenomena will ever leave us. It is here to stay. The idea of understanding basic science and the rules of evidence are not part of the general public’s thought process. They form an ideology and seek evidence to bolster it rather than the other way around. (It’s called Cherry Picking). So as Ezra Kramer/Scott Glenn said in Bourne Ultimatum — “My number one rule is to hope for the best and plan for the worst.”
The End.
Tom Furman has been involved in martial arts and conditioning since 1972. With an early background in wrestling and a student of the methods of the York Barbell Club, Tom immediately separated fact from fiction growing up outside Pittsburgh. Eleven members of his family were combat veterans, the most famous one being “Uncle Charlie” (Charles Bronson) His down to earth training methods are derived from his decades long practice of martial arts and his study of exercise science. The application of force, improvement of movement and durability rank high on his list of priorities when training. He gives credit to hundreds of hours of seminars, training sessions, and ‘backyard’ workouts, including training time with many martial arts legends. He also credits his incredibly gifted training partners who came from varied backgrounds such as Exercise Physiologists, Airborne Rangers, Bounty Hunters, Boxing Trainers and Coast Guard Rescue Divers. In addition, Tom spent 30 years in the theater and film business. His best selling ebooks, are available HERE.
