Another friendly reminder about not making assumptions

Olimpia

Olimpia

Biologist & Ecologist
Hey everyone, me again with another friendly reminder. This time about not jumping to conclusions.

Coming from a background of science and biology, I have been seeing a lot of people making factual claims based on a single experience, which have no grounds or additional data to back it up, and it really strikes me as odd. Remember that many members on here are new and might know nothing about chameleons, reptiles, feeders, gutloading, illnesses, etc. And to spread "truthiness" based on no logical foundation is just going to confuse people more.

Examples of such claims go something like this:

"I once had a chameleon that got a respiratory infection because I fed it an orange slice. Therefore, oranges are horrible because they cause respiratory infections!"

1. You can't make claims like that based on a single experience. It's not the way of science and spreading knowledge.
2. Think about what sense your claim makes according to logic. Are foods and infections related at all? Aren't infections usually bacterial or viral? Why would oranges cause infections in the airways?

So, be careful when making claims that sound factual!
Everyone is welcome to discuss theories, ideas, concepts, concerns, experiences, but when we make them sound like absolute fact when they might be anything but, it can confuse new members. :)
 
That's not an actual example, but practically lol I can't use any real examples and make the poster feel bad. But it's stuff like that, which is random and completely wrong if you really think about it, but people present it as fact with no data or logic to back it up.

I just want to remind people to be aware of what they say and how they say it.
 
ataraxia said:
what claims are fictional? i would like to see real quotes.
Click to expand...

I couldn't. I don't want to make people feel bad. But trust me, they're along the lines of the example I gave. PM me and I can tell you what I've seen lately, but without names.

Edited to add - I really am talking about stuff like the example. Not something like "never use glass enclosures," which can be true depending on where you live, your climate, heat/humidity levels in the cage, etc. It's not necessarily fact but it's solid advice for some people if it would not be best given their situation. But I'm talking about stuff that makes experienced keepers say "HUH??" and the new members go "Oh no! I have to get rid of my orange gutload!" Or something like that.
 
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"i held my chameleon over my balcony and it jumped off and landed on a orange it broke all its legs and gave it eye infections... people oranges are a terrible problem beware...." :D!!!!
 
Olimpia, in my post about the Mist King misting times....my 5 month old female Nosy Mitsio died in my hands gasping for air after having been breathing out large, single bubbles from her mouth for several hours.

3 days prior to increasing the misting times, she was 100% fine.

So I don't know how factual that is....is it a fluke, was she just in the wrong spot during misting and breathing it in too much?

All my other 10 chameleons are fine. But a 10% risk is enough for me.
 
I have also heard about these misting systems. It seems that after a misting session Dihydrogen Oxide is introduced into the habitat. Subsequently, Dihydrogen Oxide ends up on the leaves and lastly inside your chameleon. Is misting really worth the chance of exposing your chameleon to Dihydrogen Oxide? Hmmm....
 
Creature13 said:
I have also heard about these misting systems. It seems that after a misting session Dihydrogen Oxide is introduced into the habitat. Subsequently, Dihydrogen Oxide ends up on the leaves and lastly inside your chameleon. Is misting really worth the chance of exposing your chameleon to Dihydrogen Oxide? Hmmm....
Click to expand...

What? The heck? To much science for me....but is this true or u ppl effing around?
 
Creature13 said:
I have also heard about these misting systems. It seems that after a misting session Dihydrogen Oxide is introduced into the habitat. Subsequently, Dihydrogen Oxide ends up on the leaves and lastly inside your chameleon. Is misting really worth the chance of exposing your chameleon to Dihydrogen Oxide? Hmmm....
Click to expand...

ha ha ha ha

**blush**
 
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Creature13 said:
I have also heard about these misting systems. It seems that after a misting session Dihydrogen Oxide is introduced into the habitat. Subsequently, Dihydrogen Oxide ends up on the leaves and lastly inside your chameleon. Is misting really worth the chance of exposing your chameleon to Dihydrogen Oxide? Hmmm....
Click to expand...

seems you would have it wrong dihydrigen oxide is introduced while misting not after...afterall just a fancy term for water...
 
Creature13, brilliant. You gotta watch out for that dihydrogen oxide coming out of misters. Heaven forbid your cham actually consumes any of it.... :p

Dihydrogen oxide. The greatest threat to life on Earth.



**
If anyone after this post of mine says anything along the lines of "WHATT!!!!! DIHYRDOGEN OXIDE?!! WILL IT KILL MY CHAM OH GOD WHAT THE HELL DO I DO OH NOOOOOOO MY MISTERRRRRRRR GUYS YOU GOTTA HEEEEELLLLPP MEEEEEEE", I will fly over and Falcon-Kick them in the head..con fuego. Look up H20 and stop being dumb.
**
 
Zen Reptiles said:
Olimpia, in my post about the Mist King misting times....my 5 month old female Nosy Mitsio died in my hands gasping for air after having been breathing out large, single bubbles from her mouth for several hours.

3 days prior to increasing the misting times, she was 100% fine.

So I don't know how factual that is....is it a fluke, was she just in the wrong spot during misting and breathing it in too much?

All my other 10 chameleons are fine. But a 10% risk is enough for me.
Click to expand...

I understand that, and by all means didn't want to single you out at all, I've heard much worse things. But the way you presented it as truth is the issue here. I've had a freak accident where my chameleon swallowed her tongue! To this day I don't know why it happened but for the sake of discussion, let's say that I attribute it to free ranging. So I could say that, since I had one chameleon swallow her tongue and almost die while free ranging, no one should ever free range because it causes tongue swallowing. I can't make that claim as factual because of one incidence.

Just like with your female, one out of 10 died at around the same time you upped their misting duration. My feeling is that it was probably a freak accident, perhaps she breathed in too much water for some reason and had too much fluid in the lungs. This is what comes to mind when you describe the incident, I had a dog aspirate vomit and die in a similar, awful fashion. It's completely fair to say that you had this happen to you, that this is why in your opinion you don't believe in longer mistings. But to say that all mistings over a minute long are bad because they cause respiratory infections (which I still doubt your girl had, I'm with you on the aspiration theory as a better explanation), as a biologist I don't think that is a valid statement to make as a factual one. Many of us do longer mistings and have no issues at all, so you could say there is more "data," so to speak, in favor of long mistings.

My point is not to confuse opinion with fact. And I don't say this in a mean, judgmental way, honestly, I just come from a heavy background in science and I want to keep new members from getting confused between what is opinion and what is more factual.
 
While it is certainly best if we provide information as factually as possible, there really arent very many scientific studies done on chameleons generally. So very little of what is stated on this forum is prooven fact. 99% of what is stated here is opinion. and it would be very cumbersome to be always prefacing each paragraph with "in my opinion" or "in my experience yesterday" or by "many feel that" or whatever.

I'll use an example:
There are some memebers who state as fact that panther chameleons MUST have preformed vitamin A supplementation to survive, despite the fact that some other members have proven to their own satisfaction through years of experience that this is actually not the case. Both "sides" will wave their "facts" in the air and both will claim to speak truthfully. Who is actually right? We DONT really KNOW. Quite possibly, both are right, that it is dependant on the situation (similar to your glass enclosure example).

I think the better thing to remember is to not assume everything you read is true :) to gather as much evidence and input from as many sources as possible, and draw your own conclusions.
 
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