I think the point of this sidebar is that these kind of mindvirus ideas get spread, but when you scratch beneath the surface, they are all kissing cousins referencing one another.
This particular version doesn’t explicitly state that bats pollinate cacao, but it strongly implies. Dig around some more and other referencing this do explicitly state; yet no where is it provided that all of this is basically based around one study, which was really just a correlation between bats and cacao productivity in one small area. Its an issue in science communication in general which is why this thread started, to peal back the layers of the onion a bit and dig further. You can see below for some images I took after I saw this post of cacao that I am personally growing. I also posted a link to a YT video I took showing the flowers and how its basically impossible for a bat to pollinate them (and several of the mentalfloss type sites citing the one you linked do explicitly state that). But this is how ‘wrong explanations’ for how things work begin. Factoids aren’t facts, but fact-like-objects.
I’ll be happy to update the sidebar, I understand the need for accurate communication in science. I also would have thought that Canadian Geographic would be a good source, but apparently not.
Well its a good lesson. Thanks for being open minded. Also check out the video to see what a cacao flower looks like.
Afaik, the paper found a 37% increase in yields when birds and bats had access to cacao. However, I think this is likely due to bats and birds eating the predators of cacao midges (tiny gnats that pollinate cacao).
This is the key figure from the paper that shows that:
I think the point of this sidebar is that these kind of mindvirus ideas get spread, but when you scratch beneath the surface, they are all kissing cousins referencing one another.
This particular version doesn’t explicitly state that bats pollinate cacao, but it strongly implies. Dig around some more and other referencing this do explicitly state; yet no where is it provided that all of this is basically based around one study, which was really just a correlation between bats and cacao productivity in one small area. Its an issue in science communication in general which is why this thread started, to peal back the layers of the onion a bit and dig further. You can see below for some images I took after I saw this post of cacao that I am personally growing. I also posted a link to a YT video I took showing the flowers and how its basically impossible for a bat to pollinate them (and several of the mentalfloss type sites citing the one you linked do explicitly state that). But this is how ‘wrong explanations’ for how things work begin. Factoids aren’t facts, but fact-like-objects.
I’ll be happy to update the sidebar, I understand the need for accurate communication in science. I also would have thought that Canadian Geographic would be a good source, but apparently not.
Well its a good lesson. Thanks for being open minded. Also check out the video to see what a cacao flower looks like.
Afaik, the paper found a 37% increase in yields when birds and bats had access to cacao. However, I think this is likely due to bats and birds eating the predators of cacao midges (tiny gnats that pollinate cacao).
This is the key figure from the paper that shows that:
Here is the link to the paper:
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/eap.2886