Most scientists and zoologists, having come out of the Victorian ages, realize now that the boundaries we erect to try to understand the world around us aren't so concrete, that they're quite fuzzy . We've realized that the world is mutable, that we become what we touch in a way, pondered the paradox of Schroedinger's damned cat, realized that amazing things happen at the macrocosmic and microcosmic levels.


But the quandaries that the general public find themselves in when faced with creatures such as the platypus still confounds me. Popular references are filled with statements about the "duck-billed platypus" who "looks like a beaver" and "lays eggs like a bird". (Therefore, since he resembles other species, we obviously aren't capable of seeing himas he really is?) Statements like these remind me of certain other whacked-out statements I've heard, like

"Mexicans look like coyotes, so they must be dishonest"
(thanks to a racist relative for that one)

"Lesbians look like men"
(who's to say it's not the men who look like the lesbians?)
and

"the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence dress up like nuns, so they must be making fun of nuns"
(and, logic naturally follows, every time kids dress up as vampires for Halloween, that must mean they're making fun of vampires).

Humans have this tendency to make immediate cause-and-effect judgments about what they encounter, instead of actually thinking.



I've seen a myriad number of platypus sites that refer to the creature as an anomaly, weird-looking. Who is to say what's weird-looking and what's not? There are fashion police in nature now? It seems that something intrinsically unique and which doesn't fit into a pre-made category is a freak, and that something is only ok and acceptable if it fits into a broad generality. I.e., I'm okay if I fit into the mainstream, but if I've got my own agenda, then that's when the problems start.


What exactly is this kind of mentality advocating? > >