The Shrike
Philosopher
In Coleman's defense, I also doubted "raccoon" for this one on initial inspection, and I've had Vert Morph, Mammalogy - heck I even taught Mammalogy one semester!
I guess the lesson is not to assume that potentially relevant training necessarily leads one to the correct conclusion. When we learn the distinguishing characteristics of canids and procyonids, for example, we don't train on specimens (or photos of specimens) that are shaved and presented without context. You won't find a dead, naked raccoon in the Peterson Field Guide to Mammals, and you won't find a dead Mexican hairless dog or a mangy coyote either.
Another problem is that people who've spent a lot of time looking at animals could have a very different sense of the variability that a specimen can present than folks who haven't invested that time. I know I got hung up on the feet. In retrospect, they're totally obvious as raccoon. On initial inspection, however, I was willing to allow that some dogs' feet, photographed at a weird angle, might resemble the feet in the photo. I was completely wrong, but that's what I was reasoning at the time.
So if Coleman deserves some abuse for this one, it would be because he whipped up excitement about this being something "crypto" or persisted in writing that it was something else after it was very clearly determined to be a raccoon. Otherwise, this is just another example of how an appeal to authority can be a logical fallacy.
I guess the lesson is not to assume that potentially relevant training necessarily leads one to the correct conclusion. When we learn the distinguishing characteristics of canids and procyonids, for example, we don't train on specimens (or photos of specimens) that are shaved and presented without context. You won't find a dead, naked raccoon in the Peterson Field Guide to Mammals, and you won't find a dead Mexican hairless dog or a mangy coyote either.
Another problem is that people who've spent a lot of time looking at animals could have a very different sense of the variability that a specimen can present than folks who haven't invested that time. I know I got hung up on the feet. In retrospect, they're totally obvious as raccoon. On initial inspection, however, I was willing to allow that some dogs' feet, photographed at a weird angle, might resemble the feet in the photo. I was completely wrong, but that's what I was reasoning at the time.
So if Coleman deserves some abuse for this one, it would be because he whipped up excitement about this being something "crypto" or persisted in writing that it was something else after it was very clearly determined to be a raccoon. Otherwise, this is just another example of how an appeal to authority can be a logical fallacy.
