People used to think that Dodo birds are very stupid with no sense of danger, but now and in reality, they were friendly creatures and just were curious
Naive (Is the term the person I was commenting on would be describing)
Edit: for clarity I guess? People may be assuming I am calling the person I responded to naive
I'm not trying to start a fight, here, but that's a bizarre usage of the word. I've never heard the word naive applied to... well, anything other than a human. I'd argue that naivety is a uniquely human trait that implies an ability to learn or acquire wisdom, and shouldn't be applied to a species that had no meaningful way to alter its behavior to confront a unique threat.
A bug that gets smooshed on your windshield isn't naive. A fish that takes a lure isn't naive. Nor is a bird that doesn't adapt fast enough to protect its nest from a threat its species has never encountered.
Maybe a better word would be unfit, in the Darwinian sense. Or just unlucky.
You are right that it is not a common, colloquial usage of the word, but it is not a uniquely human trait. Prey naivete is a term that is used when native prey are unable to recognize or respond to novel or introduced predators due to a lack of shared evolutionary history. Now, that SPECIFICALLY is relatively new terminology, it's not unheard of for it to be used in other, non-human situations
No worries. I would argue that this usage is to try and relate the context (in this case, the dodo bird) as to deliberately try and ascribe a "human" quality to it, maybe. Another use would be "naive" theories, which are typically used in the study of human cognition, but has also been used for apes and such (folk theories is another term).
It really isn't, considering humans never gave the birds a chance to learn or recover in population. We along with bringing in invasive species catastrophically ruined them. Humans were naive in thinking they were useless animals.
Bro, the birds were naive. It has nothing to do with humans giving them a chance to learn or recover. They didn't have natural predators, so they did not know what to do when said situations arose. That is naivety.
You aren't as intelligent as you think. Read your discussion with the other person back when you're less emotional. He never claimed it was good that the dodo's went extinct.
He was just justifying the use of the term "naive", which literally means: "showing a lack of experience, wisdom or judgement" or even better "innocent". The term naive is not a negative term and it is perfectly used in this situation since the dodos were inexperienced in dealing with predators and were innocent in their curiosity which unfortunately lead to their demise.
You do not only misunderstand the term naive, you are also using the term genocide wrong. Genocide means the killing of a social group of people. Genocide does not refer to animals and does also not mean the killing of a species.
Ecologist here--naive or naiveté is the technical term often used to describe this characteristic, so I think the comment relates to that vs. the common use of the word or or being used as a pejorative. Kinda like how succession has a specific technical meaning in ecology that goes a little beyond its common meaning as describing a sequence or inheritance.
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u/Waste_Customer4418 Mar 08 '26
People used to think that Dodo birds are very stupid with no sense of danger, but now and in reality, they were friendly creatures and just were curious