The moral was that it is wrong to use an obviously false claim to prove wrong something nobody believes in anyway… by NE, I mean “something so awfully outside of everyday experience that either it is totally made up, or a scientifically-minded person should look into it and see where it leads”.
I thought you were saying that feral children never existed and all the stories about them are completely made up. If so, I think you are clearly wrong.
If you just Google around there are a lot that hit the keyword that seem well attested.
Most of them are either cases of monstrous parental abuse (plus sometimes proximity to pets of the parent) or else the child was already at least a toddler (and often aged 3-7) when they went into the wild.
It is less surprising when you remember that in typical hunter gatherer societies the age at which children became roughly “calorie self sufficient” (not necessarily good nutrition, but able to gather enough not to starve) was around 4 or 5.
Parental neglect cases often have trouble walking, which is moderate evidence that “walking is cultural” in the sense that we might not have reliable instincts for learning to do it without having any positive examples and/or encouragement. Also these stories tend to support the idea of critical periods in language acquisition.
The ones that are usually hoaxes or gross exaggerations of real facts tend to be stories of very young children (like 0-18 month old babies) being literally raised by animals from scratch with no human input at all.
It is still too improbable. Any kid in the wild is a free gift to the predator. Not just a baby, or a toddler.
My friend who studies wolves is quite adamant that it is simply impossible, unless you count cases where a child spent a few days in their company, because wolves often leave their toys for later.
It’s improbable but if they ever behave anything like dogs not 100% impossible.
I’ve encountered an older dog that really really wanted to have puppies that stole a kitten from a litter and tried to raise it and feed it and made no attempt to eat it.
and there appear to be real reports of domesticated dogs adopting and nursing neglected children.
Of course dogs have the aggression dialed way way down such that they may be way way more likely to do that.
I’d argue that a she-wolf that’s recently lost it’s puppies instead finding some other small mammal to adopt is merely very improbable.
Mammal nursing mothers, even from fairly bloodthirsty species) can be surprisingly willing to adopt infant creatures of different species, even ones they’d usually snack upon.
unless you count cases where a child spent a few days in their company
There are many cases where the child’s behavior is far more assimilated to the behavior of the animals than would be a credible result of merely a few days.
What do you mean by natural experiment, here? And what was the moral, anyway?
The moral was that it is wrong to use an obviously false claim to prove wrong something nobody believes in anyway… by NE, I mean “something so awfully outside of everyday experience that either it is totally made up, or a scientifically-minded person should look into it and see where it leads”.
I thought you were saying that feral children never existed and all the stories about them are completely made up. If so, I think you are clearly wrong.
then what story do you think was not made up?
If you just Google around there are a lot that hit the keyword that seem well attested.
Most of them are either cases of monstrous parental abuse (plus sometimes proximity to pets of the parent) or else the child was already at least a toddler (and often aged 3-7) when they went into the wild.
It is less surprising when you remember that in typical hunter gatherer societies the age at which children became roughly “calorie self sufficient” (not necessarily good nutrition, but able to gather enough not to starve) was around 4 or 5.
Parental neglect cases often have trouble walking, which is moderate evidence that “walking is cultural” in the sense that we might not have reliable instincts for learning to do it without having any positive examples and/or encouragement. Also these stories tend to support the idea of critical periods in language acquisition.
The ones that are usually hoaxes or gross exaggerations of real facts tend to be stories of very young children (like 0-18 month old babies) being literally raised by animals from scratch with no human input at all.
It is still too improbable. Any kid in the wild is a free gift to the predator. Not just a baby, or a toddler.
My friend who studies wolves is quite adamant that it is simply impossible, unless you count cases where a child spent a few days in their company, because wolves often leave their toys for later.
It’s improbable but if they ever behave anything like dogs not 100% impossible.
I’ve encountered an older dog that really really wanted to have puppies that stole a kitten from a litter and tried to raise it and feed it and made no attempt to eat it.
and there appear to be real reports of domesticated dogs adopting and nursing neglected children.
https://www.thedodo.com/dog-breastfeeds-child-1336838906.html
Of course dogs have the aggression dialed way way down such that they may be way way more likely to do that.
I’d argue that a she-wolf that’s recently lost it’s puppies instead finding some other small mammal to adopt is merely very improbable.
Mammal nursing mothers, even from fairly bloodthirsty species) can be surprisingly willing to adopt infant creatures of different species, even ones they’d usually snack upon.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pgW9rYRxS_4/UJbVUbIwPzI/AAAAAAAAS_4/Z_gUmGvK6Mg/s640/92770023_large_2moZJ2WhuU.jpg
There are many cases where the child’s behavior is far more assimilated to the behavior of the animals than would be a credible result of merely a few days.
What cases?