this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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>no source
>"it was thought"? cool weasel wording; who thought it?
>tiny snippet offering zero context
>and then people parrot it uncritically
This is why I hate "le epic trivia!!"-style accounts; even when they're right (and they're often not), they're intellectual junk food designed for mindlessly consuming rather than learning.
Before the first verified individual migrating birds in the 1800s (via finding storks with spears still in them after migrating to and from Africa) people had a lot of weird ideas about why birds weren’t there in the winter. “They fly so far it’s literally off any map you’ve seen” probably made as much sense to the average person as them flying to the moon, or burrowing into the mud at the bottom of ponds to hibernate.
The latter probably made the most sense to many people who lived rurally, because bank swallows (sand martins elsewhere) actually do nest in tunnels they’ve dug into the sand near bodies of water. To anyone who went without seeing one all winter and then suddenly saw one leaving a burrow in the spring, ‘it slept there all winter’ is a lot less of a leap than ‘it flew thousands of miles round trip and got back when you weren’t looking.’
Funny you bring up eel reproduction. Had to share. https://youtu.be/TzN148WQ2OQ
QI has a team of researchers based in Holborn, London - but they are ultimately a comedy and entertainment vehicle so all their facts need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Yeah, and to be clear, I actually really like trivia! The front page of Wikipedia has a section called "Did You Know?" (DYK) that has six or seven pieces of daily trivia. These are also researched and follow a similar format. The key differences are that: 1) the corresponding article is right there if you want to immediately verify what's been said, and 2) this article lets you understand the full context of the trivia if you want.
In this case, the most egregious part isn't the trivia itself; it's the kind of culture around trivia that it foments.