Questions, Answers, Total Confusion and Sorting Fact from Fiction

"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots.” ― Umberto Eco: novelist, critic, philosopher. (1932-2016)

FACTS matter. Opinions are free and everyone has them... but can they really back them up with objective measurements and unassailable logic?

Andy C. Highfield

You may well wonder what this has to do with tortoises. Well, quite a lot, because one thing that we all need to do from time to time, especially when new to a subject is to ask questions about it. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this and it can be a great way to learn more and to solve problems. However.... it all depends on who you ask and how qualified they are to give reliable answers, and therein lies the difficulty.

One of the most common comments we now see is "I asked this in several groups, but there is much conflicting information that I am now totally confused". To understand why this is happening so much these days we need to take a step back into a little history.

It is our quiet time of year, no wild tortoise activity (though we do have automatic environmental recorders running in the habitat as usual), and we are working on some new practical articles that we hope will be helpful. However, we have become increasingly concerned at the direction things are taking and this is really a very important issue. Getting good, accurate and sensible information out there is absolutely critical to preventing suffering and to improving the health and lives of tortoises and turtles. Dangerous and misleading information or advice achieves the exact opposite. It causes more suffering. More confusion. More damage - yet this is proliferating at an uncontrolled and increasing rate.

We made a brief post on this subject on our Facebook Group and it attracted a lot of feedback and comments, so this is an expanded version of that and includes a bit more background and also some practical advice to help you identify and separate out good sources from bad sources.

A bit of ancient history

Let's take a step back to say, 40 years ago. Then, both good and bad information was certainly out there, but mostly in the forms of books, magazines and newsletters published by either commercial publishers or societies and clubs run by enthusiasts. This was true right across the spectrum of subjects, from tortoises, to stamp collecting, photography, music, literally everything. You could buy reference books, subscribe to printed newsletters, buy magazines in newsagents, read scientific journals, etc. Some were on a large scale. Some very small. They tended to have one thing in common though - they had an editor, or an editorial board who screened potential content to ensure it met minimum standards. Not only of literacy, but also that it was likely to be useful and that it was reasonably sensible and fact-based. Completely off-the-wall, poorly thought-through and similarly insane stuff would struggle to get published. Of course, there was still some rubbish and nonsense, but it was definitely a very small percentage overall and this editorial 'filtering' certainly removed most of the very worst irrational, ignorant and dangerous gibberish.

Then, in the early 1980's some university-based "bulletin boards" based upon email groups began to receive more attention. One of the earliest of these was Herpnet run by Mark Miller in Philadelphia from 1982 (the Tortoise Trust was a very early user, direct dialling to the US via 300 baud modem!). It was great method (for the time) of sharing field reports, articles and other items for discussion. No photos or videos as the systems back then could not handle anything like that. Just text. The users of BB's as they were known, tended to be fairly technically savvy (you had to be!) and also well-educated and very involved in their respective areas of speciality (again, anything from tortoises to astronomy to Egyptology to philosophy). As a result, the quality of information (and responses to it) also tended to be very polite, well-considered and (on the whole) constructive.

A few years later and the Internet in a form that was moving closer to what we see today began to arrive. AOL and Yahoo! had mailing lists too. Again, the Tortoise Trust was very involved with this and we had a really good, very active mailing list. Some will remember the 'epic' debates and battles that took place there. We certainly do! The many contributions of the late Ed Pirog spring especially to mind... unfortunately, with this 'opening up' came some downsides. We now began to see not only more and more misinformation and bad advice appearing, but also a far more combative and aggressive attitude making itself felt. Egos and 'feelings' were beginning to greatly intrude upon the sharing of facts and turn rational debates into something much darker. To say that this trend has continued would be gross understatement.

To the present day

We have already reported on how AI is contributing to this deluge of nonsense and misinformation, but sadly, the majority of humans are no better. They have an apparently limitless capacity to believe what they want to believe regardless of facts, evidence or logic. In many cases, they cannot even explain why they believe certain things. They just "believe". Any challenge to these beliefs is not met with rational debate and sensible counter-argument backed up by the evidence relied upon, but with completely irrational "feelings" and, in many cases, with hatred and ridicule and even, in some extreme cases, with direct threats of violence. There is a kind of cult mentality very much in evidence in certain circles and within certain tortoise forums and groups. This is a fundamental problem with roots in human psychology and there is no easy way to overcome it. The editors are now gone, and the brakes are off... Umberto Eco made a very valid point!

Facts that can be checked and results that can be replicated actually matter. This is fundamental to the scientific method. So, when we (for example) post a graph taken directly from a precision data-logger that reveals the EXACT temperatures or humidity levels minute-by-minute from right next to wild tortoises in their natural habitat, this should be taken onboard. By all means raise sensible technical objections if you find any, but to ignore valid evidence entirely in favour of wild assertions for which absolutely zero evidence exists is not science. Neither is it sensible, reasonable or rational. It is, however, typical of cult belief patterns. You see it with the classic 'Flat Earthers' and, unfortunately, in many other areas too.

Interpreting information accurately

Genuine data recorded from a probe next to wild juvenile Mediterranean tortoises. Objective measurements like this matter and are incredibly useful in understanding what conditions tortoises really experience. It is vital, however, l that you understand precisely what is being recorded and know how to interpret it correctly.

One problem that occurs even when you do present accurate and objective data is that is is very likely to be completely misunderstood or taken totally out of context by people who never paid any attention during their basic school science lessons. In the above example of a graph of temperatures correlated with relative humidity, we had a person angrily contact us to insist that this 'proved' juveniles needed to be kept in "warm humid hides". No. It does not. To know why this is so you need to understand how humidity is measured, and how relative humidity differs from absolute humidity. This is all very basic stuff, yet such misunderstandings are now everywhere and you see 'alternative facts' cited literally all over the place. To help people understand what relative humidity really is, we even produced a full article on the subject: "Understanding Humidity for Tortoise Keepers".

Like it or not, maintaining tortoises (or any other reptile) in captivity is quite a technical subject, involving an understanding of behavioural thermoregulation, microclimates, lighting, UV/B, Infra-Red, thermal dynamics, humidity (!) and a great many other areas that rely upon the laws of physics and upon fundamental scientific principles. On top of that, throw in the requirement to know at least a bit about geography, quite a lot about nutrition, and you have a very academically 'dense' and challenging subject. Given that many people have an extremely poor grasp of such matters, it is hardly surprising that we see so very many problems and encounter so many disasters.

One practical example I can cite is that I was lecturing one group of keepers at a symposium, and asked them to describe the most accurate method of obtaining reliable ambient air temperatures. This sounds simple, right? Actually, it isn't and less than one-third knew how to do it correctly. These were all quite advanced enthusiasts too. Among the general pet-keeping public? Don't get your hopes up.

It is not just tortoises

This does not merely affect tortoise and turtle groups, of course. I decided to do a quick survey in a few totally unrelated fields of interest. I took two areas where I have a fair degree of specialist knowledge myself. For decades I have collected, repaired and restored vintage acoustic guitars, for example. I do know quite a lot about the subject. I am also a very active photographer (mostly wildlife, but landscapes too), and have worked at a professional level since the early 1980's supplying photo libraries and publishers. I certainly know enough about both topics to be able to sift valid information from blatantly erroneous information, or fact from fiction. I excluded content that would be merely subjective and based upon 'opinion' (e.g, "does a Martin guitar sound better than a Gibson guitar?", or "What camera has the best colour science?") , and restricted my quick surveys to content that made specific claims relating to objective facts.

I have to confess that what I found on social media (outside of some highly specialised, long established and strictly moderated internet forums) shocked me. When a person posted a 1940's era guitar photo for dating and identification, for example, 80% of the 'answers' they received were wrong. Some were so wrong and so far off-base it was laughable, yet the people posting the incorrect information were supremely confident that they were right! They had no doubts at all. They were absolutely certain! Unfortunately, they were wrong. Worse, of the 20% of correct replies, some of those were attacked and ridiculed by the same ignorant people posting the incorrect info. Sound familiar? I can only imagine that the person asking in the first place was even more confused wading through this dismal stuff than if they had never asked anything in the first place.

I encountered very similar results when reviewing some photography-based social media. Lots (and lots) of misunderstandings, strange theories presented as "fact", and some very aggressive attitudes when certain people were challenged over fact-related equipment issues or techniques.

No AI here please

An increasing problem is people relying totally on AI to generate 'answers' for them, and then believing those answers implicitly, or even worse, faking entire "content" using generative AI. We are actually now seeing videos made entirely by AI without any knowledgeable human oversight whatever (it is becoming known as 'AI slop') , and in a really bizarre twist, totally genuine and real human creators falsely accused of being AI themselves by thoroughly deluded viewers or readers!!!!!

This has already happened to us. One person actually said "You are nothing more than AI" and completely refused to accept the fact that we have been around long before AI even existed... nothing would sway them. They said that we were just faking everything. They were convinced beyond doubt that we are not real, had never been real, and that we exist only inside a computer..... we are aware of two other people this has happened to as well, so it must be more common than you would think. Or hope.

Such a level of delusion and disconnect from reality is frankly terrifying.

None of us know it all, of course and we can all make mistakes too (I know I have), but this is different. What we see in many cases in these examples is opinion confused with fact, and opinion treated as though it was equal to or even superior to objective truths. Real evidence is dismissed outright in the process.

A prime example of this is one site based in the US that continually insists that sand substrates are lethal for tortoises. This is despite the undeniable fact that thousands of keepers have used this successfully, without a single issue ever, for literally decades, and despite the fact that these animals LIVE ON IDENTICAL SUBSTRATES IN THE WILD. These are undeniable facts. We even have an article showing genuine photos of such habitats. Maybe if even that is not enough, they could possibly drag themselves away from their computers, take a flight, and see for themselves. Just a suggestion. Meantime continuing to insist (as they have done) that sand substrates are "a death sentence" also suggests that they might be more in need of psychiatric assistance than merely improving their knowledge of geography and ecology.

This is a very damaging state of affairs. No wonder so many end up totally confused when they ask for advice. In those examples we are merely talking about inanimate objects, and yes, it probably does matter that if you get a guitar ID wrong. It can make the difference between it being valued at a couple of hundred dollars, euros or pounds, or several tens of thousands, but in our present context we are dealing with live animals, sentient beings, that actually suffer, get ill and die if not cared for correctly...

In one recent example a person posted a photo of a Russian tortoise (Testudo horsfieldii) suffering from very obvious metabolic bone disease and associated excess growth and deformity. There was no doubting this. It was crystal clear. Yet.... some confidently insisted it was a different species entirely, and many others commented on how "healthy and happy" it looked! Those who did comment (correctly) that there was something wrong were attacked for being "negative" or "judgemental"! In reality, unless professional veterinary treatment was obtained without delay, and the entire diet and housing method changed, this tortoise had no chance whatever of long-term survival. The tortoise was going to die. Did any moderator or site owner step in to inject some sense? Or advise seeing a vet? No. Indeed, some of the few people genuinely trying to help by posting links to useful and accurate advice were blocked and banned! A sad and shocking illustration of the real-world effects of pervasive ignorance.

It is also entirely typical of this whole situation. Ask just about anyone familiar with some of these groups (health warning: Avoid anything with "Friendly" in the name) and they will all have seen the same things. Not just once, but again and again and again. This is little short of a celebration of stupidity and in our opinion, encourages real-life animal neglect and abuse with real-life consequences.

In our opinion, it is disgraceful that this kind of material and these incredibly low standards are proliferating on the scale that they are.

So. What can be done? You sadly cannot turn the clock back to a time when effective filters existed. The only thing you can do is to educate yourself sufficiently that you become capable of recognising sheer nonsense when you see it. Another thing you can do is to learn to assess the credibility of those providing the advice or information. This does not mean some individual who hides behind a keyboard on some cult-like forum. Instead, what have they really done? Where can you read books they have published? Actual articles in reputable magazines or journals? What is their real-life experience and track-record in the field? How open are they to answering questions not with opinions, but with real evidence and verifiable facts? Can they provide CREDIBLE and sound explanations for their assertions or claims? What is their direct experience of the species, or similar species, in the wild. or is all their presumed knowledge second-hand? Can they back all this up with solid evidence? Measurements? Photographs? Video? No genuine researcher will ever object to answering genuine questions. Most are happy to share their results, thought processes and sources with you. They will also be capable of conducting a polite, rational debate without resorting to megaphone tactics or abuse.

That will certainly help. It will take time of course, and effort, but it is well worth it. It is the only effective way to immunise yourself against this tsunami of dangerous trash.

Another really important point is that we have to be ready to learn, and if necessary CHANGE our opinions and beliefs based upon new evidence . I certainly have, many times over the years. This does not mean that you were an idiot previously, far from it. This is (again) how science works. We gain new knowledge. New insights. Discover new evidence and adjust our opinions or beliefs accordingly. That is basic common sense and demonstrates active thought and flexibility. And if your mind is so closed that you cannot adjust your beliefs, even when convincing solid evidence to the contrary is available? Well, now you really are an idiot. Then again, we had the "age of enlightenment", and now we might be living in the age of crass stupidity, so who knows? You might end up king of the hill. It has happened. Allegedly.

Speaking personally, after quite a number of years of contributing articles to herpetological journals and tortoise societies, I had my first full-length tortoise book published in 1990 ("Keeping and Breeding Tortoises in Captivity, R&A Publishing). Looking back now, while some of it still reflects current knowledge, other parts of it are certainly "dated¨ and do not reflect my current views. Yes, I've changed my mind! Back then we lacked some of the tools we now have available such as accessible IR imaging, UV meters etc., and there were aspects of biology and physiology that we have learned much more about in the years since. Also, since then, I spent many, many more years studying these species in the wild. I learned a lot of things that I did not know then. So, knowledge is not fixed, we need to be adaptable and change and update things as we learn more. Changing your mind is not a negative. It shows that you remain open to new ideas and new information. Refusing to change your mind as credible new evidence emerges, however, certainly is a problem.

Dealing with this mess

Fundamentally, when confronted by claims of fact or practical advice you have to ask yourself something quite simple: "does this really make any sense?". For example, if someone is insisting (as we frequently see on some of these sites) that juvenile Mediterranean tortoises "cannot hibernate (brumate) until they are at least 5 years old", you then need to ask "what do they do in the wild, then?". Think carefully about any response you receive....

You may well conclude, as many do, that it safe to always rely upon what a veterinary professional tells you. Unfortunately not. Again, due diligence on your part is required. Let us be clear, there are excellent tortoise specialist vets - but as with doctors, lawyers or any other type of professional there are also a few who leave a lot to be desired. We have recently discussed this separately: "There are exotic vets... and exotic vets. A cautionary tale".

It is also the responsibility of everyone who offers advice, too. Absolutely great that you want to help, but you need to understand that by giving advice you also bear responsibility. So, if you give incorrect and dangerous advice on feeding, for example, any negative consequences that flow from that being followed are morally down to YOU.

This is why it is essential to thoroughly understand the subject matter, to have a really good "technical" grasp of the topic, and be able to word your advice in a way that is sensible, accurate and not misleading. It is quite a tough call, actually (which is, again, why journals and books have editors who can spot such things and the better run online groups have genuinely expert and experienced moderators).

I could quote several other famous philosophers on this subject, but I leave it down to one of my favourites: Clint Eastwood, who famously said "A man has to know his limitations", Very good advice! So think before you post. If someone asks what the correct diet is for a Testudo graeca, "I feed mine pears" is not an appropriate answer and responses like this (a genuine example, by the way) could lead to that animal suffering serious damage or death. By all means, if you genuinely are knowledgeable, sensible and experienced, then you can provide a vital counterbalance to this prevailing nonsense and can make a positive contribution to the health and welfare of the animals that depend upon us.

Go for it - but also, in today's world, be prepared for the irrational backlash because now, it goes with the territory. Challenging myth and nonsense with facts and logic has never been a popular activity. It can get you into all kinds of trouble. Just ask Copernicus or Galileo.

If you find these articles interesting and helpful, you can support our work by joining us and subscribing to the Tortoise Trust. We have been established since 1984 and we continue to provide original research and reliable information to tortoise and turtle enthusiasts worldwide. We also have two excellent online courses available, one for beginners and new keepers and one for advanced and professional keepers.

Copyright 2026 A. C. Highfield/Tortoise Trust