I deleted my comment about Solution - since you had already resolved it.
Park signage https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/262381464
In common speech, observation usually refers to recognising a pattern. It is equivalent to deduction in scientific terms.
What you described you are doing is a study, which is commendable.
I think it makes conversation easier if we agree on the meaning of the terms used. At a citizen science site, the scientific interpretation of words is preferable.
I do agree that identification is just the starting point though.
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I suspect you view observation as comprehensive data whereas most of us see it as similar to an incidental data point. But just like anecdotal data which can sometimes add up to something more than an individual anecdote, individual datapoints can also provide good information collectively.
The saying, “The plural of anecdote is not data” is not always true. Also it’s a misquote.
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“An observation” for the purposes of iNaturalist is exactly what is stated on the website, as mentioned earlier in this thread.
Outside of iNat, “an observation” for a naturalist (or anyone) can mean whatever they intend it to mean, or whatever is required for the circumstances or the purpose for which the observation is made. Even the same observer may make different types of observations for different purposes.
An ornithologist may be studying a bird through binoculars simply for the joy of it, without making any documentation at all, and it is still observation. Or they may be documenting the observation for iNaturalist or Project Feeder Watch, according to the definitions and rules of those projects. Or they may be doing more meticulous documentation for a rigorous scientific study.
It’s nice that you are sharing your interest in this way.
You and your son can decide that “an observation” is whatever you think it is. What does it mean to him? You get to ask some of the follow-up questions, too!
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I would argue that there’s no such thing as an “overall” definition for any word. Words have operational definitions in different contexts, and accepting a different definition when entering a new social space is vital to the use of language.
As an extreme example, if I say I have some antiques in “very good” condition, you might picture them looking quite nice, perhaps almost like new. But if that coin is a Mercury Dime, the term “very good” has a very specific meaning in the world of coin collecting. Specifically, for a Mercury Dime, “very good” implies that all the letters of the word “LIBERTY” are still visibly separated from the rim of the coin, some of the vertical lines on the rod on the back side are visible along the edges, but the center ones are worn off, etc. No dictionary would ever help you define “very good” that way, but that doesn’t make it a bad definition. To the contrary, if you try to sell a coin using the description “very good” condition and you don’t mean that in the coin-specific sense, you’ll confuse people. Yet if someone says their day was “very good” and you respond “are the letters of the word “LIBERTY” clearly separate from the rim of your day”… you’ll soon have no friends. So no definition works in all cases.
And I’d argue that this is the case for most words. Arguments about hot-button social issues often devolve into anger and shouting because two people are certain that their definition of a word is objectively always correct- how many times have we all witnessed fights where people are just talking past each other because they mean something completely different from each other when they use words like “socialism”, “feminism”, “racism”, etc. We need to all agree what definition we’re using of a word for the purposes of a discussion before we can even start to parse out what our real disagreements are.
So in the case of “observation”, I’d say that the task of arriving at one “overall” definition for general applicability is not practical. For purposes of iNat, it means “a single instance of one person interacting with one organism”. For purposes of an introductory science class, it means “the act of noticing or perceiving something using the senses or scientific instruments”. For purposes of my job, it refers to an instance of my boss showing up to watch me work for a while and fill out a performance form. In my opinion, attempting to develop a one-size-fits-all definition of any word is not a worthwhile activity. Context matters immensely for comprehending language, and a definition that seeks to explain a word’s meaning when stripped of all context is not particularly helpful.
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“When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” – Humpty Dumpty. Of course, that isn’t helpful for anyone else.
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Thanks, that’s interesting. According to Darwin Core, practically all iNat observations are “machine observations”. Otoh, GBIF classifies all iNat RG observations as “human observations”. Oh well.
To me, the term observation on iNat encompasses the data (the documentation, i.e. photo or sound recording) and the meta-data (observer, time, date, location).
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What do you mean by this?
I’m curious, too, because the most relevant page I found suggests that Darwin Core’s definition of machine observations is pretty much the same as GBIF’s:
Examples might include radio telemetry, GPS tracking, acoustic telemetry, camera traps, acoustic monitoring, or video monitoring.
See: https://dwc.tdwg.org/list/#dwc_MachineObservation
Examples include a photograph, a video, an audio recording, etc.
I must be missing something.
The difference is how the photo/audio recording is generated. A machine observation involves a photo being taken by something like an automated camera trap. This is opposed to a human manually operating a camera to take a photo (human observation). The media attached to the observation (photo, recording, video etc) is irrelevant here; it is how they are generated which matters for machine vs human observation
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