A woman from New Orleans who read the article on ravens that I wrote when I had just started to investigate whether and how ravens share, wrote me: "I did not have so much trouble as you did in showing that ravens share. I see them at my feeder - they even feed one another". There are no ravens in New Orleans, nor anywhere else in Louisiana. Perhaps what she actually saw were several large dark birds (crows? Grackles?), one of which fed another one or two (probably their grown offspring traveling along with them). 

People commonly confuse personal interpretations with factual observations. This tendency is a special bane in getting reliable observations on ravens because so much ingrained folklore about them exists that it is difficult to look at them objectively. I once read an article about a trapper/writer in Alaska. Knowing he would be familiar with ravens in the north, I wrote to ask him if he had seen ravens feeding in crowds. He had a lot of raven stories to tell. First, he said "everyone" he knew, knew that ravens share their food. He was surprised at the ignorance of us armchair scientists so far away, who would even question it. Ravens were "clever enough" to raid the fish he kept on racks for his dogs. They proved their cleverness by posting a "twenty-four-hour guard" at his cabin. (How did he distinguish this, I wondered, from birds waiting for an opportunity to feed?) As soon as he left the cabin, a raven was there to "spread the word". (Read: Flew away and/or called.) He claimed that one raven "followed" him all day. (Read: He occasionally saw a raven.) It then "reported back" to the others so that they could all leave just before he got back from his day on the trapline. (Read: He saw several leave together, and there were none when he got back to the cabin door.) Many of the birds "raided" (fed from?) his fish rack, and his idea of their "getting out the word" to ravens for miles around is that the one who discovers the food calls, and thereby summons all the birds in neighboring territories, who then also call in an ever-enlarging ring of information sharing. (An interesting thought).) It was no mystery to him why the birds would do this: they are "gossiping". "It seems obvious", he said, "that the birds get excited, and they simply cannot hold in their excitement - that lets others know". Any why should they evolve such transparent excitement? That, too, was "obvious": "Because it is best for the species". This stock answer explains nothing.

It was disturbing to me to see anyone so facilely blur the distinction between the observations and interpretations and then even go so far as to make numerous deductions without the slightest shred of evidence. When I was very young and did not "see" what seemed obvious to adults, I often though I was stupid and unsuited for science. Now I sometimes wonder if that is why I make progress. I see the ability to invent interconnections as no advantage whatsoever where the discovery of truth is the objective.

There are those who believe that science consists entirely of disproving alternative hypotheses, as if when you eliminate the alternative views, the one you have left is right. The problem is that there is no way to think of all the possible hypotheses that nature can devise. More than that, you have to prove which is the most reasonable. But any one hypothesis can, with a limited data set, be reasonable. There is at least a touch of truth in the idea that any variable affects another. If you look long and determinedly enough you will find that almost any variable element you choose to examine apparently affects the behavior you are studying. You have to be able to skim over what is not important or relevant to your problem, and to concentrate long enough on the prime movers to unearth sufficient facts that, presuming they are recognized, add up to something.