"The gateways to wisdom and knowledge are always open." — Louise Hay

The natural world is a gateway to knowledge. What one does with that knowledge dictates whether greater wisdom is also an outcome. The knowledge-wisdom dichotomy is important. Knowledge is the accumulation of facts, wisdom the application of that knowledge to a broader understanding of the world around us.

One of Charles Darwin’s most important legacies, elevating the study of nature to a science, was that he advocated the use of hypotheses, conceptual frameworks of how nature works. Previously, naturalists were focused on collecting and naming new species, acquiring knowledge. But that is where it stopped, collections of facts (specimens) that filled museums. Darwin believed that working within a theoretical framework was critical to science – and so balanced natural history with theorizing. It starts with hypotheses, reasoned ideas as to how some facet of our natural world is organized, how species interact, how those species respond to changes in their environments. The next step is testing that hypothesis; is it always true, sometimes true, or never true? After repeated testing and finding that a hypothesis is in fact true, the hypothesis is then elevated to a theory. A theory allows us to accurately predict relationships, interactions, and outcomes – wisdom. The scientific definition of a theory is very different than that of the non-scientific lexicon, where a “theory” is a synonym for an unsupported idea. In scientific parlance it is exactly the opposite, and that difference leads to confusion, with critics of ideas that otherwise have strong, nearly universal scientific support (think climate change) saying that such an idea is just a “theory.”

The dismissal of natural history as not being a science worthy of continued support by universities, endorsed by many (but not all) modern academics, comes from a narrow view that natural history is limited to the collection of facts, knowledge but not necessarily wisdom. Natural history certainly encompasses the collection of facts, with iNaturalist, eBird and other platforms being a modern repository of those facts. However, perpetuating a belief that natural history is somehow a lesser or non-scientific endeavor is a false narrative. Unlike many of the other branches of science, one of the powerful truths of natural history as a science is that it does not need to be confined to the ivory towers of academia. Rather it is a path of knowledge, leading to wisdom, that can be traveled by trained scientists and those outside the ivory towers alike. That brings science, and the critical thinking skills science supports, into anyone's grasp and is one way to reverse an alarming trend of a lack of natural science literacy, sometimes referred to as “nature deficit syndrome."

A hike in nature provides countless opportunities to challenge ideas, hypotheses, and potentially either toss them into the wastebasket of falsehoods or elevate them to truths (theories). Two common beliefs are that snakes are slimy and are dangerous.

This past week our group of naturalists, of community scientists, came across a small and beautiful snake, a spotted leaf-nosed snake. Most snakes are nocturnal and so we rarely encounter them during the day, but it was early morning and there it was. Leaf-nosed snakes are so named because they have a large triangular (leaf-shaped) rostral scale covering their nose. I have read that this scale may aide then in pushing their head into sand in search of their preferred food, lizard eggs.

After a mandatory photography session, and knowing that it was not dangerous to humans, I picked her (the snake) up so people could see her more closely. How, you might ask, can one tell a boy snake from a girl snake? As with lizards, male snakes “house” their copulatory organs in the base of their tail. For male snakes that means their tails are longer than female snakes’ tails. However, usually one needs to pick up a snake to see where their tail begins and their body ends (their cloaca or vent marks the partition between those body parts). This snake, like most if handled correctly (letting the snake rest in your hand supporting their bodies, rather than a harsh grip behind its neck), stayed very calm while being handled. After seeing how calm she was, most of the naturalists in attendance took turns handling her. One of the first comments was “she is not slimy at all.”  There are some aquatic snakes that might feel a bit slimy if they were wet, otherwise snakes do not have “slime glands in their skin." They typically feel smooth and dry. The slimy snake hypothesis was put to rest.

The “all snakes are dangerous” hypothesis is a bit more challenging to deal with. First of all, many and perhaps most snakes have some sort of venom aimed at subduing and digesting their preferred prey. However, most snake species’ venom is both not dangerous to humans, and their venom-delivering fangs are in the back of their jaw where they cannot deliver venom to anything as large as a human. Still, some snakes are dangerous, with venom that can damage tissue and, in some instances, kill people. To compound that fact, some other snakes that are not venomous to us mimic those that are in both color and behavior, making proper identification best left to the providence of experts. On top of these cautionary notes, some people are born with an inherent fear of all snakes. No matter how much assurance they receive that a particular snake species is safe (and not slimy), they do not want to be anywhere near them. Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) plus the reality that there are some (relatively few) dangerous snakes, has given some people license to believe that “the only good snake is a dead snake.” Psychology experiments have shown that many people will go out of their way to run over a snake with their cars (the experimenters used fake snakes). Such a belief is patently wrong. All snakes are important components of natural ecosystems. If you are fortunate enough to live within or adjacent to a natural landscape, but feel plagued by mice or rats, the problem may be that you or your neighbors have not embraced snakes as part of your garden ecosystem. Snakes, including rattlesnakes, are excellent at controlling pesky rodents.

Perhaps one way of instilling a better understanding that snakes are important components of ecosystems, including places where people live, is to give people the opportunity to get up close and personal with snakes – with the help of snake experts. Such experiences can allow people to challenge their preconceptions of all snakes as being dangerous. Many come away seeing snakes as beautiful, not evil, not slimy, and with some notable exceptions, not dangerous. In addition to our experience with the leaf-nosed snake, another desert snake that is not venomous and has a distinctly “chill,” non-aggressive demeanor is a rosy boa. When I mentioned this in the first California Naturalist class I taught, one clever student chimed that, rosy boas were “gateway” snakes, opening the door to an appreciation of an all too often maligned group of beautiful creatures. It is very true that an experience with a rosy boa, along with other calm, non-venomous snakes can provide both knowledge and wisdom. 

Nullius in verba

Go outside, tip your hat to a chuckwalla (and a cactus), think like a mountain, and be safe.