I've determined that I won't write blogs about dumb science unless I encounter at least three in a row.  I probably won't actually adhere to that, but it seemed like a convenient excuse to write this piece.

For the record, the first two were about gambling as serving an evolutionary function and that elite athletes are cognitively elite also.  

As usual, these either resembled more "just-so" stories, or they represented totally obvious irrelevancies under the guise that something substantive was being stated.

The third one in this category involves a study about tourist-fed stingrays.

The objective was ... wait for it... to see if ecotourism would affect the animals that were interacting with humans.  Now most people would be unequivocally affirmative in this assertion, but that's only because they're uneducated and don't appreciate the more subtle nuances of biology.

True to form, the study completely ignored all the predictions that would've been obvious from evolution theory, and asked the question as to whether crowding, free food, and close proximity to humans could possible have an effect on these creatures.  Every one knows from watching Disney movies, that these animals would prefer to live "in the wild" and to enjoy their freedom, whether they were getting free food or not.

So, it's not entirely surprising that with the following description they reached the conclusions they did.

They found that fed stingrays swapped their normal nighttime foraging for daytime feeding, and in contrast to their wild counterparts, began to rest at night. They also didn't mind rubbing shoulders with their neighbors: At least 164 stingrays abandoned the species' normal solitary behavior, crowding together in less than a quarter square mile of space at Stingray City. They even formed schools and fed together. The fed stingrays mated and became pregnant year-round, instead of during a specific mating season, and also showed signs of unusual aggression, biting each other more frequently than their wild counterparts.

I guess unless the sting-rays get their own reality show or check into rehab, there's really nothing to suggest that they've changed that much.

There are indications that these sting-rays still go out and forage for food, so there doesn't seem to be an cause for concern, yet.

These results suggest that human-provided food can dramatically change how even large, highly mobile ocean animals behave — with potentially serious consequences, the researchers conclude.

Imagine that.