WHEN AMERICAN FLYER OWNERS GET TENURE?

Years ago, the owners of American Flyer trains would slag on Lionel owners because the former had two-rail track in S gauge while the latter made do with the easier-to-wire three rail track in approximately O scale.  In public life, the most famous advocate for American Flyer is probably atheist libertarian tory George Will, who, along with the rest of Cub Nation, is dealing with their nine's exit from the major league playoffs.

I can't help but think that among the authors of "Too cute to be wild: what teddy bears reveal about our disconnection from nature" in Bio Science there has to be at least one annoying American Flyer operator.

For many Westerners, the very first intimate, emotional bond with nature may not come from a walk in the woods but from early exposure to representations of nature, through illustrated books, toys, or plush animals. Among these, teddy bears have held a predominant place since the early twentieth century (Blanc et al. 2025). As paradoxical as it may seem, this plush is not only a source of childhood comfort but also a potential gateway to our relationship with nature. In an era marked by accelerating ecological degradation, reconnecting people, especially children, with the natural world has become a central goal of both conservation science (Soga and Gaston >2016, Chawla >2020) and environmental psychology (van Heel et al. 2023). A growing body of research shows that emotional closeness to nature in early life is a strong predictor of proenvironmental attitudes and behaviors in adulthood (Otto and Pensini 2017). If we are to rebuild our collective relationship with nature, not just cognitively but emotionally, we must attend to the sensory pathways through which this relationship first takes shape. And sometimes, what hides in plain sight can be the most instructive: Our first nature-based solution might just be a teddy bear.

The theorrhea of that abstract is enough to warn the skeptical reader, and the way to introduce the proper environmental disposition might be to make those kiddos' toys scarier.

"For many Westerners, the very first intimate, emotional bond with nature may not come from a walk in the woods, but from early exposure to representations of nature, through illustrated books, toys, or plush animals," explain the authors, who argue that emotional bonds such as these can persist for a lifetime.

At issue, then, is whether childhood toys are up to the task of fostering a realistic conception of nature. Unfortunately, say the authors, there may be serious downsides when they fall short: "If the bear that comforts a child looks nothing like a real bear, the emotional bridge it builds may lead away from, rather than toward, true biodiversity."

To explore this issue, the authors used morphometric and colorimetric analyses to compare 436 teddy bears with their real-world counterparts. The results were striking: "Real bears form a well-defined cluster that is clearly distinct from the teddy bears," say the authors.

Even the giant panda, which comes closest to matching teddy bear traits, "still deviates substantially" from the characteristics that make plush bears emotionally appealing.

This gap raises important questions for conservation.

"The further the teddy bear diverges from its biological counterpart, the greater the risk that children grow up with warped or incomplete mental representations of animals and ecosystems," the researchers warn.

The team suggests that "diversifying the plush palette to include ecologically grounded forms, species with more accurate morphologies and colorations, could help restore some alignment between emotional connection and biological reality."

I suppose you could modify the "plush palette" to include this more "ecologically grounded" form.

It's all too much for Legal Insurrection's Leslie Eastman.

For starters, perhaps in the nearly childless work of eco-activists, there is clearly a lack of understanding of the purpose of toys, which is comfort and familiarity, not zoological education. A child’s affection for a plush toy fosters empathy, imagination, and emotional development more than factual misconceptions. Research in developmental psychology suggests that symbolic play strengthens empathy and cognitive flexibility, even when it is based on fantasy.

All of the above are essential for the development of social skills and emotional intelligence. A more trustworthy study reveals a link between “emotion regulation” and success in education and careers.

Furthermore, by preschool age, most children recognize that teddy bears are symbolic of something. Studies on cognitive development show that while children may attribute feelings to toys, they rarely confuse them with real animals, minimizing the risk of “warped” ecological perceptions.

The argument is possible without that ad hominem "nearly childless work."  It might be that the ancient parental wisdom, "anything is possible in a cartoon," which at least one of the Looney Tunes offering even riffed on in the midst of the mayhem that frequently befell the coyote and the other heavies, isn't passed on as frequently as it once was, and perhaps there are youngsters who think of pandas as cute and cuddly.  They're in enclosures that are hard to get into for a reason, and the koala, which probably inspired the Teddy bear, has long claws.

Let's say that the study, such as it is, does little to persuade me not to think of sponsored research as derivative and foolish.

Reviewing the acknowledgements, I note that this “study” was funded by LabEx CeMEB (Laboratory of Excellence – Mediterranean Center for Environment and Biodiversity). LabEx CeMEB is a French research center in Montpellier focused on pushing environmental activist agendas that usually have human activities as the root cause of any problem.

Until this day, I had never considered that lack of realism in my stuffed toys a problem. And, it’s still not. This study simply confirms the bias of scientists funded to provide data supporting agendas and narratives.

What else is new where funded research is concerned?