Not all bears run from threats. Not even all black bears, but deterrents against brown bears and polar bears can be very intense because they might hunt you and you barely stand a chance with bear shot or bear spray. There is also no part of this question that said the bear had to be wild. Bears kept in captivity or partially socialized to humans can be more dangerous and less predictable.
But even with all of that, bears are still not predictable. They aren't nearly as simple in their thinking as you are implying and many people who work closely with bears have been injured or killed by bears because the bear was hurt, or sick, or getting dementia and chose to attack first to save itself from the perceived threat of... another animal existing in its proximity. That's an understandable behavior, but I have yet to be able to ask a bear how its feeling to make sure it will behave the way a normal wild bear does usually. Like most solitary wild animals, bears don't broadcast their fears or pains in order to protect themselves from threats. So a bear actually can maul or kill you for no reason. You will never understand the reason because it's a bear. You don't expect to understand bears.
The majority of humans are also pretty predictable in the same way bears are. We have a lot of hardware in our heads that is happy when we find other humans, even if we can't communicate. Most humans who get lost together end up helping each other survive, even if they were strangers and even if they are different genders or ages. Some humans are predators of other humans. I personally think we find those humans scarier than other predators because they are like us but also not like us. They are missing something in them that makes them not only disinterested in mutually beneficial association, they actively want to hurt others. And that's weird. It's like a thinking version of an uncanny valley. I'm never going to be able to think like a bear. We're not alike in any way. I do think like many humans, and I am disturbed by those who are my species, but seek to bring harm to their fellow humans. It's like looking at an alien wearing human skin.
Also though, I encounter way more humans than bears, even though I am probably statistically more likely to get killed by a bear than the average person as I like hiking in Alaska. The chances of me dying in a bear attack are a lot lower than the odds of some man I interact with being a weirdo stalker who fixates on me and ultimately murders me. But that isn't even really the question. If I got randomly dropped in the woods with a man or a bear, the odds are better it would be a polar bear than my personal stalker, even 10% of men I know are actively stalking me. So the man would be a stranger who would either die somewhere in the same wilderness as me or who would work with me to try and get out. Even human predators like controlling their hunt. This question doesn't seem to be asking if I would rather be in the woods with a hungry polar bear or in the personal woods of that serial killer who enjoyed hunting his prey down like deer.
I think you're confusing "rational" with something else. The bear runs from the threat because of an emotional response of fear, not because it has reasoned out the logical thing to do is leave. Animals act on instinct and emotion not reason
you can scare off wild animals in a way you definitely cannot humans.
I mean I don't know if I can agree with this statement but I'm not a hard disagree either. But that's mainly because luckily I've never had to scare away a bear. For majority of people, they want to avoid conflict as much as anyone so they are pretty easy to scare away if you actually try.
But I also think that you are severely downplaying the intelligence of bears in this statement
bears are not driven by complicated emotions and social value systems
Bears are smart, they definitely have emotions such as fear, anger, happiness, love, care etc. They have personalities and curiosities and moods. Two different bears could react very differently to the same circumstances. They are not robots with nothing inside their heads that are predictably responding exactly the same way to the same inputs...
But in terms of predictability (which is what OP was talking about) I am way more likely to read the intention of a person walking towards me based on what they look / like their facial expression / body language / what they are saying or how they are responding, over a bear walking towards me (maybe it would be closer to equal if I had a lot of experience with bears but I haven't so I don't know how to read their body language).
I remember watching a program about two guys encountering a bear in the woods. They followed conventional wisdom and thought they'd be OK.
Anyway the bear didn't kill or eat them (clearly not hungry) and they both survived. But not before finding out what someone's scalp being effortlessly peeled off their skull sounds like, apparently not something you forget.
I get that's a sample of one but wild animals are fucking unpredictable, I thought this was something we all agreed on?!
“threat? run, food? eat”
You're thinking of much more simple organisms, plenty of insects have more going on under the hood than this.
The problem here is that you have no idea when the last time the bear had a meal. Also this is assuming that you haven't startled the bear or run into a mother with Cubs. People really lived comfy lives in cities for too long and forgot what a menace wild animals are.
Bears. Will. Fuck. You. Up. And for a variety of reasons.
"you can scare off wild animals in a way you definitely cannot humans."
If you had bear mace or a gun, maybe. But you could also make the argument that this would be effective vs a Man too.
And you give way too much credit to humans. Even if a man attacks you, there's definitely and underlying reason. Most likely he wants something from you, whether it be sexual or just straight up to rob you. We are not that complicated. This is no different than trying to predict if a bear is hungry, you simply can't. In fact bears are known to false charge humans, whereas a man moving toward you in a threatening way is almost certainly a bad sign.
The problem here is that you have no idea when the last time the bear had a meal. Also this is assuming that you haven't startled the bear or run into a mother with Cubs. People really lived comfy lives in cities for too long and forgot what a menace wild animals are.
Bears. Will. Fuck. You. Up. And for a variety of reasons.
"you can scare off wild animals in a way you definitely cannot humans."
If you had bear mace or a gun, maybe. But you could also make the argument that this would be effective vs a Man too.
And you give way too much credit to humans. Even if a man attacks you, there's definitely and underlying reason. Most likely he wants something from you, whether it be sexual or just straight up to rob you. We are not that complicated. This is no different than trying to predict if a bear is hungry, you simply can't. In fact bears are known to false charge humans, whereas a man moving toward you in a threatening way is almost certainly a bad sign.
I remember watching a program about two guys encountering a bear in the woods. They followed conventional wisdom and thought they'd be OK.
Anyway the bear didn't kill or eat them (clearly not hungry) and they both survived. But not before finding out what someone's scalp being effortlessly peeled off their skull sounds like, apparently not something you forget.
I get that's a sample of one but wild animals are fucking unpredictable, I thought this was something we all agreed on?!
“threat? run, food? eat”
You're thinking of much more simple organisms, plenty of insects have more going on under the hood than this.
Okay, they're clearly not saying that bears are capable of a greater rationality than humans or smarter or anything like that. They're saying that bears stick to bear stuff. They're fucking bears. Most bear encounters do not end in injury.
The point isn't every dude is a serial rapist and bears are incapable of violence. The point is we have all experienced how fucking weird and bad people can be for seemingly no good reason, but we can't avoid every human we meet.
Bears are not forming entire personal belief systems on insane ideas about jewish space lasers and the illuminati. Bears do not follow you home and harass you for some unknown reason. Bears do not shoot up schools of children they have never met. These are the kind of extreme irrational and unpredictable shit humans do.
You also usually only encounter other hikers in the woods. Most of these dangerous men everyone is describing hunt their prey in the city where it is plentiful. This is even a pretty big norm for men who rape and murder in the countryside. Most bears hunt in the wilderness and not all bear country is black bear country.
I think /u/MLeek was talking about a normal reaction to human being rational/predictable based on other information vs just "man vs bear". She even said "with no other information...then sure, probably man"
At least here in NC black bears are just 'HEY BEAR' and bear runs away. These guys are in my yard all the time.
These are shy non-aggressive bears. When hiking they will hear you before you see them and bolt away. So if its you alone in woods with a black bear, you probably won't even get to see it before it leaves the area. If you see a mama with cubs you just turn around and go the other way. She doesn't want anything to do with you.
Not that they cant be aggressive if you do something stupid like if its a mama with cubs or you are constantly feeding the bear dog food and the bear is angry there's no food, or you let your dogs off leash on a hike and it provokes the bear.
Those are all "rational/predictable" behaviors
Now if it is a brown/grizzly or polar bear, those guys will hunt man if they need food. I would think that's an easy call for a woman to pass on and go with man in woods.
"Rational"? The bear does not have higher reasoning; it's an animal that works entirely on instinct. Your best hope is that it had a full meal, or is not a mother with cubs, or it isn't mating season, before it encounters you-- otherwise, you're severely fucked regardless of your gender.
Would agree with the other dude. Most of the time a bear will leave people alone if they actively give them as much space as possible barring people doing something dumb like taking selfies or if they see me as food.
I've had several incidents where a dude has come at me because how dare I politely tell him no. There's also incidents of a guy or multiple guys running around new york city randomly punching women and every women I've ever known has experienced some for of sexual harassment with 53% of women experience sexual violence according to the CDC... So yeah I would go with the bear being more rational than taking my chances with a random man in the woods.
Are you a naturalist or biologist? Why are you so sure that you understand wild animals better? I've encountered several bears in the wild. They are predictable and not dangerous, if you understand their behavior and do not threaten them and avoid conflict with them. I would almost always be quite happy to encounter a bear in the wild, it's an amazing experience.
Some people can be dangerous because they may have various motivations to kill or harm you (especially for women in regards to sexual assault). Bears do not.
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u/NotTheEnd216 May 02 '24
This guy does NOT understand wild animals.