We’ve all heard the saying “like a bull in a china shop,” and when we say it, we mean that someone’s being clumsy or destructive (either literally or metaphorically). But are bulls really that clumsy and destructive? Content creator Zac Alsop recently tested the idea by releasing a bull into a china shop he built for the experiment.
Watch what happens when the bull enters a china shop here:
Is this what you expected to happen? Some people note that by building the china shop in the bull pen, the team wasn’t setting the bull up for success, because it’s used to being aggressive in that environment. Many people also point out that Alsop’s experiment contradicts what the Mythbusters discovered when they tested the myth that bulls are clumsy and destructive for an episode of the Discovery Channel show. In the episode, the bulls carefully avoided the china even while they ran around the “china shop.”
“Interesting, the Mythbusters already did this before but did it in a NEUTRAL environment,” wrote someone in Alsop’s video’s top comment on Instagram. “That bull has already associated that bull pen as something destructive due to how it’s treated in that bullpen, so this experiment isn’t valid due to the bull’s pre-association to negative experience in said location.”
The comment has over 10,000 likes.
For a comparison to video above, watch a recap of the Mythbusters episode here:
Perhaps we need more experiments to put this one to bed for good. Or maybe it depends on the individual bull.
What do you think?