Re: Stop It!!
- From: Mike Vandeman <mjvande@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 20:16:59 GMT
On 26 Nov 2005 21:55:55 -0800, pbowles@xxxxxxx wrote:
..
..Mike Vandeman wrote:
..> On 21 Nov 2005 16:07:55 -0800, pbowles@xxxxxxx wrote:
..>
..> .
..> .Mike Vandeman wrote:
..> .> On 19 Nov 2005 16:59:42 -0800, pbowles@xxxxxxx wrote:
..> .>
..> .> .
..> .> .Mike Vandeman wrote:
..> .> .> On 14 Nov 2005 19:48:41 -0800, pbowles@xxxxxxx wrote:
..> .> .>
..> .> .> .
..> .> .> .Mike Vandeman wrote:
..> .> .> .> On 14 Nov 2005 13:31:48 -0800, pbowles@xxxxxxx wrote:
..> .> .> .>
..> .> .> .> .
..> .> .> .> .Mike Vandeman wrote:
..> .> .> .> .> On 13 Nov 2005 08:35:13 -0800, "Josh Campbell" <jcampbell.joshua@xxxxxxxxx>
..> .> .> .> .> wrote:
..> .> .> .> .>
..> .> A scientific forum tends to be
..> .> .characterised by scientific discussions, and I can hardly hold a
..> .> .discussion with myself.
..> .>
..> .> So you don't think anyone else here knows anything about science? You are a
..> .> joke.
..> .
..> .I didn't make any such claim; however in a number of years here there
..> .have been very few discussions about ecological science and little
..> .contribution to those that have been started. So however many people
..> .here are informed about the science, they tend to be silent even when
..> .the subject is raised.
..>
..> Including you. You are doing NOTHING to fix the "problem".
..
..The only science issue I've seen raised here recently relates to
..'ecotechnology', and as much as I'd like to be able to help, I know
..nothing whatsoever about it so am not in a position to contribute.
..
..> .> . and choose instead to disparage someone who posts something
..> .> .> you don't like, for some unnamed reason.
..> .> .
..> .> .I haven't disparaged anyone - I've merely made the point that what you
..> .> .have to say has no place here.
..> .>
..> .> You said it's not scientific, which is disparagement.
..> .
..> .By your lights, possibly. From my point of view, only ecological
..> .science has a place in sci.bio.ecology - so anything else, however
..> .worthy, belongs elsewhere.
..>
..> I don't think you would know science if it bit you. You claimed my paper wasn't
..> science, but were no unable explain why.
..
..It doesn't strike you that pointing out that you were arguing from your
..conclusion might render it unscientific?
BS. I argued from the DATA. You are fantasizing.
Or the lack of actual support
..for the position you were advocating? Whether or not you are able to
..*understand* why it isn't science doesn't reflect my ability to explain
..why it isn't, which I have already done.
By fabricating? You haven't explained it yet.
..> .> .> .Let's just keep the focus reflecting the group's purpose, shall we? The
..> .> .> .group description in Google is headed "Ecological research". That's it
..> .> .> .- simply research into organisms and their interaction with their
..> .> .> .environment.
..> .> .>
..> .> .> And that's what I posted: a summary of research and its implications.
..> .> .
..> .> .You posted a 'paper' with half a dozen or so references, and cited most
..> .> .of those simply to argue that the implications drawn from those papers
..> .> .were incorrect.
..> .>
..> .> BS. I cited all the available research on the topic.
..> .
..> .You may well have done. That doesn't invalidate my point - the
..> .reference list was light
..>
..> That is just your subjective judgment. It has nothing to do with science, and is
..> actually false. I cited all the available research on the topic. No one can do
..> any more than that.
..
..Considering that you make claims for the effects of soil erosion on
..wildlife, you could have added references there at least. But that's
..beside the point - you listed a total of 19 references. You actually
..cited only 13, most themselves citations from Gary Sprung's piece.
..Indeed it's true that the content of a piece is more important than the
..sheer number of references, but quite simply to make the claims you
..make with the stridency you do, the fact that there has been so little
..research into the subject weakens your position, especially when most
..of that research has come to very different conclusions from your own.
You are right that the number of references is irrelevant, which would make a
reasonable person wonder why you refer to it. I cited all the available
research, which was quite adequate to prove my hypothesis. Nothing wrong what
THAT!
..> and you did use the majority of them to argue
..> .their conclusions were flawed.
..>
..> For good reason. They WERE flawed. Do you take every so-called "research" paper
..> at face value? Not if you are smart! You look at their methodology. If the
..> methodology is flawed, so are the conclusions.
..
..If the flaws in the methodology are critical to those conclusions, the
..conclusions are at most unjustified on the basis of their work.
Yes.
But
..again you're obfuscating - I merely made the point that most of your
..paper consisted of finding flaws in the conclusions of other authors.
BS. I also proved my hypothesis (mountain biking causes more harm than hiking),
based on their own data. You keep ignoring that fact.
..This, as you acknowledge here, is the simple truth, which rather flies
..in the face of your cry of "BS" when I made this point in the first
..place. I've also made the point that finding flaws in someone else's
..work does not mean the conclusions are wrong - it simply means that
..someone needs to conduct another study corrected for those flaws to
..determine whether or not the conclusions were wrong.
Sure, if that were all I did, which I didn't. I also used their own data to
prove my hypothesis. Why do you continue to miss that point?
..> .> Moreover a large portion of that paper was devoted to
..> .> .soil erosion and whether mountain bikers run over the odd plant here
..> .> .and there, neither of which is of ecological relevance in themselves.
..> .>
..> .> It is to the plant! In case you didn't know, killing can lead to extinction, as
..> .> well as loss of biodiversity, so it IS significant. In fact, it's the MOST
..> .> significant act I can think of.
..> .
..> .If a gardener pulls up a stinging nettle in their garden they aren't
..> .contributing to sending the stinging nettle towards extinction.
..>
..> Sure they are! Extinction results from the death of members of the species.
..
..Correction: it results from the deaths of *all* members of the species.
..The difference isn't precisely subtle.
..
..> .Mortaility is one of two factors regulating populations; the other is
..> .birth rate. However many animals or plants you kill, if the birth rate
..> .keeps pace with or exceeds overall mortality, there is no effect on
..> .extinction risk for that species.
..>
..> Yes, there is! If the population decreases, it makes extinction more likely.
..
..If you've got a species that produces, say, 100 surviving adults over
..the course of the average year, and has a mortality rate of around 50
..adults in the same time period, an extra one or two dead animals has
..*no effect* on extinction risk.
BS. Where did you get that idea? I would like to have a talk with your teacher.
More likely, you misinterpreted something you read.
Extinction risk is the result of a
..trend, specifically a population decline,
BS. A population can be wiped out suddenly, with no "trend" whatsoever. You
apparently learned your biology by rote, and aren't capable of THINKING.
and what's more it's a trend
..that is often reversed naturally, so even a slight decline may have no
..long-term implications for extinction risk; populations naturally
..fluctuate up and down.
Irrelevant.
..> Also, killing reduces genetic diversity, which makes the species more vulnerable
..> to extinction. I can't believe you really have a degree in biology, and still
..> say such ignorant things that any biology student should know.
..
..Your reasoning is spurious, applying concepts at an inappropriate
..scale. A species with a several hundred thousand members, or more, is
..an immense reservoir of genetic diversity, including the parents,
..offspring and siblings of any given individual that might be run over
..by a mountain bike, stamped on by a hiker or whatever. What's more the
..vast majority of those individuals will possess no rare characteristics
..that add to genetic diversity;
So what? That doesn't mean that the one killed isn't rare or even UNIQUE. You
are arguing from probabilities, which isn't accurate.
in the case of plants they will often be
..clonal in any event. Genetic diversity only becomes an issue when a
..species population is so small that it's prone to inbreeding, which for
..vertebrates is generally in the region of 100 or fewer animals (unless
..the species as a whole has extremely low diversity, such as cheetahs).
You are dead wrong. Statistics don't prove anything. They are only indicative.
..> This is why the studies of impacts of
..> .biodiversity, populations and communities in the region are important,
..> .and the deaths of individual animals and plants, in themselves, are
..> .not.
..>
..> See http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/sustain. You are mistaken.
..
..I see an almost wholly unreferenced essay of yours based on the same
..preconceptions and flawed logic you're using here, most of it railing
..against established ecological principles which support precisely what
..I'm saying (and even those are unreferenced). Supporting an argument by
..reference to itself is simple circularity.
I see. So because you read it somewhere, it must be true. Obviously, you either
didn't understand my paper (which I have validated by getting concurrence from
several biologists and geneticists; t's CORRECT), or you disbelieve it because
you haven't found someone else saying the same thing. In other words, you aren't
capable of thinking for yourself.
..> .> .Soil erosion could be investigated in an ecological context, but none
..> .> .of your references and certainly not your paper make any effort to do
..> .> .so.
..> .>
..> .> So what? They are only looking at whether, and how much, mountain biking &
..> .> hiking create erosion. There are plenty of other works showing that erosion is
..> .> significant.
..> .
..> .In order to make your case you need to refer to those works in your
..> .own, not just make the case for soil erosion. Nor is all erosion
..> .necessarily equivalent - the erosion you're talking about here is a
..> .narrow, more or less linear trail through otherwise intact habitat.
..>
..> So what?
..
..So the level of disturbance clearly differs from other forms of
..erosion. If you were to take a random quadrat along the length of a
..trail and another along, say, the edge of a grazed field, the eroded
..area would be considerably smaller in the trail quadrat and the
..presence of intact refugia into which species could retreat and where
..they could persist correspondingly greater. The trail is unlikely to be
..wide enough to act as a barrier to wildlife crossing or plants
..dispersing from one side to the other, so there is unlikely to be
..habitat fragmentation. All of these factors change the way in which the
..system reacts to disturbance.
Calling something "unlikely" is not the same as saying it's "impossible". Again,
you are simply arguing probabilities, which are irrelevant to real organisms,
especially ones KILLED. They aren't "probably" dead, they are ACTUALLY dead!
.. Trails give access to humans, which increase disturbance.
..
..The significance of this depends very much on what the humans are
..doing. Do many people using mountain bike trails as logging paths or to
..hunt for bushmeat? Despite claiming otherwise, you're still working to
..the presumption that disturbance is necessarily bad for wildlife
..whatever form it takes and however severe it may be.
There is plenty of research showing that the presence of humans is nearly always
harmful.
.. Erosion
..> reduces wildlife habitat.
..
..Though the extent to which this is the case with a mountain bike trail
..appears not to have been quantified.
So what? If it's reduced, then the species is harmed. That isn't rocket science.
.. Mountain bikers also BUILD trails (legal and illegal),
..> which further increases erosion.
..
..Again, you're ignoring the point. It may increase erosion, but so far
..you've presented no evidence for the effects that this level and form
..of erosion has on wildlife or its habitat, so that brings us right back
..to the need for that evidence.
That evidence is already present in other research. It is a given. I don't have
to prove EVERYTHING, including principles already demonstrated..
..> .Evidence from land clearance or the hooves of grazing animals in
..> .farmland simply isn't applicable on this scale and to this type of
..> .disturbance. In my review of amphibian and reptile responses to
..> .disturbance, both groups reacted differently depending on whether
..> .logging pressure was low or intense - not just in the strength of their
..> .response, but in the way disturbance affected species richness and
..> .community composition, with moderate disturbance having a limited ot in
..> .many cases no effect on community structure
..>
..> That is a VERY poor measure of actual impacts. It is too high-level.
..
..Ecology is a holistic science. The poor measure is to take a case of an
..individual animal or plant and extrapolate it to the population or
..species.
I haven't done that.
..Ecosystems are comprised of communities;
BS. They are comprised of INDIVIDUALS. You are biased toward studying
communities. It's hypocrisy. You undoubtedly think that the killing of a HUMAN
individual is significant, but not other species.
the interactions
..between species are the basis of ecosystem function. It's exactly that
..level one looks at to identify whether a disturbance is likely to have
..consequences for the system - lower-level measures often miss important
..details. Why exactly do you regard it as "too high-level"?
It's like trying to understand what is happening between two individuals
fighting on the ground, from an aerial photograph. Impossible.
..> and tending to increase
..> .species richness while heavy disturbance led to loss of species and
..> .predictable changes in community composition. Studies need to be
..> .carried out specifically on the effects of mountain bike trails on
..> .wildlife if you want to support your claims.
..>
..> You don't need a "study" to know that a trail represents destroyed habitat and
..> killed animals and plants. That's obvious.
..
..Yet what is not obvious is whether this is of any ecological relevance.
That is only of interest to YOU, since you claim to be n "ecologist". Destroyed
habitat is significant to anyone who actually CARES about wildlife.
..> .> .> . Not conservation policy.
..> .> .>
..> .> .> Heaven forbid that someone might make a statement in favor of conservation! If
..> .> .> we don't conserve wildlife, ecologists won't have anything to discuss! Your
..> .> .> subject matter will be EXTINCT!
..> .> .
..> .> .Conservation and conservation policy are two different things - ideally
..> .> .ecological research guides conservation management decisions and can be
..> .> .used as a basis for specific recommendations in the particular regions
..> .> .studied. Touting a particular ideology as a general conservation
..> .> .practice falls outside this remit.
..> .>
..> .> What "ideology" amd I "touting", and where, exactly, did I do that?
..> .
..> .In the introduction to your paper for one, in your signature,
..> .everywhere you've maintained the need for human-free protected areas.
..>
..> That's not an "ideology". It's a fact.
..
..Spoken like a true ideologue. The fact is that many wildlife
..populations are in decline, and this implies a need for protection.
..That does not make it a fact that human-free protected areas are a
..necessary or even necessarily desirable approach. Dogged commitment to
..that is pure ideology.
Not when it's based on science. Then it's simply a fact. You are being
disingenuous in claiming that it's ideology. You are no better than the
Intelligent Design folks, who say that belief in evolution is only an ideology.
..Philip Bowles
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)
http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande
.
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