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So… My first instinct when I read debunking efforts like this is to try to check out who is doing the debunking. I'm not an ecologist, so I don't have the neces

So… My first instinct when I read debunking efforts like this is to try to check out who is doing the debunking. I'm not an ecologist, so I don't have the necessary background knowledge to evaluate the merits of the studies in question. But here's the author's CV: https://ecologyisnotadirtyword.com/research/ https://ecologyisnotadirtyword.com/research/ She got a PhD the same year as me, 2014, so that's pretty early career in academic terms. She's published a series of pretty standard sounding academic papers in a range of standard sounding journals, which is a positive credibility signal for sure. She does a bunch of public outreach work for the environmental sciences, which is great. I liked her effort to explain in plain language what scientific evidence is: https://theconversation.com/scientific-evidence-what-is-it-and-how-can-we-trust-it-14716 https://theconversation.com/scientific-evidence-what-is-it-a... So in general, as an academic in social science, I tend to find her post credible here on general this-looks-like-a-fellow-academic grounds. This being said, I hadn't heard of the institution where she got her PhD before (Charles Sturt University), and I find it a little bit interesting that on google, pretty much the first hit says "#CSU works closely with industry, ensuring our courses keep pace with change." Like it or not … when an institution positions themselves like that, it makes me wonder a little bit about whether they really can support unbiased environmental science, since industry has huge financial stakes in the outcomes of environmental research.

michaelneale 8y ago
Charles Sturt Uni is a fairly well regarded Australian university. It isn't one of the so called "sandstone club" but I believe it does legitimate stuff (it isn't that easy to be called a university here). They also often specialise in rural/earth science matters (I always thought of them as a rural uni). If that helps? Yeah it is my instinct to to use credentials but then I pull myself up and think "is this a high brow ad-hominem thing" but it probably makes sense to be curious/skeptical at first.
- decasia 8y ago
  Absolutely, this is useful context, thanks! I completely agree there's a lot of danger of ad hominem analysis in these kinds of cases. From my perspective, I probably would not post about this sort of thing at all, if it were a more mundane issue. But there seems to be a lot at stake in the climate crisis issues, so I'm trying harder than usual to figure out how to get my bearings.
- ip26 8y ago
  Ruling out potential bias isn't ad-hominem fallacy IMO. Ad-hominem fallacy relates to irrelevant personal attacks. Bias is relevant- just like citing an author's history of proven fraud would not be ad-hominem fallacy, because it is relevant. Or, at least, that's how I see it. Anyway, I think this is fundamentally different than logical arguments. The burden of proof very much rests on the paper or study or critique. Shaky credibility raises the bar of proof. Remember, in science, new papers are not de-facto gospel until proven wrong- they must be repeatedly supported by successive studies & challenges before they are accepted as truth. Consider, for example, datasets. There is a certain amount of implicit trust in the dataset provided in some new paper. The dataset can be fudged in ways which are undetectable, and no logical argument can refute- data is not argument. Therefore until you are prepared to replicate the dataset, you are trusting the author.
  - michaelneale 8y ago
    Right, I feel better about doing this now!
  - ams6110 8y ago
    > Remember, in science, new papers are not de-facto gospel until proven wrong- they must be repeatedly supported by successive studies & challenges before they are accepted as truth. Yet we read that the findings in most published research are either never reproduced, or not reproducible.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
hannob 8y ago
I'm not even sure I'd call that a "debunking" article. It basically says there's a whole lot we don't know, because the scientific data that's available isn't particularly good. I don't feel that's a very controversial thing to say. (And given no better data is available and the existing data indicates the problem is massive - I'll take the best science we have and say we should do something about it.)
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  I agree, she seems to mostly want more research, rather than "hype" or "hysteria". And even though I kinda object to such descriptions, I can't disagree with the point -- even well meant "hype" doesn't necessarily lead to better research or outcomes, it may as well just make something a thing with which groups try to achieve other agendas they have. > How can we fix this? > More conservation actions. We already know what disrupts the balance of ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ insects (in terms of human impacts): pesticides, habitat loss, pollution, land degradation, manicured lawns, too much waste, crop monocultures, invasive species etc. We can take action to minimise these effects now. > More research. We can’t identify what insects we’re saving if we don’t get to know them first. > More funding. Researchers can’t do research, people can’t act without funds and support. We need widespread public and political support for unbiased funding to fill knowledge gaps and make change to stop insect populations declining. Even the author, after all that, wants "unbiased funding to fill knowledge gaps and make change to stop insect populations declining", emphasis mine. To me all of this just says the author wants a solid, watertight case and well educated steps forward. And there's plenty of steps we already can and must take, no further research needed, she also stresses that. But I have to admit, it took me a bit to realize this after my initial negative reaction. I didn't even like the title, insectageddon is a terrible word and the decline of insects isn't a great story, at all... but I guess the author is simply too deep into these issues to make it more instantly palatable for people who aren't.
lstodd 8y ago
So, when you don't understand what they are talking about, your first instinct is to unleash an ad hominem attack? Way to go. Way to go.
- dejaime 8y ago
  Not an argument, not a discussion. It is simply considering how much fact check should be done before we can take their words for it. There can be no ad-hominem attack when the message is unidirectional.
  - lstodd 8y ago
    So instead of checking if facts support or at least do not contradict their postulated hypothesis, resort to checking facts about their persona? Do I have to explain this in even simpler words?
    - dejaime 8y ago
      "Ad hominem (Latin for "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself." Keys, it is an argumentative strategy to avoid a genuine discussion. This is not a discussion. The author of the article is not here to join in argumentative discussion. Being passive aggressive won't change that.
      - lstodd 8y ago
        Okay, it looks like i have to put it into simplest words possible. As mentioned elsewhere this: > So… My first instinct when I read debunking efforts like this is to try to check out who is doing the debunking. is the definition of "ad hominem". Attacking not the position a person holds, but the person. Discussion is what we have here. The comment in question, a part of the discussion, implied that the point what was made by the author is questionable because of who the author is.
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
At the risk of sounding like an internet cliche, what you wrote is an almost perfect ad hominem. Your response doesn't address the study whatsoever, nor by your own admission, do you claim to be able to. I think your comment is a good example of a well formed, coherent yet fallacious argument.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Consideration of the author is not a valid argument about merits of their work in the same way correlation does not imply causation - "but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'"[0]. It's a cost-effective heuristic, that's popular and necessary simply because of how much information you have to filter out daily just to stay sane. However, to effectively take into account arguments about people, you need to be honest about what you're doing - using weak evidence as a coarse filter. You're bound to have false positives. For things that matter (or that you want to have an opinion on), it's hopefully not the only piece of evidence you're using. -- [0] - https://xkcd.com/552/ https://xkcd.com/552/
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  It's not an ad hom at all and the reason is very simple: OP isn't arguing that we should dismiss the research based on the findings, only that we might, upon further investigation, have more reason to be skeptical. For better or worse, many of us tend to trust whatever is labelled as science so long as it's the PDF file type and there's a list of Harvard-style citations at the bottom. If OP said "Look, this person got their degree from a low quality place! Let's dismiss the argument because nobody from such a place could produce good research", that would be an ad hom. But this goes beyond calling out informal fallacies on the internet, it goes to our whole epistemological framework. Why do we trust some claims but not others? Might there be a reason to be skeptical of or completely distrust one claim until it is corroborated by another source? I would argue that there is, in many cases, depending on both the nature of the claim and the history of the person making it. To that end, I'm sure you agree such a thing is necessary in the legal system, for instance, wouldn't you?
  - 8y ago
ams6110 8y ago
> I hadn't heard of the institution where she got her PhD before (Charles Sturt University), and I find it a little toobit interesting that on google, pretty much the first hit says "#CSU works closely with industry Not sure why that's any more alarming than universities that work closely with government (almost all of them) or other non-industry foundations.

michaelneale 8y ago

Charles Sturt Uni is a fairly well regarded Australian university. It isn't one of the so called "sandstone club" but I believe it does legitimate stuff (it isn't that easy to be called a university here). They also often specialise in rural/earth science matters (I always thought of them as a rural uni). If that helps? Yeah it is my instinct to to use credentials but then I pull myself up and think "is this a high brow ad-hominem thing" but it probably makes sense to be curious/skeptical at first.

decasia 8y ago
Absolutely, this is useful context, thanks! I completely agree there's a lot of danger of ad hominem analysis in these kinds of cases. From my perspective, I probably would not post about this sort of thing at all, if it were a more mundane issue. But there seems to be a lot at stake in the climate crisis issues, so I'm trying harder than usual to figure out how to get my bearings.
ip26 8y ago
Ruling out potential bias isn't ad-hominem fallacy IMO. Ad-hominem fallacy relates to irrelevant personal attacks. Bias is relevant- just like citing an author's history of proven fraud would not be ad-hominem fallacy, because it is relevant. Or, at least, that's how I see it. Anyway, I think this is fundamentally different than logical arguments. The burden of proof very much rests on the paper or study or critique. Shaky credibility raises the bar of proof. Remember, in science, new papers are not de-facto gospel until proven wrong- they must be repeatedly supported by successive studies & challenges before they are accepted as truth. Consider, for example, datasets. There is a certain amount of implicit trust in the dataset provided in some new paper. The dataset can be fudged in ways which are undetectable, and no logical argument can refute- data is not argument. Therefore until you are prepared to replicate the dataset, you are trusting the author.
- michaelneale 8y ago
  Right, I feel better about doing this now!
- ams6110 8y ago
  > Remember, in science, new papers are not de-facto gospel until proven wrong- they must be repeatedly supported by successive studies & challenges before they are accepted as truth. Yet we read that the findings in most published research are either never reproduced, or not reproducible.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

hannob 8y ago

I'm not even sure I'd call that a "debunking" article. It basically says there's a whole lot we don't know, because the scientific data that's available isn't particularly good. I don't feel that's a very controversial thing to say. (And given no better data is available and the existing data indicates the problem is massive - I'll take the best science we have and say we should do something about it.)

PavlovsCat 8y ago
I agree, she seems to mostly want more research, rather than "hype" or "hysteria". And even though I kinda object to such descriptions, I can't disagree with the point -- even well meant "hype" doesn't necessarily lead to better research or outcomes, it may as well just make something a thing with which groups try to achieve other agendas they have. > How can we fix this? > More conservation actions. We already know what disrupts the balance of ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ insects (in terms of human impacts): pesticides, habitat loss, pollution, land degradation, manicured lawns, too much waste, crop monocultures, invasive species etc. We can take action to minimise these effects now. > More research. We can’t identify what insects we’re saving if we don’t get to know them first. > More funding. Researchers can’t do research, people can’t act without funds and support. We need widespread public and political support for unbiased funding to fill knowledge gaps and make change to stop insect populations declining. Even the author, after all that, wants "unbiased funding to fill knowledge gaps and make change to stop insect populations declining", emphasis mine. To me all of this just says the author wants a solid, watertight case and well educated steps forward. And there's plenty of steps we already can and must take, no further research needed, she also stresses that. But I have to admit, it took me a bit to realize this after my initial negative reaction. I didn't even like the title, insectageddon is a terrible word and the decline of insects isn't a great story, at all... but I guess the author is simply too deep into these issues to make it more instantly palatable for people who aren't.

lstodd 8y ago

So, when you don't understand what they are talking about, your first instinct is to unleash an ad hominem attack? Way to go. Way to go.

dejaime 8y ago
Not an argument, not a discussion. It is simply considering how much fact check should be done before we can take their words for it. There can be no ad-hominem attack when the message is unidirectional.
- lstodd 8y ago
  So instead of checking if facts support or at least do not contradict their postulated hypothesis, resort to checking facts about their persona? Do I have to explain this in even simpler words?
  - dejaime 8y ago
    "Ad hominem (Latin for "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself." Keys, it is an argumentative strategy to avoid a genuine discussion. This is not a discussion. The author of the article is not here to join in argumentative discussion. Being passive aggressive won't change that.
    - lstodd 8y ago
      Okay, it looks like i have to put it into simplest words possible. As mentioned elsewhere this: > So… My first instinct when I read debunking efforts like this is to try to check out who is doing the debunking. is the definition of "ad hominem". Attacking not the position a person holds, but the person. Discussion is what we have here. The comment in question, a part of the discussion, implied that the point what was made by the author is questionable because of who the author is.

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

At the risk of sounding like an internet cliche, what you wrote is an almost perfect ad hominem. Your response doesn't address the study whatsoever, nor by your own admission, do you claim to be able to. I think your comment is a good example of a well formed, coherent yet fallacious argument.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Consideration of the author is not a valid argument about merits of their work in the same way correlation does not imply causation - "but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'"[0]. It's a cost-effective heuristic, that's popular and necessary simply because of how much information you have to filter out daily just to stay sane. However, to effectively take into account arguments about people, you need to be honest about what you're doing - using weak evidence as a coarse filter. You're bound to have false positives. For things that matter (or that you want to have an opinion on), it's hopefully not the only piece of evidence you're using. -- [0] - https://xkcd.com/552/ https://xkcd.com/552/
claudiawerner 8y ago
It's not an ad hom at all and the reason is very simple: OP isn't arguing that we should dismiss the research based on the findings, only that we might, upon further investigation, have more reason to be skeptical. For better or worse, many of us tend to trust whatever is labelled as science so long as it's the PDF file type and there's a list of Harvard-style citations at the bottom. If OP said "Look, this person got their degree from a low quality place! Let's dismiss the argument because nobody from such a place could produce good research", that would be an ad hom. But this goes beyond calling out informal fallacies on the internet, it goes to our whole epistemological framework. Why do we trust some claims but not others? Might there be a reason to be skeptical of or completely distrust one claim until it is corroborated by another source? I would argue that there is, in many cases, depending on both the nature of the claim and the history of the person making it. To that end, I'm sure you agree such a thing is necessary in the legal system, for instance, wouldn't you?
- 8y ago

ams6110 8y ago

> I hadn't heard of the institution where she got her PhD before (Charles Sturt University), and I find it a little toobit interesting that on google, pretty much the first hit says "#CSU works closely with industry Not sure why that's any more alarming than universities that work closely with government (almost all of them) or other non-industry foundations.