3 ms·

This is a skillfully written piece to raise anger. But if you look closely, there are some signs: This piece refers to a study [1]. As they mention, this Scien

by sampo 5y ago

This is a skillfully written piece to raise anger. But if you look closely, there are some signs: This piece refers to a study [1]. As they mention, this Scientific American piece is written by 2 of the 5 authors of the study. 4 out of 5 of the study authors don't work in a conventional academic institution, but in nature conservation non-profits [2, 3]. The study [1] is titled "A Hazard Assessment". If you know the lingo, a hazard is different from a risk. Hazard means: This could potentially be a risk, if right conditions are met. The study itself [1] is a literature search of laboratory and field studies on the impact of pesticides on soil invertebrates. From [1]: > Conclusion > This paper constitutes a comprehensive review of the impacts of agricultural pesticides on soil invertebrates. We found that pesticide exposure negatively impacted soil invertebrates in 70.5% of 2,842 tested parameters from 394 reviewed studies. If you do a literature study on studies on how plant and insect poisons affect insects, the expected result is of course, insect poisons are poisonous to insects. And plant poisons can have observable effects, meeting the conditions of a hazard. Now, to what extend is farming "Killing the World's Soils", and to what extent can the negative effects of farming be attributed to pesticide use, soil tilling, biodiversity loss etc., this piece is not a high quality contribution. [1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.643847/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.6438... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Biological_Diversity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Biological_Diversit... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_Earth

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
BelenusMordred 5y ago
Think the people putting their names to this peer review should be noted: EDITED BY Christophe Darnault Clemson University, United States REVIEWED BY Roberta Fulthorpe University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada Alan Kolok University of Idaho, United States Kean Goh California Department of Pesticide Regulation, United States Do you plan to write a rebuttal to the journal and those who oversaw it at any point? Or just post here?
- sampo 5y ago
  I think the literature review article in Frontiers in Environmental Science is pretty honest at being what it is. They do literature searches and take notes on the presence and potential of a hazard. It's not a risk analysis, and it's not quantitative, and it doesn't pretend to be. They conclude (end of Abstract): > The prevalence of negative effects in our results underscores the need for soil organisms to be represented in any risk analysis of a pesticide that has the potential to contaminate soil, and for any significant risk to be mitigated in a way that will specifically reduce harm to soil organisms and to the many important ecosystem services they provide. and (end of Conclusions): > This review presents extensive evidence that pesticides pose a serious threat to soil invertebrates and the essential ecosystem services that they provide. Given the widespread and increasing adoption of seed and soil applied pesticides that pose a particular threat to soil organisms, we strongly support the inclusion of a soil health analysis in the United States pesticide risk assessment process. And I think there is some distance from these to "Pesticides Are Killing the World’s Soils". But I don't know how much should it concern the editors or Frontiers in Environmental Science, if same people first publish in their journal, and then go on to write something different in a popular science magazine (Scientific American)?
Impassionata 5y ago
This is a skillfully written piece to deny and hedge. But if you look closely, there are some signs. This comment refers to some scientists. But it's actually written by an Internet Commentator. If you notice that Internet Commentators tend to talk without paying attention to what they're saying, you'll see the motivated reasoning at work. He goes from affirming that toxic things are toxic with some weird indignation to quibbling about whether or not those toxic things in the soils are killing it. This man has no qualifications. He just has an Internet connection and knows how to navigate to this site and format an opinion in the local Internet Commentary way. It just looks like you're articulating the reason you don't care about the factual reporting going on here. It's ok not to give a shit, you don't have to go to all this effort to prove it's reasonable for you not to give a shit. We all live in denial but there are insufferable forms of it, and this is one of them.
- PoignardAzur 5y ago
  That's an appeal to authority. I think the comment you're responding to is valuable, even if the person writing it has no credentials and is themselves biased. Explaining reasons why the author might be biased gives me useful information. If we say "that's bad because they're biased too and also not a researcher", we're essentially saying "We don't want to see any contradiction to research articles published on HN".
aliasEli 5y ago
Note that Tara Cornelisse has a PhD inn Environmental Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz. She also worked as an assistant professor at Canisius College in Buffalo. Just the fact that she works at a nature conservation non-profit does not disqualify her as an expert.

by sampo 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

BelenusMordred 5y ago

Think the people putting their names to this peer review should be noted: EDITED BY Christophe Darnault Clemson University, United States REVIEWED BY Roberta Fulthorpe University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada Alan Kolok University of Idaho, United States Kean Goh California Department of Pesticide Regulation, United States Do you plan to write a rebuttal to the journal and those who oversaw it at any point? Or just post here?

sampo 5y ago
I think the literature review article in Frontiers in Environmental Science is pretty honest at being what it is. They do literature searches and take notes on the presence and potential of a hazard. It's not a risk analysis, and it's not quantitative, and it doesn't pretend to be. They conclude (end of Abstract): > The prevalence of negative effects in our results underscores the need for soil organisms to be represented in any risk analysis of a pesticide that has the potential to contaminate soil, and for any significant risk to be mitigated in a way that will specifically reduce harm to soil organisms and to the many important ecosystem services they provide. and (end of Conclusions): > This review presents extensive evidence that pesticides pose a serious threat to soil invertebrates and the essential ecosystem services that they provide. Given the widespread and increasing adoption of seed and soil applied pesticides that pose a particular threat to soil organisms, we strongly support the inclusion of a soil health analysis in the United States pesticide risk assessment process. And I think there is some distance from these to "Pesticides Are Killing the World’s Soils". But I don't know how much should it concern the editors or Frontiers in Environmental Science, if same people first publish in their journal, and then go on to write something different in a popular science magazine (Scientific American)?

Impassionata 5y ago

This is a skillfully written piece to deny and hedge. But if you look closely, there are some signs. This comment refers to some scientists. But it's actually written by an Internet Commentator. If you notice that Internet Commentators tend to talk without paying attention to what they're saying, you'll see the motivated reasoning at work. He goes from affirming that toxic things are toxic with some weird indignation to quibbling about whether or not those toxic things in the soils are killing it. This man has no qualifications. He just has an Internet connection and knows how to navigate to this site and format an opinion in the local Internet Commentary way. It just looks like you're articulating the reason you don't care about the factual reporting going on here. It's ok not to give a shit, you don't have to go to all this effort to prove it's reasonable for you not to give a shit. We all live in denial but there are insufferable forms of it, and this is one of them.

PoignardAzur 5y ago
That's an appeal to authority. I think the comment you're responding to is valuable, even if the person writing it has no credentials and is themselves biased. Explaining reasons why the author might be biased gives me useful information. If we say "that's bad because they're biased too and also not a researcher", we're essentially saying "We don't want to see any contradiction to research articles published on HN".

aliasEli 5y ago

Note that Tara Cornelisse has a PhD inn Environmental Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz. She also worked as an assistant professor at Canisius College in Buffalo. Just the fact that she works at a nature conservation non-profit does not disqualify her as an expert.