4 ms·

Sure we should be skeptical. We should also be skeptical of this rebuttal though. The main claim that this blogger uses before calling the article rubbish is t

Sure we should be skeptical. We should also be skeptical of this rebuttal though. The main claim that this blogger uses before calling the article rubbish is that it had a sample size of 500. This is a good sample size. It vastly weakens the credibility of the blogger to imply this is insufficient. It’s really problematic to have a reaction decrying the decline of literacy because some blogger said something was bad. If there is a decline of literacy, it ought to start with the blogger and the Hn poster here. Scientific literacy is and always has been low. Armchair experts decrying its decline is just ironic.

xeromal 4y ago
I was mainly going off this. David Johns, head of the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey, describes it as "a literal drop in the ocean." Johns would know—the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey has been running since 1958 and has accumulated more than 265,000 samples. The Continuous Plankton Survey has indeed cataloged a loss of plankton over the years—but nothing close to the 90 percent loss claimed by Dryden. "We have noticed long-term changes—northerly movements of plankton species as surface water warms, changes in seasonality in some taxa, invasives, etc.," Johns told Ars by email
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Well johns’ framing is poor. Or at least the blogger’s presentation of it is. The drop in the ocean comment is wrong. That’s not how stats works. You may want to argue that your samples have superior collection methods, but don’t attack the size. What’s worse, as far as I can tell the actual preprint doesn’t make the 90% claim. It’s referring to the risk of loss from ocean acidification in the next 20 years. As far as I can tell it’s just bad science naive bloggers and journalists all around plus armchair experts criticizing each other. If anyone is going to talk about skepticism and scientific literacy, step one should be ignoring pop summaries in the news. https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=327083003119119021018031110024026107026015032006043044006100065007099118090003116065017028043099109098119077067082103110094121024055038007038115100123112112064098095010081020002014091000070125111100115118093000030119093014026074126004081025022113102123&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=327083003119119...

xeromal 4y ago

I was mainly going off this. David Johns, head of the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey, describes it as "a literal drop in the ocean." Johns would know—the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey has been running since 1958 and has accumulated more than 265,000 samples. The Continuous Plankton Survey has indeed cataloged a loss of plankton over the years—but nothing close to the 90 percent loss claimed by Dryden. "We have noticed long-term changes—northerly movements of plankton species as surface water warms, changes in seasonality in some taxa, invasives, etc.," Johns told Ars by email

oneoff786 4y ago
Well johns’ framing is poor. Or at least the blogger’s presentation of it is. The drop in the ocean comment is wrong. That’s not how stats works. You may want to argue that your samples have superior collection methods, but don’t attack the size. What’s worse, as far as I can tell the actual preprint doesn’t make the 90% claim. It’s referring to the risk of loss from ocean acidification in the next 20 years. As far as I can tell it’s just bad science naive bloggers and journalists all around plus armchair experts criticizing each other. If anyone is going to talk about skepticism and scientific literacy, step one should be ignoring pop summaries in the news. https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=327083003119119021018031110024026107026015032006043044006100065007099118090003116065017028043099109098119077067082103110094121024055038007038115100123112112064098095010081020002014091000070125111100115118093000030119093014026074126004081025022113102123&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=327083003119119...