3 ms·
In the context of a population over this range, a couple hundred thousand and a couple of thousand butterflies isn't as big a difference as you'd think, particu
by throwaway5752 4y ago
In the context of a population over this range, a couple hundred thousand and a couple of thousand butterflies isn't as big a difference as you'd think, particularly over the time frame we're looking at (a few decades). I'd be surprised if they avoid extirpation (local extinction within a range) at this point - Western Monarches have habitat loss, terrible losses from pesticides, and now climate change really kicking in.
To be pedantic, I don't think this is an example of sophistry. It may seem that way from your perspective, but I'd have to be in coordination with IUCN, which I'm not. I think in this case the logical fallacy would have to advanced by a single person or group. Also, perhaps since it's a relatively new word to you, you don't know it is considered insulting?
To recap: IUCN made the claim about a population of 1,914/99.9 percent drop in population, which was mistaken (I found the source of the error from misinterpreted numbers from https://xerces.org/ https://xerces.org/ further down, if you noticed). I made the separate claim that their error doesn't really matter, because both are almost equally dire and there is little difference between the level of urgency/intervention required to prevent functional extinction. I still stand by it.
- AlbertCory 4y agoPerhaps you don't know it's considered insulting to say "Perhaps since it's a relatively new word to you" ? I've known the word "sophistry" for a long, long time, Throw. And I'll stack my erudition up against yours any time at all.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- goosegoose 4y agoPlease could you explain how the numbers from the Xerces society were misinterpreted?
- throwaway5752 4y agoI think the IUCN figure, comparing 10s of millions in the 1980s to 1,914 in the Xerces count, is apples to oranges. Xerces count started in 1997, and is great data but is a volunteer based effort in specific times and places. As far as I can tell it's not a population estimate. The 10s of millions appears to come from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320717304809 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063... (via https://xerces.org/press/monarch-butterflies-disappearing-from-western-north-america https://xerces.org/press/monarch-butterflies-disappearing-fr...) This isn't a gotcha. The 72% risk of western monarch extinction within 20 years figure sounds right, if not conservative, per the paper. They just can't directly compare an estimated population with an exact count from a sampling. Please let me know if you know otherwise, I'm just an interested person on the internet