4 ms·

"She remained with it for several hours and possibly even days." Interesting article, but that comment veers into speculation. Speculation diminishes the value

"She remained with it for several hours and possibly even days." Interesting article, but that comment veers into speculation. Speculation diminishes the value of a scientific article.

adzm 7d ago
I'm confused by how that is speculation.
- deleted 7d ago
  [deleted]
- SapporoChris 7d ago
  The key word is possibly. Any statement with possibly in it could be true or false, it is speculation.
  - pastel8739 7d ago
    Rather, the word “possibly” indicates uncertainty, the very foundation of science.
    - pinkmuffinere 6d ago
      Are you trying to say that including the weasely claims makes the article better and more scientific? You are “possibly” right.
  - nexie 7d ago
    Fair, but does that mean that the entire article is speculative? They were not around long enough to confirm whether or not it happened for days, but the fact that the mother stayed for at least some hours appears to be confirmed (although as another reply said, the motivation for staying could be different than ours). You will likely find a lot of these hedging comments in scientific articles, as it’s hard to know and prove something with 100% certainty and it’s an important task for researchers to also indicate the limits of what they’ve discovered. I think ;)
    - krisoft 7d ago
      > They were not around long enough to confirm whether or not it happened for days And that is perfectly fair. But what is the “possibly days” based on? Did they see the two whales acting weirdly a day later, but then they didn’t see them four days later? Or is it just based on the hunch of the person who made the observation? Or is it the hunch of the researcher? And if it is a hunch is it based on knowledge of similar reported events in the past? Is it based on the observed state of the adult whale or maybe the state of the carcas? Why possibly days and not possibly weeks? > but the fact that the mother stayed for at least some hours appears to be confirmed Is it confirmed? So that’s the problem. The hours are comming from the same sentence which describes the days. Both by a person who did not whitness the event personally. Your reading is that the second part of the sentence (the days) is speculation, while the first is reporting on observed fact. My reading is that the journalist did a bad job separating the first hand observed facts from the second hand speculation. We just simply won’t know until someone asks the Captain what exactly they have seen and writes it down. > it’s hard to know and prove something with 100% certainty But it is not hard to describe what was observed, and clearly separate it from what they think or speculate. Also it is not hard to ask the person who actually did the observing to describe what they have seen, instead of it being described by someone else who was not present.
      - Zedseayou 6d ago
        "possibly days" is a quote from the article, which is linked.
        krisoft 6d ago
        You are correct. The underlying scientific article is clear on the timeline of observations. My problem is with the editing done by the phys.org article.
  - phs318u 7d ago
    They are indicating a range (hours to days) for a value, and the “possibly” qualifier indicates some uncertainty in the range’s upper bound.
- aaron695 7d ago
  [dead]
Laakeri 7d ago
I'd say it instead makes it more precise, indicating that they are uncertain but the range is from several hours to days.
- officehero 7d ago
  But they need to explain why the range is so large. Did they witness whales at the site on day 2? It's unnecessarily ambiguous.
  - bell-cot 6d ago
    The article calls the data an "observation", made by the captain of a Rescue Boat from Sea World Foundation. From a peek at https://seaworldfoundation.com.au/rescue https://seaworldfoundation.com.au/rescue it seems clear that their job is rescue, not research. Keeping even a small boat at sea is not cheap - the default for pretty much every observation at sea, ever, is that the witnesses did not stick around to see anything beyond what they reported.
kingkawn 7d ago
Your pedantry and rigid lack of any insight is not representative of science just your own intellectual flaws
- vor_ 7d ago
  [dead]
- krisoft 7d ago
  I disagree. Fundamentaly the article is about an observation someone made of an animal’s behaviour. It is very important to be clear about what they seen, who seen it, and when. This article is not clear about that. What we know from the article that Rescue boat Capt. Andrew Mulville whitnessed the two whales behaving unusually. They also took a video of the behaviour. We don’t know how long they whitnessed it, or if there were multiple separate observations or just the one. And then we have Dr. Olaf Meynecke who was not personaly present and says that “She remained close to the calf, maintaining eye contact and positioning herself next to her calf over several hours and maybe even days.” It is valid to ask what is that based on? Is Dr Meynecke narrating what Capt Mulville seen? Is he saying that based on his knowledge of other times when behaviour like this was observed? Is it just speculation? There is nothing wrong with speculation but it is better be cleanly separated from the description of what was seen. The reason why this is frustrating is because something interesting (and likely supremely tragic) happened to these whales. But we are hearing about it in a distorted fashion. It is a game of telephone, where the captain seen it, told about it to the researcher, who told the journalist who is telling it to us. It is fundamentally important to keep it clear which parts are comming from the captain’s first hand account and which parts are speculation or elaboration by the researcher.
- LastTrain 6d ago
  Research requires pedantry.
deleted 6d ago
[deleted]

"She remained with it for several hours and possibly even days." Interesting article, but that comment veers into speculation. Speculation diminishes the value of a scientific article.

adzm 7d ago

I'm confused by how that is speculation.

deleted 7d ago
[deleted]
SapporoChris 7d ago
The key word is possibly. Any statement with possibly in it could be true or false, it is speculation.
- pastel8739 7d ago
  Rather, the word “possibly” indicates uncertainty, the very foundation of science.
  - pinkmuffinere 6d ago
    Are you trying to say that including the weasely claims makes the article better and more scientific? You are “possibly” right.
- nexie 7d ago
  Fair, but does that mean that the entire article is speculative? They were not around long enough to confirm whether or not it happened for days, but the fact that the mother stayed for at least some hours appears to be confirmed (although as another reply said, the motivation for staying could be different than ours). You will likely find a lot of these hedging comments in scientific articles, as it’s hard to know and prove something with 100% certainty and it’s an important task for researchers to also indicate the limits of what they’ve discovered. I think ;)
  - krisoft 7d ago
    > They were not around long enough to confirm whether or not it happened for days And that is perfectly fair. But what is the “possibly days” based on? Did they see the two whales acting weirdly a day later, but then they didn’t see them four days later? Or is it just based on the hunch of the person who made the observation? Or is it the hunch of the researcher? And if it is a hunch is it based on knowledge of similar reported events in the past? Is it based on the observed state of the adult whale or maybe the state of the carcas? Why possibly days and not possibly weeks? > but the fact that the mother stayed for at least some hours appears to be confirmed Is it confirmed? So that’s the problem. The hours are comming from the same sentence which describes the days. Both by a person who did not whitness the event personally. Your reading is that the second part of the sentence (the days) is speculation, while the first is reporting on observed fact. My reading is that the journalist did a bad job separating the first hand observed facts from the second hand speculation. We just simply won’t know until someone asks the Captain what exactly they have seen and writes it down. > it’s hard to know and prove something with 100% certainty But it is not hard to describe what was observed, and clearly separate it from what they think or speculate. Also it is not hard to ask the person who actually did the observing to describe what they have seen, instead of it being described by someone else who was not present.
    - Zedseayou 6d ago
      "possibly days" is a quote from the article, which is linked.
      - krisoft 6d ago
        You are correct. The underlying scientific article is clear on the timeline of observations. My problem is with the editing done by the phys.org article.
- phs318u 7d ago
  They are indicating a range (hours to days) for a value, and the “possibly” qualifier indicates some uncertainty in the range’s upper bound.
aaron695 7d ago
[dead]

Laakeri 7d ago

I'd say it instead makes it more precise, indicating that they are uncertain but the range is from several hours to days.

officehero 7d ago
But they need to explain why the range is so large. Did they witness whales at the site on day 2? It's unnecessarily ambiguous.
- bell-cot 6d ago
  The article calls the data an "observation", made by the captain of a Rescue Boat from Sea World Foundation. From a peek at https://seaworldfoundation.com.au/rescue https://seaworldfoundation.com.au/rescue it seems clear that their job is rescue, not research. Keeping even a small boat at sea is not cheap - the default for pretty much every observation at sea, ever, is that the witnesses did not stick around to see anything beyond what they reported.

kingkawn 7d ago

Your pedantry and rigid lack of any insight is not representative of science just your own intellectual flaws

vor_ 7d ago
[dead]
krisoft 7d ago
I disagree. Fundamentaly the article is about an observation someone made of an animal’s behaviour. It is very important to be clear about what they seen, who seen it, and when. This article is not clear about that. What we know from the article that Rescue boat Capt. Andrew Mulville whitnessed the two whales behaving unusually. They also took a video of the behaviour. We don’t know how long they whitnessed it, or if there were multiple separate observations or just the one. And then we have Dr. Olaf Meynecke who was not personaly present and says that “She remained close to the calf, maintaining eye contact and positioning herself next to her calf over several hours and maybe even days.” It is valid to ask what is that based on? Is Dr Meynecke narrating what Capt Mulville seen? Is he saying that based on his knowledge of other times when behaviour like this was observed? Is it just speculation? There is nothing wrong with speculation but it is better be cleanly separated from the description of what was seen. The reason why this is frustrating is because something interesting (and likely supremely tragic) happened to these whales. But we are hearing about it in a distorted fashion. It is a game of telephone, where the captain seen it, told about it to the researcher, who told the journalist who is telling it to us. It is fundamentally important to keep it clear which parts are comming from the captain’s first hand account and which parts are speculation or elaboration by the researcher.
LastTrain 6d ago
Research requires pedantry.

deleted 6d ago

[deleted]