Slashdot Mirror
Acorns Disappear Across the Country
Hugh Pickens writes "Botanist Rod Simmons thought he was going crazy when couldn't find any acorns near his home in Arlington County, Virginia. 'I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe,' said Simmons. Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill. Simmons and Naturalist Greg Zell began to do some research and found Internet discussion groups, including one on Topix called 'No acorns this year,' reporting the same thing from as far away as the Midwest up through New England and Nova Scotia. 'We live in Glenwood Landing, N.Y., and don't have any acorns this year. Really weird,' wrote one. 'None in Kansas either! Curiouser and curiouser.' The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather and Simmons has a theory about the wet and dry cycles. But many skeptics say oaks in other regions are producing plenty of acorns, and the acorn bust is nothing more than the extreme of a natural boom-and-bust cycle. But the bottom line is that no one really knows. 'It's sort of a mystery,' Zell said."
I was going to point out how ignorant it was of you to just suggest anyone that anyone who disagrees with you is "vicious and ignorant" but it's undoubtedly pointless if your attitude is to rather ignorantly pre-emptively label and dismiss anyone who has a different viewpoint to you in this manner.
I do however have a question, you seem to accept climate change exists, but is instead something that exists as part of a natural cycle. My question is therefore if you believe it occurs why do you feel it's not possible that climate change is relevant to this discussion? How can you be so sure that a change in climate isn't a cause in this? Do you have some evidence we don't? Why is it that you seem to feel that this couldn't be a result of natural (as opposed to man-made) climate change?
Certainly at least to dismiss something perfectly within the realm of possibility without exploring it is absolutely not a valid scientific approach. That way of thinking belongs much more strongly in the mindset of the very creationists talked down in your quote.
What is it that you're so afraid of that you don't even want this perfectly plausible idea to be considered?