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World's Plant Life Far Less Diverse Than Thought
Meshach writes "A report out of FOX News (I know, I know) says that there are far fewer unique species of plants than previously thought. The report states that only about a third of named species are actually unique. The rest have been 'discovered' multiple times, often by separate scientists."
so is it April 1st already? Oh wait they said faux news.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Sounds like the posts on Slashdot. Only about 1/3 are original.
Celebrity diversity this you liberal motherfuckers!
The only vegetables are the ones on CNN.
Fox News reporting on something not positive about the environment? Never saw that coming.
Although I have a great distaste for faux news, having multiple names for one thing sounds extremely likely, it's even done in most modern languages.
right?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The only thing that has changed is our current state of knowledge.
This study does not look at what this level of diversity says about the environment good or bad.
It merely helps quantify our former ignorance.
So in order to sow doubt about the scientific community reporting that we're killing off species and that biodiversity is important, faux news is reporting another lie. Here's a tip for those of you getting news from the Murdoch empire: Don't use that as your single source. Read, watch and listen to other outlets, else you will be ill-informed like the rest of the lemmings who just watch faux news
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
The rest have been 'discovered' multiple times, often by separate scientists.
As opposed to being discovered multiple times by the same scientist?
There's only one human race.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
That would be home made Kombucha. As unique as it gets.
The fact that existing discovered and named flora is redundant should not be too surprising. But the number that we have discovered has no bearing whatsoever on the amount or variety of undiscovered flora, at all. So a statement like "World's Plant Live Far Less Diverse Than Thought" is simply irresponsible. The former situation is simply not evidence of the latter. It has long been acknowledged that we have only formally "discovered" and categorized a small fraction of the Earth's actual diversity.
FreeBSD went out survEy which
As far as i can tell as a non-american is that Fox News is a pretty lowly news outlet.
However that doesnt automaticly mean the story cant be true.
Just start assuming the opposite. "There are no duplicates within the millions of plants discovered." In a database of that size, with manually made entries for well over a 100 years, highly unlikely.
So, without further knowledge, one can only speculate about the percentage of duplicate entries.
I can't wait to see how Glenn Beck will blame this on Obama and somehow claim this has damaged America.
A report by The Real News, which followed a similar report by Smart People, says that any report by FOX News should be completely ignored until corroborated by a genuine news agency.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Darwin and his successors, acting within a few years of his death assembled a list of 400,000 plant species back in the 1880's, about the same time that the telephone and radio were just being invented. There were no computers, Internet, electronic devices, television, cars, airplanes, or even air conditioning (crucial for those summer scientific conferences held in resort locations). Even the ballpoint pen came later. So today, with the advantage of the last 130 years of continuous scientific discovery and refinement, as well as machines and technology of all kinds to aid investigation, collaboration, and record-keeping, the updated list is rolled out with... 300,000 species?
Either someone is slacking in academia-land, or some of our leafy friends have been calling it quits.
This really shouldn't come as much surprise. There are plenty of plants that look dramatically different at different stages of their life; if they were being "discovered" for the first time they could well be called different species. Add to that the differing languages spoken by different botanists when attempting to classify species and the problem grows very quickly.
And for that matter, with molecular biology our notion of "species" is changing as well. Now a species is defined more along the lines of a unique genome (or at least uniquely organized genome) than simply on where and how it grows. Now we realize that - especially in the plant kingdom - there are many pairings of different species of plants that can hybridize and produce viable offspring.
So indeed, the number was due to be corrected at some point. This happens in other sciences, too; a while ago a few species of dinosaurs were recently re-classified as likely being juvenile specimens of other species.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Well I think it's just a tragedy how many poor undiscovered species face extinction every year.
Consider logging, a practice which harms the spotted owl. Now consider how many undiscovered species (it's in the thousands, just fyi) face an equal threat from logging. And consider how many of those undiscovered species are actually harmed by logging, not just in the minds of alarmists like me, but *really harmed*, as in dying! We have all fallen from grace, and must return to the Eden where humans and animals alike soaked in the love of Gaia, the Earth Mother. If we all partake in the Eucharist of Sustainability, we will attain Salvation.
Fox News does not have a monopoly on stupidity. On the environment, it enjoys a duopoly with career environmentalists.
But http://www.theplantlist.org/ quotes their data right on the front page:
Accepted 298,900 28.7%
Synonym 477,601 45.9%
Unresolved 263,925 25.4%
Note that a full 25% could go either way. Fox is putting the predictable spin on the story that ALL news media will probably put on this to generate readership, but the takeaway is that now we know more. This is generally considered a good a thing, especially when you want to do this sort of thing repeatedly. They have a method, and are looking to expand and perfect it. Mission accomplished.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
More people watch Fox than any other news source. Fox haters, would you trust them more if they published fake air national guard memos like CBS did?
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
If you take the time to actually read the article you find that out of ~1,040,000 species previously named, 300,000 are definitely distinct species. ~480,000 are pseudonyms for those, and another ~260,000 are as of yet undetermined as to their status as distinct species. Since those others are undetermined, it cannot be said with any certainty that they are not distinct species. It would be just as (un)truthful and (in)correct to lump those in with the 300,000 known species and call it more than half.
Shoddy work on the part of the reporter.
Death looks every man in the face. All any man can do is look back and smile. - Marcus Aurelius
Conservitive sources are never to be beleived where liberal sources always should be.
And no you cunt, I do not read Fox news. But I fucking hate hypocrits like you. Your a primary example why I hate liberals. Your also a primary example why I feel the only good liberal is a dead one.
Can't wait till you become a good little liberal. I'll make sure I piss on your fucking grave when you do.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
In the past, when a Fox News reporter was given the task of count different plant species, usually went like "1...2... too many". But things are improved, probably after seeing really big numbers related to US debt or bank bailouts, now when faced with the same task this time realized that the amount of plants weren't that many.
Well, there's a lot of details from the actual source of the study that are left out of the Fox News report. Like the fact that they used a taxonomic knowledge in a rulebase to reduce the set of unique plants. While fascinating, one must wonder how well an automated system could perform such a feat. Note: The part about putting "discovered" in double quotes is not found in the original source article but arises in the Fox News article. You might want to be careful as you could be insinuating gross incompetence in the field of botany across its entire history. It's also possible that this algorithm for reducing the list needs to be worked on.
My work here is dung.
When we show the universe is not as old as we thought...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
That was really too many for God to have made in 7 days.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
They've lumped half the plant species into a group they say are un-American communist sympathisers (and so should be exterminated)!
Everyone is biased in one way or another. One can be totally biased and be totally fair at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive. Fox is certainly an organization run and staffed primarily by conservatives. This doesn't inherently discredit them as a news organization. They, as everyone chooses whether to allow their bias to influence the truth.
This is going to be really bad for biodiversity.
If taxation is legalized theft, then Capitalism is a prolonged rape followed by a slow death.
The whole thing came about because of an idea Darwin had and put in motion.
By disclaiming this story are you really saying you disagree with Darwin? And I thought Creationists were mad! At least they read source material before they decide something is true or not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
after reading some of these comments, it's obvious that so many people allow themselves to be swayed by the 10-second out-of-context clips that are put together to try to discredit Fox News. It's really becoming quite a joke.
Fox has shown a light on the blatant liberal bias that has been going on among ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN the past two decades, and they absolutely hate them for it. and the people who deny this just say the overwhelming majority who watch Fox are just people who are wowed by the 'flashy graphics' that Fox uses. give me a break...
The fact that Fox very often shows clips of the other networkss blatant attack of Fox, whereas the other networks very rarely do this is just more evidence of this. I still switch over the other networks often enough to know this.
First they give everything more names to confuse things. How many things can there really be ? There was one ark. Everything fit on the ark. That things appear different is just a miracle from God. I'm waiting for the story to break that there are actually far fewer gods than the average fox viewer thought there was.
Resubmit as new story tomorrow.
Teh make it simple for those just focused on the faux news angle:-
I'll leave it up to others to speculate on why this "story" is spun like that - though personally, blaming it on festivities implies that the Murdock press (and others) have a "silly season" that's shorter than a year.
To those who see this sort of story as "proof" that all scientists are wrong (I'm looking at you creationists) - just because your dick fits your hand - it's no more proof of "Intelligent Design" than it's acceptable to flop it out in public.
Here's a rather contrarian viewpoint about plant diversity and natives vs. exotics. In a nutshell, Hudson argues that the decline in biodiversity is so severe ( due, essentially to humans paving the planet ) that most sources of plant diversity should be encouraged. Additionally he points out difficulties in defining "exotic" and "native" due to the way seeds spread naturally. This from a fellow who for many many years has been a source of seeds of rare and unique plants. He argues that feel-good councils that make rules about invasive and exotic species may do more harm than good. An interesting view from someone that I have a lot of respect for.
If there is even less diversity in the plant world than we thought, then I guess his argument may be even stronger. Anyway, possibly something more interesting to read ( ha! yes I know this is /. ) than the OP.
Related, excellent read, for those interested Plants, Man, and Life
This is called synonomy, and it's not new. Kew has been working on this for ages, in an attempt to be a world leader in what's called Index Kewensis.
Murdoch, Ailes, and lots of those in power seem to bend over backwards to try and to discredit science at every possible opportunity. So this story isn't surprising. It's part of their propaganda. You know, to discredit things like evolution (which their idiot viewers don't believe in) and scientific facts like global warming (which they and their corporate cronies don't want anyone to do anything about, since it might hurt their bottom line).
They'll spin any news, whether a valid story or just a trumped up piece of fake-outrage, so that only their side is supported, and any other side is discredited. It's grossly one-sided, biased, and misleading when taken as a whole. There's a definite, obvious agenda here.
There have now been three studies that show that viewers of FOX News are more misinformed and ignorant than those of any other news source. Not just by a little, but by a LOT.
Just stop watching FOX News. Just turn it off. Same goes for Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. They're paid a lot of money to distract and inflame people's passions away from real issues that really affect them.... and to scream and campaign against their own interests and FOR the interests of the top 1%, the wealthy CEOs, the rich and powerful entrenched interests. It's all bullshit propaganda. NOBODY with a brain should be watching or listening, let alone citing. Ever.
If it's an actual, valid story, it'll have other, more legitimate sources.
just out of interest
how do you know that the number of undiscovered species is in the thousands?
Indeed, how DO we know even approximately how many undiscovered species there are? That seems like a pretty wild shot in the dark.
They couldn't get the simplest article on growing lights correct: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2010/12/23/build-high-tech-indoor-garden-winter/?test=faces
It was so bad I had to actually create a FoxNews account to correct the nonsense. Looks like my comment is still the top one, at that.
I won't trust this Fox News article any further than I could trust the one I linked. They seem to enjoy using outdated stuff AND they love to not cite any deep sources.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Whenever there's an article from Fox News, >90% of the posts will be attacks on the network without actually reading the article and supporting or disputing those facts.
It's a sad day when nerds can't even follow the scientific method and instead revert to ideology.
(Posting anonymously so I don't get burned for being a witch.)
Quote: The rest have been 'discovered' multiple times, often by separate scientists." So, oftentimes the duplicates were even logged by independent scientists? Does that mean there are a lot of duplicate submissions by the same scientist?
It very much depends on the species concept, and method used.
If you apply a strict monophyletic perspective and use only a few mitochondrial genes, then this may well be correct.
However... And that is a big HOWEVER, a strict monophyletic perspective would miss out on innumerable species, e.g. the polar pear vs brown bear, where the polar bear would not be an admissible species under a strict monophyletic species concept, but only a variety of the brown bear. There are of course many examples of this phenomenon.
The second perspective relates to which genes were analyzed, as they tend to give different results.
Truth with modification, at best...
How do you get a plant added to the list? I just discovered a new species in my sox drawer.
0100111001100101011100100110010000100001
(What do you know?, What do you know)
What the List does is collect ~all the already-published taxonomic accounts, and listed "all published names", specifically including those that were already known to be synonyms.
"The decision to assign a Status of Synonym to a name record is based upon a taxonomic opinion recorded in the cited data source"
If you want to see what they actually did, read this: http://www.theplantlist.org/about/#created
Even the most casual botanist already knows that plant taxonomy is full of synonyms. It's actually rather hard to decide whether you're looking at a "species" of anything, and plants are particularly messy since their phenotypes are pretty variable and they hybridize like crazy.
Here's the thing.
It's very easy to succumb to the Fox technique.
The real point is never the issue that you are invited to debate endlessly - and only within the framework of their special brand of "reality".
So here's what this really means:
For BOTH plant and animal species, the argument has to be put forth that there are far fewer than "thought".
Why? Because they all have to fit on the Ark.
(still waiting for my user account to be approved)
(wwaldo)
False equivalency it often used to minimize severity while bringing down others to their level; its two birds with 1 stone.
USA Cable news channels are not all the same and if you can not see how much worse Fox "News" is than the rest then sadly, its not likely a logical person is going to educate you because you are just too pathetic and likely will just more strongly BELIEVE the fallacy when presented with fact and logic.
We need a false advertising lawsuit against Fox "news" - propaganda is just too dangerous a weapon to let it get used unregulated. It only gets more sophisticated over time and I expect it to kill democracy and liberty someday - its already begun and most don't have a clue.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
We need a false advertising lawsuit against Fox "news" - propaganda is just too dangerous a weapon to let it get used unregulated. It only gets more sophisticated over time and I expect it to kill democracy and liberty someday - its already begun and most don't have a clue.
Yeah, because there's no way letting the government "regulate" the news would kill democracy or liberty. Sure, people and news organizations shouldn't lie... but who's in charge of the "ministry of truth" that determines who's lying and who's telling the truth? Ask yourself this: would you have seriously proposed letting the government regulate the news a few years ago, when the government was solidly in the hands of Republicans?
The disease is bad, no question about it - but your cure is far worse.
So global warming, which is all our fault, is responsible for the disappearance of 2/3 of the world's plant species. We have to do something. Now. Everybody has to stop everything they're doing!
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Regardless of whether or not the story is true, I am disregarding it completely; for the source has been previously determined to be untrustworthy and isn't actually a news source at all.
Obviously this is a case of mass extinctions!
Blame the Tea Partiers!
Or the Americans!
It is always their fault!
This is why "science" works. There is no "preferred conclusion." People investigate and catalog data. People share their data and peers review it. Incorrect data is eventually weeded out. When's the last time a group of Biblical scholars got together to catalog the contradictions in the Bible and iron them out?
Now substitute the word "Liberal" with "Conservative" and "extreme right" with "extreme left". Your argument still holds.
The entire system is broken, both the left and the right. I fervently hope you are not of the opinion one side is better than the other.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
I ignored your attempt at sarcasim and gave you a history lesson in founding fathers and types of goverments.
By the way cunt. Read some history. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton couldn't get along. They hated each other. So if you think this type of division in goverment is something new because of the republicans, your just proving my point of how fucking stupid liberals really are.
Again, thank god you fucking liberals are nothing but criminals and enjoy killing each other off. You save this nation a civil war.
Watch your back,. There is a fellow liberal voting gang member waiting to have a bad trip and go off on you pussies at one of your Black Panther protected voting districts.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time