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Humans Not Solely To Blame For Passenger Pigeon Extinction
sciencehabit (1205606) writes When the last passenger pigeon died at a zoo in 1914, the species became a cautionary tale of the dramatic impact humans can have on the world. But a new study finds that the bird experienced multiple population booms and crashes over the million years before its final demise. The sensitivity of the population to natural fluctuations, the authors argue, could have been what made it so vulnerable to extinction.
...we humans still hunted the crap out of it with absolutely no regard to the future of the species. I'd still say it was our fault.
In discussion about potentially cloning passenger pigeons, there were concerns that the species needed huge flocks. As a result, there were concerns that cloning just a few wouldn't be enough to bring back the species.
Since this study showed that passenger pigeons had population crashes before and came back, this should alleviate the flock size concerns.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
What's the deal with the spate of ideologically-driven "scientific" studies appearing in the last couple of years? The first really blatant one I am aware of was the "organic food isn't more nutritious" study, which completely deflected from the point of organic food altogether. It was obviously a piece designed to confuse lay people into thinking organic food didn't have additional health benefits over conventionally-grown food. Now we see this piece, claiming that a species genetically equipped to survive huge fluctuations in population over millions of years was really just going to go extinct anyway and we just happened to be there to see it. These people should be blacklisted from scientific journals. They're not academically honest in the slightest.
If you read the actual study, the scientists didn't say that. The article only says that the rapid population spikes and crashes the passenger pigeon experienced made it more vulnerable to humans. "Here we use both genomic and ecological analyses to show that the passenger pigeon was not always super abundant, but experienced dramatic population fluctuations, which could increase its vulnerability to human exploitation." Furthermore, the point of the study was not to suggest that humans had no effect on passenger pigeons, but rather that even species with very large populations could be vulnerable to extinction pressures caused by humans if they are also vulnerable to the same effects that caused the passenger pigeon population swings. Nowhere do I see the article in question exonerate human effects from extinction.
Scientists like to be topical, and even when they aren't it's easy for their findings to be given a political spin or viewed through a political lens.
I don't know how respectable this research is, because I don't care enough to actually read it, and even if I did I am not remotely qualified to judge something in this field. I do know that even if the research is perfectly valid and the authors don't care about politics at all, it'll still aquire a political spin in the process of being turned into popular reporting. The left will go for the 'earth is delicate than we thought, so we must protect it' angle. The right will go for the 'Wiping out a species is really hard, and those pigeons were just a special case, so we can stop protecting the desert tortoise and give Bundy back his grazing land' angle.
You have it backwards, the media spins the results of science for percieved political gain, not the other way around. There is absolutely nothing political about the claim that other factors may have played a part in their extinction.
As to the organic food study: Nutrition may not be "the point" in your mind, but there were certainly plenty of charlatans promoting it, there's even a 1970's clip on YT somewhere with Feynman himself having a go at the 'unscientific' claims of better nutrition from organically grow crops. The nutritional study injected facts into a factual vacum, even if nobody was interested in the study it is still worthy of publication. Nobody denies the health benfits of washing the copper-sulphate off your industrially grown tomatos before eating them (except maybe the pesticide company), but the study presented strong evidence that a tomato is a tomato no matter where it obtains the atoms that constitute it's genetically programmed flesh.
If you're finding politics and ideology in evidence based statement like either of those studies, it's not because the scientists put it there, you did that yourself while you were looking for reasons to reject the findings.
Disclaimer: I've been a "greenie" since the 70's, if the above findings are somehow an inconviennce to green politics then so be it, I want my government to formulate laws and policies that respect evidence, and adapt when contrary evidence is found. I want our politicins to be more like our scientists and engineers, get off their ideological high horses and get on with the job.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
There are not many scenario. You always survive population boom and crash until the last crash which you do not survive, interspersed with maybe a few stable periods. Omnes vulnerant, ultima necat.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
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Science has ways of dealing with bias, influence, and impropriety. It can take a while, but it works.
Scientific institutions are usually devoted to finding things out. It's not easy to get most scientists to deliver a predetermined result, partly because people who do that tend not to become scientists, and partly because it can be devastating to one's reputation if found out. A peer-reviewed scientific paper is about as close to truthful and reliable as you're likely to get.
Science journalism can be very good. However, it often suffers from journalists not understanding the science, and not understanding how science works. Journalists tend to go for the sensational stories, and they often try to show both sides, even when one side is clearly correct. Journalists, on the whole, are far less reliable than scientists.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes