Who To Believe? (1 Viewer)

[Nightranger]

Please forgive me also for making an observation here that I am posting separately because it dismays me considerably. I have long felt that Internet debates often degenerate into the emphasis on getting a result in the debate. They seldom do this at all but the greatest benefit is to neutrals comeing into read the debate. At the same time, we are in danger of concentrating on the result at the expense of the subject. Can we all agree that this thread is lurching dangerously towards that direction now? Feel free to answer my sparrow analogy if you want but it is not really important in the context of the rest of the debate. In fact, in the context of the original debate, the thread has pretty much run its course now.

Ian

 

[level seven]

I have long felt that Internet debates often degenerate into the emphasis on getting a result in the debate. They seldom do this at all but the greatest benefit is to neutrals comeing into read the debate

At nearly 200 posts, some of them long ones, any interested neutral like myself needs to be pretty committed to follow everything. I've tried to keep up, but it's not been easy!

 

[Alan Hobson]

Ian,

It seems to me that whenever a thread goes in a direction you don't like, you start to throw around terms like "this is getting silly". And since you were referring to my last post, I assume you were including that in your denunciation.

Which is a bit rich really, considering that earlier in the thread you laid into Anthony with great venom for allegedly being too personal!

And as for not quoting accurately, it is a little unclear to what you were referring, but if you meant my quoting of you, then I cut and pasted it off your quote!! A pretty fail safe way to make an accurate quote.....

James,

As yours was easily the most courteous of the three replies I have just seen, I'll do you the return courtesy of saying yours was potentially the strongest argument. However, I did say that it wasn't just a rogue scientist/"expert" in error, it was many - and they're just the ones I have seen/heard!


Richard,

Apologies I didn't reply to your earlier point, although this appears to have made you a bit tetchy. I repeated the argument accurately from the source I read. If you don't want to trust my rendering of it, that's up to you. If I had known, I'd have kept it. However, I have seen and heard the same views many times, as have a lot of other people, I suspect.

As for your point about the theory of changes in temperature, then yes, as I understand it, it is a proven theory. And anyway, coming back to my original point, people's experience clearly show this - which brings my point full circle back to Magpies.

 

[Jane Turner]

Do you know what makes me laugh... I was explaining the briefest background to this debate to my teenage daughter.... and she said:

"Why can't people see the difference between a correlation and a dependency?"


Such wisdom in one so young!


I'd like to think I'd done my utmost to keep out of getting personal on this thread, despite some shocking provocation... OK I did suggest Anthony had put his fingers in his ears and hummed....

Funny thing is, despite his protestation of not having an academic background, his intransigence does remind me of several old school academics of my acquaintance.... it must just be a coincidence.

 

[Jane Turner]

Ps, Anthony, did you ever get an actual satisfactory answer to your understanding in relation to the inferred primary subject contradiction.[/

I thought that was what the thread was about... or has this actually been happening in a parallel universe.

 

[me1000]

Sorry all I have caught a cold,
alcedo atthis. I think is spot on in his CONCLUSION of this thread.
merry Xmas one and all,you lot are too clever for meeeeeee

 

[David Bryant]

I thought the squid bit was quite interesting! Better than all the circumlocution!

 

[Anthony Morton]

All the following are comments by Anthony in chronological order:

These appear to be two opposing views. On one hand the evidence is based purely on first-hand personal experience, and on the other the scientifically-backed results obtained from previous studies. Which one is correct?
#1

I really don't know how else to say this, Ian, but you seem to have got the wrong end of the stick right from the start and are still doggedly refusing to let go of it. This first line of Posting # 1 of this (MY!) thread was to set the scene, in that two postings on another thread had arrived at two completely different answers to the same problem. The one relating to first-hand experience is by StevieEvans and the other, based on scientifically-backed results, is YOURS. My thread invited members to voice their opinions on which one they feel gives the correct answer , or whether, as someone else suggested, neither is correct. This is why I used the title 'Who To Believe' for this thread. Now then, what's so difficult about understanding that?

In addition, Anthony mentioned me by name in the very first post so isn't playing the victim a little disingenious?

Ian

Of course I mentioned you by name. It was out of common courtesy because I was referring to the same posting of yours I mentioned above. What's more, if I hadn't credited you by name you might then have had something to get your backside in your hand about. As it is, this all stems from a very basic misunderstanding on your part - but it seems to me that you were not alone in allowing yourself to be led off on the wrong foot on this one.

Anthony

 

[Jane Turner]

So here are a few questions...it a bit like those simple comprehension tests you used to get at school!! Tim being the most accomplished teacher can be the official marker of answers.

On the evidence below, quoted from BWP
1. Removal of which species would have the greatest positive effect on reproductive output of song birds?
2. Removal of which speices would have the greatest positive benefit the population of songbirds? (you may have to read the rest of the thread to answer this one completely.
3. What else could be done on the evidence below to increase reproductive output of songbirds.

Species A
"No evidence of any long-term effect on songbird populations in England, including in urban areas (Wilkinson 1988; Gooch et al. 1991), and in Berlin and Osnabrück (Germany) no discernible decline in their numbers due to xxxxxxx (Witt 1989; Kooiker 1991).In rural area of Belgium, accounted for only c. 6% of predation by Corvidae on songbirds though comprising 50% of corvid population (Vercauteren 1984)"

Species B
May prey upon eggs and nestlings of wide variety of birds, particularly species using nest-boxes; for review, see Perrins 1979. May enter box by enlarging entrance hole, but apparently locates nestlings by sound since new hole often hacked low in side or base of box (Lönnberg 1936; Hickling and Ferguson-Lees 1959; Glue 1975). Nests of Marsh Tit Parus palustris and Willow Tit P. montanus in rotten timber particularly susceptible to attack, and over half may be destroyed (Ludescher 1973); see also Vilka 1960. Nestlings taken to perch and hammered with bill (Pring 1929; Blume 1977) or dismembered (Löhrl 1972)

Species C
"In 40-year study of 5280 fledged broods in a forest songbird population in eastern Germany, said to take up to 85% of newly-fledged young, though density here artificially high due to supply of grain for gamebirds (Henze 1979). On several occasions seen to rush at newly-fledged tits (Paridae) with beating wings, trying to knock them to ground (C M Perrins). In northern Rumania took 16% of eggs and 5.5% of nestlings from 91 nests of Song Thrush Turdus philomelos, and 7.9% and 2.8% from 77 nests of Blackbird T. merula; most important predator of T. philomelos in this study (Korodi Gál 1968). Takes eggs and young from nest-boxes of Pied Flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca in Wales (Playford 1985)."

 

[Darren Oakley-Martin]

As an outsider looking in, I can honestly say that I have learned much from Messrs Morton, Peters and Allwood and Ms Turner, but I can't help thinking that this thread has now become a justification of debating positions rather than a debate on the issue itself.

'You said this' and 'you said that'! It's like a playground!

Perhaps this is a case of................

'East is east and west is west, and ne'er the twain shall meet.'

Best wishes

 

[Mickymouse]

Sorry all I have caught a cold,
alcedo atthis. I think is spot on in his CONCLUSION of this thread.
merry Xmas one and all,you lot are too clever for meeeeeee

What we all want to know is.........did you go out with wet hair?

Mick

 

[me1000]

Sorry M.M.,
I have no hair on my skull.
Good night God bless.
me

 

[Anthony Morton]

Ps, Anthony, did you ever get an actual satisfactory answer to your understanding in relation to the inferred primary subject contradiction.[/font][/color]

Hi Malky,

No, I'm afraid I didn't - but we did come surprisingly close to having a debate at one stage. My only hope now is that StevieEvans will not be put off from posting his 2005 personal observations, as I suspect that I wouldn't be the only one who would like to read them - whatever the outcome!

Regards,

Anthony

 

[Jane Turner]

Just for added amusement in the question set above, A is a predator of B and C, C is an occasional predator of B, there are no records that I am aware of of B predating A or C.

Complex this ecosystem thing isn't it!

 

[Edward woodwood]

[color=black
[i]“people don't WANT to know on here....they want their own truths”

That is self evident on how you have reacted with your own beliefs, to posts by others.

“There are no short cuts - it took me a long time to educate myself in this area (3-4 years full time studying well into the evenings).”

So what are your quals’ to lead you to think that you can teach the rest of the N.G.

][/color]

a) not my beliefs Malky - I listen to the best ecologists in the world (Bill Sutherland et al - the people who have done the work and know the score.
b) I'm an ecologist and have studied bird pops for a living in the past. I'm also a teacher.
c) my year 8s seem to grasp it ok.

d) quite evident people want their own truths as no amount of evidence has swayed them and there has been NO (that's a big fat NO) evidence to the contrary.

amazing how a thread with NO scientific evidence from the real world can go on and on....

 

[Jane Turner]

Thread Summary

An attempt to cut through the emotion and side-tracks and distil out the main content of this large thread! Just in case anyone doesn’t feel like wading through the 200+ posts.


We started with a question posed about two separate statements selected by Anthony


”In Spring 2003 two Larsen traps were set on his farm. The target species was the large number of magpies which had emptied many songbird nests in previous years. Within four weeks the traps had accounted for 28 magpies and 1 crow, still leaving two pairs of magpies. Last year (2003) and especially this year (2004) a "huge boost in the number of songbirds" has been noticed.”

and

”To have any effect on songbird numbers it is necessary to eliminate the predator population completely. He also mentioned that, when viewed from a mathematical perspective, a re-examination of population dynamics clearly showed that prey populations influence predator populations, and not the other way round.”

His question being:

”These appear to be two opposing views. On one hand the evidence is based purely on first-hand personal experience, and on the other the scientifically-backed results obtained from previous studies. Which one is correct?”

The answer given by several people, but expressed most eloquently by Ian was

“Essentially, both are correct. My post reflected the national situation whereas there is no doubt that short-term results can be achieved with local controls.”


Anthony then shifted to position of debate to a discussion of an article in the Field which quoted a specific paper published in the Journal of Applied ecology under the title, 'If You Want Songbirds, Kill Magpies'

He asked us for an explanation for the apparent contradiction in this paper, prepared by a number of highly respected individuals in the field of ornithology, to the accepted view that Magpie predation does not affect song bird populations.

Here the debate took two directions.

Firstly a number of people pointed out that there was no contradiction in the first place, for example this reply from Richard

“Anthony - the quotes that the shooting magazine use do not in anyway contradict accepted science on the effects of predation on the songbird population. No one denies that magpies predate nests, the question is whether predation effects overall population rates, which the selective quotes do not examine. If you look at studies of song thrush population decline you'll see that it's the survival of first winter birds that appears to be the problem - not breeding success.”

At the same time a large number papers were located, including many by the same authors in the paper quoted in the Field, which examined effects on population trends of song birds as opposed to reproductive success. Just for clarity, things that would lead to a decline or rise in the population of e.g. Song Thrushes. All of these suggested habitat and climate change as the cause of declines. Papers were also cited that showed that there were no benefits in controlling Magpie (or other predator numbers), reinforcing the second statement in the original statement.

In the end people can choose to believe what they like. The existing evidence on which to base those choices is in the body of this thread…

 

[Nightranger]

Ian,

It seems to me that whenever a thread goes in a direction you don't like, you start to throw around terms like "this is getting silly". And since you were referring to my last post, I assume you were including that in your denunciation.

Which is a bit rich really, considering that earlier in the thread you laid into Anthony with great venom for allegedly being too personal!

And as for not quoting accurately, it is a little unclear to what you were referring, but if you meant my quoting of you, then I cut and pasted it off your quote!! A pretty fail safe way to make an accurate quote.....

Alan,

I meant this is getting silly because:
1. We are miles away from Anthony's original topic.
2. If we are going to junk any scientific research that does not agree with what we think then what are we left with? The research is usually generated by observation but it seems to me that everyone wants to chuck the results out the window if they do not see what they expected. I am not sure how we get around this idea.
3. This thread has once again become more important for the antagonists to win than any real concern about the subject (refer back to point no.1).

As for attacking Anthony - Anthony uses some provocative language throughout these debates and then claims everyone is reading into his words. This is just down to netiquette and Anthony knows what he is doing. He is not constrained by working for an organisation and perhaps I should never have declared that I do. Nevertheless, I do not see why I should be needled everytime I join a controversial debate so I reserve the right to respond. I see it as a no-win situation on my behalf because if I drop out of the debate then I will be accused of petulance but I feel that I mostly use a lot of restraint but don't just take my word for it. Read through the thread again and you will see Anthony tried to needle Jane and Tim too.

Ian

 

[Nightranger]

Hi Malky,

No, I'm afraid I didn't - but we did come surprisingly close to having a debate at one stage. My only hope now is that StevieEvans will not be put off from posting his 2005 personal observations, as I suspect that I wouldn't be the only one who would like to read them - whatever the outcome!

Regards,

Anthony

I thought you had an answer. You asked about the conflict between one idea and scientific research and got several replies. Perhaps it would make things clearer if you could explain what kind of answer you were expecting.

 

[Jane Turner]

I too would hope that Stevie keeps up his survey work... since I really do believe that that is the most positive contribution he can make to conservation. I'm sure he will since he is devoted to his work.

 

[Jane Turner]

I thought you had an answer. You asked about the conflict between one idea and scientific research and got several replies. Perhaps it would make things clearer if you could explain what kind of answer you were expecting.

Or perhaps even more simply, the question that you believe was not answered.