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Environmental scientists are warning of a sixth mass extinction, pointing to a decline in vertebrate population sizes, even among species of least concern:
Many scientists say it's abundantly clear that Earth is entering its sixth mass-extinction event, meaning three-quarters of all species could disappear in the coming centuries. That's terrifying, especially since humans are contributing to this shift.
But that's not even the full picture of the "biological annihilation" people are inflicting on the natural world, according to a study published Monday [open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1704949114] [DX] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Gerardo Ceballos, an ecology professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and his co-authors, including well-known Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, cite striking new evidence that populations of species we thought were common are suffering in unseen ways. "What is at stake is really the state of humanity," Ceballos told CNN.
The authors: Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Rodolfo Dirzo.
Also at The Guardian and DW.
Related: For the Second Time, We Are Witnessing a New Geological Epoch: The Anthropocene
Crystals Win in the Anthropocene: 208 Manmade Minerals Identified
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday July 12 2017, @10:49AM (3 children)
A non-argument statement cannot be fallacious by definition. You are missing the vital part 3 in the cited article "Therefore X is false".
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday July 12 2017, @01:17PM (2 children)
And a red herring as well. Since no such "non-argument" was presented, we can move on...
...to another red herring. Just because a part isn't explicit doesn't mean it's missing.
Let's analyze the post in question:
First, there's an explicit claim at the end that I'm "holding us back". It's based on the unfounded assertions that a) I'm a member of the "right-minded" class who opposes some productive, creative minority (what makes it a tu quoque fallacy argument is the insistence that I'm suffering from the same problems I decry and hence, by insinuation my argument can be ignored), b) Heinlein "had major issues" so we can again safely ignore his quote (ad hominem fallacy), c) there is some objective viewpoint called the "US of A" which can determine my status as a right-minded hold-backer and once again, ignore the Heinlein quote.
All I can say is that as a near-libertarian, I'm far more liberal on economic, social, and individual liberties than most people on SN (and definitely more liberal than the crowd who thinks I have magic mental failwaves to hold people back with my mere opinion). In particular, I don't "hold" people back. Instead, I see the major problem as one of consequences. Many advocates for various sorts of actions don't consider the consequences of their actions. They merely assume things will become better as a result of the action. For example, if one glances at the article of the story, it is strongly implied that climate change is more serious than habitat destruction.
Notice how "climate change" which is actually anthropogenic global warming is listed first. But wouldn't you think that turning more than a third of the Earth's surface into farmland or pasture would be a bigger deal than the mild global warming forecast for the next century? That level of habitat destruction is climate change in itself, no less, and yet it's in its own mental compartment. Climate researchers are notorious for going through great efforts to remove the effects of habitat destruction from their data (such as filtering out urban heat island effects from temperature data).
Similarly, notice how generic "humanity" is blamed for everything, but the most significant problems are occurring in Africa (note that all the animals mentioned above as being affected by "poachers" are African), Asia, and other high population, impoverished areas. These are areas that would be the worst affected by global warming mitigation efforts - which let us note, have been spectacularly useless to date aside from making poor people poorer.
This is the typical tunnel-vision syndrome. These authors and the journalist are so blinded by ideology that they can't properly list the worst causes of species decline and extinction nor implicate the people and regions most responsible for such.
Anyway, anyone basing solutions off this ideology will have the problem that it will fail. They won't understand the problems well enough to make things better and even in parts where they do, they won't apply solutions that work (such as creating developed world societies). At that point, some scapegoat needs to be blamed for the failure. Apparently, I've been nominated. But my take is people, who correctly predict both the problems you face and the failures you achieve, but who have taken no action to inhibit your course of action, aren't really holding you back.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday July 12 2017, @09:45PM (1 child)
Raising a tangential issue is not a red herring when it's done in a way that does not detract from the original conversation. Either you are implying that I'm trying to defend AC's point by not arguing it (which is inaccurate and unjustified), you believe I'm somehow preventing you from continuing that conversation with them (how exactly?) or you are carelessly misusing terms of which you have incomplete understanding.
Your reply was structured as follows:
A reasonable reader would assume that the sentence you cite before alleging fallacious reasoning is the statement you believe is fallacious. Here you are talking entirely about the second paragraph of his comment, which is not the one you originally cited.
AC's comment separates that part in a separate paragraph from the rest of his comment. This implies a break in the line of reasoning and beginning the presentation of a new idea. Therefore, the only link between the first and second paragraph one can presume are those explicitly specified, of which there are none. As such, the most sensible interpretation of his comment is that it contains two separate points, the first being a moral judgement of you and the second being inconsistent drivel.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 13 2017, @01:42AM
I think it detracts from the original conversation.
A reasonable reader would assume that the sentence you cite before alleging fallacious reasoning is the statement you believe is fallacious. Here you are talking entirely about the second paragraph of his comment, which is not the one you originally cited.
The second paragraph elaborates to some degree on the statement of the first. I discussed the second paragraph since that gave insight into the poster's statement of the first paragraph.
Sometimes that is true, but not in this case and certainly not as a general rule. I wouldn't even consider it a rule for completely different posts under different stories. You have to look at the context of the writing to decide if it is unrelated.