Allen Dick related a private communication thusly:
> It makes no sense for a scientist to respond to such "non-proven
> pseudo-facts". This ist best shown by the recent discussion of
> overwinterung on different honey-sugar types. There are numerous
> scientific papers on it at least in my country; and the discussion
> out there is as if such information is non-existent.
I don't want to appear to criticize any of those who participated in
the "winter feeding" thread, or the person who communicated with
Allen, but the papers mentioned were almost certainly unknown to
those who took the time to offer the benefit of their experience.
While I did not participate in that discussion, I certainly admit to
having no idea which papers he mentioned. No one can.
He did not cite the papers.
What a shame that the anonymous party did not simply cite the
papers as possible sources of information, and thereby insure that
he could contribute without getting into a time-consuming discussion
of what he viewed as "pseudo-facts". What a tragedy that he knew
of the papers, took the time to read the postings, but did not have the
time to mention the papers. Strange that he does have enough time
to berate those who DID take the time to offer their honest opinions.
> So the "informed discussion group" in reality is a discussion of
> mostly "non-informed bee keepers" and worse of those who do
> not know that they are "non-informed".
A dismissive comment like that one needs an answer, so I'll
attempt to clarify the situation for all who might be concerned
at such comments:
a) Not everyone has the budget to subscribe to every obscure
entomology journal on the planet. I own my R&D firm,
and our journals budget is completely out of control, even
though we only focus on a very narrow range of physics,
cryptography, and supercomputing subject areas.
Even a subscription to a citation search database is
expensive. Blame the profit motive. These things
have only gotten more expensive in recent years.
Beekeepers cannot afford them, and many universities
have stopped offering library access to non-students
due to concerns over the costs of things like citation
database search fees.
b) I think that there is a clear difference between stating
one's opinion, based upon one's own experience, and
a claim of fact, or the citation of a study or paper. One
must assume in a forum such as this that all contributions
are "opinion", no matter how strongly worded, unless
a specific citation is made, or a specific claim is made
that something is "generally accepted as fact". Rather
than dismissing the opinions offered as "pseudo-facts",
a scientist worthy of the title might view the opinions as
"isolated field reports". Anecdotal? Certainly. Apocryphal?
Perhaps. The difference? Interview or survey the reporters,
and correlate the data offered. (Looks to me like a fertile
area for a Ph.D. thesis on how to expand experiments with
"limited field trials" conducted by hobbyist beekeepers...)
c) I doubt if anyone was mis-representing "opinion" as "fact",
a nuance that may have been lost in translation. (I conclude
from the anonymous commentator's use of "ist" and
"overwinterung" that German is his/her first language, and
English is only a secondary language.)
d) Many published papers in this field are based upon samples
smaller than 100 hives, and time periods shorter than even
a single year. Therefore, which is more "informed" - the
conclusion of a Master's Thesis, or the opinion of a sideline
beekeeper who has kept 100 hives for 15 years? I think that
BOTH must be judged on the merits, and that NEITHER
deserves an automatic label of "informed". The mere fact
that published papers exist does not make the conclusions
of papers correct, or of practical value to any specific beekeeper.
Yes, we are all "less informed" by not having access to every
paper ever published, but the bees and the seasons will not wait
while we take a decade to read them all. Most questions are
asked by people who want an answer NOW, and a good answer
now is always better than an excellent answer in 2 months.
e) Bill Truesdell said some very true a while ago:
"All beekeeping, like all politics, is local."
There is much that changes due to location, simply
due to climate's impact on bees, and hence, required
practices. To make matters more complex, bees are
amazingly tolerant of wide ranges of conditions, and
even "abuse" due to less-than-appropriate practices.
It follows that a beekeeper or scientist can be misled by
good conditions, and collect significant "data" that leads
him to infer that his success was due to something he did,
rather than simply due to a "good year" overcoming the
neutral, or even possibly negative impact of his practices.
Even the best double-blind study with excellent
statistical rigor has little value if the results cannot be
extrapolated to other climate conditions. (But, in the
specific case of "winter feeding", one must admit that
the needs are nearly universal everywhere except the
tropics, where "winter" is little more than an extended
"nectar dearth".)
f) I don't know who named the mailing list with the pretentious
title "Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues...", but the
participants in the list should not be blamed for not living up
to the (unreasonable?) expectations of those who named
the list. Yes, the internet was wonderful back in the 1970s
and 1980s when it was just a small circle of scientists,
grad students, and computer freaks. The percentage of "junk"
was very low. Welcome to the 21st Century - the internet now
admits everyone who can afford a computer, and the
signal-to-noise ratio degrades as a natural result of including
"the public". Enjoy it, or at least learn to live with it, but petulant
insults about people who have only the best of motives are
both poor form, and useless.
Resistance is futile! We will all be assimilated into the electronic
fully-meshed consciousness. Please hold still while we install this
coax plug at the base of your skull for your personal internet feed... :)
g) There are several archives kept of the postings to this list.
As such, it is a valid repository for the full-text and graphics
of any/all papers in the relevant subject area. At some point
the printed journals become insolvent or irrelevant, simply
due to their cost, sluggishness, and the unreasonable
restrictions they impose upon authors. At that point, this list
becomes a possible forum for peer review and publication.
Please recall that the entire concept of "the world wide web"
was created at CERN for the sole purpose of publishing pre-print
physics papers to one's peers. Most of the papers I read are
sent to me as pre-prints. Connect the dots. (The solution
is left to the student as a trivial exercise.)
h) A scientist in the employ of an educational institution
has many burdens, one of them the risk of being
judged harshly by his masters for the unforeseen
consequences of participating in internet discussions.
It is no wonder that the anonymous party was hesitant
to participate in the discussion. He wants to build a
reputation, not put it at risk, and currently, there is little
tangible "gain" in "publishing" on the internet for anyone
beholden to any "master". The "risks" far outweigh any
possible "reward". Forgive the anonymous nature of the
remarks. Fear may be appropriate for this scientist.
i) Come to think of it, as long as "organized bee science"
churns out new "solutions" like coumaphos, when the rest of
agriculture realized how bad organophosphates were years ago,
I'm not sure that bee scientists have earned the right to turn up
their noses at a "disorganized rabble" of beekeepers who freely
speak their minds to anyone who wishes to read, and freely
offer the benefit of their experiences.
Beekeepers are both the beneficiaries of the work of bee scientists,
and on a practical hands-on level, a valid part of the peer-review
process. Surprise! The so-called "non-informed beekeepers" are
your peers, and like it or not, will critique everyone's work, sooner or
later. They will not bother to write letters to the editor of some obscure
journal. Their comments will be right here, out in the open, fair game
for any disagreement. They certainly will not try to hide behind a shield
of anonymity.
(Lucky for me that supercomputers and most physics lab toys are
very expensive - my work is critiqued only by a small circle of people!)
Yes, one needs to take what one reads on the internet with a grain
of salt (perhaps an entire bag!), but the good news is that the
internet is proving every day that many presumed "authoritative"
sources of information should also not be accepted at face value.
So, yes. Critical thinking skills ARE required on the internet.
But they are also required to slog through an entomology journal.
And yes, there is much that is misinformed or just plain wrong
on the internet. Ditto for entomology journals.
The number of web pages available on the internet continues
to increase exponentially, but the relative amount of truth in
the universe continues to remain fairly constant. Have faith
that the truth will appear, sooner or later. Be certain that
separating truth from fiction will always be difficult.
jim
farmageddon (where our slogan is:
"Science is the art of infallibility,
perpetrated upon non-scientists.")
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