How do we have self-proclaimed "authoritative" activist organizations
focusing on subjects like "pollinators" and "invasive species" influencing
so much public policy?
Because they are nothing but fund-raising mechanisms, existing only to lobby
and influence policy, by any means possible, including lying.
Beekeepers attempt only very limited fund-raising and lobbying efforts, by
comparison.
Ever since I saw the beekeepers that volunteered to lead one organization or
another "join forces with" groups like "the Xerces Society", back in the
mid-2000s, I have repeatedly said that we were having our own best interests
subverted in favor of the broader group of interesting, entertaining, but
useless "pollinators". (By "useless", I mean in terms of productively
contributing to feeding the planet)
I called this the "Pollinator Protection Racket", and you can search this
term in the Bee-L archives to read about the specifics. In short, the
"help" we get from these NGOs certainly does make the effort more visible,
but it changes the agenda to one that never gives more than grudging respect
or acknowledgement to Honey Bees. The simplest evidence of how our goals in
addressing a problem purely affecting honeybees were subverted is the 2007
USPS commemorative "pollinator" stamp set:
https://www.mysticstamp.com/Products/SimpleSearch.aspx?q=pollination
https://tinyurl.com/y2em4428
The stamps show a Bumblebee, hummingbird, bat, and butterfly. Not even a
honeybee in the background.
We got sandbagged, and we are still being sandbagged, as those who presume
to "lead beekeepers" are leading organizations that represent only a tiny
subset of commercial interests, and make no attempt to represent
"beekeepers" as a whole.
These organizations are increasingly irrelevant.
Even the Almond Board has better PR, better lobbying, and a more cohesive
message, so they often do a better job of representing "the interests of
beekeepers" than beekeepers do themselves, even when the beekeepers
"partner" with "environmentalist" orgs.
But the problem is far broader than that - it is an existential battle of
"reality" vs "advocacy". In other words, "truth" vs "propaganda". The
underlying fairy tale everyone tells themselves has two parts:
a) Scientists attempt to make generalized statements about reality.
b) Policy makers listen to scientists and make the best choices on behalf of
society.
What the fairy tale does NOT include are these additional, crucial facts:
c) Everyone has an agenda, and they lobby politicians to ignore or
politicize scientific evidence unfavorable to their own agenda. (Recent
example - not wearing a facial mask in the US became a political statement,
rather than an effort to protect others per public health guidelines.)
d) Human nature is to reject/ignore evidence-based conclusions, and more
often rely on a "moral" imperative, making decision-making often more a
matter of "faith" than "facts".
But note (a) above - those of us working to better-describe reality itself
are NOT going to bother to refute statements of "faith", or refute
statements made in policy debates that are scientifically inaccurate, as the
ONLY statements "worth refuting" are the ones published in peer-reviewed
journals, the conceptual monasteries that allow scientists to pretend that
the rest of the world is irrelevant unless they pay attention by reading the
journals of the monks' writings.
So, the Monks of Science (not to be confused with the infinite number of
monkeys across campus in the English Literature department still trying to
replicate the complete works of Shakespeare) debate among themselves,
cloistered away and produce what they view as "the truth, the light and the
way", which everyone else either misinterprets for their own ends, or
ignores, often because it is as unintelligible to the average joe as the
Latin of the monks was to the illiterate serfs of the dark ages.
And when one monk occasionally wanders out in public, and asks "Hey!
Where's your data for that extraordinary claim?" or asks "What type of
statistical analysis was done here?" We get treated very very badly, as it
is not considered "polite" to ask an advocate for solid data and hard facts.
I myself have been repeatedly viewed as unreasonably hard on people here on
Bee-L for simply asking simple and basic questions like these, as such
questions are viewed as "accusatory" or "attack" under the "rules" created
by non-scientists to discuss what are presented as being facts. So the
"public debate" ends up being all about manners rather than data, as there
never is any actual data presented to analyze, making nearly any random
opinion as valid as the hardest-won evidence-based conclusions of work that
took decades.
So that's why you will continue to read nonsense about "native bees".
They essentially have a better lobbying effort behind them than honey bees,
and facts just don't matter much anymore.
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