Re: Monarch Extinction press releases.

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Ditto those comments Stan, further, historically the archive will show I have 
> more frequently than not been positive about Paul's comments, and in this 
> case I felt I was defending the rigorous scientific method, and not being 
> negative towards Paul, simply expressing my recurring desire for unity among 
> Lepidopterists big and small-time, and encouraging Paul sit down and write a 
> mainstream original peer reviewed paper for once, something I do believe he is quite 
> able to do, and I bet that would be actually very welcomed by many, in spite of 
> what appears to be a self-fulfilling personal pique regarding some researchers 
> which I believe is counterproductive.  I further believe that many of Paul's 
> contributions go unnoticed and are destined into oblivion, except for the 
> label that many brand him with, and in the sense of the integrity of science would 
> be a positive influence in the press.

First of all most regulars here will know I don't like Paul Cherubini.
He is unpopular with many people. If you research MBTI personality
theory you will find that there is a class of people who have built in
nonsense detectors. It is a group that is very over represented in
professional scientists. This system can be applied across the
internet to analyse peoples postings and determine how they think and
how well they match the typical profile of a good scientist or not. I
successfully demonstrated this typing system with Mark Walker (thanks
Mark) across on tils-leps-talk.

You will find Paul Cherubini has less credibility on lists with more
professional scientists on them. This is a manifestation of the
theory.

Now to come to the point. There is little question that Paul is
intelligent and has a great deal of knowledge about monarchs.
Logically therefore one would expect him to be able to contribute to
the research in the form of articles in journals. However when you
look at what he is saying, there is no substance.
All we see is a graph here and a pretty picture there which is always
provided in a value laden biased context with no real proof.

One of the central tenets of this theory is that the other research is
fraudulent. If it were really fraudulent this would imply a conspiracy
on a massive scale. The value judgements devalue anything that he has
to say.
As Patrick Foley points out all his value judgements that these people
are making it up could easily and more credibly be explained simply as
mistaken beliefs rather than any conspiracy.

When you combine this with Paul's history of repeatedly having a point
conclusively disproved on one list only for him to repeat the
identical point on another list, you must conclude that he is not
really interested in good science only in getting people to believe
his POLITICAL point of view.
He even denies being a political activist and then you find he was one
of the founding directors of a political lobby group.

The threat to the overwintering colonies of Monarchs due to
deforestation is pretty obvious. Deforestation is a problem world wide
and the causes being described in Mexico fit the same scenario seen
elsewhere. I don't find his pretty pictures convincing because he has
been caught before carefully choosing images and misrepresenting them
just to make a point.

What is clear is that some people will find it easier to accept what I
am saying than others. Research shows that these people are those that
have modes of thinking that are typical in good scientists.

Neil Jones- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.butterflyguy.com/
"At some point I had to stand up and be counted. Who speaks for the
butterflies?" Andrew Lees - The quotation on his memorial at Crymlyn
Bog National Nature Reserve.