[Coral-List] push for more reliable research in ecology

[Douglas Fenner]

Psychology's replication crisis inspires ecologists to push for more
reliable research

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/psychology-s-replication-crisis-inspires-ecologists-push-more-reliable-research

By the way, I believe the problem in psychology has been primarily in
social psychology experiments, a small part of psychology as a whole.

I think this fits with the need to do much better at documenting the
identification of species in our research (except in areas of low diversity
or easily identified groups, and in field surveys where it is impossible),
as pointed out for insects in the study I pointed to twice.  Interestingly,
there wasn't a single comment online or offline to me about the
implications of the insect study for coral reef ecology.  Makes me wonder
if maybe people don't have an argument against it, but just prefer to
continue doing things the way we always have been, after all it would
involve some extra work.  But it goes directly to the question of
replicability, you can't replicate a study if the species identification
can't be verified and may well be wrong.

Survey results suggest that a lot of entomology research could be
impossible to replicate

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01541-0%20

 Packer, L., Monckton, S. K., Onuferko, T. M. & Ferrari, R. R. Validating
taxonomic identifications in entomological research.  Insect Conservation
and Diversity 11, 1–12 (2018)

https://skmonckton.com/Packeretal._2018_Validating.pdf

Cheers,  Doug


-- 
Douglas Fenner
Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
NOAA Fisheries Service
Pacific Islands Regional Office
Honolulu
and:
Coral Reef Consulting
PO Box 997390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799-6298  USA

“Don't think of it as the warmest month of August in California in the last
century. Think of it as one of the coolest months of August in California
in the next century.”
<https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=38d5d14948&e=190a62d266>

The toxic effects of air pollution are so bad that moving from fossil fuels
to clean energy would pay for itself in health-care savings and
productivity gains
<https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=c9f70ba54f&e=190a62d266>
—
even if climate change didn’t exist.  In the US alone, decarbonization
would save 1.4 MILLION lives in the US alone.  And save $700 Billion a year.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/8/12/21361498/climate-change-air-pollution-us-india-china-deaths

"Already, more people die  <http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.shtml>from
heat-related causes in the U.S. than from all other extreme weather events."


https://www.npr.org/2018/07/09/624643780/phoenix-tries-to-reverse-its-silent-storm-of-heat-deaths