<dolphins are in danger – from fracking>
I read the article and comments. My comments:
1. None of the dangers are quantified. It's the same as saying, "Fukushima radiation reaches California," a true but trivial fact, because the radiation dosage is less than you'll get by taking an airplane. How close and how loud (in hard reproducible numbers) harms dolphins? No relevant facts presented.
2. <sound travels five times faster underwater than through the air> is a true but irrelevant fact. Intensity, degradation rate in water, and duration might matter, but not speed. The author, like most journalists, probably stopped taking science classes after the 8th Grade, so he or she is illiterate about the basic concepts of physics, chemistry, geology, biology, etc.
3. <they (dolphins) home in on pregnant women because, apparently, their echo-location can sense that there is something moving within the woman’s body.> This is an:
Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones is a logical fallacy which uses the manipulation of the recipient's emotions, rather than valid logic, to win an argument. The appeal to emotion fallacy uses emotions as the basis of an argument's position without factual evidence that logically supports the major ideas endorsed...
en.wikipedia.org
4. I'll take this seriously, if you can find one (just one) article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, which quantifies the risk to dolphins from underwater fracking, in the North Sea or any body of water. Otherwise, I'll just keep pointing out the logical fallacies.
5. <the kindest thing humans can do is kill off 95% of their own population> I've deleted several responses to that....speaks for itself...
Disclosure: I'm an environmentalist who believes in the Gaia Hypothesis. en.wikipedia.org I've been arrested, years ago, protesting for environmental causes. But articles like that just make scientifically literate people laugh at environmentalists. |
