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Comment by snozolli | Hacker News Reader

Five times between 2007 and 2022, researchers surveyed the insects in three forested areas in the Oconee National Forest in northern Georgia.

That's it? Just one forest in a single US state?

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How many forests have you surveyed over the past 15 years?

The tricky thing about science is that it only gets done by actually doing things…

How many forests have you surveyed over the past 15 years?

What's the point of this question? I can't be skeptical unless I've personally conducted the same research?

The tricky thing about science is that it only gets done by actually doing things…

Doubling down on the snark. Why? What do you imagine this adds to the conversation?

I have no problem with the study, but I do have a problem with the headline, barring the citation of similar studies in other areas.

At least the other guy who replied mentioned studies in other areas. Your comment added nothing of value whatsoever.

Doesn’t matter because he’s not the one making grand assertions. It’s ok to criticize research, especially when it’s limited.

There was no criticism, it was just a statement of what the researchers did, but with a sneer. Criticism is when you come up with reasons why those surveys wouldn't be representative, not instead choosing to deal in the fud of a sarcastic tone posing as argument.

Were they suggesting that nothing short of a multibillion dollar survey of every forest in the entire world is a minimum requirement for writing a paper where you make educated guesses about what the data you have means? Were they suggesting that the forest surveyed was not representative in some way, and that adding surveys of forests that have those characteristics would give us a better idea?

Trick questions. They weren't suggesting anything other than suspicion.

it was just a statement of what the researchers did, but with a sneer.

Are you talking about me? There was no sneer. Stop projecting nonsense onto me.

The very broad claim made in the title is not really supported by the limited research cited. The thing is, it wouldn't even be that hard to cite other studies that establish a pattern supporting the claim, like what another commenter here did. But neither the author of this article nor you did that.

Yeah, but if that's used to draw a more general conclusion about populations in other forested areas, that's not good science, or journalism (more likely).

There have been other studies like this done in other parts of the world, they all have come to similar conclusions. Here was one conducted in Germany from 1990-2017:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Here's another one that shows a significant decline in Puerto Rico:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1722477115

Not to mention the fact that this "undisturbed" forest is barely an hour away from the third-fastest growing metro area in the country.

Is there really any undisturbed forest in Georgia?

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