Plummeting insect numbers threaten collapse of nature

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(02-24-2019 08:17 AM)Joe Horn Wrote:  An efficient way to disprove a hypothesis is to find ANY counterexample to ANY of its predictions. Even one wrong prediction means that *that* hypothesis is wrong.

This is obviosly true for very simple hypotheses (like "the Earth is at the centre of our solar system"), but definitely not for a very complex system of theories trying to explain an ecosystem of planetary scale. Global warming for example is a fact, even if there are counterexamples of some local deviations from the overall trend.

In my part of the world the decrase in number of insects is again very obvious. We have a conservatory (I hope this is the correct translation of the german word "Wintergarten") on our house since 20 years. In summer it used to be a trap for flies, one had to use the vacuum cleaner every second day to remove their dried cadavers, but I have seen very few of them in the last 4 or 5 years. Local agriculture that depend on pollination reports an alarming decrease in yield. The number of birds that feed on insects has dramatically decreased. Not only here but almost everywhere in Europe and in many other parts of the world as well.
I was in the United States for almost three weeks in 2017 on occasion of the solar eclipse. On of the reported phenomena associated with eclipses is that birds stop flying and singing when it gets dark. But there were no birds in the first place. I have never seen so few birds anywhere then in those three weeks. From previous visits to the US I remember swarms of them, just like here.

Maybe these are all local phenomena but in this case I do believe what scientists find out through statistical methods. And even if it may be seen as "obsession with Apocalypse" as someone wrote further up this thread I rather understand it as "we finally start to learn that it is stupid to make the same mistakes ever and ever again".

Regards
Max