> While researchers stopped short of concluding that the oil spill had caused the declines

Why though? Why are we so afraid of accountability? Because this is what people point to when trying to deny things are true: ThErE iS NO EviDeNce, sHoW Me THe StUdY, etc. etc.

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arjie 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I read the source

> Available evidence rules out natural phenomena as likely drivers, suggesting a large-scale pollution event and its associated mitigation measures most likely precipitated the declines...That the declines began shortly after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill points to that event as the most parsimonious explanation. These findings suggest that despite its immense size the deep-pelagic biome is vulnerable to human-induced disturbance and possesses limited resilience to facilitate recovery.

This means "the oil spill caused the declines". That is what this means in English.

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rcoveson 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think you're reading the wrong motivation into this and reaching the wrong conclusion.

This behavior, being skeptical and precise, is the very thing that makes scientists more trustworthy than the average Joe with his motivated reasoning.

I'm confident that the people working on this would have made the causal claim if they had been able to collect enough data to support it. They may well be working on gathering data to support the causal claim right now.

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bobson381 an hour ago | parent [-]

This technically useful skepticism can be weaponized against you by a rhetorical opponent by just pointing out that you "refuse to say for certain". All you have to do is say "some scientists believe there is some uncertainty" and you can convince a crowd to stop listening. Scientific communication works very poorly as mass communication.

	▲	atomic_cattlepr 10 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Statements of certainty can be weaponized even more. That same rhetorical opponent would be just as happy to point out some exceedingly rare edge-case counter-example (no matter how dubious) and crucify the entire study (or worse, haul you in front of Congress and try to pepper you with "gotcha" questions in the hopes of catching you in a "lie" so they can make an example out of you). You rhetorical opponent is not going to argue in good faith either way and their audience are not people who will care. Scientists write for other scientists who already know why they use the language they use. Compromising that language to try to cater to fools who couldn't care less about the truth would just make the scientist a greater fool for trying.
	▲	rcoveson 16 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I doubt you're implying that scientists should "say for certain" even when they aren't certain, or that they shouldn't say anything at all. So I assume you're just saying "misleaders gonna mislead", which is true. But as long as we're bringing up general social woes, I'll point out that those misleading statements are pretty tame by today's standards. The more popular strategy now is to just lie outright.

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dghlsakjg 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Scientists are - rightfully - reluctant to assign causal relationships when the data does not support it.

Scientists should not change the scientific method so morons can continue to ignore or cherrypick their studies.

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slibhb 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Because they're scientists and not activists.

	▲	adjejmxbdjdn an hour ago \| parent [-]
		And both are needed. Humans don’t operate at a scientific level in our day to day. Politicians need to make decisions about the economy with little to no data, and the legal system convicts people at a much lower standard than that science requires us to meet. And we run our lives at an incredibly lower standard than what science needs to maintain. It’s fairly easy to see that the Deep Horizon incident should have easily met any of those non science standards (it may have possibly fallen short of the legal standard), to actually enact changes in terms of regulations, or punishment. Unfortunately, on one side you have an indifferent public that largely depends on activists that it maligns to protect its interests, and on the other side you have billion dollar industries that can buy out the decision makers.