Critique of the recent study on insect decline
So… My first instinct when I read debunking efforts like this is to try to check out who is doing the debunking. I&#x27;m not an ecologist, so I don&#x27;t have the necessary background knowledge to evaluate the merits of the studies in question. But here&#x27;s the author&#x27;s CV:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ecologyisnotadirtyword.com&#x2F;research&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ecologyisnotadirtyword.com&#x2F;research&#x2F;</a><p>She got a PhD the same year as me, 2014, so that&#x27;s pretty early career in academic terms. She&#x27;s published a series of pretty standard sounding academic papers in a range of standard sounding journals, which is a positive credibility signal for sure. She does a bunch of public outreach work for the environmental sciences, which is great. I liked her effort to explain in plain language what scientific evidence  is:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theconversation.com&#x2F;scientific-evidence-what-is-it-and-how-can-we-trust-it-14716" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theconversation.com&#x2F;scientific-evidence-what-is-it-a...</a><p>So in general, as an academic in social science, I tend to find her post credible here on general this-looks-like-a-fellow-academic grounds.<p>This being said, I hadn&#x27;t heard of the institution where she got her PhD before (Charles Sturt University), and I find it a little bit interesting that on google, pretty much the first hit says &quot;#CSU works closely with industry, ensuring our courses keep pace with change.&quot;<p>Like it or not … when an institution positions themselves like that, it makes me wonder a little bit about whether they really can support unbiased environmental science, since industry has huge financial stakes in the outcomes of environmental research.