I spent several hours yesterday conducting a deeper, forensic search and examination into what most people would probably consider “scientific” pieces concerning Dermacentor albipictus, or what is most commonly known as the winter tick or a moose tick.
Anyone can do some basic research and discover a few pages of information displayed as conclusions about how the moose (Alces alces) is affected by the winter tick – the most of it being anecdotal evidence. In short, it’s a great example of the modern-day echo chamber that results in dreadful conclusions directed at promoting political agendas and non-scientific balderdash.
If you weed out the obvious and repetitious campfire weenie roasts of those who simply copy and paste someone’s work other than their own, you end up with a small handful of documents most are eager to label as scientific research and scholarship.
An honest approach to the existing pieces of work on winter ticks and moose, will find that the majority of the “research” (I hate to use that term) is geared toward how moose act and react when weighted down with the ticks. Very little is actually written or studied about the tick itself. Too much information written comes from assumptions and speculation.
It’s not that each of these somewhat scientific writings don’t contain useful information but the real problem lies in how to understand what is being written and separating it from the damned nonsense repeated in the media and other echo chambers.
An honest examination of each of these reports shows at least two issues that should prompt a legitimate researcher to, at least, ask some questions. One issue is that, like with most “scientific” papers, preexisting and perhaps precedent-setting conclusions, not necessarily ever challenged or questioned, are readily used by “scientists” to plug into their own work, to make it work, instead of doing their own. Problems abound from this approach even though it has become a readily acceptable form of dishonesty – in effect a bastardization of the scientific process.
The second issue, which leads to the real serious problems of dishonest scholarship, is that we read a lot of “we assume” and “it is believed” and “it could have been” – the list is endless of non specific, unscientifically supported, and troubling nonsense. It appears that these types of “conclusions” are often taken by other scientists, the media, or anyone searching for a narrative to fit their cause, as the gospel and honestly or dishonestly omit any reference to unsubstantiated conclusions.
Examining the text of all these studies, we see often where actual experimentation was given over to assumptions or another researcher’s conclusions, often based upon unproven and untested determinations. In one particular piece of work, the text read that “it was assumed” that the conditions “might have” etc.
In conducting such research, I often look for a common denominator. From there, I try to see if such common themes are the product of echo chambers or conclusions drawn from a person’s own scientific methods and precisely what those methods are. This requires patience and determination.
It appears that, from the few existing scientific papers available on winter ticks and moose, I could assess that each scientist or group of scientists claimed that the biggest factors effecting the viability of winter ticks, either after the engorged female ticks drop off the moose in Spring, during the time the female lays her eggs, or climbing vegetation as hatched new larvae, is weather and habitat. That is weather. They do not say climate. They state weather, and give examples of the kind of weather that can, both negatively and positively, effect the winter tick – wind, humidity, temperatures, dry/drought, etc.
This changing weather effects this tick (Dermacentor albipictus) everywhere that it exists. It is readily found in cold climate areas of Canada and Alaska, as well as in warm climates like Texas.
Echo chambers and those with political agendas, cherry pick incomplete information and dishonest conclusions to repeat the non-scientific nonsense that “Climate Change” is why Maine, and other states, have winter ticks. Odd, as well, is that these same mental midgets of mendacity, seem to have drawn their own conclusions that there are more winter ticks now than ever before. I wonder where they got that from?
We know from historic accounts that moose and winter ticks have been around for a long time. There are reports readily available that give anecdotal evidence of periods of time, from 1900 until present, where large numbers of moose have died off and that it was “believed or assumed” that perhaps the winter tick played a role. What does not exist, is scientific evidence that can tell us if the current level of infestation is greater than, less than, or the same as at any point in history. We simply do not know, but that doesn’t stop the Fake News echo chambers, along with many, many fish and game administrators and their assigns, in perpetuating information that may or may not be true.
Oddly, this attitude and approach puzzles me. What is to be accomplished by insisting on dishonest scientific research? I’m sure, with the brainwashing received in our education factories, few new-age biologists would think that there was anything wrong with simply passing bad information after more bad information, if they are clueless to the quality of the information being dealt with. The trouble is, how does this determine responsible wildlife management that we are told is for the purpose of providing the state with a healthy moose population? One can only think there must be something else behind the action – perhaps job security and perpetuation of political agendas, for surely the interest isn’t focused on the animal.
Maine has had moose long before any of us were around, and along with it has been the winter tick. Maine has had winters before and will continue to have winters. Maine has had “severe” winters and “average” winters. Maine has had “mild” winters. All of these conditions persisted over time and will persist into the future. Pulling the “Climate Change” card is too easy and convenient.
We know that the theory of man-caused climate change cannot and will not be proven. Therefore, it just seems a far too convenient an excuse for anything and everything, providing the lazy scientist with a prostituted answer requiring no work.
I doubt there is little any biologist can do to mitigate the weather and how it will affect the survivability of the winter tick. If scientists would just get off this dead-end road that leads to global warming, perhaps, once again, some sensible scientific research could be put into place again.
I’m not holding my breath.
