What you’ve presented is a deeply biased opinion piece, and it wears this immense bias on its sleeve. It fearmongers that thinking about cats as killing wildlife could cause “extremism” (it then cites as its lone example a man who suggested banning cats in New Zealand; soooo scary). It cites some organization called “Alley Cat Allies” who call it extremely biased with ostensibly zero credentials. They cite lobbyist and serial sexual harasser Wayne Pacelle formerly of the Humane Society who questions the methodology but even concedes: “We don’t quarrel with the conclusion that the impact is big.” And lastly, King herself does her own analysis on this meta-analysis’ methodology despite being – I emphasize – a professor of anthropology with no background in this field.
So your article has no one familiar with this field who could challenge if these statistical assumptions are actually reasonable. And here, given the authors are experts (and absent some published literature rebutting this in the 12 years since), I have no reason to believe their methodology would be so off as to meaningfully change the idea that “outdoor cats” are severely problematic.
The first source I use is just a scientific article. That’s it.
The third source is just a scientific article. That’s it.
The second source that I use to cite “dozens of extinctions” is quite emotionally charged, but here’s where that’s different: I could find a billion sources more credible than that NYT article about the dozens upon dozens of species who’ve met their end thanks to the domestic cat. These sources would give it an unemotional, academic treatment, yet I like how the NYT piece is narratively engaging rather than dry-ass “X et al. reported…”
I used scientific sources for (1) and (3) because those are claims people might actually think to contest. Moreover, the NYT doesn’t let itself slip into using garbage sources for the sake of its narrative. I could replace this source in two minutes, and then your argument about emotionally charged imagery would dissolve.
The reason I care so much about King’s massive bias in that article is because that bias is reflected in how absolutely egregious her sources are. She seems to genuinely not care how factual what she’s saying is as long as it conforms to her personal feelings, and so she turns it into assembling literally every source she can possibly find no matter how obscenely flimsy. She’s grasping at straws the entire article.
Those numbers are suspect. https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/02/03/170851048/do-we-really-know-that-cats-kill-by-the-billions-not-so-fast and probably are a majority unowned cats. It’s not important to make sure your cat is spayed or neutered than making sure it stays indoors.
What you’ve presented is a deeply biased opinion piece, and it wears this immense bias on its sleeve. It fearmongers that thinking about cats as killing wildlife could cause “extremism” (it then cites as its lone example a man who suggested banning cats in New Zealand; soooo scary). It cites some organization called “Alley Cat Allies” who call it extremely biased with ostensibly zero credentials. They cite lobbyist and serial sexual harasser Wayne Pacelle formerly of the Humane Society who questions the methodology but even concedes: “We don’t quarrel with the conclusion that the impact is big.” And lastly, King herself does her own analysis on this meta-analysis’ methodology despite being – I emphasize – a professor of anthropology with no background in this field.
So your article has no one familiar with this field who could challenge if these statistical assumptions are actually reasonable. And here, given the authors are experts (and absent some published literature rebutting this in the 12 years since), I have no reason to believe their methodology would be so off as to meaningfully change the idea that “outdoor cats” are severely problematic.
I want you to know that I read through and appreciate this in depth write up and critique of the previous person’s source/citation.
Mine was a deeply biased opinion piece, and yours weren’t full of emotionally charged imagery and language? OK
Here’s the key:
I used scientific sources for (1) and (3) because those are claims people might actually think to contest. Moreover, the NYT doesn’t let itself slip into using garbage sources for the sake of its narrative. I could replace this source in two minutes, and then your argument about emotionally charged imagery would dissolve.
The reason I care so much about King’s massive bias in that article is because that bias is reflected in how absolutely egregious her sources are. She seems to genuinely not care how factual what she’s saying is as long as it conforms to her personal feelings, and so she turns it into assembling literally every source she can possibly find no matter how obscenely flimsy. She’s grasping at straws the entire article.