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Posted by overmywaders on February 20, 2008 at 3:52:56 pm EST
In reply to Re: Bears, Bears, Bears posted by calamity on February 20, 2008 at 2:47:55 am EST

Dear Calamity,

You said:
"I don't grant at all, that the separate, historical analysis I linked to is much beyond science, pure and stupid, rather than opinion, nor that its terms are not reasonably well defined."

Well, I hope I didn't offend you with my comments on the study. Perhaps the actual study was more scientific than Smith & Herrero's presentation.

Let me give you examples of the errors I find and I will use no superlatives, just bare comments:

"database of Alaska bear-human encounters" -- What do they mean by a Bear-human encounter? If the bear is sighted 100 feet away and growls at the sight of humans, is that an "encounter"? Does the bear need to at least mock-charge, if so, how close must the bear approach?

"the database contains 500 incidents" -- now the term is "incident". What comprises an "incident"?

"patterns and timing of bear attacks" -- now it is "bear attacks". What is a bear attack? Must the bear actually have physical contact with a human? If so, why were 46% of the "attacks" non-injurious, not even a broken fingernail?

All of the above, Calamity, was just in the first paragraph. Yet, we continue:

"This is the distribution of bear attacks..." -- but the actual graph shown has the caption -- "Bear-Human Conflicts...". So we have another undefined term - "conflicts". This is not the way a scientist presents data.

The rest of the "study" cycles through the use of the undefined terms above, never settling on any one and never bothering to tell us how an incident/encounter/conflict/attack/interaction/encounter-attack is objectively defined.

Okay, let us move on, Calamity. Please read the following quote:
"Consistent with reports elsewhere, the greatest contributing factor to bear attacks is surprise. As you browse the other categories note too that many of these causes could have been avoided had people alerted bears of their presence by making noise."

"could have been avoided" -- a scientist might have said "might have been avoided", but would never use the declarative in dealing with ursine behavior.

Now look at the graph "Injury Class". Forty-six percent (233 of 500) of the "attacks" "result in no injury at all." We assume this means neither bear nor human was injured, but we don't really know. In law, if no damage is sustained, there is no "cause for action". Why, then, do Smith & Herrero include those "attacks"?

Oh, wait, S&H have another graph, also entitled "Injury Class". I think this one is bear injury because it says underneath -- "Bears fare far worse in encounters with humans with nearly 33% being killed." But does this mean 33% of five hundred bears? That would mean that 165 bears were snuffed in Alaska in self-defense over than time period. That would certainly indicate to me that from a human perspective, carrying a firearm in the Alaskan bush is a wise and safe choice. BTW, contrary to your statement, nowhere in their "Analyses and Implications" did the writers' mention firearms for or against.

Do you understand now how flawed this study is? If we cannot come away without the merest definition of the central theme "Bear encounter/attack,etc." the writers have given us nothing.

Warm regards,

Reed

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