N.Y. Times’ Demagoguery And Dearth Of Scientific Intelligence And Wolves

The New York Times is a sinking ship. They are each day taking one more step toward bankruptcy and yet remained so embroiled in failure, one has to wonder if there is any hope for them. Or do any of us care? One of the reasons people just don’t want to read their bile is because of the ignorant crap they publish. It is one thing to lie or as they say these days, to “spin” the truth, it is quite another to print material that is obviously nothing more than unconfirmed political demagoguery and propaganda.

The Editorial Staff at the NYT certainly show the lack of any credible research and expose themselves as being completely lacking in any knowledge of wildlife management by publishing a piece concerning gray wolves, hunting of those wolves and the processes that have taken place over at least the past 15 years. It honestly appears as though they copied the evangelical tripe of the environmental groups and published it to their own pages believing, as it appears they must, that their readers are complete dimwits.

If I were to pick out the fatal flaws of what the Times staff published, I would have to republish the entire editorial. It reeks of not only lies but pure unsubstantiated and non-scientific drivel that anyone can read on fringe animal rights groups’ web pages. The staff would have done better to have simply stated, “We love wolves and don’t want anybody doing anything to them regardless of the consequences of such actions”, than to expose themselves to their own lazy ignorance.

So, ridiculous is the whole thing that Dr. Valerius Geist, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Calgary, made the decision to pen a rebuttal piece to it. For me, it was like taking a step back to my days in the eighth grade and having my science teacher attempt to tell me that my effort and information I put into a homework assignment was lazy and lacked anything of a factual basis. Here’s what Geist wrote:

Dear Sir,

The author of this editorial has fallen victim to clever advocacy that is void of science, let alone scholarship. The presentation to the public by a leading newspaper of a complex issue so hopelessly compromised by inaccuracies and lack of understanding, is hardly a public service. Humanity has a very long and tragic history with wolves, as this predator is widespread and often abundant across Asia, Europe and North America. The introduction of wolves in the U.S. West is evolving in a predictable pattern, as one is bound to re-live the history one ignores. And that, me thinks, might be the real story.

Sincerely,

Valerius Geist

To further a rebuttal by Dr. Geist would be the equivalent of “casting pearls before swine”, as the swine continues its daily wallowing in muck, while the real gems of truth and knowledge remain dangling just above their heads and yet the Times staff refuses to take a moment from enjoying their own swill to look up and see what’s there.

The Times editorial says that decisions being used in wolf management in the West are based on outdated information from 1987. This, of course, is a lie. But the Times is contributing to the blocking of advanced science and knowledge by reprinting garbage like this. It is difficult to educate those not willing to learn or better yet, those who have an agenda in which truth is not part of the propagation of the rhetoric to advance that program.

The Times reveals its agenda and lacks good editorial practice by allowing the publication of such inept work.

Tom Remington