From: russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence)
Subject: Re: Self Regulating Populations
Organization: WP Group
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 22:20:10 GMT


Russell Lawrence writes:
rl> How far can deer see clearly, Dan?   

Dan Sorenson writes:
ds> At one mile they can see clearly enough to note me leaving the
ds> tractor cab...

rl> Does the term "post hoc ergo propter hoc" mean anything to you?  
rl> Please furnish some evidence to support the claim that deer can 
rl> distinguish human movements at a distance of one mile.  

From article <viking.715889941@vincent1.iastate.edu>, by viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson):
ds> "post hoc ergo propter hoc?" Isn't that roughly translated as, 
ds> "happened once, therefore happens all the time" or something like 
ds> that?  A translation would be appreciated, since I don't figure 
ds> Latin is a language worth my time to study.  Come to think of it, 
ds> there are no other languages worth my time to study -- English 
ds> proficiency is a lifetime- long work as it is.  Anyway, the 
ds> evidence has been shown already, and can be supplimented by any 
ds> hunter who sees a deer bolt and turn at one mile into the wind.  

Translated roughly, "post hoc ergo propter hoc" means "after 
this, therefore because of this".  Just because a hunter wears a 
red hat on Sunday morning, and comes down with a fever on 
Monday, shouldn't lead us to conclude that red hats cause 
fevers.  

Do you have any critical evidence to demonstrate your claim that
the aforementioned deer ran away because of Dan Sorenson's visual
appearance, as opposed to some other phenomenon?

> ...
ds> if I remember right.  Farley then comes to the realization that 
ds> the eskimo kills several times as many carribou as the wolves do.  
ds> Yeah, I read that book nearly ten years ago.  It was good, but 
ds> hardly a scientific treatise on predator-prey relationships.  

rl> One of us has a poor memory.  Please quote the passage where Farley
rl> came to the conclusion that the eskimo killed "several times" more
rl> caribou than the wolves.  

ds> Loan me a copy of the book.  Like I said, it's been nearly a
ds> decade since I read that book, and I may have been inaccurrate in the
ds> quote.  However, I think that Mowat did come to this conclusion by
ds> taking into account the number of eskimo and the number of wolves and
ds> factoring the meat requirements of each.  

Please reread the book, Dan.  I'm sure you can find a copy in your
library.

One of Mowat's major discoveries was that the wolves he observed 
were apparently feeding on mice, not caribou.  Quiz: How many 
caribou death's did Mowat attribute to wolves by the conclusion 
of his study?  

ds> ... If deer can spot me at a mile, it is clear that they can see 
ds> that far.  

You haven't established that deer can spot you at a mile, Dan.  
The deer that you described previously could have run because of 
changes in the sound of the tractor engine, or the tractor's 
cessation of movement, or perhaps for some other reason altogether.  
The assumption that they ran because they had identified the 
presence of a human seems unfounded to me.

-- 
Russell Lawrence, WP Group, New Orleans (504) 443-5000
russ@wpg.com   uunet!wpg!russ
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals