[APWG] Plants Alien species Information evaluation and errors
maryann whitman
maryannwhitman at comcast.net
Thu Jun 11 14:52:16 CDT 2009
Olivia
Thank you for giving us the "benefit of a doubt" and letting us use our own
"critical thinking".
Please just continue doing what you've been doing.
Maryann
Maryann Whitman, Journal Editor
Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes
www.for-wild.org
Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes promotes environmentally sound
practices to encourage biodiversity through the preservation, restoration
and establishment of native plant communities. Wild Ones is a
not-for-profit, environmental, educational, and advocacy organization.
-----Original Message-----
From: apwg-bounces at lists.plantconservation.org
[mailto:apwg-bounces at lists.plantconservation.org] On Behalf Of Olivia Kwong
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 12:51 AM
To: apwg at lists.plantconservation.org
Subject: Re: [APWG] Plants Alien species Information evaluation and errors
As I have mentioned on the various PCA lists at various times, I post news
article not because they are the best or the most correct information on
invasive plants for this list and other native plant topics for the other
lists. I post them because they're what is being reported by the media to
the general public. It is up to list members to check out the information
and do what they think is appropriate - anything from contacting the
journalist who has gotten the facts wrong to writing a letter to the
editor to writing their own articles to get good information out.
This is not a list where only peer reviewed information goes out, that's
what scientific journals are for. This list is for the purpose of
discussing invasive plant issues that affect North America. The people we
need to educate are the general public and these news article are what
they are seeing. I don't think it's a good idea to pretend that incorrect
articles aren't being published in newspapers, magazines, and websites.
I'm also not the expert in the realm of everything to do with invasive
plants, that's why this is a discussion list where members can post and
not simply an announcement list. I post things that I notice and if
people are interested, they discuss the topic. If you want to post
pointing out where an article goes wrong or give further information on
topics, you should do so because that's the purpose of the list. And I
also encourage the invasive plant experts to do any of the things I
mentioned above in order to contact the source to try to get them to give
the public with corrected information.
While I am sure there are people out there that assume that anything they
read on the internet is true, I would rather not make the assumption that
people on this list feel that way. I prefer to give everyone the benefit
of a doubt and assume that they employ critical thinking skills when
reading things and are interested in finding out what others know.
And for those of you who may be curious as to why I don't post the full
text of all the articles: Beyond the copyright issues, I post the links to
the articles because websites tend to track how many people are viewing
which articles. The more hits articles covering invasive plant issues
get, the more likely it is that the publications will notice there is an
interest in the topic & will expand or at least continue covering them.
Olivia
CPC/PCA
http://www.nps.gov/plants/
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