ReviewEcology and evolution2024
A Sixth Mass Extinction? How Linguistic Uncertainty Shapes Our Understanding of the Biodiversity Crisis.
Review in Ecology and evolution, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The term 'sixth mass extinction' has become synonymous with the current biodiversity crisis. However, despite a general agreement that current biodiversity declines are severe, no consensus has been reached on whether this constitutes a 'mass extinction event', and thus, whether our current situation is comparable to the catastrophic extinction events of deep time. Here, we suggest that our inability to gauge whether the current biodiversity crisis is a mass extinction event may lie less in quantifiable evidence and more in the language used to define such events. We highlight areas of linguistic contention, vagueness and epistemic dispute, and discuss the role of post hoc decision-making and language in shaping our understanding and communication of biodiversity loss. Our discussion raises larger questions about how we communicate science to the public, funders and other scientists, and how we use language to both shape awareness and leverage action.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.