Brilliant!!
I am guessing that Wolfgang mentioned 50 years and 150 years, but the Staff failed to grasp that the last 50 should be mentioned first, because if the fraction has not increased in the last 150 years, OF COURSE it has not increased in the last 50!!!!
This stuff casts doubt on the study and Science Daily.
It doesn’t cast doubt on the study at all. It casts doubt on the editing abilities of whoever edited this piece but that’s all. If you want to cast doubt on the study you’ll actually have to read it, not this Readers Digest version at ScienceDaily.
I am not a scientist or a mathematician, but if the fraction decreased by 5% during the first 100 years of that 150 years and then increased by 1% during the last 50 years of that 150 years, wouldn't you have a situation where the fraction has not increased in the last 150 years, but HAS increased in the last 50?
Not necessarily... You can have a 50% decrease over the last 150 years, but a 20% increase in the last 50 years (meaning the first 100 years saw a 60% decrease); basically a decline with a rise following. It makes sense either way, and both data points are needed to show you’re not pulling out from a historical low.
Your 'OF COURSE' point is true only if the value has been a flat line throughout the last 150 years. It could be true that the value of 1859 equals the value in 2009, without matching the 1959 value.
I would like to see a graph of this, but the original article is behind a paywall.