Ross Harvey
| 19th September 2019
Lion
The arguments for trophy hunting contained within a recent letter published in the journal Science simply don’t stack up.

A new letter published in Science argues that banning trophy hunting imperils biodiversity.

The letter’s authors present arguments which, to their collective mind, offer a compelling scientific case for trophy hunting, even if they find it repugnant.

Persistent caveats

The letter aims to bolster its ostensible scientific strength through a supplementary list of 128 signatories. The inclusion of these 128 signatories constitutes a fallacious appeal to authority. It is indicative of a strange but prevalent view that simply because a scientist makes a statement, that statement is somehow imbued with scientific rigour.

But a statement in speculation remains a statement in speculation regardless of whether it is made by a scientist.

Moreover, many of the names on the list of 128 belong to people…