Thousands of blackbirds fall dead from sky

[zenmaster]

Confusingly, we already know that most cases, although coincident in a relatively short period of time, have unequivocally different causes. For example, weather, diet and trauma have been indicated as distinct causes.

Actually, those are all just theories. None have been proven, last I heard. Correlation doesn't = causation.

It is not possible to prove a theory. We are merely satisfied or unsatisfied with our favorite explanation.
It is true, correlation never equals causation. Also, uncorrelated events never equal causation, so where are we left?

Obviously, when researchers report the cause of death as "blunt-force trauma", for example, they do not mean that was ground-strike trauma.

The news reports I read stated that researchers didn't yet know whether the blunt-force trauma caused their deaths, or whether they died first, then hit the ground, thus sustaining internal bleeding after they were already dead.

I haven't read those reports. I guess there will always be
reports that people will use to support their favorite theory.

The popularization, media facility, and sensation seeking also results a snow-ball magnification effect in mass consciousness. People tend to seek out more and more "anomalous" incidents which would have been otherwise labeled as "normal". Confirmation bias always overrules objective investigation. This thread even has a place in "The Harvest" section, which presumably offers at least some pretext.

There is truth in this; however I don't think that explains the frequency and magnitude of these anomalous events. If it did, then some cursory research would yield other times in history in which such widespread events occurred.

It's not intended to explain the frequency and magnitude of the events. Perhaps there is some important historical research to be done then?

Zenmaster, I'm curious: Do you not consider these animal deaths exceedingly strange?

Strange for me due to the expectation of correlation, yet none forthcoming.

You seem intent upon finding mundane explanations. I agree that, oftentimes, the mundane is the answer. But I don't see how that could be true in this case.

At this point, those explanations offered have been rather mundane.

There are simply too many cases, many of which are species-specific.

Then again, one mass bird death involved diet, while another blunt force trauma.

I've seen cricket plagues in which the streets were covered in crickets. I've seen swarms of gnats near lakes. We've all seen stuff like that. But how many of us have ever heard of mass numbers of birds dropping out of the sky? Add to that, all the other animals...all within a few weeks?

Cricket and gnats swarming, while also dealing with some type of animal behavior, are not really anomalous. There may very well be a portion, or "core" of the incidents that have the same cause - maybe even a fantastically novel cause. However, can you see that such a cause will be even more difficult to ultimately find due to the forced mix-in of inevitable mundane and normal incidents, and the premature promotion of far-out pet theories that serve to reinforce bias?

It gets exponentially weirder, by the time you look at all the cases. A single case could be explained by mundane causes, but not this many, in such a short timespan.

Thus they may be said to be correlated in time, but correlation does not equal causation.