Today, finally, I read the piece I've been waiting years to read on the pages of the NYT.
Arthur Middleton a field biologist and post doc fellow at Yale, in a generous 1300 word Op Ed destroyed many of the myths I've read on the Grey Lady over the years. This piece was a long time in coming.
The money quote for me was this one,
Perhaps the greatest risk of this story is a loss of credibility for the scientists and environmental groups who tell it.Indeed.
I'm just an interested lay person, but I've read the peer reviewed articles, or all I can find for free on the web anyway, and for quite a while many of the early myth making has been obviously contrived at best. Anonymous posters to the internet earn no more than an eye roll out of me, (yes I mean you) but well funded environmental organisations are supposed to be informed. I assume Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defence Council, Earthjustice, and the Center for Biologic Diversity read the same articles I do. If they don't have any scientists working for them they certainly should. So if they aren't misinformed, what are they? Bald faced liars.
I've heard some speculate that this zombie lie will never die, I believe it will, and when it does the credibility of everyone who repeated it for so many years needs to be questioned.