Thread by @JohnMuirProject

A brief A Brief Response by Dr. Chad Hanson to Baseless Attacks by Crystal Kolden, who has unfortunately blocked our account on social medias and refuses to engage in a scientific or friendly discussion to find common ground or a resolution to our differences.
A thread. (1/22)

Crystal Kolden is a scientist who is heavily funded by the U.S. @forestservice, according to her own CV. The U.S. Forest Service’s primary land management activity is selling trees from U.S. public forests to logging companies and keeping the revenue for its budget. (2/22)

The USFS is,in this sense,part of the logging industry. In a recent paper in @MDPIOpenAccess peer-reviewed scientific journal,Birds,I found that logging conducted by the USFS was associated with higher,not lower,🔥severity w/in CA Spotted Owl habitat in the 2020 #CreekFire (3/22)

A link to the study referenced in the tweet above mdpi.com/2673-6004/2/4/…. (4/22)

Crystal Kolden immediately posted a series of factually inaccurate attacks against me, my article, and MDPI (

https://twitter.com/ecologyofgavin/status/1462634642092093446

). Below I respond to these attacks. 
(5/22)

Kolden attempts to dismiss the results of my study by attacking the publisher,@MDPIOpenAccess.This attack is clearly not motivated by any genuine criticism of MDPI, in light of the fact that Kolden has published 13 articles in MDPI journals mdpi.com/search?authors… (6/22)

There has been a troubling trend recently by scientists who are funded by @forestservice,as they're increasingly resorting to baseless personal attacks on social media when they cannot debate scientific evidence.Kolden’s personal attacks against me are an unfortunate example
7/22

In my study, I analyzed the high-severity fire percentage that occurred in forests with different pre-fire snag densities&forest management practices. High-severity🔥% is not influenced by the area associated with each snag-density or forest-management category,contrary to..
8/22

Kolden's mathematically inaccurate remarks. It is important to note that Kolden does not dispute the fact that,based on the @forestservice's own data, forests that had been previously logged through "commercial thinning"&post-fire logging burned more severely, not less.(9/22)

Nor does Kolden dispute the fact that forests with the highest pre-fire densities of snags did not burn more severely, contrary to the false messaging from Forest Service-funded scientists. (10/22)

Kolden also attacks the Spearman’s rank correlation test,used in my study,despite the fact that it has been an important statistical approach in environmental research for decades.The Spearman approach is a straightforward,unbiased method that uses all of the available data
11/22

...& has the advantage of being highly transparent, so readers can see for themselves that logged forests burned at higher severity.

Kolden falsely states that there was no basis to support the rankings in the forest-management categories used in my study... (12/22)

If Kolden had read my study, she would have seen that the reasons for the ranking,& the evidence supporting those reasons,was specifically described in my Methods section.  (13/22)

Clearcutting is more intensive than commercial thinning, and commercial thinning is more intensive than non-commercial thinning of small trees which, in turn, is more intensive than no tree removal. This is not complicated. (14/22)

Kolden comments on the use of BAER soil severity data, which she notes is not the same as vegetation severity data. If Kolden had read my study, she would have seen that the fundamental purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of forest management on soil severity
15/22

She would have also seen that my study cited research showing that BAER soil severity strongly predicts high vegetation severity, and is a highly reliable indicator of high vegetation severity. (16/22)

In an effort to promote the commercial logging program of the federal agency that funds her(the @forestservice),Kolden attempts to dismiss the correlation between logging&higher fire severity by suggesting,w/out any basis whatsoever,that some unnamed&mysterious other factor
17/22

...may have been responsible for the higher fire severity in "thinned" and post-fire logged areas. Kolden neglects to mention that I controlled for both extreme fire conditions and forest management history in my methods. (18/22)

Last, Kolden falsely claims that I did not explain how/why (the "mechanism") "thinning" & post-fire logging could increase fire severity. If Kolden had read my study, she would have seen that this mechanism is explained in detail.(19/22)

Commercial "thinning" reduces the cooling shade of the forest canopy, changing the microclimate & creating hotter, drier,& windier conditions. Both"thinning"& post-fire logging also leave behind kindling-like"slash"debris& spread combustible invasive grasses like cheatgrass 20/22

In my study, I also cited other research with similar findings to mine. Baseless personal attacks are an unfortunate side effect when you are challenging the narrative of thosee who profit off of the destruction of our forests. I hope Ms. Kolden will in good faith answer (21/22)

one of the many attempts both myself & my organization have made to discuss & debate with her the science. It is always my sincere hope to find common ground and a way forward with my colleagues in the scientific community.
With respect, Chad Hanson, Ph.D. (22/end)